Coming to the end of The Killing is rather like being suddenly and unexpectedly dumped by a hitherto faultless boyfriend. Like: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ABOUT? WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO ME? I HAVE QUESTIONS! WHAT ABOUT THAT THING YOU SAID LAST WEEK? AND THAT THING YOU SAID THE WEEK BEFORE AND THE WEEK BEFORE AND THE WEEK BEFORE THAT? WAS IT ALL A FRAIL TISSUE OF LIES? DID NONE OF IT MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU? AND WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT WHOLE BUSINESS WITH THE COPENHAGEN MAYORAL ELECTION? (My relationships only, possibly.) THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!
To keep this review spoiler-free, I am continuing my diatribe in the comments. Join me.
Financially irresponsible son borrows $50.000 dollars from parents, refuses
to pay them back, and spends money on vacations and expensive cars: 'He
accuses us of being greedy'
-
A loan is a loan, not a gift. That applies to the bank and our families
alike.
That is something many people don't understand, especially when the loan
c...
1 day ago
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162 comments:
Who cut the light cable in Sarah Lund's apartment building? Why did Vagn give Nanna a necklace before raping and murdering her, and how come he had it on him when he spontaneously went over to the flat to stop her from leaving the country? Given that Jan knew what Vagn looked like, why did he only identify him by his jumper? Is it because all Danish people are obsessed with jumpers? What the fuck was Morten thinking when he got to the flat covered with blood and decided that the best course of action was the wipe the stairs and cancel the toilet fitting and then just sit there waiting for Troels to get elected just so that he could call the police afterwards? Seriously, what was the point of the ENTIRE TROELS STORYLINE except that Troels is unfathomably hot? Is it OK to go and shag someone on the rival political team because you just found out that your boyfriend tried to commit suicide but didn't tell you? What kind of an idiot calls themselves FAUST on a dating site? For that matter, what kind of an idiot steals someone else's dating profile instead of setting up their own? Why is internet dating considered such a badge of unspeakable sluttitude in Denmark anyway? How many people drove that sodding car? What is the point of stealing the security tape which appears to exonerate the person you are trying to protect, and then handing it in anyway? Is Morten just stupid or what? Is Bergt the worst criminal profiler in the history of policing and is that why Sarah Lund doesn't want to move to his paradisical log cabin in Sweden with the special type of pine sauna? Otherwise how come we never again hear about the very careful washing of Nanna's fingernails and total lack of DNA evidence and probable serial killings using the same technique in what then turns out to be a spontaneous crime? Why does it take Sarah Lund a week to look at the file of unexplained murders and after the first one hits the jackpot, why doesn't she bother to look into any of the others? Is a hit and run followed by trying to shoot a police officer a bit of an overreaction to being caught out in a handful of political dirty tricks? Is putting a puppy in a cardboard box a reliable way of ensuring that it makes no sound? Why did Vagn don a gigantic khaki raincoat prior to his 'suicide by righteous murder' bid? Why did the police delete that politician who looks a bit like David Walliams's phone number off Nanna's phone? How easy, exactly, is it to stage a hanging inside a Russian freighter without anybody noticing? How did Nanna's passport end up in the cupboard? What kind of murderer goes to the trouble of cleaning her fingernails but doesn't check for a dropped passport? How did Vagn know to go and get the school photo out of the book in the box in the warehouse and why didn't he bother to do so the first time the murder was investigated? How did he get down the stairs? Does everybody in Denmark have a supply of identical black plastic fasteners, and what do the rest of them they use them for aside from handcuffing murder victims? What did Troels ever see in Rie? Why didn't the cab driver let on that he knew Nanna and told Vagn where she was? Was it wise of Sarah Lund to let her son get his ear pierced?
I'm sure you have questions of your own. I may yet be back with more.
Just how many people was Nanna shagging, exactly?
Who put pressure on Buchard to go slowly on the case and then who pressured him to resign and why?
Having watched 2 episodes, 1st and 2nd to last, I have a pile of questions. Does Nanna have one or two brothers? What was that substance on Nanna's father's forehead that made her mother smile and hug him? And on and on. Won't bore you. Jumpers eh? Lund must have had very strong skin to bear all those scratchy fibres, made me uncomfortable to watch.
Re this:
Why is internet dating considered such a badge of unspeakable sluttitude in Denmark anyway?
Could be because this was broadcast in 2007, therefore probably written and made in 2005-6. BEFORE TWITTER. Many things have changed quite fast.
Also, and I know the answer to this probably seems obvious:
Why did Theiss kill Vagn?
I know: revenge. But. One word from Pernille stopped him beating the living shit out of Rama. Plus Vagn clearly *wanted* it, had set up the scene.
The more I think about it, the more there's an icky touch of "well yeah, you raped and murdered my daughter but you're a mate so you deserve an easy death" to it.
Re Nana's love life. Is this right:
First, she had a highschool boyfriend, Oliver. But she dumped him when she met Jans Holck, suave soon-to-be-divorced politician. But then! Her childhood sweetheart Amir returned from London, she was smitten as never before and they planned to run away together, so she dumped Holck.
Holck, traumatised, spent a night standing around in the wrong airport trying to talk to her, thus providing him with enough security camera footage to give him the watertightest of alibis for her murder, and making his hit-and-run killing of Olav the civil servant who was going to reveal that Holck had used the party's flat for his assignations with Nana *obviously pointless even to him*.
But as Nana was picking up her passport from the party's flat (why was it there? anyone?), Vagn waylaid her. The flat was already untidy from the bender Troels had begun there and carried on with a suicide attempt at his country cottage. Vagn further untidied it by beating and raping Nana, after which he nicked the party car drunken Troels had left at the flat and drove her to the house Theiss had recently bought because he liked a bit of irony. (Really, is there *any* other reason for him to have gone to the house? And was there a way for him to know that Theiss wouldn't decide to pop round that evening/next morning to deal with some wiring or something?)
In the basement, he continued to rape and beat her until the next day when he took her to the forest. (Again, why?) There she escaped, ran through the woods, providing us with some good opening footage, until Vagn recaptured her. Whereupon he dumped her in the boot of the car and ran the car over the bridge, just as he'd done with the previous woman who'd irritated him a few years earlier.
He then went back to the basement and cleaned up the blood, but obviously didn't go back to the party's flat (or bother to eg clean the blood off its door and stairs before he left) because... he somehow knew that he hadn't left a trace of DNA or fingerprints there?
In conclusion, Nana slept with three people by choice: Oliver, Holck and Amir. She was raped by Vagn, and Troels never touched her except for a very forgettable friendly arm round her at a sports day.
Sorry, appear to have entered some kind of The Killing compulsive loop.
"Otherwise how come we never again hear about the very careful washing of Nanna's fingernails and total lack of DNA evidence and probable serial killings using the same technique in what then turns out to be a spontaneous crime?"
I wonder if Vagn's previous life as a medical student was supposed to be a nod towards this. He's not very 'serial' a killer, but he knew what evidence to get rid of because of his medical training? (Still doesn't explain why he apparently left blood on the door and stairs. And why *no one else in the building noticed this*. I notice if someone in the flat above me throws a cigarette butt out of the window.)
What kind of poor construction can a log cabin which is only accessible by breaking a window to get into it have, if the door subsequently blows open during a suicide attempt in which the suicidee is lying motionless with his head in an oven?
The only question I can answer with certainty is what did Troels see in Rie. Oh yes - I shall miss her...Hot!!
I think what gets me is the contradiction in motivations. I can believe in Vagn the cold, meticulous killer calculatedly stealing the party's car so that he couldn't be linked to the murder, trimming Nana's fingernails to remove DNA evidence, professionally faking the suicide of a man who could ID him. Or, I can believe in Vagn the disturbed wannabe-Theiss who, in a chaotic gesture at conquering his hero/father-figure, rapes Nana in the basement of Theiss' house, fails to notice she's snatched off his necklace (or plants it on her deliberately) and leaves blood on the door of the flat. But I can't believe in both of them at the same time.
Thank you for this. It's like group therapy for my compulsion.
I am obsessed with Naomi's analysis. It is making me feel MUCH better.
Naomi - you are the guru. It is indeed the double nature of Vagn which is fundamentally infuriating. I'd have put up with a whole heap of crap if they'd given me a killer I could believe in.
In terms of preference, if I'd been in charge, I'd have gone for an ice cold Vagn who stalked Nana for years, waiting for his chance, went through the whole thing with meticulous precision and hid it all beneath a veneer of bumbling lovability. My Vagn would not have left a puppy as a parting gift, unless said puppy had also been drowned in the boot of a car.
Or to put it in the form of a question: what's Vagn's motivation?
I have not read this book.
Having read this post and the comments, I am now unlikely to.
Thank you.
Maybe I will read Patrick McGrath's Asylum, which I bought when you recommended it probably about a year ago but still haven't got round to actually reading *rolls eyes*
The reason the necklace is important: it is the only possible sign that Nana had any agency in the last hours of her life. Otherwise, when we imagine this horrific scene - which we must, we can't help it, it is the centre of the story - she is a totally helpless victim. If she stole the necklace from him, concealed it in her hand, she was trying to send a sign.
Do you know what I would have done with it? I would have had them find it in her *stomach*. Because it makes no sense for Vagn to have planted it on her, or for him to have allowed her to keep it in those carefully cleaned hands. But if she'd pulled it from him and swallowed it during their struggles, how could he have got it out? He'd have had to kill her with it inside her, as the witness to her bravery.
My name's Naomi Alderman, and I should write for telly ;-).
Hear hear. All this: hear bloody hear.
I think Vagn was wearing a balaclava, thus the Sara/84 thing. But hear bloody hear to ALL of this.
Also, also. We're asked to believe in so many people who are *incredibly controlled* onscreen becoming crazed beasts with no impulse control offscreen. Is this a Danish thing? I accept that the killer can never appear as violent as they actually are, but... calm, measured Holck running someone over, control-freak Rie suddenly losing it and going to bed with a political enemy, judgemental whiter-than-white politician Troels having a random affair with a married woman he met on a nightclub website, shy Amir managing to charm sophisticated Nana.... they never show us a *hint* of these personae onscreen.
Actually looked at like this, Morten is one of the few who remains consistent. I kind of can see him looking into the flat going "huh", and then humming quietly under his breath as he cleans up some smears of gore.
Re: Vagn's motivation - the impression I got is that he *was* a serial killer. Mette Hauge was his first victim, and the only one Lund had time to investigate. The others may well have also been killed by him as Bengt suggested (hence refining his skills at avoiding detection) but Brix told Lund at the end to drop her allegations about the previous murders. I don't think Vagn had planned to kill Nanna, but when he found out she was running away she became his next victim.
The wire at Lund's apartment was cut by Brix (or someone working for him) as he put her under surveillance when he took over from Buchard. The suggestion was some sort of police corruption/political shenanigans but this was all quite vague. Brix is an odd one, interesting to see how they develop his character in Season 2.
Hope that makes sense!
Yes, but Morten didn't clean the flat. He seems to have mopped the stairs, and given the door handles a quick wipe. Why? If he was covering for Troels then why not clean the place up? He was half-arsed - as perfectly witnessed by trying to flush sponges down the loo. But was he capable of removing all Vagn's DNA from the flat? No, I say, no. I thought the police procedure work in the flat was all v. careless. The coroner pointed out she'd been on a cement floor - and that was that. Forget the blood all over the flat. It's a cement floor we're looking for.
I think Theiss killed Vagn for revenge too, and yes, Vagn wanted him to - because he seemed intent on ruining his life. But revenge was sweet for Theiss, freedom a sacrifice he was happy to make, as witnessed by his benevolent stare out the police car window?
All I do know is that that small child had the worst birthday EVER.
Rachel
I'm fairly sure the party has moved on, and I'm going to be alone leaving increasingly unbalanced comments on the blog
BUT - the other thing I can't even begin to understand is the car.
Am I right in thinking that Troels took a car from City Hall, which he then abandoned in a car park, someone from City Hall picked up this car, drove to the school to deliver political pamphlets and then Vagn took the car? He took the car, and then after having raped Nana in the flat, and taken her for reasons unknown to Theiss's house he then drove the same car out into the woods.
Is this right? Why did he steal this unfortunate man's car keys? Was he lurking in the school basement waiting to follow Nana?
Did I miss something around episode 12 that cleared this up?
rachel
Rachel, no other way around. A man was using the car to deliver posters around town during the day. At the school, he got ill and was sick - he thought he'd dropped the keys at the school while vomiting. In fact, he left them in the car. A little while later, a security guard from Troels' office happened past, spotted the car with the keys in it (unlikely on at least two levels - why did he happen past, and how did a car with keys in not get nicked?). He filled the car up with petrol and put it back in the garage.
THEN Troels, brooding on his dead wife, drove the VERY SAME CAR that had already been at Nanna Birk-Larsen's school over to the flat where, unbeknownst to him that very Nanna Birk-Larsen had been having an affair with Jens Holck. He sat there getting drunk, then (unwisely) drove his own car home (presumably he'd left his own car at the flat earlier on for some reason) leaving the party's car parked in the flat's carpark (presumably).
THEN, when Vagn followed Nanna - she was in a taxi, don't know what vehicle he was in - to the flat and he threw her about a bit, he took the keys to the car, put her into the party's car (how did he know which one it was/where it was?) and drove her over to Theiss' new house, then to the woods, then into the river.
*Very* coincidental that exactly the same car that was at her school was later at the flat. Also unclear how Vagn even knew those keys in the flat were for a car that was somewhere near there, let alone how he managed to locate a car he'd never seen before while dragging a screaming/unconscious Nanna.
Naomi - Thank you for car elucidation. This is true and utterly baffling. There's one car in Copenhagen it seems, used by all citizens, which is why they leave the cars in the ignition.
I guess the only reason they failed to find any DNA evidence of Vagn in the car is because he must have been wearing his vast oilskin coat. He did rather draw attention to it when he put it on with Theiss I thought.
I've got another one: how did Morten, who for reasons best known to himself only cleaned up the blood on the stairs and door handles, manage to pick his way across the blood-splattered flat to flush the sponges down the toilet and get out again without leaving any trace of himself, footsteps in blood, etc?
Naomi: your necklace-in-stomach idea is GENIUS. You should TOTALLY write for television. Although I assumed that Vagn gave her the same necklace as he gave Mette, not that she grabbed it off him, because wouldn't someone have noticed a 40-something removals man wearing a girly heart-shaped necklace? But maybe not in Denmark. We need some Danes on this thread.
Also, on Twitter, I noticed this excellent observation from Jane Harris, who is a fab author:
"I'm 8 yrs old. I find the bloodstained passport of my dead sister in the basement. I put it back where I found it #thekilling/ludicrousplot"
Swallowing the necklace would have been excellent.
I do think Meyer might have helped Lund out a bit by saying 'Vagn' rather than endlessly repeating a description of his sweatshirt.
It really did't make any sense at all. And I was so enjoying it too.
I guess I forgive Meyer's description because he had after all been shot. And because Meyer is clearly awesome and I mourn for him.
What I found harder to accept was that Vagn didn't just shoot him in the head with the second shot. You know, it's foolproof, shooting someone in the head. Rather than in the chest, leaving him alive long enough to gasp out a description of a sweatshirt.
The necklace is a puzzler. Michael Hogan on twitter suggested that perhaps Vagn always wore it to remind him of that girl he killed that time. It's a better explanation than "he happened to take it with when the other removals man called to say Nanna was skipping town with Amir", but I agree it's not excellent.
I agree Marie that it'd have been better if they'd gone with "he is a cold psychopathic bastard putting on the face of a schmuck". It would have made *total sense* for him to have been planning Nanna's murder for months and then had to rush it when he found out she was planning to skip town with Amir.
He could have literally planned to do it at the house, they could have found evidence there of eg a room that had been covered in plastic in preparation (which would have explained why he moved her there - that was where he planned to kill her).
After sticking with it for 20 hours, I really felt like they owed the viewers those obligatory final 15 minutes of unpacking everything.
Duh - he had to shoot Jan Meyer (but why did he have to die? why not back for second series? why? why?) in the chest because otherwise the bullet could not have entirely plausibly bounced off the Zippo lighter. Which means I have ANOTHER question: how often, in real actual life, do people who have been shot at point blank range have their lives saved by Zippo lighters (or lucky bibles, pictures of sweethearts etc)?
What was the deal with Vagn's alibi, being with his Uncle all night?!
Vagn must have given Nanna the necklace I think.
I think he probably did want her from afar & when Leon called him to say he was taking her to City hall to get the key to the flat (cos she & Holck had been away on a weekend at some point, & had left it there), Vagn snapped & went with his intention of stopping her but obviously his inner serial killer popped out.
I still don't get where Vagn picked up the car from though.
& why he looked so different in the last episode!
@lyndsey0 Vagn's hair is a mystery all of its own. Spin-off series potential, perhaps.
And and! Why did Brix tell Sara not to link Nanna's death with Mette Hauge's in her statement?! Are they the laziest police department ever or something?
- Naomi, sleepless in Hendon
WELL QUITE. The police department are surely as great a riddle as the City Hall car. I thought about this when I woke up this morning. . .
Brix tells her not to make the link as Naomi says, for no knowable reason. The original boss was removed, Brix cut the wires at Lund's flat (I think) for reasons that remain unclear - what wires were they anyway? Electricity? Phone? Alarm system? AND why would cutting anyone's wires mean they were watching her? Arguably by dimming the lights in the hallway of her mother's apartment building, they were the less able to see her clearly. Was the intention then to intimidate her? Or is it at all possible that Lund just happened to glance up and see some cut wires, and she and we all leapt to a thousand crazy conclusions?
The original boss, I can't remember his name, removed that phone number from Nana's mobile phone. WHY? And why Brix so keen to get Lund to Sweden and off the case?
Given that the police department is housed in a huge building they did appear a little under-staffed. Lund, Meyer, Brix and a few identical looking men in sweatshirts. This woeful under staffing might account for their desire to cut corners?
Also re Meyer. I suppose we must all accept that Vagn has never shot anyone before - he's more of a drown them whilst alive kind of non-serial serial killer. He probably thought a couple of shots to the chest would do it.
The necklace. I've decided that Vagn kept it all these years. In his pocket. He was moved to put it around Nana's neck, in remembrance of Mette. When he went to see Nana he already knew he was going to attack her, because she was no better than she should be, and he'd already dragged her out of one hotel bedroom, and he couldn't have her leaving him when he hated/loved her and her father so very much.
Or something like that.
Was Vagn in love with Pernille? WHY did Morten send Lund the CCTV tape?
Rachel
Oh the necklace was in her hand wasn't it.
Then she pulled it off her own neck as she was drowning.
Or, yes, Vagn's - to identify him. Oh I see. Yes. That makes sense.
Perhaps he wore it on a long chain, so nobody knew he wore this girly necklace under his overalls.
Hmm
The necklace, the hoodie... If Vagn wants to make a career of this killing thing, he really should try to wear more generic clothing.
Another hole? Is Denmark the only EU country that allows a funeral and cremation of a murder victim to take place before the perpetrator is found and charged? Surely they would have kept the body back for further examination?
