Said media, of course, would rather ask him about his alleged affairs - affairs that are suddenly plastered all over the front page of that wildly important fake newspaper, the Seattle Record. Our man finishes his ’77 Pomerol and then shoots hoops, crowing for the assembled media about his Seattle all-stars. So while Linden and Holder dive into the sort of investigative minutiae they should have been doing from the start (checking the campaign car, poring over gas tanks and mileages, creating a timeline), Richmond is left alone to … do what? Kill himself? Finally sign up for Gmail? Do what literally any actual powerful human would do in the face of weird stalking from a homicide detective: lawyer up? Haha, no. The hooker has I.D.’d Richmond as Orpheus (except no she didn’t - more on that later) and so Linden announces “I’m leaving Councilman.” And she leaves. (Except in his version Orpheus isn’t a happy-go-lucky shirtless busker, he’s a death obsessed mayoral candidate lunatic.) Just when we’re about to scream “turn on a light, already!” the inevitable happens: Linden’s cell phone rings. 1!) Richmond, rather than saying literally anything that could diffuse the tension in the room or remove the presumption of guilt, whispers a very Basil Exposition–y rundown of the famous Greek myth. Linden accuses Richmond of being Orpheus - but then admits not knowing who Orpheus is.
What about Thrillist?”) In the dark, she and the councilman - flashing his absolute best, rock-gargling Batman voice to date - deliver one of those “important” sorts of dramatic exchanges that no doubt sound better on someone’s Final Draft document at one in the morning than they do in the mouths of actors. (“Have you tried Gilt Group? They’ve got some good deals. We began the finale right where we ended the previous week: Linden in Richmond’s dark office, her face a mask of horror when she sees how few e-mails the poor bastard actually receives. And, unlike Rosie, we were denied even that.īut before our ranting gets the better of us, let’s recap. By last night’s episode, we were Rosie Larsen: huddled, miserable in the dark woods waiting for the killer to reveal himself. But the finale was just the last in a long, frustrating, and soggy line of cheap fake-outs, preposterous 180s, and colossal storytelling disappointments. And we could have lived without resolution if there had been anything else at all worth living for. Sud makes it abundantly clear in the above quote, she never intended to give us poor saps what we thought we deserved. Now, does that mean that a creative person owes an audience resolution? Wholeheartedly, we say: no. If the season begins with a question - a question you, y’know, plastered on every subway train in America - then it’s not unreasonable to expect an answer to that question in return for the thirteen hours we’ve committed. If you complain, the chef self-righteously lets you know that this isn’t one of those places where you can be “happy” and “walk away satisfied.” If what you want is reasonably prepared food fit for human consumption, well, there are plenty of restaurants that do that.Īnyway, Veena: mission accomplished! We are not satisfied.
This would be the equivalent of walking into a restaurant - a restaurant clearly labeled as “restaurant” that serves “food” to people at “meal times” - sitting down to order, and having the chef throw a bowl of rabbit droppings at your head.
There are plenty of shows that do that, in 45 minutes or whatever amount of time, where that is expected and the audience can rest assured that at the end of blank, they will be happy and they can walk away from their TV satisfied. It’s a show where nothing is what it seems, so throw out expectations. We said from the very beginning this is the anti-cop cop show. We never said you’ll get closure at the end of season 1.
In the wake of a season finale so jaw-droppingly horrible that ordinarily rational professional television critics are already calling it “the worst of all-time,” showrunner Veena Sud dropped this stinkbomb in an interview with the equally rational, equally miffed Alan Sepinwall: