episode alert: the killing, season 3 episode 8 (S03 E08)

courtesy AMCtv, source

I realize it might seem a bit strange to heartily recommend an episode from a television series when  your readers might not be familiar with it to begin with. There is a spoiler-ish quality, too, to pointing out a single episode that is not the pilot--if you happened to watch the episode I'm recommending today, for example, but have not watched The Killing before, you won't be privy to the history of Linden and Holder's friendship.  The point of my little "episode alert" feature, however is to highlight particularly powerful, entertaining, and/or significant episodes, and most of the them won't be the earliest ones of a series.  I hope, that if you love good television like I do, and you happen to stumble upon what I've written, perhaps you'll remember something I've singled out.  Entertainment Weekly occasionally provides primers of information for various shows, including episodes that are critical for appreciating them, and that's essentially my goal here.

Whew.  Now that I've gotten that out of the way...I bring you the eighth episode of the third, very lucky season of The Killing, which also happens to be the most recent episode.  It's lucky, both for us and for everyone involved with the show, because it was actually cancelled very shortly after the second season wrapped.  Viewers were annoyed and disappointed with the meandering plot lines, and the "Who killed Rosie Larsen?" question, which SHOULD have been solved at the end of the first season but was inexplicably pushed forth all through the second, became tiresome, weighing down a series that had been promising.  The cancellation news was no surprise, and even big fans of the show had to admit it had gone terribly wrong. When Netflix, basking in the glow of their House of Cards success, expressed some interest in renewing The Killing, however, AMC jumped back into the ring.  I haven't read enough about the renewed third season to discover if there have been substantial changes on the writing staff, but I can tell you one thing for sure: it's better than either season that came before it.

The ever-dark, dingy, and rain-soaked Seattle of the first two seasons remains, and the creepy score continues to provide a haunting backdrop in the final moments of each episode, but there is a fresh tension within the new storyline.  Holder and Linden are reunited and on the hunt for a serial killer preying on homeless girls, plucked from a gritty underworld.  The serial killer's MO matches that from the case that plunged Linden into psychological turmoil years ago, which instills the new case with urgency, as the man convicted for the earlier crime (played to perfection by the extremely-capable-of-being-creepy Peter Saarsgard) is days away from his death sentence.

With four more episodes to go in the season, we knew as we tuned in last week that Pastor Mike, who held Linden hostage in her car, could not possibly be the killer they were searching for.  That didn't make the episode any less riveting, and while Linden spent most of it in the car, her efforts to discern PM's intentions, attempt to relate to him, and simultaneously reveal her location to Holder combined to make for an incredibly tense and emotional hour.  That Holder was visibly distressed about her abduction, to the point of heedlessly acting on erroneous information from his plucky informant, made it all the more engaging.  The fact that we witnessed Saarsgard's first hint of real panic due to his impending execution was simply a bonus, and to cap it off, the episode concluded with the menacing flash of headlights, presumably from the killer's car, bearing down upon Bullet, arguably the character at the heart of the season.  It was truly one of the finest hours of television I've seen in a long while, and certainly the best that has come from The Killing.  It might even be worth slogging through the first two seasons just to get to this one.

episode alert: the sopranos pilot (S01 E01)

source

I've been looking for a few new theme ideas to help keep me up and posting on the old blog, and being a television addict aficionado, I thought it might be fun to highlight individual episodes that I, in my infinite and profound expertise, deem compelling and/or spectacular.  *It is difficult at times to convey deep sarcasm properly with the typed word, but please note its presence here.

These episodes won't always be current (this first one dates back to 1998), but I will try to stick to things that are easily accessible.  Most of the series that I adore are on Netflix, and should your interest be piqued by anything I write about that isn't, I can promise it will be worth the $2.99 charge on iTunes.  I'll also tell you that while almost every episode I choose to highlight will be from a series that I watch regularly and admire, there might be a few exceptions.

With no further adieu, I submit for your scrutiny the very first episode of The Sopranos.  It seems apropos this week, don't you think? I'm always telling people that it's important not to judge an entire series and its possibilities on the pilot.  There is a lot of pressure on them to deliver-especially these days, to an even greater degree than when The Sopranos first aired-and there is simply no way, even in an hour-long format, that a series can really give the viewer enough of the story to ensure that their interest will be sustained over an entire season.  The best that most pilots can do is introduce the primary characters in an organized fashion, begin to develop at least one plot line, and provide a few memorable cases that effectively convey the genre of the series (i.e. if a comedy, it needs to have a few good laughs; if a drama, a shocking or tears-inducing event would be nice).  Now, the ironic thing about everything I'm writing right now is that even though we probably shouldn't judge the pilot, it absolutely has to have that expectation.  Most often, the pilot is the only part of a series that ever sees the light of day.  While I might advise you to watch at least three to four episodes before determining whether or now you'll keep watching, the reality is that if the powers that be in the entertainment industry don't think a pilot is worth spending additional cash to bring to full production, it's not going to happen.

The entire long-winded paragraph I've just forced upon you is all for naught, as it turns out, when it comes to the pilot episode of The Sopranos.  It is truly excellent, containing all the hallmarks of what makes a good pilot and even more.  This is a great accomplishment, considering that the story of a mob boss and his inevitable network of henchmen, lieutenants, and goons is a confusing prospect, particularly as it's occasionally difficult to decipher the many inscrutable nicknames when spoken with a Jersey/Italian accent as thick as peanut butter.  None of that matters in the pilot, however, which is more about the troubled anti-hero as he begins to face changing responsibilities in the "regime", beautifully conveyed by a metaphor involving ducks, if you can believe it.  During the final scenes, which set the stage for the countless times Tony Soprano sits across from Dr. Malfi, we were hanging on every word.

I've actually only seen a handful of Sopranos episodes, and I'm sure there are plentiful examples of great ones.  For once, the pilot is a good start.