Disagree with you on "what did Troels see in Rie", though
A few points - first this was brilliant stuff: making most TV "detective" series risible by comparison. With the caveat that we are reading subtitles (which can't but miss some subtleties). Remember too that one of the joys of the scripts was that a lot of stuff was only mentioned tangentially, glossed over, or presented in the back of the picture so all the usual "nudge nudge" that you get in UK/US scripts was missing - yes there were red herrings but not nearly as many as you think.... Also Lund and Meyer didn't see or hear a lot of what we saw and heard.... and a lot of what you think went on we actually only have unreliable witnesses telling us it happened... for example we only have Leon's word for it that he picked up Nanna and took her to the flat at all: in fact the main purpose of Leon as a character is to definitively link Nanna to the flat at a specific time (we could have got the earlier removal company just through the Mette connection)... so, in whose interest was it to link Nanna to the flat like that (not Vagn's particularly..) And don't forget in the end we only have Vagn's word for what happened to Nanna - and he mostly wanted to be sure that Theis shot him.
The whole corruption/surveillance angle came in very early - it's fairly clear that even Bremer was being "fed" information and manipulated. Brix was being pressurised to find a credible person to take the rap and then close everything else down. Initially Lund would have been safely gone and the impetuous Meyer in charge: probably Rama would have gone down and that would have been the end to it.
It also seems fairly clear that Nanna was involved in something much bigger and nastier (look at Charlotte!) - the "dating site" is a bit of a euphemism shall we say..
While there are loose ends and some inexplicable behaviours - just think of some recent real life cases and how complicated and messy they really are and how nothing is really as it seems when you poke at it (I'm think of the Bath case and that missing girl who was supposed to be a picture of probity until the police discovered she had something like 20 lovers on the go....!!!)
So all the corruption still squats like a toad on the whole thing - perhaps to be more unravelled in part 2? Did Vagn kill Nanna - yes, but we don't know for sure he did the other things although we are being pointed at believing that he, Theis, and Leon are implicated in covering up Mette's death.
Did he shoot Meyer - yes (here's a hint: it's actually very hard to kill someone and modern weapons are so high-powered that the bullets often go straight through with minimum damage: hence the return of the dum-dum.... ALWAYS go for a head shot if you get the chance!)
I think it's also clear that the writer's had their tongues in their cheeks in a number of places (a lot of hints of Twin Peaks for a start).
But there are very few things on telly that have you on the edge of your seat, concentrating really hard, and (along with lot's of people and the script) yelling "For fuck's sake, Lund!"
I am totally loving and obsessing over this blog. But mostly I am recovering from the fact that in the last episode Vagn seemed to have turned into a dead ringer for Craig Taylor. It haunts me.
glad I'm not the only one having a totally distracted Monday.
But surely the ambiguity is part of the appeal of the series, it's not a neatly parcelled up, logical, done-and-dusted story. It's deliberately a bit obscure.
In particular. and I agree with Rachel here, the suspicious actions of the senior police people, and particularly those almost implausibly zealous hard men from the justice department, were the main intrigue for me; my brain isn't big enough to join the dots but there was so much time given to the political/election theme, that you have to wonder about the link.
thanks to all for clarifying some puzzles though, and now for series 2 (but not before a bit of Spiral of course).
David M
Great comments.
The series was fantastic, the characters in particular. Was going to complain about loose ends but Sadoldrocker makes a good case to dispel most of them.
In the end, Holck's behaviour was mad, and Removals Vagn was a bit crazy bringing a LIVE DOG to the teletubby party.
Also, I was expecting a romantic relationship between Troels and Lund and also to discover that Theis and Pernille's sister had an affair.
No actual sex in the series either, unusually,apart from what was reported.
Rie is a hottie, it looks in the end like she was replaced by another 'Troelly Dolly' (sorry)
I would like to formally retract my 'what did Troels see in Rie' question as it has been quite definitively answered by the group. Perhaps 'how did Troels manage to put up with Rie for so long without forcibly infecting her with laryngitis' would have been the deeper mystery.
I think Theis done it: Vagn had an unhealthy attachment to the Birk Larsens and in the final murder scene, he was pleading with Theis to shoot him so that he could take the rap for Nanna's murder. Theis realised that Vagn knew that he, Theis, had murdered his daughter (probably because of her relationship with a Muslim man, and complied. What about all the subplots? - don't ask me where they come in - except this was a complete murder investigation and there are always many dead ends that the police have to follow up.
On a lighter note (ho ho) anyone else notice how dark the interiors of the Killing's sets were? Far from being to add spooky atmosphere to a disturbing thriller, this is obviously because Denmark has the most expensive electricity in the West due to their investment in wind turbines.
Meyer's short-lived recovery and subsequent death is most likely to be due to the fact that the actor was offered another job during filming and decided to accept, so no Meyer for Series II… sob. I'd be more than happy to see Lund get it on with Troels — they had chemistry.
i am from Denmark but have lived in the uk a long time. i seem to remember that they had to rewrite the second half of the first series as the killer was revealed by one of the cast after the first 10 episodes had been shown.
OMG Anonymous Dane! That explains a lot. Do you know who was originally supposed to have done it? And was Meyer the blabbermouth, hence sudden death?
I belive the writer discribed the denouement as "biblical". I'm not sure I'd agree.
Based on his pronouncement I thought we'd discover that Vagn was the "third person" in the marriage, that Theis was infertile (and ignorant of this fact) and that Vagn had fathered all the children at Pernille's behest.
Vagn's murder of Nanna could have been regarded as an honour killing or an "I gave you life, I can take it away" moment.
As regards his rape of Nanna - well he was a sick puppy anyway, unlike the one left in the cardboard box.
Sofie Grabol who plays Lund has said that the cast didn't know who the killer was as they were filming - http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/mar/10/the-killing-sophie-grabol-sarah-lund
I hardly dared to blink throughout the 20 hours, but there were holes in the plot throughout. Didn't the autopsy disclose that Nanna had been given ether at some stage, and we were clearly meant to assume that her teacher had done it after a bottle of the stuff was found at his place. This was later explained as being a quite legitimate constituent of model plane engine fuel, and he had a model helicopter. Ether hasn't been a part of model fuel for about 40 years though, all current fuel is methanol-based, and I'm pretty sure that the model we were giben a quick flash of was actually electric-powered. It seemed strange that ether was never mentioned when the sites of Nanna's rapes were searched, so yet another red herring, a shoddily handled one at that, and wouldn't any Danish pharmacist have kept records of anyone they'd supplied ether to ?
BUT.....despite the fishnet tights plotline. I will still miss it oh so badly. Can't wait for the next series when I will know that basically EVERYTHING is a pointless red herring and the killer will be the person you very first suspect of looking dodgy!
Going back to the car comments, above, wasn't the car seen outside Troels' country house where he tried to commit suicide, or was that his own car?
VB
Vagn, although he looked creepy, didn't really seem to have the intelligence to be the killer and his slight medical background wasn't convincing enough. Troels however had that cold calculating look about him. (thought he'd done the wife in until we learned she had cancer).
P.S. Vagn's hair. Hairdressing costs were very obviously kept at a minimum throughout the entire series. When the producers had decided Vagn would be the killer and would have much camera time during the last episode....they got his hair done. Simples.
Thank you for this blog. Thank God for Naomi
PP.S. I still suspect Troels may also have shagged Nanna, he was a bit too rattled to be totally innocent
Why, even in a country without an ‘obstruction of justice’ law, did so many of the characters think that their own petty interests were more important than finding a murderer/rapist? If I was Lund I would have gone all ‘Dirty Harry’ after the thirtieth time someone thought nothing of outright lying to me because the truth was mildly inconvenient.
Off the top of my head: Morten, Rie, Troels, Bremer, Olav, Holk, Frevert, Pernille, Theis, Charlotte, Rama, Rama's Wife, Rama's mate, Oliver, Stokke, Amir, Lisa, Buchard, Brix and the even the fucking plumber all either intentionally or unintentionally hindered the investigation by lying or failing to disclose something.
Most of these people had nothing important to hide; in fact Rama risked being beaten to death because he was so keen to disguise his bloody-good-blokeishness.
Why do tv Danes love lying so much? Aaaargh.
hello, new to this blog - but saw interview transcript with Sophie Grabol - she said the scriptwriter wanted her character to have an affair with Troels but she objected, on the grounds that she played the role as a man would, and didn't want the character's strength to be devalued.
yes it had me shouting at my tv every week and yes everyone was my suspect at some point or other, but Vagn was my first suspect. Even though he started off as an idiot I grew to like Meyer and was so upset they killed him! I loved Troels and can't believe he went along with Morten, oh how quickly these politicians lose their ideals eh? But despite all this, the trailer for The Killing II at the end of the credits was exciting eh?
I had this theory for a while that it was not Troels in the underground car park driving the city hall car. The perpetrator had cut out his photo from one of the campaign posters, and secured it on his head like a mask. lol. Then bang went my theory when Troels admitted it was himself.
@ Jennifer oh yes series 2 looks great! excited! There is only 10 episodes or something though :(
Am concerned as to how Vagn managed to get home from the woods, after having driven the communal car into the water, dressed from head to toe in 10 meters of plastic coated fabric and wearing wellington boots. Are we expected to believe he took a bus?
And we haven't even begun to speculate on what the fuck went down in Latvia.
Hallo there,
Being a Dane and wondering what all the fuzz about 'Forbrydelsen' was, I somehow ended up here.
As my compatriot has already stated it is correct that the ending somehow changed along the way.
According to this Danish article http://politiken.dk/kultur/ECE276013/nanna-birk-larsens-morder-afsloeret/ (which was published in april 2007 - after the first 10 episodes had been shown and before the recording of the remaining 10) the identity of the killer was leaked to a website, who published it.
Only three persons knew the identity of the killer at this stage, and it is uncertain who leaked the information.
The article states, that the creators would have to change the storyline for the remaining 10 episodes. I can’t seem to find any articles stating, what was actually changed in the end, but I’m pretty sure it had some kind of an effect on the final outcome.
Anyway, I do find it surprising that it has received so much praise abroad, but I do agree that it is a good TV-series. Unfortunately the second season is not quite on pair with the first one, though I wouldn’t call it bad.
- A Dane
@ Anon Dane, Tak! This is all the Danish i've learned :P
Kudos to you, A Dane! My mind is totally boggling now as can cheerfully spend the rest of my life imagining alternative scenarios for what really happened. Alternative scenarios in which I AM RIGHT. Don't suppose anyone actually knows who the killer was meant to be?
Naomi Alderman - who do you reckon it should have been? I defer to you in all things.
The real mystery is why the BBC can't make anything remotely this good.
I stick with Troels as original killer.
I think it has struck a cord with the Brits cos UK TV on Sat night is such rubbish and we are fed up with the mass market reality TV shows. this exercised our brain cells.
I was surprised it was Vahn as he seemed too dim to mastermind covering up his tracks. earlier in the series I thought that Theis, if not the killer, (i.e. crime of passion against his errant daughter), maybe he was coerced into covering up the identity of the real killer, something to do with his past, and possibly implicated as an accessory to the killing of Mette. he had a violent past remember. then there was the Latvia link, ? would he have been in trouble with some sort of organised crime syndicate if he had blown the whistle on the real killer. oh god this is going to bug me now!
Troels would have been rather obvious. the politicians were all liable to sell their souls to the devil as per Faust, if it meant getting elected. so they were just all so slippery.
Was the series script written especially for TV, presume it was and not taken from a book.
The reason there are so many unanswered questions is that the Killing II is coming. Clearly Vagn was not working alone - Holcke and the taxi driver also involved but I guess there is a mastermind who is yet to be revealed and that is why the killing continues.
Tak og velbekomme!
Unfortunately I have a confession to make. As you all wanted to know who the original killer was in the first place, I decided it had to be possible to google it.
I remembered that there was some talk about the killers identity being leaked - thats why I googled in the first place and thats what I wrote in my first post.
The thing is that I was tricked or rather fooled, as the article I linked to was published on April 1...
Yes, it was only a joke from the Danish newspaper and I didn't realize. I'm sad to tell you that the ending was how the writers wanted it to be.
I'm sorry for restoring your faith in the endning....
- A Dane
The reason there are so many unanswered questions is because The Killing II is coming. My guess is there is a mastermind behind all this who has been controlling Vagn, Holcke, the taxi driver - the only question is... who?
"I was tricked or rather fooled, as the article I linked to was published on April 1...
"Yes, it was only a joke from the Danish newspaper and I didn't realize."
Oh god. I was so much happier when I thought that ending was a mistake. YOU MEAN THIS IS WHAT THEY WANTED ALL ALONG???
Don't worry though, mistaken Dane, this is only adding to my enjoyment of the post-match analysis.
On The Killing II, can't remember where I saw it, but it said it was about Danish soldiers who'd served in Afghanistan turning up dead around Copenhagen, no connection with the first one as far as I could see, except that Sara was demoted after the Nanna case, and Brix ended up running everything, and it's him who recalls Sara who'd been exiled to a dull job in the most southerly point of Denmark.
My take on it and the reason for the loose ends...
Thies and Vagn were bad lads when young travelled around Europe and ended up back in Denmark working odds jobs when they use to hang out at the club where Nanna worked. Theis met Pernille when she was working as an escort there and entertaining politicians etc. They fell in love and cos of the scene gonig on then they ran off together leaving Vagn behind. Vagn was working for the people at the club with Theis as a bouncer or security and him and Theis use to *clear up* any stuff that went too far. Whilst Theis was away Vagn was asked to look after some trouble that had happened at the club and in doing so found himself in way over his head.
The club was being used by some Drug dealers who had something on a series of , then , young politicians, ie Bremer. Theis comes back with Pernille to find the club has got out of control. The politicians can't escape without calling in the police and not just police who are their *friends*. At this point this is where in trying to sort stuff out, Theis kills some drug dealer and is sent down for it. he comes out and ,for keeping quiet about why he killed the guy, he is set up in business by the politicians with Vagn in a removals firm. This means that the politicians and the club now have a couple of guys who can deliver stuff anywhere round the country or dump stuff without anyone asking questions.
I suspect Theis and Vagn might have dispoed of a couple of bodies of people who overdosed etc etc. As the years passed Theis all but retired from the club activities but Vagn quietly carried on doing the odd * removal* for them and the local politicians.
I think this.... the politician Nanna had the affair with raped her and thought he had killed her in the flat. Vagn was called in to remove the body and rt realised it was Nanna and that she wasnt dead. he took her to the house thinking if she survived she wouldn't be found there. Sadly,someone was keeping tabs ion Vagn and they entered the hosue found the girl alive and told Vagn if he didn't dispose of her he'd kill kill her anyway then Vagn, Theis and Pernille's lives would be over cos the removals business would be closed and they'd be busted on some trumped up charges, probably plant drugs in their vans and claim they were the main distributors. Vagn went with the person and dumped the . still live Nanna, in the canal.
I suspect Vagn took the blame and tried to clear everything up on behalf of the party that was stalking Lund, an unknown party working for the politicians and the club. Vagn was devoted to the two ons and think he knew if the truth came out they might never see Theis and Pernille again as both would go to jail for their parts in past cover ups at the club.
Something along those lines would answer many of the outstanding questions
Oh and i don't think Vagn killed the other girl i suspect the same politician did. I reckon she turned up at the club recognised Vagn and he got her a job there.
Vagn looked different in the last episode because he wasn't wearing his beanie. Had suspicions about him from the start but they were pretty much unfounded, based on nothing more than a gut feel. Then they arrested him and I got all excited in a *told you so* kind of way. Then he looked so darn upset that I felt bad for doubting him!!
What was it Troels wanted to confess to Brix at the end? Maybe the whole Morten cover up thing. But why did he sound so surprised when Brix said don't bother we've got the bloke who did it and he's dead....Troels repeats "He's DEAD??" in a very surprised and slightly upset manner. He didn't say "WHO was it?". Did he know??
I'm going for a Brix (very keen to halt the case and I reckon he killed Meyer), Troels (he seems like he's still got something to confess), Vagn killing trio. This would fit with Steve's theory too.
Confused myself with my I love it when it has so many holes....but it raises more questions than it answers and that is magic!
Gripped of North London
I did for at least a full episode think Brix had killed Meyer. Mainly because he was swinging his leather gloves around in an obvious way. Also thought he went back to the hospital to finish Meyer off.
Is the point of it also *look at how many lives were turned upside down by one mans actions*
Theiss and Pernille lose their daughter, Twins lose their sister,
Teacher gets severely beaten up and potentially loses his job, His cousin gets in trouble for having a lock up and helping young girls to escape from arranged marriages (probably gets beaten up by the girls families), Holk gets his heart broken and then runs someone over and then gets shot, Troels gets a bad reputation, Troels falls out with his best friend, Troels falls out with his girlfriend, Troel's girlfriend sleeps with Dessau, Dessaus therefore cheats on his wife(no idea if there are consequences of that), Dessau loses his job, Stokke loses his job, Bremmer gets a bad reputation,Bremmer has a stroke, Bengt moves to Sweden alone, Bengt gets angry and drunk and has a car accident, Sarah's son moves in with his dad cos he thinks his mum doesn't love him (presumably), Meyer gets continually driven up the wall by Sarah then gets shot, then dies, Meyers wife loses her husband, Meyers kids lose their dad, Sarah's mum is feeling rejected, the first police boss loses his job, Leon hangs himself, Vagn gets his feelings hurt, Theis shoots his best friend, Theis goes to jail, Pernille has to have her tights half put back on by Vagn
...obviously not in that order
Exhausted of North London
How did Vagn know to go and get the school photo out of the book in the box in the warehouse and why didn't he bother to do so the first time the murder was investigated?
ooh-ooh. I know this one. The necklace wasn't a clue in the first murder. There was no body. And they didn't investigate it really. He goes to the warehouse after Lund and Meyer show him the necklace when they are interrogating him.
A better question is why show him the necklace at all if they suspect him.
And why *no one else in the building noticed this*.
It is explained that every other occupant in the building is a business and the building is completely empty on the weekend.
I'd forgotten about Vagn putting Pernille's tights back on. *Shudders*.
Also, whoever commented about Vagn trying to catch the bus home from the woods while wearing a giant plastic slanket and covered in blood and canal water, I salute you.
If Vagn always wore the necklace it would have been seen by the Birk-Larsens because he was always rough housing with the boys or with the physical labor of the moving. So he has to suddenly choose to wear it that weekend and the band-aid indicated that Nanna had ripped it off his neck. Even though the chain he constantly wore pegged Vagn as a necklace wearing guy the fact that Theis and Pernille had never seen it had me convinced he was a red herring.
If the rape is unplanned then Vagn's exit from his uncle's was by the front door and somehow no one saw him. He sets up his alibi at the uncle's early Saturday so has already decided to get rid of Nanna.
.
Fantastic blog post and debate - thanks everyone!
One thing nagging at me - why the he'll didn't Amir recognise Vagn at the line-up? That Nanna's childhood sweetheart wouldn't recognise such a close friend of the family beggars belief. Particularly when his affair with Nanna seems to be the trigger for the murder.
And, what's the thing between Theis and Amir's dad. Seems to be enough weirdness there that the boy would recognise Vagn in the street, let alone in full view as his belvedere had been killed.
But. But. But.
The whole thing was majestic as far as I was concerned, and not just forth edge-of-the-seat-ness everyoe'd mentioned.
1) The symmetry of the Theis/Vagn and Troels/Morten relationships was brilliant, and only really apparent in the final minutes. Each man-crush control freak thinking he
knows best for his hero, but nevertheless betrays the man
he loves most.
2) Troels slow transition into he thing he hated most was great. He now IS Bremer - that final switch as he went to make his speech was monstrous. Oh irony - the Faustian pact is now made.
3) More symmetry between Lund and Pernille. Two intuitive, instinctive women, driven by tenacity to uncover the absolute truth, and finally paired in their pursuit of Vagn and Theis.
So, yes there were holes. But for these three reasons (and more) episode 20 still absolutely ruled.
