The Killing - Season 4 Premiere - Recap: People In Glass Houses

In the third season finale, Linden (Mireille Enos) murdered her boss/ex-lover Skinner (Elias Koteas) in cold blood after discovering he was the killer she'd been looking for over the course of the season. Her brutal act was a reaction to that betrayal, yet "Blood In the Water" establishes that Linden may never stop regretting having done it. She and Holder (Joel Kinnaman), who helped cover up the crime, are now walking on eggshells in their daily lives, and both have a lot to lose if their crime is discovered. Linden may never see her son, Jack, again; Holder, meanwhile, has just learned that his girlfriend, Caroline (Jewel Staite), is pregnant. In choosing to go all-in on his future, Holden asks her to marry him, and their engagement -- coupled with the possibility of a family of their own -- raises the stakes considerably. But Holder is much more together than Linden, who is teetering on the brink of a complete emotional breakdown. Whether it's tearing apart the bed she and Skinner shared together, or lashing out at the pharmacist simply for giving her instructions on how to take the Plan B pill (to destroy whatever possibility of pregnancy by Skinner), it's clear that Linden isn't well. And it's her uneasiness that is compromising their ability to stay inconspicuous.

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While Enos is as fantastic here as she's always been, I feel her character has been compromised a bit, in that many of the plot developments rely on Linden making mistakes that the character would be unlikely to make. I know this season is only six episodes, but I find myself hoping that the "Crazy Linden" arc is one that passes quickly, since the Linden we've known for three seasons wouldn't have just left the gun and the shell casings from the Skinner murder lying around on the premise that she'll "get to them later." So when one of the casings goes missing, it feels like an unearned plot development. It also seems strange that they're making Holder's partner, Reddick (Henry Gregg), arbitrarily suspicious of Linden and Holder's story. While not a bad cop, Reddick hasn't exactly been shown to be the keenest eye on the force, so it seems kind of random that he'd be the one to start picking up on discrepancies in Linden's and Holder's stories. But that's neither here nor there, since we're pretty early into the season, and the season promises a brand new case that just might be the most compelling yet...

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Kyle Stansberry (Tyler Ross) is a cadet at an all-boys military family, and while that might sound normal enough, the circumstances of our introduction to him couldn't be any farther from normal. Kyle is the sole survivor of a massacre committed against his exorbitantly wealthy family, as his mother and father, his two sisters (ages 16 and 6, respectively), have been murdered, execution-style, while Kyle managed to survive. But only barely, as the gunshot to his head has left him with a severe -- albeit convenient -- case of amnesia regarding everything that happened that night. It's a fascinating case, not simply from a narrative standpoint, but also from a production design standpoint. The all-white, modern stylings of the Stansberry home -- seen in both daylight and evening settings -- makes for a truly stark visual when bathed in the tirelessly gory trails of blood spatter that characterize the crime. This isn't a massacre just in namesake -- this was downright overkill. And Kyle is understandably devastated. Hell, if he did this, he sure as hell doesn't remember having done it, since he's inconsolable over the death of his younger sister, in particular. This, despite his family planning to all but cut him off, financially, when he turned eighteen three months down the line. The media theorizes it was a murder-suicide attempt on Kyle's part, but neither Linden nor Holder seem to believe it, nor does his commanding officer, Colonel Margaret Rayne (Joan Allen), the headmaster of the all-boys military academy. For reasons yet to be explained, she seems to have a particular attachment to Kyle, despite having had him as a student for only a handful of months.

Credit: Netflix

It's early into the season, but the mystery is well-established. Kyle certainly doesn't seem to be the type to murder his family, yet other students admit the kid is kind of a ghost, hardly commanding any notice whatsoever by his classmates. And while he's been all but cut out by his family, he doesn't seem particularly bitter towards them about it or anything. In fact, he breaks down in his hospital room in the days following his surgery, as he's being forced to now live with his uncle, whom he's never met before. There's a sense of crushing loneliness with Kyle, but also a feeling that this loneliness is ongoing, a continuous isolation from anyone who might actually care about him. While I suppose it could be argued that this would be cause for a violent murder, Kyle doesn't seem the type. Then again, neither did Linden, and now she's scrambling on the floor trying to find bullet shell casings she's lost in order to continue covering up the murder of a man she thought she loved. Worse, she's having to pretend not to know anything when Skinner's hysterical, panic-stricken daughter comes knocking on her door late at night, demanding to see her father, since he left with Linden when last anyone saw him. The weight of Skinner's murder is bearing down on Linden, and it doesn't seem likely to let up any time soon, even if she does have a new case to distract her from it. For example, while she's able to make the relevant observation that the Stansberry's glass house made their daily goings-on visible to all of their neighbors from a distance, she's still not exactly thinking about the case when she leaves a voicemail for Holder to inform him of this, as she talks with a stilted, zombie-like delivery that suggests her mind is somewhere else entirely. Linden is on the case, but can this Linden -- distracted by her overwhelming sense of guilt -- solve the crime? I suppose we'll see. Until then, "Blood In the Water" is a very effective, atmospheric opening to the final six episodes of The Killing.

The Killing Season 4 is available for streaming on Netflix.