The Killing (TV Series) Hope Kills (2013) User Reviews

Pastor Mike Under a Microscope

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 26 January 2017]

Pastor Mike is a man who runs a drop in center for the homeless kids in his neighborhood. He remains close to them, almost in an unhealthy way. Holder sees him as a viable suspect because there are so many pictures of girls on his wall. He explains that girls gravitate toward each other and are more social; hence they seek out places like his. Bullet and Lyric see his place as a chance to have some normalcy. They have now hooked up and are planning some kind of future (you can tell that Bullet is skeptical, but she is grateful, nevertheless, for Pastor Mike's kindness). At the prison, Ray is starting to realize that he is actually going to die in a few days. He has requested hanging and can hear them building the scaffold, especially for him. Linden's visit may have put some hope in his mind and he demands to see his lawyer. At the conclusion, Pastor Mike's car is found and, as usual, some serious drama occurs.

Unbelievably Flawed Detectives

[writetopcat · 5/10 · 11 January 2016]

Again in this episode Detective Holder displays idiotic behavior that makes viewers roll their eyes, laugh in disgust, and ask themselves "why am I still watching this?" Holder never really acts like he had basic police academy training; he acts like a teenager pretending to be a rapper or a gangster. In his first appearance in the series we learn he came to homicide from working undercover in narcotics so I thought generously his "boyz n the hood" lingo, fake home boy slurring and butchering of language could be a hangover from his undercover work. But he never drops it, not even when speaking to his superiors at work. As one kid said to him "Did anyone ever tell you that you're white?"

In Hope Kills (episode 3.7) Holder gets a call and learns that the man claiming a pastor is an impostor; the pastor in question has been dead 4 years. Instead of running a background check on the man via his tattoo Holder and Linden go to his home to look at his car. When the fake pastor sees them Linden covers by saying they just had a few more questions about the missing girl. But Holder cannot help going into his wanna be gangster tough guy act. He intentionally tips the guy off that he is a suspect; then Holder and Linden leave for the station. Then they run a check and learn the guy has prior kidnapping charges that didn't stick. The Lt. tells them "pick him up" but when they go to his house with an entry team the fake pastor has vacated and is gone. Holder says "damn, we tipped him off" as if it were a surprise to him.

We see idiotic displays like this from Holder over and over again in this series: childish, puerile, self-sabotaging behavior. Linden is generally better, though she has major emotional issues.

I realize that writers seem to want to make characters "real" by giving them flaws, but damn if they don't nearly always make them so fatally flawed that they are extremely "unreal", unbelievable in fact. While that makes their job of creating conflict easier, it ruins the story. Instead of making it more interesting, the show becomes something of a joke. Not what they were going for I'm sure. Wish they would learn.