Thoughts?
Leon hangs himself
Someone, presumably Vagn, has staged the hanging as Bengt reveals to Lund that the coroner has determined a blow to Leon's head consistent with a gun (similar to what Vagn did to Thies maybe.)
Vagn presumably kills Leon because Leon knew Vagn went to the flat to straighten Nanna out and because Leon had told Pernille about Vagn cancelling the HP move so had come between Vagn and "his family."
some great comments on here guys! who said that going out clubbing on a saturday night is anywhere as good as this!
re the necklace, I videod sat nights episodes and did slo-mo through Nana's run through the woods she wasn't wearing the necklace.
Agree that the relationship between Theis and the restaurant owner was strained - why? something in the past they referred to early on.
Pernilla was the late heroine in my view, she solved the final chapter of the hunt, the clever gal.
i loved the Sara 84 sweatshirt scene where Vagn and Lund look at each other. he thinks 'has she realised' she thinks 'does he realise that i've realised'. and for that split second you think he's considering killing her right there. ELECTRIFYING11
Can I apologise for the terrible predictive-text-typos in my comments a couple of posts back?
Obviously, I was referring to Amir recognising his beloved, not his belvedere!
The band aid! Of course! Where she ripped the necklace off. Nice touch, screenwriters. And proof he was intended as the killer from the start. I remember being curious and then I forgot about it. Still reckon someone might have noticed Vagn wearing a girly heart necklace at some point, though. Where's our resident Dane to tell us about Danish jewelery preferences? Are you still hiding over the 'April Fool' incident?
Right. I have spent five hours driving down to Devon today. And I spent most of that thinking about how I would have solved the car problem, if I'd been brought in on it (why, why didn't they talk to me before it was too late?)
So.
The car is too blooming coincidental. That the *same car* turned up at Nanna's school and then was taken by Troels and then was used to murder Nanna. Too much. There needs to be a *reason* for it to keep on being the same car and not, as someone said, that there's only one car in Copenhagen. Plus the 'security guy happens by' stuff is just weird and random and the 'keys are in the car' is totally unbelievable. Here's what I would have done.
I would have said that *none* of the cars should have been at party HQ that weekend. Let's say that they were all being serviced over Friday night/Saturday so that they'd be ready for work on Monday. But the guy who took the car and then vomited and left it in a road near the school and didn't bring it back and 'thinks he dropped the keys somewhere'. SO, the security guy gets a call 'that car's missing, go and check the route'. He checks the route, he brings the SPARE KEYS with him, brings the car back to Party HQ, where it is now too late to take it to the garage for servicing so it is the ONLY CAR in the party carpark when maudlin Troels decides he has to slip out of his own Placketenfest. Maybe Troels even asks the security guy to call him a cab and the security guy goes "hey, you can take this party car if you want". Then the car is at the flat, it plays out as before.
This would have:
a) made more sense
b) only mostly involved tiny dialogue changes, given that the security-guy-car thing and the 'I vomited and lost the keys' thing are both done in dialogue not flashback or even security tape
c) produced an extra potentially nice little loop when Meyer and Lundt think that the car was at the mechanics, so have to check there first
d) not been so very coincidental if it was simply somewhere *near* the school and not actually there. Although still a bit coincidental, I couldn't quite work out how to solve it completely.
There is another thing they could have done, though it would have involved more radical rewrites and that is to say that NANNA stole the car back from the party HQ after the security guy brought it back - using the keys that the guy did indeed drop at her school - as part of her plan to run away with Amir. It would then have made perfect sense for it to have been the same car, and Vagn might even have seen her drive up in it.
One thing that really troubles me more and more as I think about it is that I still have no sense at all who Nanna Birk-Larsen was. No one seemed to want to talk about her. She inspired love/lust/murderous fury in various blokes, and called her brothers 'Teletubbies', but other than that no one even seems to know what her hopes and dreams were, her favourite subject at school, her enthusiasms or aversions. I realise they may have been trying to make some subtle point about the way that a murdered person vanishes into the investigation around their death, but it begins to seem more and more of a blunder to me. It's personal taste but I like the way that a murder investigation reveals more and more about a person, like pulling off all the layers that they would have had closely wrapped around them in life, in often an intrusive way. Nanna remains a picture at the end of the show, not a real person at all (HOW could the same person be in love with Oliver, Holck and Amir? HOW?)
Naomi 'compulsive script doctoring even when the show was made four years ago' Alderman
I'm afraid none of you have managed to find the right answers.
It's all in Lund's jumpers.
Through the series, she only wears two jumpers, the white one with the dark pattern and the dark one with the white pattern. The two jumpers represent two parallel universes. In one, it is Vagn who is the killer; in the other, Nanna is not dead at all but has shacked up with Bengt in the Swedish special-pine sauna shag-hut. This explains Bengt's broken arm (car crash my arse).
There is also hidden meaning in Hartmann's shirt, Theis' beanie and Rie's knee-high leather boots.
Watch it again, folks - the clues are all in the clothing.
Well, at least my (last)post made it clear that, that the writers intended the ending in the first place. My fellow Dane had already questioned that.
I don't really know much about special danish habits when it comes to jewelry . I really doubt any man could walk around with such a necklace without anyone noticing it.
It would just be too uncommon and considered strange behavior among men.
- The Dane
Never has a TV show given me so much joy....not just in the viewing of the actual show, but also in the collective curious post match speculation around the 'WTF' of it all. A community of open minded puzzle solvers, prepared to consider the sublime to the utterly ridiculous. Tres entertaining, thanks folks!
Apols for the faux pas re Leon hanging himself....I was struggling to stay awake to watch it on Sat and clearly missed a few key pieces of evidence. Thank goodness for this blog to fill in the gaps...or not....but it's fun trying!
Jim, brilliant observations around the the psychology of the relationships. Levparikian, pure genius! Naomi, I can't decide whether I wish I had been a passenger in your car all the way to Devon or not!
I have some issues with the Morten concealed video. I thought the missing video that showed Troels picking up the key to the car was from a camera pointed at the key desk where the unhelpful security man was. But the video showing Holck giving Nanna the key was by some door. At some point in the story it magically turned into one video. Morten could have returned this tape as soon as the tape of Troels driving the car away in the basement was enhanced since it no longer mattered to Troels. Did Morton want to protect Holck too? Or use it to blackmail Holck? What a shite. I imagined a scenario where the now totally corrupted Troels stages an insulin overdose to eliminate Morten after the election.
I should say as well, in case this isn't clear - clearly I *loved* it. I would never spend this much time thinking about a show that hadn't got *so many things right*.
Eleanor
Brilliant blog perfect cure for Killing withdrawal symptoms- one more point did any one notice that she went into prison with one jumper on and came out with another- could it be that it's reversible ?
That Nanna is alive and living in a parallel 'dark side of the sweater' universe accessed through Bergt's special pine sauna is my favourite theory so far.
Also, Naomi, you need to write The Killing UK. Is there a reason why you are not working on such a project already? I can't think of one.
I think Vagn was wearing a balaclava, thus the Sara/84 thing.
Agree that Vagn's identity was concealed. Meyer wasn't shot because he recognised Vagn but because Vagn recognised him and hated him for the interrogation at the police station.
Here's what I think happened - Meyer didn't actually die (hurray!), but because he'd seen the shooter & could identify him he was being protected.
Vagn & Leon procurred women for a group of Bremmer & Rie's dad, Holck, Morton & other men in powerful positions. Vagn grabbed Nanna at the flat as Leon had said she was about to elope, then he took her to the house for safe keeping before taking her to the woods to dispose of her. Nanna managed to get away in the woods etc so Vagn & Leon chase her then use the car as he said.
Because the situation went wrong, was messy & couldn't be tidied up easily the powerful men group decide to 'kill two birds with one stone' & set Hartman up for Nanna's killing!
But I loved it all so much, and miss Lund & her jumpers!
I'd forgotten about Vagn putting Pernille's tights back on.
He tries to put them on but can't and flings them on the bed and restarts with her boots. It's when he tells Pernille they got him (Holck) and he's dead that she recovers from her fugue state and puts her own boots on.
But yes still very creepy. Vagn only accustomed to dressing dead girls (Mette.)
I was going to add two things:
1. How come the prosecutors got so far with their unfounded supsicions about Lund when a forensic test would have shown that she didn't shoot the gun?
2. One of the joys (for me at any rate) was the fact that i didn't know any of the actors, so came to it with absolutely no preconceptions about it. Not just 'whodunnit', but what kind of characters they all were. It all came from the performances, which were sensational - there were so many opportunities to overact, all of them refused, which points to terrific direction too.
Mind you, we did regularly shout at the screen 'turn the lights on!!'
Three things. First, I spent a lot of time shouting "LOOK BEHIND YOU" at the telly. Second, I kept thinking that the chaps from CSI would have solved the case in about 2 episodes. Third, how come nobody ELSE noticed the state of the flat, and why did Vagn leave it in such a mess when he was so careful to clean up Nanna? And how did he turn from being a seemingly harmless, rather pathetic, slightly needy person into someone who could rape and torture over an extended period in various locations AND be visiting his dad in the care home at the same time? Riveting stuff though, despite the cop-out (excuse the pun) ending.
I can see how much Vahn valued his surrogate role as part of Theis's family, ie. a substitute for the family he never had, and the fact that he held it so dear.
Perhaps his motives for stopping Nana leaving with Amir were sound, he thought it would upset his good friend Theis and create devastation in the family that he considered he was part of. He even saved Pernilla when she was in her fugue state in the hotel room, so he presumably held them all in high esteem.
What I cant understand is how it would feasibly possible for him to commit rape and violence against Nanna who was part of the family that he so adored? Was it a weird type of love towards her that was on a slow burn, fuelled by jealously of her other lovers, and transgressed into the crimes he did. It just doesn't seem feasible. or was he such a damaged individual that anything was possible?
