The Killing

[Carolina]

Apr 18, 2011 3:21:45 GMT -4 Spinderella said:

Well, now that we've seen that the teacher had been swapping love letters to Rosie and met up with her at the B-Ball center (sponsored by the Congressman) in the bad part of town, this show just threw a bunch of MORE peeps into the mix.

Ah, that's just what I was coming here to check. That was the teacher in the picture at the youth center. He did seem just a bit too perfect and earnest to be true.

The fake out with William Hoffstadt the male campaign manager was a nice touch.

This show is forever in my good books for actually showing all the horrible, macabre business that has to be seen to when someone dies. Crime dramas and the like always show the family, usually just the immediate family, just sitting around as if there's nothing they have to be doing. Bonus points will be awarded if they show the extended family coming for the funeral. They did lose a couple points for doing the typical Mad At God scene that writers seem to love.

[Deleted]

The grieving family stuff is definitely the best part of the show. I will be dismayed if one of the parents ends up being the killer. I also really like Sterling's storyline. I feel so bad for her. It is interesting, the show runner swears she has never seen Twin Peaks but I see so many parallels. Sterling is definitely Donna to Rosie's Laura.

I am finding the investigation part to not be less intriguing right now although I do like both the detectives. I am hoping it will pick up once they introduce some more suspects. Hopefully it will be more complex. Right now it seems like it is all a bunch of red herrings.

It was bugging me where I had seen the teacher before, I had to look him up in IDMB. He was in She's The Man with Amanda Bynes playing one of her goofy teammates. Very different role.

[WitchyPoo]

IMDB shows Billy Campbell is only in seven episodes, while most of the cast we've seen, including the teacher and Brendan Sexton III, are in most or all of the season. He's been in all of them so far so that would mean he would only have a few left. I wonder what happens to him.

Just watched all four episodes in a row. It's getting so good.

[kostgard]

Sterling really is the Donna. If she starts walking around wearing Rosie's sunglasses, I'm calling shenanigans.

I was kinda bummed that the video was resolved so quickly. It was this horrible, gut-wrenching thing in the previous episode, then it's like, "Nope. Never mind. Not Rosie. Moving on."

I can't decide what the deal is with the teacher. I can totally see it as more of an emotional affair rather than a physical one, with the teacher telling himself that he's doing nothing wrong because he hasn't touched her and talking himself into believing that he was just trying to inspire a student and everything was a-okay as long as he didn't inspire her with his penis.

But the campaign or someone in it has to figure somehow. I'll bet Rosie was stepping into the adult world in some way and learned something that she shouldn't have, so someone took her out of the equation. For no particular reason, my money is currently on the arrogant dude who handed Billy Campbell the check for $50K. He's got money, he's got power, he's involved in community centers and places like the gym where Holder determined Rosie was disappearing to when she went to school, and he seems arrogant enough to think that he could just get rid of a teenage girl who had become bothersome.


I do wonder if the tweaker kid Kris was right about Holder having the same "itch." Or if, like me, he just thinks that Holder looks like he belongs on a Faces-of-Meth poster.

[angelaudie]

I have thought about the teacher revelation a lot more than I have any right to. This show likes to pull the "Just when you think you know what is going on you learn you really don't," routine and I wouldn't be surprised if there is some twist to Rosie and her teacher. Perhaps, for example, they aren't having sex. Oh don't get me wrong. The relationship is definitely inappropriate. If it wasn't she wouldn't have hidden his letters and he would have been upfront about their after school meetings. But I think student/teacher banging is a bit too obvious. My guess is the relationship is mentor/student relationship that was beginning to turn romantic when Rosie died. I bet the teacher is one that convinced Rosie to give college a try. He definitely had a thing for Rosie. He got a bit too defensive when Holden suggested he was checking out his students.

Nice twist with Billy Campbell and Suck Up Campaign Dude actually pulling the wool over the mayor and Campbell's girlfriend's eyes. So, I wonder what gf is up to. She's apparently on a first name basis with a senator's secretary and she had to see the senator about something. It's probably connected to the campaign and her motives for sabotaging the campaign but the question is how?

