Everybody is always going on and on about how brills Mad Men is–and I think (after the first season) it got brills. But can we just talk about how (despite it’s missteps, of which there have been many) The Killing is kinda genius? I haven’t seen the original series but, clearly, the U.S. version is taking this one murder over two seasons (where I guess the Danish version does one murder per season, with each episode covering 24 hours).

The show started slow and feels like waaaaay too much has happened for it to be just three weeks. And I don’t really get Billy Crudup’s plot line at all. But still! I think the two leads are insanely good. Mireille Enos as Sarah Linden and Joel Kinnaman as her partner Holder are SO GENIUS it makes me feel unsettled.

Sarah Linden stalks about, continually shut down, closed off and all around messed up. She’s an awful mother but still sympathetic because she’s obviously grappling with a horrible childhood (that did not confer on her any sort of genius–unlike stupid Lisbeth Salander) and the troubles that plague her from it (presumably–there’s still a lot we don’t know about her). Holder is equally messed up and but he’s the opposite of Linden in many ways. He can talk to people, manipulate them with his uneven/skeezy charm, and is open in all the ways she is closed. Where she’s a long, angry scar? He’s a bleeding wound.

I could write long essays about why these two crazy kids need to go to couples therapy and work out their PTSD together! Slowly this show has risen in the ranks for me and I watch it right away while leaving Mad Men on the TiVo to stew.