It would appear that Vagn saw the Birk-Larsen's as his family now and he wanted to keep the family together by stopping Nana from leaving, especially the way she was going to do it, it would have caused pain and upset and rock the (supposed) happy family life. Perhaps his intentions were to have a rational conversation with her then his inner serial killer took over.
Will series 2 be a continuation of this story I wonder or will we get a whole new gripping bundle of confusion to tie us up in happy knots??
unfortunately not, the cast list for K2 is totally different, apart from Blix and Lund. :-( we'll have to scriptwrite our own sequel,lol,
On the motivation for Theis killing Vagn: if Vagn had been taken alive by the police he would likely tell all in egotistical mass murderer fashion, including the drug dealer murder that he and Theis collaborated on years before. Theis would then face a long jail sentence for murder rather than a short one for manslaughter (or Danish equivalent). Though I doubt such rational thoughts could justifiably be put in his mind at that point!
Think the reason for all of the loose ends is mainly because the writers weren’t 100% sure how to end it. Think they got themselves into a lost and 24 type hole where they’ve done so many twists and turns nothing makes sense anymore.
They were keeping each script a secret from the cast so the lund actress didn’t know who the killer was until the last episode.
Backfired a bit I think.
I think the killer should have been revealed in the penultimate episode so that we had enough time to see theis and pernile react to it, wrap up a few loose ends and just take in what had happened.
Theis found out who killed his daughter about 10 mins before the 20 episode show finished which I thought was a shame and out of place.
The biggest issue for me is Vagn’s explanation of the nights events. All makes sense, except at what point in a “please don’t move abroad we all love you and the family will be upset” argument do you switch to raping them. He seemed to say he was doing it for theis and the family, why did he rape her then?!!?
Also how badly did he beat her up in the flat. Blood everywhere. Then he took her to another location and raped her for 2 days before killing her. Doesn’t really fit the explanation at the end.
Like I say, think the writers got I a bit of a tizz and rushed the finish, but overall my favourite bit of telly in years.
Think when you care about all of these loose ends enough to write about it you know it’s a quality bit of telly.
Thank you ALL so much for giving me a great way to decompress from Killing-comedown. Loads of great questions and theories and big thanks to the visiting Danes for their insights.
Its been such a good series as witnessed by all the comments! We only care becausee it was so wotrhy of our caring: plotholes, coincidental cars, plasters, necklaces and jumpers et al. Truly wonderful and now Spiral 3 starts next week. Hurrah.
I think we can allow for Vagn, a multiple murderer, lying to Theis about what he did and why. Theis's opinion matters to him, so skirting over the rape, saying it was a spontaneous crime of passion, that he was trying to help the family, that he couldn't bear to kill her etc can be taken with a whole heap of salt.
This blog inspired a wonderful jumper based dream last night. Thank you.
On the subject of jumpers,just how stinky was the first one? She seemed to have it on for days.
I never watch soaps but I've just this second flicked and noticed that Nicola on Emmerdale Farm is a blonde Rie..
Marie, we salute you for this blog...!
'Not so empty now' of North London
What the heck happened in Latvia? Was Nanna there? Is that why her passport was in the flat?
No Rie in series 2 - that's too bad...
As Nanna was raped wouldn't there have been DNA evidence? And if so why weren't all the suspects including Vagn tested?
Loved loved this programme and am bereft but need some answers to questions
Madmary - much was made of rapist using condoms, washing Nanna etc to get rid of DNA.
Re jumper stinkiness, apparently those jumpers clean themselves. I have no idea how, unless they are an organic life form, in which case what was their involvement in Nanna's murder?
Will try to track down the self-cleaning jumper link...
What a fantastic blog and discussion! Thank you! Hope you'll resume it for Series 2!
@Marie. Just realised about the condom. I'm trying to picture this murder.
He goes to stop Nanna from leaving. She is at the flat collecting her passport or something? He tries to tell her he really loves her and ends up brutally raping her? During the brutal rape he stops to put on a condom? Or does the rape take place in the cellar when he has bound and gagged her and druged her? It's the use of the condom that bothers me. It doesn't fit with a brutal attack but it does fit with covering tracks.
Mary
So were Vagn and the taxi driver in it together? Did they do the other girl Mette together? Maybe Vagn was lying at the end. Did we ever find out who bought Nana those horrible "designer" boots? Oh maybe she bought them herself. Why was she putting her money into an account for her brothers? Seems a tad generous for a young woman who was keen to move out into a place of her own.
I haven't had this many questions about a show since Battlestar finished
...just one more thing (nod to Columbo) Those dresses Lund's mother was making-sweet devine Christ they were awful.
Love these comments - I've been on the Mumsnet threads which are terrific, too.
I agree with everything everyone says (even when they contradict what someone else says) but have this to say myself:
Think of the timeline.
Nanna is in the taxi and stupidly tells Leon, who she doesn't seem to have recognised, that she's emigrating with a Turkish guy. She then goes into the flat.
Leon phones Nanna's family but gets through to Vagn. (Did he speak to him or leave a message?) Then Leon drives off.
Vagn gets drugs from the medicine cupboard at the nursing home (is that really easy to do?) and drugs the uncle, waiting for him to go to sleep. Then he goes to the flat. How does he get in?
So he's in the building and goes up to the flat. How would he know which flat to go to?
And Nanna's still there, looking for the passport which she left several months ago. Now firstly why would she have left a passport there? Secondly how come nobody else saw it? Thirdly if it was so long ago how did she even remember she'd left it there?
So Vagn beats up Nanna and rapes her, all the while leaving no trace of evidence. How? What's that saying about everyone leaves a trace of themselves at a crime scene?
Brilliant comment, by the way, to the person who said how did Morten not leave footprints etc when he went to the toilet to flush the sponges down. That guy really hasn't got the brains he was born with.
Oh and someone said to look at Morten, he has the Queen's hairstyle - I can't look at him without laughing, now.
Yes, Claire, why leave thousands in a bank account for your junior school aged brothers when you are nineteen and emigrating?
And would Vagn really be carrying condoms?
Really?
Vagn would definitely carry condoms. He'd be the type to be thinking gonna get lucky gonna get lucky GONNA GET LUCKY any day now...
As well as being self-cleaning, I believe those jumpers are also self-healing. Do I recall the very first suspect (who was a former-sex-offender-turned-poster-delivery-guy, demonstrating Hartmann's dangerously lax approach to security was systemic) attempting to stab Lund and drawing blood?
Or did Lund's impossibly mardy Mum mend it for her? It all seems so long ago now...
The victims were dumped in a canal, Canals contain rake loads of bacteria, being still water, that contaminate the body at the same time as washing away any DNA trace evidence.
I wonder if Shakespeare saw an early release of The Killing ?
He was certainly right when he wrote "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark".
One of the most important unanswered questions for me in all this is the Police cover-up angle, who was giving orders to the original 'early retirement' chief Buchard, was it Brix or did it come from higher up in the system, and why was this important development allowed to fade away without further questioning from Sara Lund or anyone else ? Politics at a local level didn't seem to have much real influence where law enforcement was concerned, so what was going on here, and who was pulling the strings ?
Am enjoying this so much I'll be back blogging season 3 of Spiral this weekend (same time same place on BBC4, but I probably won't blog it til Sunday). Naomi "necklace in the stomach" Alderman's coming along for the ride. Join us.
why did Meyer tell the Birk Larsens that Holck didn't say anything before he was shot dead.He clearly said: "Tell my wife..." What was he going to say?
And why did he suddenly turn from being an influential counterweight politician into a hit and run murderer who was quite prepared to imprison and apparently kill, in the manner that Nanna was killed, a police officer to cover his tracks over an affair which, let's face it, is not that uncommon in this day and age. He had a water-tight alibi of being on cctv at the airport all night and that his wife was aware of an affair - so why such unreasonable behaviour?
Before this he mention to Lund that Olav, the civil servant, was putting more and more pressure on him - pressure about what?
This story runs much deeper than what we are told - 'adopted uncle kills adopted neice'
Somebody put me out of my misery.
I think one thing that has to be remembered is this. As a result of umpteen formulaic cop shows we have grown sue to crimes having a simple neat resolution that some person uncovers, often by some latent * psychic style git* that leads them down the right track when all seems lost.
In The Killing we were allowed to see the truth about investigations, ie that they are are grey not simple black and white, you're guilty you are not.
I am minded fo the Boston Strangler, which for years was seen as a slam dunk case solved. Now it turns out the DNA one of the Stranglers victims managed to clw from her attacker was not Da Silva's at all. Ergo, Da Silva was NOT the The Strangler, at least he did not kill all the victims he claimed he did.
I think we have to bare that in mind when viewing Vagn's confession. He mentioned nothing of the rape of Nanna and lets be honest. Go back ot the very first episode and Nanna stumbling through the woods looked nothing like a girl who had lost pints of blood and actually bore no marks at all of any violence that were apparent.
The amount of blood in the flat and that in the house below the new floor suggested a victim badly cut, at least and having lost pints of blood. That was not the picture of Nanna in those opening scenes of the first episode was it?
on more than one occasion Theis lamented that Nanna's death was "repayment or some sort of Karma for his past". When Theis left the hostel after the attack on him, he made some remark about even "The guy on the wall in this case Jesus, couldn't help him after what he had done.
The impression i get was this. Lund was meant to find the chief lead, that would be provided to her from *inside* the police and local body politique and then hand over to Meyer and that would be it.
However, Lund being Lund couldn't let go of it and was therefore led down several dead ends in an attempt to limit the damage done to whoever was covering it all up.
I firmly believe Vagn fessed up and took the bullet in order to protect Lief and Pernille and therefore keep their family together. it was the last act of a guy who felt he'd, pretty much, failed at everything in life. It was his own personal redemption.
The Powers that be got what they wanted, enough of a lever against Lund to make her quit looking into the case any further and someone to blame for the murder of Nanna.
