The Skull Beneath the Skin: An Advance Review of the First Three Episodes of AMC's The Killing

Of John Webster (who wrote "The Duchess of Malta"), poet T.S. Eliot said that he was "much possessed by death" and "saw the skull beneath the skin." Eliot's quotation would equally apply to the writing team--overseen by executive producer Veena Sud (Cold Case)--of AMC's newest drama, taut and suspenseful murder mystery The Killing (based on hit Danish drama Forbrydelsen, or "The Crime"), which launches this Sunday. In exploring the disappearance (and, yes, death) of a Seattle teenager, the detectives in this slow-burn but addictive series are themselves seeing what lies beneath the surface of the seemingly placid individuals they encounter in the course of their investigation. "Who Killed Rosie Larsen?" is the question hovering over the action here, but it's matters of mortality that link each of the characters in this whip-smart and absorbing drama. While this is first and foremost a whodunit, what's being dramatized here isn't just the murder investigation, but the emotional impact of a young girl's death and the ways in which murder--more than any crime--rip away any semblance of privacy from the victims and those around them. That includes the dead girl herself, a Laura Palmer-esque teenager concealing a secret life from her family, and her parents, loving-but-brittle mother Mitch Larsen (Michelle Forbes) and gruff Stanley (Brent Sexton). The two took their sons camping for the weekend, leaving Rosie on her own and never thought twice about the fact that they didn't...

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