The Final two Episodes- The Killing
For all the recent Australian viewers of the thriller The Killing, does anyone want to talk about how the show ended etc?What were your expectations and thoughts?
I have so many questions!
I absolutely loved The Killing. It was must watch TV in my house and I particularly loved that the whole series concentrated on just one crime. It's a nice alternative to all the crime-a-week shows.
I don't expect a show to answer all my questions to make it easy for me. I like being able to speculate, but there were just so many loose ends in this.
For instance:
What was the mystery that caused Lund's first boss Buchard to resign? Whose was the phone number that was removed from Nanna's phone and why?
What were Rie and Dessau up to if it was Morten who cleaned the outside of the flat?
Did Leon help Vagn in any way other than telling him that Nanna was at the flat?
If killing Nanna was a crime of passion, rather than a premeditated crime like his other ones seem to have been, why did she have one of Vagn's necklaces?
Despite these loose ends, I still thought it was a great show, and I loved the way that you couldn't make up your mind about the identity of the killer until the very last.
****PLEASE DO NOT READ BELOW, IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN ALL 20 EPISODES, UNBALE TO USE SPOILER ALERT.******
You are right there are so many loose ends, but also clues along the way.
As my 10 year old son says "mum it's all done for dramatic affect". What can I say.
I had worked out that Vagn's character was key to the story, and had suspected him from the start. I could go into this more by giving examples of his needy personality traits ect. No red herring could of put me off.
So in saying that, I believe there were additional "players" in Nanna's murder. As you know the investigation twisted and turned and pointed to nearly everyone as the suspect.
Yes it was a crime of Vagn's passion, but was Vagn's obsession with Nanna ( and her subsequent rejection of him) used to cover a political twist to her death????? I believe it was a planned and one of many murders.
Remember, killers often take things of their victims and subsequently can also give each victim a common linking item, in this case the heart necklace. So basically my take is that Vagn physicaly killed her, but was set up by higher officals in the Government.
In Episode 18 when Lund dredged the canal she found the body of a girl with a heart shaped necklace, (the same type as the one Vagn gave Nanna, supposidly! Or was it someone else?
Dont forget Lund kept what she was doing very close to her chest (only telling her boss, and remember he got sacked. She didn't divulge a lot of information, until the end. This leads into the reason why Buchard made an early exit. Could it be Rues father, keen to manipulate the status quo of the two parties
As for poor Leon he was the perfect fall guy, proven by his demise on the Russian carrier. It would of taken more than one person to of killed him in that manner@#$
There is so much more to talk about such as the photo (missing evidence Lund was looking for when Jan was hit then shot twice.Who was in the photo etc. Also Jan's last words (another death bed confession) quite profound.
So many more things to talk and toss around, Bremer, the Government, Rue, (and father) Morten, Sarah 84 and Forbrdydelsen 2? Episode 20 at the end, Lund is told that she must stop further investigations because she knows that Nanna's death ABSOLUTELY links to other murders?
Rue and Dessau were covering up something. Episode 20 see's the dying Bremmer on his death bed, (don't you love a death bed confession) doing his best to tell what he knows, he says that "he thought it was Rue" but its not. He strongly hints at Morten.
To me Morten was the puppet master, the fixer, the cleaner and the go-between man. He holds the key?
Willing to explore the above with you, if you like.
"There is so much more to talk about such as the photo (missing evidence Lund was looking for when Jan was hit then shot twice.Who was in the photo etc. Also Jan's last words (another death bed confession) quite profound.
So many more things to talk and toss around, Bremer, the Government, Rue, (and father) Morten, Sarah 84 and Forbrdydelsen 2? Episode 20 at the end, Lund is told that she must stop further investigations because she knows that Nanna's death ABSOLUTELY links to other murders? "
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You didn't pay very good attention then!
Who was in the photo: Vagn with Mette Hauge, it was a school photo from year 10
Sarah 84: "Sara 84" as in Sarajevo 84, it were the letters on Vagn's sweater. It's what Meyer must have seen when he got shot.
I also suspected Vagn from episode 1 until episode 6 or 7 but I changed my mind afetrwards... Still, always follow your first idea, it's been proven again! :-)
Thank you for reminding me about Sarah 84,of course it was Sarajevo 84. I wonder whether in the next episode Lund finds links with this case/Mette Hauge and her current investigation. Where are the story writers going with this and is there a link?
What still puzzles me is not what Jan might of said, but what Bremer confessed to on his death bed in hospital?
Also where is Nannas passport?
Morten, hiding too much.
The plot thickens???
I will re-watch DVD over the next week, I know I missed something.
A couple of much needed answers I guess. THIS POST CONSISTS OF SPOILERS.
- I'm not sure what to think of the heart-shaped necklaces.