The politicians got what they wanted, the removal of Rie cos she was way too straight and actually made it plain. Had she thought Hartmann had killed the grill there was no way she'd have lied for him. In doing so, she sacked herself, it was just a matter of time before she was set up and removed by the others in power.
Until a couple fo years ago i had no idea that many of the Yorkshire's Rippers crimes were actually, still under doubt and that, part of the proof is that. Sutcliffe made the same mistakes that the Police and press made in his confessions about at least 3 of the crimes he claimed to have committed outside of Yorkshire
Some interesting news about Series 2, and the upcoming Spiral 3:
http://www.cultbox.co.uk/news/headlines/812-the-killing-and-spiral-to-return-to-bbc-four
Yay!!
still not fully recovered from lack of killing so having another little blog fix to keep me going --- I'll be a wreck on saturday night
I think virtaully all holes and loose ends have been dissected to extinction
lets look forward with hope for a better future
Lund neeeds a new man- Bengt was not the one despeite the fancy sauna- he just felt sorry for himself when the chips were down - she could do much better
Troels aka Faust needs to take a log hard look at what he's turned into- and go to the gym as he's getting a bit of a paunch ( think its the brandy binges)
Pernielle needs to get a whole new team of drivers and get them police checked before hiring them
Theis will get a short sentence given the circumstances- as killing someone who was wearing a big plastic cape is probably reasonable even in Denmark with its wooly jumper problem
Amir will be lying low as his dad seems a bit fierce and will not be happy about all the shenanigans he's been up to
Oliver will proabaly go to law school and specialise in criminal law
the other blonde girl will invest in more witches hats at it seemd to work pretty well at the party
.
there will be a big city hall expenses enquiry about all the money being wasted on cars and flats and the next series will involve a minivan and a bus shelter
the guy who picked up Perneille will join a monastery as he goes off women for life
I also predict that Sarajevo 84 tops will have a moment never mind the jumpers....
Brix will return to his previous job as Captain VOn Trapp in allo allo
I vote for Eleanor and Naomi writing The Killing UK Series, brilliant stuff!
I watched ir - 'twas a great show, just very confusing!
I've already forgot about Rie what about her replacement ??? Fantastic
Playedout said....
Why does Vagn tell Theis and Pernille about Anton's mention of the Passport in the basement?Surely he would keep quiet and slip off to search the basement and destroy the passport or frame Leon by placing it in Leon's garden.That way when Theis learns from Anton eventually what he saw in the flat he would just think it was a child's imagination playing tricks.
Overall this series is going to be seen much like The Sopranos in that it's electrifying viewing that fills a certain 'hole' in the viewer but with the passage of time it becomes clear that the writers are just filling up the airtime with 'hooks' that lead us on .There was no real meat in the series and we were merely being sat onto a rollercoaster every weekend--- i.e. very enjoyable at the time but not truly satisfying in the long run.
I do agree that it captures the 'loose-ends and dead-ends '- nature of police work.
The standout achievement of this series is easily overlooked if we concentrate on just the intellectual 'solve-this-puzzle'aspect of the drama .Because DRAMA is exactly what this was .A tour de force of EMOTIONAL achievements was delivered by the writers.What Hollywood director or actor could convey so painfully the breaking apart of her heart when Pernille stood over the casket of her daughter? There were intellectual loose ends to be sure.But the writers showcased that American tv cannot parallel or equal European drama when it comes to knitting together human stories.There is no Law and Order or CSI out there that would have had us all hooked this way for 10 weeks .Nor left such permanent marks -small and large -that will stay imprinted in our memories in the years ahead.We got a very scary look at the human stories behind the headlines that the police have to deal with.
So you asked 'WTF?' .The answer is the emotional stuff.The human stuff.It was up there on the screen for 10 weeks.We recognised it for what it was...not glib Americana tv.That is why we will miss it.
WHY SO MANY LOOPHOLES/FLAWS
The reason there are so many loopholes in the damn thing is that the real killer is in front of our very nose ...has been the whole time .The killer was of course....THE SUBTITLES !!!!
That is why we never really get anywhere.The subtitles killed the girl and have been misleading us the whole time.The characters weren't actually saying any of that stuff we saw on the screen .It was all an attempt by the subtitles to throw us off the scent.Those crafty killers.How many other cop-shows have also duped us? Makes you wonder ...
There was LOADS of blood in the flat! Why was Nanna, after having lost what looks like most of her blood, not yet dead? How come after such blood loss she was able to run through the woods? Did she really need to bleed to death (by the look of it) and get drowned??
just wanted to say that I love you all, thank you for bringing joy to my now Forbrydelsen-less life
carol xx
Thinking about this again this morning. The trouble with the ending is... they have conditioned us to a certain scenario: someone appears to confess to/certainly be responsible for the killing, they get killed before the full story can be heard (Holck, Leon), Lundt chews some nicotine gum and realises that the story doesn't add up, keeps on looking for the real killer.
And this is exactly the scenario we're in now. We can *see* that it doesn't add up. Little things like someone's excellent comment "how did Vagn know which flat it was?" totally undermine the story. So we're just left *waiting* for Lundt to realise they've made another mistake. Sigh. Waiting forever.
Here's a question I haven't seen addressed yet (though maybe I missed it): am I wrong or does the timing of the weekend not quite work out as Morten says ... Hartmann hears from the plumber that there was someone cleaning up there at 8 AM on Saturday, which was before Morten finds Hartmann in the cabin in the woods (Sunday). But doesn't Morten reference the attempted suicide at the very end as part of the reason why he figured Hartmann had killed someone? If he cleaned up the blood BEFORE going to the woods and finding Hartmann, does this change anything? I guess it makes sense that he would think Hartmann had tried to kill himself because of the killing...but it just kills me (no pun intended) that he never said anything at all about this.
Sorry to come to this so late. Several posters have wondered about Lund wearing the jumper several days running. What you must realise is that those Nordic jumpers are *outer* garments - no one in their senses would wear them next the skin, they are so scratchy.
So just as you can wear a jacket without washing it every day, you can wear a jumper like this over a tee-shirt or blouse.
In light of later plot developments, what was that business all about with the first suspect (the driver?) jumping out of the window in the first couple of episodes?
Forgive me if I've got this totally wrong or misremembered.
OMG, I'm so glad this was finally shown in the UK and I can discuss this with other nuts like myself!!! I was amazed by this show last year here in Oz, but couldn't find anything in English about and only a few people for discussion. I've already seen series 2 and it's fantastic so i can't wait till it screens over at your end so I can discuss it with you guys!!!
Excellent comments and I agree with those who say the drama, the emotions and the sense of loss are more important than the details of the plot BUT... and joining late here so please forgive me if already mentioned but doesn't Theis only show Vagn the house for the first time in the first episode (when they are standing outside eating noodles), that is to say after the murder has already taken place... if so how could Vagn have used it for the murder. Or am I missing something?
Yes the plot was full of holes, yes a lot of it didn't make sense, but it was still bloody good TV.
I am coming to this party waaaay late because I've only just watched The Killing on DVD (watched? gulped, gobbled and guzzled more like). Indeed, so many gaping gaps but oh, my(er) weren't the characters and the acting spiffing? Is it just me, though, or is Brix a dead ringer for Lurch?
Although much of the political story line was sort of meandering and superfluous, weren't the pollies divinely life-like? To a man (and woman) self-interested, platitudinous, self-righteous and Machiavellian to a fault. Good points that a couple of people made about the character of Nanna -weirdly and unsatisfactorily unknowable although contradictory, as evidenced by the strange roll-call of her lovers, her work in the sleazy club, her putting money in the bank for the brothers. Oh, yeah, the brothers: any explanation for the huge gap in Theis' and Pernille's breeding program? And while we're rolling: roll on series 2. Wonder if Lund will have developed a different taste in jumpers during her exile in the south?
I believe all can be explained if you accept that at the very top of Danish public life there is a group of corrupt, reclusive, puppet-masters, who never emerge from the shadows, no matter how desperate the situation on the ground becomes.
Known as 'My Group' and working out of 'Department A', this coterie is headed up by Rie's dad and includes all national politicians and the Commissioner of Police.
They are also responsible for introducing mysterious new words into the lexicon, such as 'perp' and 'movers'.
Perhaps a phone hacking or expenses scandal in season 3 will flush them out.
Great blog btw - as someone else mentions, it makes you realize it's not just 'me being slow'
Belated entry to this thread.
Just caught up with the Killing on the re-run.
Agree that the real story was all the lives disrupted by Nanna's death done in (what I hope doesn't become too)typical Scandinavian gloomy style.
But I've also got a discrepancy for you.
When Meyer gets shot the shooter holds the gun in his/her right hand (just checked on iPlayer).
In the last episode Vagn writes out a birthday card for the boy with his left hand.
If the shooter had been left handed we would have seen the "Sara 84" from the angle of the camera shot.
Was Vagn ambidextrous as well as ambiguous?
OMG I am so late to the party.
I think I can explain maybe two or three of the plot holes using my elite Danish cultural knowledge (I have lived in Denmark for THREE YEARS, everyone! If I had admitted to murder, I would have been out by now)
Amir did not recognise Vagn at the police line up because Theis knew how much of a dirty racist he was, and made sure the two never met.
The police really ARE that incompetent in Denmark. In real life, there was a rape case where an attacker was identified to the police but the lead was not investigated for years. There was also a murder where a wife was stabbed to death multiple times by her husband. The cop showed up, on a Sunday, and was keen to get away back to his holiday. The husband said "Well, she often self harmed, so I guess that's what happened last night?" and got away with it until some investigators looked at the case years later.
All Danish people are in fact obsessed with jumpers. Also Meyer would have said "the ratty looking guy in a beanie" but it's REALLY hard to say in Danish after you have been shot in the chest. "Sarajevo" is much easier to say with a bullet in the lung, as you all know. Though with hindsight, Meyer would have seen why everyone was so confused.
