Entertainment

AMC promises Rosie Larsen’s murderer will be found in season 2 of ‘The Killing’

As Stan Larsen, Brent Sexton faces life as a single parent. (Frank Ockenfels/AMC(2))

Soon after the hourlong crime drama “The Killing” premiered last spring on AMC, it seemed very clear why the show had caught on with viewers. The central murder of Seattle teenager Rosie Larsen was genuinely absorbing; the show’s atmospheric mix of pouring rain, grief and secrets was potent; and Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman as detectives Sarah Linden and Stephen Holder made for a fascinating oil-and-water combo unlike any cop pairing in prime time.

The goal was to upend the typical television procedural, according to the producers. That worked well enough — the victims’ family was given equal dramatic weight, each episode represented a day in the investigation, leads proved fruitless — until the Season 1 finale apparently committed the cardinal sin of crime drama structure: not answering the big question that tantalizingly blared from AMC’s ad campaign: “Who Killed Rosie Larsen?”

“I’ve never wanted to be able to travel back in time more than when we had that happen,” says AMC original programming honcho Joel Stillerman about the downpour of negative press following the season-ending twist that the show’s prime suspect (Billy Campbell) might be innocent, and Holder might be dirty.

“We thought people would be swept up in the mystery of it, and appreciate a cliffhanger. But in retrospect, that was a gross misjudgment. People expected to find out [who the murderer was], and when they didn’t, they were upset.”

The collective groan from viewers and critics was enough to spur some structural rethinking when AMC brass met with the show’s creator/executive producer, Veena Sud, to discuss Season 2. Though “The Killing” had followed the structure of the acclaimed Danish series it’s based on, which aired over two blocks of 10 episodes, separated by months, before revealing the killer, changes were suddenly on the table. Should everything be wrapped up as early as the third episode of next season? Halfway through?

“We seriously evaluated whether or not we should deviate from the original game plan,” says Stillerman, “but we quickly came to the conclusion that everything we loved about ‘The Killing’ was wrapped up in the two-season arc from the Danish series, and that we would stick with that. So we chose to alter the way we managed the expectation of viewers.”

In other words, watch to the end of this season and you will absolutely get the Colonel-Mustard-in-the-drawing-room-with-the-candlestick answer you want. But also, Stillerman hopes, you’ll understand they were trying to treat a murder investigation as something hard to pin down and as a vehicle through which to explore an assortment of characters.

“We always thought of Season 1 as the season that would ask the big questions, and Season 2 as the place where we would answer them,” Stillerman says. “So you’re going to see a lot of the loose ends tied up and have a satisfying conclusion in terms of how all the pieces fit together.”

For cast member Joel Kinnaman, the response to the season finale has been positive when he’s run into fans on the street, but then he jokes, “I guess people are just polite.” He sounds disappointed that viewers were upset, but says, “It’s really been a thrill reading the scripts” for the new season.

The Swedish actor loves playing Holder. “He’s just a very complex figure with a good sense of humor and a blunt directness that I enjoy,” he says. “Obviously, there are a couple of questions about his character, and he’s done something wrong. But what he’s done, we’re going to find out quickly. Within the first two or three episodes.”

Comparisons to the uproar over “The Killing” were invariably made when Showtime brought its mystery-laden “Homeland” to a first-season close with a cliffhanger-type finale, although reviews for the way “Homeland” wrapped things up were positive. Stillerman was paying attention, but he said they’re different shows.

“I know there was some anecdotal stuff from our counterparts, talking about not wanting to be in the same situation, and I can’t blame them for that. I was a fan of that show, but they had a different structural issue than ours,” he says.

Though questions remain as to whether audiences will return to the two-hour premiere of “The Killing,” Stillerman is confident the show will do well.

“But we would never take that for granted,” he notes. “We want people who make a commitment to AMC and to any scripted drama to feel like they’re not being told one thing and shown another.”

THE KILLING

Tonight, 8 p.m., AMC