What’s been talked about in Vancouver circles for months is finally official. AMC announced today it will resurrect The Killing for a third season of the Seattle-set murder mystery, which begins filming twelve new episodes here on February 25th. Last season our dynamic detective duo Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) had a tough time of it as they closed in on the Rosie Larsen killer: starting with Holder finding out he’d been set up to frame a Seattle mayoral candidate Darren Richmond with a doctored toll booth photo and then getting beat up by thugs at the Wapi Eagle casino and left for dead, while Linden ditched her fiance, was suspended, lost custody of her son, got bashed on the head at the casino and committed to a psych ward for a day.Then they both went on the lam from the Seattle police force. No wonder Linden looked done-in walking away from the Larsen home in a final scene.
Events in the third season reportedly take place a year and a half later when Holder’s “search for a runaway girl leads him to discover a gruesome string of murders that connects to a previous murder investigation by Linden”, who is no longer a detective. That won’t last. It wouldn’t be The Killing without the comedy stylings of Linden & Holder, especially all the funny Holderisms — calling Chinese takeout “fu manchu poo poo MSG crap” while arguing that “pickles are vegetables” or yammering in the casino “Where are the ladies?…I’m talkin’ real ladies. Ain’t no party without no trim”.
Showrunner Veena Sud returns too but no other cast, as far as I know. According to a TV Line scoop, new characters include the mother Danette Lutz of the missing girl Kallie; a teen tough guy/gal Bullet who looks out for local street girls like Tiny and young male hooker Twitch; some Death Row inmates including convicted murderer Tom Seward and young gangbanger Alton Singleterry; and Linden’s old partner Ed Skinner. So a scuzzy underworld but with no political angle. I’ll miss Billy Campbell et al but hopefully we’ll get to see Patrick Gilmore’s sleezy billionaire Tom Drexler return somehow. He does like hookers.