Ok, am I the only interpreting Rosie's dad's scenes with the guy in the restaurant and his coworker to mean that Rosie's dad used to be the mob? If so, it seems like he got out right around the time Rosie was born. If he was connected to the mob he probably didn't want to risk his daughter's life so he got out.

ETA: Just thought of something. Remember Rosie's uber expensive shoes the cops found? I think Holden may have said they sold for $2,000. No way Rosie's parents bought those and I doubt Rosie had the money for them either. I have yet to have met a teacher that can afford to spend $2,000 on shoes. I highly doubt Jasper bought them either. I think Rosie definitely had a lover she was hiding. It just isn't her teacher.

[Spinderella]

I don't think she was hooking up in the biblical sense with the teacher, either. I do believe someone with moolah was giving her the expensive gifts and that's a good point about that rich dude that gave Billy Campbell the $50k. There is something shifty about that character.

[Deleted]

Apr 18, 2011 18:10:43 GMT -4 @bronze said:

The grieving family stuff is definitely the best part of the show. I will be dismayed if one of the parents ends up being the killer. I also really like Sterling's storyline. I feel so bad for her. It is interesting, the show runner swears she has never seen Twin Peaks but I see so many parallels. Sterling is definitely Donna to Rosie's Laura.

I feel bad because I started to dislike Sterling the second I saw her. And if she's this show's Donna then why are those girls so jealous of their best friends who lead messed-up lives doing things that got them into some serious trouble? I know teenage girls often don't see things the way they are but still. I find Sterling annoying at this point and particularly in this episode when she downplayed the whole basement video/rape thing. Speaking of which, are we really to believe that all that blood, the handprints etc. came from her nosebleed?
When the teacher showed up again in this episode I knew something would come up with him and Rosie. I don't think he's the killer though. She had another "friend" and I think it might have been the arrogant guy who gave the money to politician guy.

[hikertrash]

My suspicions are starting to swing to the councilman, even though he's the "too obvious" guy. I think the rich donor guy is a red herring. He was pretty hellbent on the mayor losing the election, so I don't think he'd risk ruining Richmond's chances by stealing one of his cars and stuffing a dead teenager in the trunk. The guy is a douche, but I don't think he killed Rosie.

It seems like the show is going to keep throwing these red herrings at us, which makes me think it'll eventually come back around to Richmond.

[biondetta]

Nice twist with Billy Campbell and Suck Up Campaign Dude actually pulling the wool over the mayor and Campbell's girlfriend's eyes. So, I wonder what gf is up to. She's apparently on a first name basis with a senator's secretary and she had to see the senator about something. It's probably connected to the campaign and her motives for sabotaging the campaign but the question is how?

FWIW, the senator is Campbell's girlfriend's father. She and her dad don't seem to have the best of relationships, so she could simply be turning to him -- and his connections -- to help Campbell win. Or it could be more nefarious!

The family scenes continue to be heart-breakingly awesome. I had no issue with the questioning-God scene, because really, what possible reason is there for a young girl to be killed and suffer like that. But I'm a big ol' atheist, so YMMV.

Right now, I'm guessing Rosie and the teacher were hanging out and maybe helping out at the basketball place, but not doing anything wrong. Maybe she overheard some politician-type person there or saw something that lead to her death. It just seems to early to have the teacher be the real bad guy.

[Deleted]

This show is forever in my good books for actually showing all the horrible, macabre business that has to be seen to when someone dies. Crime dramas and the like always show the family, usually just the immediate family, just sitting around as if there's nothing they have to be doing.

This is what I used to like about Cold Case and what I like about this show now. The sense of loss and emptiness never goes away for the victim's family whether justice is brought to the killer or not. There is no victory. I try to watch this when I'm alone because I know there will be at least one scene that gets to me. The fact that I have a 17-year-old daughter doesn't help.