- The phone number that was removed from Nanna's phone was probably that of Holck's.
- Vagn brought the girl to the cellar of the Larsen's soon to be new home and tied her up. Unbeknown to him, he lost her passport there. Upon rediscovery, Vagn planted it at Leon's place.
- Rie had a fight with Dessau concerning the information from Stokke about Holck using the apartment to meet with Nanna.
- Leon most likely didn't help Vagn in any other way, as Leon didn't mean to help him in the first place: Leon expected to hear either Pernille's or Theis' voice on the other end of the phone line, instead of Vagn's, when he called the Larsen's in the weekend.
- There's nothing that indicates that Leon wasn't killed by Vagn alone.
- Bremer had evidence of Hartmann 'knowing' Nanna (the photograph). In reality Hartmann just met her once to congratulate her.
- All Morten wanted was to keep the police from getting Hartmann mixed up with the death of Nanna (until after the elections / finding out Hartmann wasn't involved); therefore he cleaned the blood from the apartment doors and stairs, removed the security videotape and tried to get his hands on all copies of the photograph with Hartmann and Nanna on it.
- Hartmann was about to spill the beans on Morten to Brix, risking his own candidacy, but decided to shut his mouth when he learned from Brix that the killer died. As Vagn's death removed any chance of a detailed confession Morten's secret cleaning activities would probably remain undiscovered. As Hartmann decided not to tell, at the end of the series he essentially proved he was just another politician having dirty secrets, contrary to what Bremer had wished for. It seems that Bremer turned out to be the better politician of the two as he sent his only evidence to Hartmann, and not the police.
- Judging by the deal from Brix that Lund got, there probably was a connection between something Lund was about to uncover and the city council trying to keep certain things under wraps. This perhaps refers to, besides Morten's secret, that of Holck, as the mysterious resignation of Buchard had to have something to do with Holck's phone number in Nanna's cellphone.
Or maybe it was something else entirely...?
Cue the sun!
The necklace was originally in the photo from 15 years ago, clearly Vagn took it back after killing the first victim (or given the lack of originality of the trinket, it could be another one of the same look, but that is less likely). The fact that it ended up in NBLs hand, and the grisly description given by Buchard, tells us more of what was going on and why during the last two days of NBLs life. There were more to the story than what Vagn told his friend Theis, and the two victims did resemble each other.
I too missed why NBL left the passport in the apartment. It might be that one of the hotels she visited required legitimation, and after one of those visits left it in the apartment, or that she had been on an unmentioned foreign trip, but still that was a loose end.
Hartmann left his car, where NBL died, outside the apartment, and likely the keys inside it, when he took the taxi to the cottage. If Vagn had stalked NBL for a long time he would have known of the car, if he didn't and found the keys he could have used the chain remote to find it. It would take some resourcefulness, but would be safer than using his own car for the purpose. Only the initial assault seemed to have happened inside the apartment, most of the events happened in the new house and finally the woods. Vagn must have been very busy that weekend.
Hartmann's campaign manager cleaned up outer signs of violence in the apartment. If he hadn't that would probably saved the teacher for some grief since Hartmann would have been an earlier suspect, but would likely not cause the killer to be caught any sooner, or saved any lives, if he hadn't. The new house would have linked to Vagn, but the parents kicked the police out from the basement when they were looking for Leon.
I don't get the toilet blockage. Morten cancelled the plumber, but if he actually blocked it to prevent party members to use it to hide the crime, that would have been just by telling them, any visitors would have seen the state the flat was in. Then, when Rie was under attack, wouldn't she have told who told her the toilet was blocked? And before that Morten was under suspicion, wouldn't what he said about the toilet have been seens as suspect as well?
NBL went on an overseas trip with Holck so presumably left her passport in the party flat upon her return.
Hartmann left the keys to the pool car in the flat.
The worst of the attack occurred in the flat judging by the blood and damage. Vagn was alerted by Leon the taxi driver and sneaked out of his relative's rest home to confront her. Unable to kill NBL, Vagn transferred her sedated and bound to the new house before returning to the rest home to complete his alibi. He later cleaned up NBL and tried to negotiate her silence in return for her freedom. After failing he took her to his hunting ground.
The toilet was blocked before the weekend. As a result Morton could not flush the clean up cloths and sponges away. The repair was cancelled at short notice but the plumber still turned up. Though unable to enter the building he saw someone at the flat.
This is a valid reason.
sharethere is no way Vagn was the only person involved in Nanna's murder. Somebody supplied him with Hartmann's car. Somebody arranged that the flat would be left bloody for 2 weeks, waiting for the police to find it (and if they hadn't, I bet somebody would have alerted them). Somebody spoke to Buchart on the phone and made him resign. Those are just 3 things off the top of my head that Vagn couldn't have done.
