The Killing’ Day 5: Not so hot for teacher
OMG, was that Chrissy Seaver?
- Carole Segal/AMC
- I don’t care if you take your shirt off. I still think you did it!
Hey, look! It stopped raining! Final- aw crap. Here it comes again. Well, it was nice while it lasted.
Day five of “The Killing” boasts practically drought-like conditions, at least in the beginning. The break in the downpour seems to offer Linden and Holder a chance to compose themselves and make some real headway in the case as they follow up on their most promising lead yet — high school English teacher Bennet Ahmed. Until now each new episode has introduced a promising suspect or suspects and then quickly dismissed them. Last night, we got to sink our teeth into the pair’s investigation of Bennet.
In a stark opening shot rife with possible foreshadowing, we get a bird’s-eye-view of the black-and-white grid of the empty school parking lot. The image is eerily reminiscent of the bars on a jail cell door or window. Bennet’s car quietly slips into a vacant space. The teacher heads inside to prep for the school day with Holder and Linden close on his heels. The pair questions Bennet about his relationship with Rosie, Linden revealing that they found the notes he wrote, and Holder making the obligatory racist comment about Bennet’s family lineage, “What kind of a name is Ahmed anyway?”
Bennet fumbles around at his desk defending himself, able to provide an alibi, but unable to have anyone vouch for him. Bennet’s taught thousands of students and Rosie’s one of only a handful of students that ever responded he contends (a frustration to which anyone who’s ever taught public school can relate), before producing a Super 8 reel of a film by Rosie. Will this reveal provide a telltale clue?