Morten was going to clean up properly but it was his holiday time and so he stopped the job and went home. Work life balance is very important.
He was planning on sending some people later but then there was a sudden murder case involving that room. OOPS. He could not have seen that coming!
The point of the Troels storyline was to showcase the Danish political system and come up with really cool names for the political parties so you knew who they were but they were not real political party names. Then you could do serious satire about them to make viewers feel clever about understanding them machinations.
Pretentious people who have not read Faust, call themselves Faust on dating websites.
In Denmark, everyone on dating.dk is a massive ho.
Morten is just incompetent and only used to covering up. He is so used to cover ups, that he would cover up evidence that clears his boss.
Um.......
Danish people usually do NOT have a supply of black fasteners but they are called "strips". You can use them if you are some sort of removal man, in the police or a soldier. They are for keeping things together and also handcuffing people. The police used them famously to illegally detain a bunch of peaceful protestors in subzero temperatures on the street for several hours in Copenhagen.
The cab driver was waiting for the right question.
Lund should never have allowed her son to get his ear pierced but he was at Roskilde at the time and ANYTHING GOES. Or something.
I hope my superior Danish cultural knowledge has been of some use.
Hi all,
Sorry to come so late to the discussion, but I missed the series on TV and have only just finished it on DVD. WOW!
But I have one small question. What is the deal with the photo that Morten gives Troels at the end. I know it shows him with nanna and therefore he lied about knowing here -- but I doubt the police are going to care now that they know who did it.
Maybe the photo means more than we know....?
Thoughts would be much appreciated.
Also the flat being untouched for 2weeks is suspicious? And what was the problem with Holck? Did he run over that guy just to cover up his affair? Did he know more that he let on about the bloody flat?
OK ,that's three questions - but hopefully you can help!
Apologies if this is covered elsewhere ins posts, but I couldn't see it.
Jess
Forget the psychologicals and the 'whodunnits' just soak up the atmosphere - the acting, the music, the sets, the editing..............
light cable in Lund's apartment building?
red herring / coincidence
necklace
in ep 20, Vagn is in the 'missing' photo wearing the girly necklace - i guess that Nanna snatched it off him during the attack
Jan identifying only the jumper?
couldn't see clearly, but I got impression the shooter was wearing a balaclava
Morten and the flat
people in panic do stupid things
ENTIRE TROELS STORYLINE
agree that this plotline ran out of steam once Troels was cleared. Till then though, it was gripping stuff.
How many people drove that sodding car?
Troels drove to the flat, had bender, too drunk to drive so took cab to lodge, leaving the keys to the car in the flat which Vegn conveniently took
stealing the security tape
Morten took it when he panicked and thought Troels was the culprit and was frantically trying to cover it up. Seems he never took the time to look at the tape. But later, maybe he did, and then passed it to Lund, esp as it exonerated him and confirmed Holck's involvement.
Is Bergt the worst criminal profiler in the history of policing ?
hey, he suggested a look at the old cases which revealed a link to the other victim, so some credit is due. Careful washing of fingers? A bit strange - a love/hate thing - Vegn maybe felt like giving a manicure? No DNA - once he kidnapped her - he held her captive thinking of what to do and then calmly cleaned the scene up
Why does it take Sarah Lund a week to look at the file of unexplained murders and after the first one hits the jackpot, why doesn't she bother to look into any of the others?
she was obsessed with the lead of the day. eventually she did browse the whole file, hit jackpot with the 1st with the necklace
Is a hit and run followed by trying to shoot a police officer a bit of an overreaction to being caught out in a handful of political dirty tricks?
maybe he was messed up after divorce / Nanna dumping him
Is putting a puppy in a cardboard box a reliable way of ensuring that it makes no sound?
no, but even if Vegn did not respect women, maybe he was gentle with dogs and boys
Why did Vagn don a gigantic khaki raincoat prior to his 'suicide by righteous murder' bid?
it's cold and wet in the marshes of Denmark
Why did the police delete that politician who looks a bit like David Walliams's phone number off Nanna's phone? How easy, exactly, is it to stage a hanging inside a Russian freighter without anybody noticing?
I wonder, too
How did Nanna's passport end up in the cupboard? What kind of murderer goes to the trouble of cleaning her fingernails but doesn't check for a dropped passport?
it slid under the gap between the floor and the cover
How did Vagn know to go and get the school photo out of the book in the box in the warehouse and why didn't he bother to do so the first time the murder was investigated?
case was dead, until the body was dredged up and linked to Nanna's case. Only then he thought to cover stuff up
How did he get down the stairs? etc?
interesting questions, but not critical to the overall plot
Why did Rie cancel the plumber the Monday afterwards? If Morten told her then about the flat how come she was so shocked when she found out later about Troels' suicide bid???
Fab blog, only just watched the series and going through the universal withdrawal process...
Brilliant post and comments. Thank you! I can come down from the first series which has just finished screening in Australia - subtitles, dim lighting, prickly jumpers and all. If any other TV police investigation been handled like this, we'd be up in arms but somehow Lund and Meyer and co. get away with it completely. In spite of all the loose ends - maybe that's why Lund looked so disconsolate at the end - The Killing is a great series.
Love this blog, got hooked on The Killing here in Australia, half way through The Killing 11 now. Watched whole of series one in 4 days last week with a friend who is recovering from surgery. Got totally hooked and apologies to all who have not seen it 2-3 times like me. Vagn has a band-aid on his neck when the police first come to the BL flat and then you see it again a few days later when he brings pizza home and is sitting at the kitchen table. He is clearly a sick puppy and spends his time sucking up big time to the BL's and killed Nanna when it looked like she was threatening the happy family he imagined he had. Maybe he had the hots too and the muslin guy not likely to be a favourite with him either. I think Vagn generally gave Pernille the creeps and sort of got in the way. Question for Danish people out there...wouldn't town hall employ the police?? Hence the ability for the lord mayor to manipulate them...re Nannas phone log, old guy forced to resign. Police corruption endemic around the world it looks. Great show, will watch again...loved the look at the ramifications of a shocking murder to not just family but police, wrongly accused suspects etc
Nanny snatched the necklace from Vagn's neck during the struggle and held on tight, probably to incriminate him, although as no one recognised it as his it didn't really work.
But take a look at episode 1 again, Vagn's has a plaster on his neck, presumably a result of her taking it.
Also in episode 1, Troels asks Morten about his new shoes. Can we assume he had to get new ones because he wore his previous ones when cleaning the blood on the stairs at the flat?
The lesson for investigating officers everywhere: remove from suspect any hat that declares a lifetime of servile disappointment and check for sinister hair.
Nearly a year later and just watched all 20 episodes over 2 days for the first time from a boxed set. Fantastic acting!
On edge in every minute of 20 hours and so confused at the denouement.
Grateful for all you contributors for sorting it all out for me. Your explanations, fantasies and alternative plots are all appreciated.
Now for Killing2 boxed set. Have already seen Killing3 when it was broadcast.
Would the lovely Charlotte tell her grieving sister, a couple of weeks after the brutal murder of her beloved niece, 'At some point
you have to move on' ?
All acting was superb.
Even the 1 episode actors Ditte,
the young woman at Merkur, the
old boy - just fantastic.
Amir a bit dim, and would Nanna
have fallen in love with him, nice though he was? At some
point she would have moved on.
Why oh why did they kill off Meyer?
Really cross about this.
Am I the only one who believes that Morten is implicitly threatening to blackmail Troels at the end of the 20th episode, that he makes it clear to him that he will exert power over him in the future? That is the significance of the picture at the end. People who dismiss the importance of this picture misread the nature of politics and the tabloid press in contemporary Scandiland as well as Hartman's classic passive-agressive personality, which broods over anything sullying his ivory-night persona. Why would Morten want to help Hartmann. He hates him over the firing. The series makes this pretty clear in the earlier episodes, but then backs away from it in the end. (as it does on a variety of occasions on other issues), but if you revisit the closing scenes between the two men, Hartmann looks tormented by the hold he has over him. He can at a future date, if he chooses, expose Hartmann as lying to the police about Nanna and claiming that he engineered a cover up of incriminating evidence at the flat. Of course this would damage his career. Or perhaps there is more here. Or maybe, it's darker, and he was involved with Vagn in the rape? Can anyone really be as guilty looking as this guy while being innocent?
Did anyone else notice the role
played by Stonehenge in the Birk
Larsen garage? Also the awful
headmistress with her little Toto
dog- just after the Witch grabbed
him in Wiz of Oz. Poetry.
And yes, Morton was very dodgy- perhaps Vagn moved him at some time......a match made in hell.
He was blackmailing Troells, I think. Why has no one started on
The Killing III. Naomi, where are
you?
It's 2016! I watched the series on Netflix over a few days. So angry and frustrated at loop holes I came across this blog via Google.
Even though nobody will probably read this response, I feel keyboard therapy as I type.
I have read every post above. Great stuff everyone. Needed to read it. I have one thing remaining to get off my chest. The bloke (volunteer) who originally drove the car with the election posters and was sick, went to terrorise his mother and then jumped off the balcony.
Lund visited him in hospital with a copy of the school year book with photos. The bloke pointed at Olivers sinister looking mate with the glasses, and then started having a heart attack or something. And that was that.
Great acting. Great emotional roller coaster but, in the end - what a load of old flannel.
Oh, and I told my pal I was watching this. He confessed to buying his wife a Lund style jumper. It was "ninety ****ing quid". She never wears it as too itchy :-)
Cheers, Walts
Lol. You lot are all fucking hilarious. I had the good luck of being laid up in bed with a cold for exactly the same amount of time as it takes to sleep and watch The Killing, and of course was left with various questions (not, I'd like to point out, that I didn't think it wasn't brilliant - it so totally was - but, let's face it, there was a hole or two). You lot have - in combination with my recovery - made my day :D
Ditto, previous comment.
My lingering question?
How did Vagn not only know where the Mette evidence was stored but also the room number?
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