Well, well, well. With only one episode left to go, the murder investigation on The Killing suddenly becomes slightly more interesting. Colonel Rayne, Fielding, and Knopf are all in some kind of cahoots. Did Rayne give the orders to kill the Stansbury family as Linden suspects? Maybe. But we still don’t know why.
What I am sure of is that Rayne is Kyle’s real mother. Her dance instructor said she never got over the child she lost, and during the showdown with Kyle, she hugs him and tells him, “I would never let anyone hurt you.” That, my friends, is what we call major foreshadowing.
Linden and Holder try to get a warrant to search Rayne’s Camaro, but are denied. Turns out the judge is an alum of St. George’s, and a major donor. But Rayne voluntarily offers up her car to the police. Unfortunately, they don’t find anything because, Rayne recently had her car reupholstered.
Rayne confesses to an affair with Phillip—they have matching credit card receipts to the same out-of-town places where Kyle had piano recitals. But I’m not sure if an affair was really going on, or if it was just Rayne’s chance to see Kyle. An affair is an easier thing to explain to the police than being the mother of the child whose entire family has been massacred.
With Fielding and Knopf recreating the hazing that occurred the night his family was murdered, Kyle remembers more. They took him to the bathroom and made him masturbate to a picture of his mother while chanting “Kill, kill, kill.”
Because that’s normal?!?
Kyle runs to Rayne for help, and sees that Rayne has the same toy soldiers as the ones his father gave him every year for his birthday. Kyle runs from Rayne too, and the episode ends with Kyle being hunted in the woods by Fielding and Knopf. This is one seriously messed up military school.
While all that is going on, Reddick is playing Holder and Linden like a fiddle. He tells Linden that the only reason he dredged the lake is because Holder confessed in an NA meeting. He tells Holder the only reason he did it, is because Linden threw Skinner’s cell phone in the lake. He tells both of them that “killers get caught because they do something stupid.” Reddick is working Holder hard—telling him to get out in front of this story and to think about what’s best for his baby. “It’s only a matter of time until I get proof,” he tells Linden. And the thing is, Linden and Holder, were careless and stupid. As I’ve said all along, they may be good at solving crimes, but they’re not so good at covering them up. I don’t remember Reddick being this savvy last season, but I’m willing to go with it.
Honestly, Holder has every reason to turn on Linden, starting with the fact that he’s not the one who killed Skinner. Linden and Holder fight viciously, saying awful things to one another that can’t be taken back. “I was wrong about you. You’re just a f—ing junkie like the rest of them,” she tells him. “I’m the one who’s f—ed? The only people you care about are dead,” Holder tells her. It’s kind of heartbreaking to see this great partnership and friendship crumble under cruel words.
Linden goes to see her birth mother (I KNEW we’d be seeing Frances Fisher again), and asks her to take care of Jack if anything happens to her. “I’m not good at staying. I think you’re a lot like me,” her mother tells her. Sure, leaving your son with the mother who abandoned you isn’t an excellent parenting choice. Thankfully, it turns out Jack will not need looking after. He only told his mother his father didn’t want him anymore to make her feel needed. Jack heads back to his dad’s but not before Linden gives him a teary speech and tells him, “You’re my best thing, Jack.”
Holder and Linden are both crumbling. Holder goes to church and screams at the nuns, “Where is He?” His relationship with Caroline is in a rocky place as well although she seems to have forgiven him for the disastrous family dinner.
The main problem with this final season is that I’m really only interested in the Holder and Linden story. With only one episode to go, I’m thinking the only option for Linden is to turn herself in. What do you think? Talk about it below.
Other thoughts on “Truth Asunder:”
•Holder quote of the episode: “Hell hath no fury like a crazy psycho bitch.”
•I was really happy to see Amy Seimetz as Danielle Lutz. She was a great character last season, and it was good to have some sort of closure with her character and with Kallie… although Holder was unbelievably cruel to her.
•So, Reddick did recognize Bethany’s ring. Good for him.
•How many Family Days does St. George’s have? There was one the day the Stansbury family was murdered, and there’s already another one? Not that much time could have passed because Caroline doesn’t look that pregnant.
Amy Amatangelo is a Boston-based freelance writer, a member of the Television Critics Association and a regular contributor to Paste. You can follow her on Twitter or her blog.