Rosie Larsen (Katie Findlay) is a seemingly sweet teenaged girl whose body is found in the trunk of a car submerged in a lake. While Rosie is first thought to be missing or off with her former boyfriend, when her body is discovered, a full investigation is launched, especially since the car in which it was found belongs to the campaign of Seattle Mayoral hopeful Councilman Darren Richmond (Billy Campbell, The 4400 and The Rocketeer). As her family struggles to keep it together, her mother Mitch (Michelle Forbes, True Blood) and her father Stan (Brent Sexton) drift apart, while Mitch's sister Terry (Jamie Anne Allman) does everything she can to keep the family going.
Detective Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) is all set to move from Seattle and her cop job to San Francisco to marry her fiancé, Rick (Callum Keith Rennie) when her boss sticks her with one final case - the Rosie Linden murder. To complicate matters, Detective Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) from County is slated to take her spot and so they must work together and share a space until she clears this case. Linden is quiet, determined and driven, whereas Holder is brash, crude and blasé. Can they work together?
The answer is yes, but it's a trial by fire the entire way. To make matters more difficult, Linden has no place to live in Seattle since she sold her condo, so she and her 13-year-old son Jack have been staying with an old friend named Reg on her boat. That's okay at the beginning because each day, she says she'll only be here "one more day" until she finds herself obsessed with the case and with a fiancé who is no longer returning her calls. The case is a prickly one since politicians are involved, and although Darren Richmond at first seems to be a genuinely good man, there's more going on beneath the surface than they first realized. His campaign managers Gwen Eaton (Kristin Lehman), who is also his lover, and Jamie Wright (Eric Ladin), who seems to have no compassion for anyone, don't make the investigation any easier. As things unfold and the brutality of Rosie's last hours are revealed, her family comes completely unhinged, while Richmond's campaign seems to unravel before his eyes. The season finale ends with a gripping episode which may just result in one more body.
The Killing: The Complete First Season is well-paced and beautifully shot. The first episode is especially haunting, but the entire series is filmed through the dripping curtain of the constant Seattle rain and it makes for a dour but beautiful landscape. Mireille Enos as Linden is spot-on - she can convey so much with just her expressions whereas Joel Kinnaman as Holder is completely annoying, which means he is playing his role perfectly. The Killing: The Complete First Season is just an amazing series, but one that you have to stick with. It's not a show you can simply watch an episode here and there and keep up and honestly, once things get rolling, you won't want to miss a moment. Watching it on Blu-ray is the optimal viewing experience not only because of the visuals, but also because the patter of rain will constantly surround you and it adds a lot to the experience.
Rounding out the series is a handful of deleted scenes, commentary on select episodes, a gag reel, a featurette on how Writer/Producer Veena Sud brought the series to American TV, and finally an extended season finale.
If you didn't catch The Killing: The Complete First Season when it first aired, do yourself a favor and check it out. It's not the typical crime drama like C.S.I. or Criminal Minds, both of which I love, mind you, but it's a different pace and style than the standard and excellent for it.
