'The Killing': A taut, textured tale

By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Something wicked this way comes. And a TV audience starved for good new drama should embrace it.

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  By Chris Large, AP

  Murder most foul: Mireille Enos portrays a detective investigating a teenage girl's murder in The Killing, premiering Sunday.

By Chris Large, AP

Murder most foul: Mireille Enos portrays a detective investigating a teenage girl's murder in The Killing, premiering Sunday.

Arriving Sunday, just when a so-far-dismal season could use the boost, this Americanized version of a Danish hit, Forbrydelsen, is a true rarity: an adaptation that doesn't leave you wishing you were watching the original or, worse, wondering what people saw in the original in the first place. Writer Veena Sud (Cold Case) has so brilliantly translated and transferred it to America, you never once get the feeling that it doesn't truly belong here.

Set in Seattle, The Killing will spend 13 hours on one question ? "Who killed Rosie Larsen?" ? and each hour represents roughly one day in the investigation. Yet this is no mere procedural, and The Killing is not foolish enough to try to let just one query support an entire season. Instead, the fallout from the murder constantly causes other questions to be raised as the show explores the costs of holding secrets, the price to be paid for the past and the cosmic question of whether we ever know anyone, including ourselves.

Our guide through that quagmire is Big Love's Mireille Enos in a star-making performance as Sarah Linden, a sensible, solemn homicide detective whose plans to leave a drenched Seattle for warmth and marriage in Sonoma are halted by the discovery of Rosie's body. Sarah hopes to pass the case on to newly appointed replacement Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman, a Swedish actor making an incredibly impressive U.S. debut). But when a clue casts suspicion on a mayoral candidate (Billy Campbell, at his most appealing yet ambiguous), political pressures ? aided by Sarah's own growing empathetic connection to the case ? force her to stay.

What follows is an intricately choreographed dance, as promising leads rise and fall and characters and plot points weave in and out of the story. We're constantly fooled, yet never unfairly tricked.

AMC, Sunday, 9 ET/PT
* * * * out of four

But what sets The Killing apart are its steady sense of dread, its dense atmospherics ? that feeling that rain may at any moment pour from our sets ? and its beautifully drawn characters. Sarah and Stephen are as richly amusing a set of mismatched cops as you'll find anywhere, and Rosie's parents are wonderfully played by Michelle Forbes and Brent Sexton. Indeed, the scene where they learn their daughter's body has been found is as moving and true as any you'll find on TV this year.

You'll find it on AMC Sunday. And chances are if you do, you won't be willing to leave.

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