Another loose end was why Nanna thought her passport was in the flat, instead of with the rest of her luggage at the train station or airport (can't recall which). I can't think of any reason why she should leave it there which makes me think somebody stole it and lured her to the flat by telling her it was there. Maybe that's the phone call that was deleted from her mobile.
We agree that Vagn was not the only person involved. That is very obvious. The access to the car, the flat, (Morten did some cleaning up there), the mysterious phone call to Buchart, who resigns.
To me this proves that there was a higher level of planning to the killing than poor old Vagn could manage. A crime of passion versus political intrigue. Also Leon was a victim here too, why was he motivated to help Vagn out and who killed Leon?
Do you think there is a link between Nanna's death and the other body Lund found in the canal? I know that the series is over now, but the show still provokes more questions than answers.
Your point about Nanna's passport is a valid one. I would like to hear from The Killings script writers. Could I please have some more feedback about this point?
Is Photondancer's predication correct? Passport stolen, lured to flat in order to get passport back? So WHO wanted her dead. Forget about Vagn. Who did it, its driving me crazy. But like Lund's character I'll chip away and discover new clues.
Has anyone seen Forbrydelson 2, and if so is it connected in any way.
Thanks for responding.
When the security tape from City Hall finally turns up, Lund gets a lip-reader to see what Holck and Nanna were saying. She asks him for the keys to the party's flat (where they had been meeting) because she needs to get her passport because she's going on the trip. She tells Holck that it's to Paris, but the lip-reader says she's lying. Troels says that he drank too much at the flat so he left the car there, with the keys in the flat, and took a cab. So Vagn only had to get Nanna to let him in the flat (and he being a trusted family friend, that shouldn't have been difficult) and he had access to her, her passport, and the campaign's car.
shareWrong. Vagn WAS the only person involved, that is VERY obvious if you actually pay attention to what you are watching.
There was NO political intrigue to the murder. NBL had had an affair with Holck and that's the beginning and the end of the political connection. The flat lay undiscovered for 2 weeks purely because Morten thought Hartmann might have been involved and tried to cover it up until after the election.
There were in fact two distict threads to Forbrydelsen, political intrigue and murder. They were both completely separate AND intertwined. I think that is the root of a lot of confusion.
Very rarely wrong. To think that Vagn was the only one involved would be an over simplification of the the plot. You say no political intrigue to the murder, wrong, watch it again, all 20 eps. Go on line and track down interviews done with the script writer, very enlightening. So I guess you haven't read anything at all.
One dimensional thinking!
I can see how you think Vagn was the only one involved, buts thats just it, its what the writer wants you to believe, do you believe everything you see, really do you do?
Did you realize that this is a multi- layered narrative, with three interwoven stories: not 2 as you say. One, the investigation of a grisly murder; two, a tough female police detective in the midst of marital problems; and three the down and dirty antics of a local mayoral election – all merge, in different ways, (as you say) in the process of discovering the identity of the murderer. Its a roller coaster ride, with twists and turns, this is done for dramatic effect. Do you get that
It would be NAIVE to believe your assumption, but many will and that's the joy of
www. One thing I agree on is the source of the root of confusion. Enjoy.
Keep picking through it.
Bits that have bugged me about the conclusion, although perhaps I missed a few things and can be enlightened:
1. Vagn wore condoms, cleaned up NBL after she was dead, manicured her nails etc so there was no DNA to link him to the crime. This could be supported (although never explicitly stated) by the fact that he had attended medical school (albeit only for one year) so supposedly did have at least some basic forensics capacity to cover his tracks.
If that is accepted to be the case, that he is essentially smarter than he looks, why would he hang on to the hoodie in which he shot Meyer? Even more to the point, why take such a ridiculous risk and wear it in front of Lund, bearing in mind her had worn it close to her presence where she could have potentially seen him just a day before? It's confirmed later that ballistics discovered the gun shot residue from Lund's stolen weapon on it.
Surely a criminal as careful as Vagn wouldn't make such an 'amateur' mistake? I suppose he could have cracked and made this one crucial error in a moment's haste, and it certainly provided an interesting plot mechanic with the 'Sara 84' link, but it's a little hard to swallow for me.
2. So did Rie have NOTHING to do with the cover up? Did she go to the flat at all? If not, she didn't do an awesome job of standing up for herself when accused by Troels. I may have missed something here...
3. Did Bengt and Sarah finish with each other? Is the move to Sweden off? We can only assume so. They had that one passing conversation in the car after he helps to get her out, but is that it? A little more explicit closure there either way would have been nice.
4. I need to have the heart necklaces explained to me, I think I might have just been sleeping on the job here. Why was it in NBL's hand? Why did the other girl have it too? It is some kind of 'black spot' mark of death that Vagn gave to his victims?