Gah! This show! It just keeps getting better and better every week! I’m finding that there is so much going on now – with everyone – that it’s really no longer about who killed Rosie Larsen anymore. Yes, I want to find out, and my brain is still spinning on all the new information this ep provided, but at the same time, I really care about a lot of these characters, and there’s so much more going on outside of the investigation that it’s become more about the lives of these people, rather than the death of one girl.
I’m going to insert a brief apology here, and a spoiler alert. A lot is going on in MY life, too, all of a sudden, and I can’t seem to find the time to put all of the energy and thought into this post as I want to. Nor will the next week or two be any better – but I should be back on track after that, hopefully! It’s kind of a shame, too, because I really loved this episode, and it bothers me that I can’t write about it in the way that it deserves. Also, I ain’t got time for no dilly-dally, so if you haven’t watched up to and including the final line of dialogue, STOP reading now, because I’ll be needing to talk about it shortly!
But first, let’s talk about everyone else, shall we? We’ll start with one of Jamie’s ghosts from the past – a woman with whom I assume he’d once been in a relationship. Interesting, because until now, we’ve never really seen him talk to women. Well, Gwen, but – yeah. Jamie’s always been married to his job, and sort of asexual – unless you count how close he seems to be to Richmond. So if finding out that he’d once had a girlfriend wasn’t really a surprise, finding out that he was getting information from her for Darren (after having been fired) was even less so. I’m not entirely sure he’s right about Mayor Adams being behind the faked toll bridge photo, but I do love that he knows about it, and that he was able to bring that information to a Darren Richmond who’d all but died inside. Maybe that’s what he’ll need to get out of bed.
Stan Larsen. Dude can not catch a break! He keeps trying to do the right thing, but that seems to put his family in danger or land him in deeper trouble than he’d already found. Yet when he gives into the pressure from his former life, it also seems to put his family in danger and land him in ever deeper trouble. Now he’s looking at jail time, losing his business, his kids – he has no idea where his wife is. And then there was what I’m going to call the Terry Incident. Stan is having a rough go of it, and Day 18 was one of the roughest. He’s a lost soul, just struggling to stay afloat until he can figure out a way to make things work out for everyone.
Speaking of family trouble, Linden is not having the easiest time of it, either. Bless Holder for sending her home to Jack when he did. He didn’t even know about the custody battle Jack’s dad (why can’t I remember his name?) is launching, and neither of them could have guessed that her baby daddy would be waiting for her in the dark like that. I mean, dude, seriously? I’m sure a feverish Jack could still fall asleep if you’d left a lamp on, or something. Sitting there silent in the dark is just creepy. Especially when you know the ex is carrying a loaded weapon. Bad form, Baby Daddy.
I actually really loved the scenes between Mitch and the young girl staying at the hotel (is she the same actress who’s in Ringer right now? I’ll have to look that up), even though I knew the kid was going to break her heart. It’s impossible for that to end well – the girl is not Rosie, and no amount of youthful runaway wisdom from her is going to change the fact that Rosie is dead. But she really seemed to bring Mitch some comfort, and got her talking about Rosie a bit – that’s something she’s never really done yet. We don’t know how well either Larsen parent knew their daughter, but it seemed to me that maybe Mitch was starting to admit that maybe Rosie wasn’t entirely the same girl she thought she was. I think Mitch is beginning to acknowledge that Rosie had secrets.
By the way, hearing Rosie’s voice recorded on Alexi’s phone was pretty haunting, even though she was technically dead before we ever met her. Some pretty incredible moments between Alexi and Linden came from that, too!
Which brings us to young Alexi and his freaking earth-shattering revelation right at the end of the episode! Who the heck is Rosie’s real father?! Is it Jasper’s dad? ‘Cause EW, man! Someone should have put a stop to Rosie and Jasper’s relationship right away! Although…maybe they did…maybe that’s how Rosie found out.
I don’t think so, though. If Stan and Mitch even remotely suspected that…like, do they KNOW that Rosie knew? If it’s even true? If they’d thought that had had any bearing on her murder case, they would have told Linden, wouldn’t they? So many secrets.
Okay, I’m not even going to go into my theories for who killed Rosie (it was Rick!) this time…instead, I want to wonder aloud at who Mitch would have cheated on Stan with, if she did (I mean, before Day 17). Keep in mind, it was the birth of his daughter that brought Stan back from the dark side, so clearly he thought Rosie was his. He and Mitch were together – so who would Mitch have slept with 17 years ago that would have caused her to lie to her husband about whose baby she was having? Or did she even know who the father was?
And who did Terry get a call from that made her get all dolled up and go meet the dark fancy car with tinted windows? Possibly the person Rosie was afraid of? If it was someone Terry was seeing through Beau Soleil, that would explain why Alexi and Rosie kept seeing the car at the ferry dock on casino nights. Easy to assume it was Jasper’s dad – Terry was clearly surprised to get the call. But while HER father mentioned him earlier, he mentioned another mystery man, as well.
Ah, the plot – she sure doth thicken, doth she not?
I love this show. 
The Killing airs Sundays at 9pm EST on AMC
