The set- and shot-in-Pittsburgh crime series Those Who Kill premiered this week on A&E (Mondays, at 10 p.m.). The 10-part serial was adapted from a Danish TV show, and stars Chloe Sevigny as newish police detective Catherine Jensen, and James D’Arcy as a forensic psychologist.
Episode 1 was very pilot-like, with a self-contained serial-killer story (that guy was easier to catch than a cold!), and some clunky set-up establishing the characters, their relationships to one another, and the likelihood that everybody is brooding over their own secrets.
In many ways, this first episode was a checklist of Cop-Show Tropes (COP) intercut with Filmed in Pittsburgh markers (PGH), as noted below.
So, is the show worth watching? Sure. It’s fun seeing our town on TV, and the main story hasn’t even unfolded yet. Seek out the first episode online or on demand, or just jump right in after absorbing these predictable aspects, listed as they played out.
COP: Jensen drives a kicky vintage car.
COP: Jensen breaks into a house and watches a couple sleep, a.k.a. she’s got issues.
PGH: There go some trains.
PGH: Nice view from Mount Washington of Downtown.
PGH: Heinz Field, natch.
PGH: Hey, it’s a functioning steel mill — “Allegheny Works” — with burly blue-collar workers.
COP: When a steelworker pokes the ceiling, naturally, a mummified body falls out.
COP: Jensen has a cranky supervisor, but is buddies with the coroner (useful!).
COP: Dead body turns out to be missing prostitute.
COP: Jensen lives in a fab apartment with million-dollar view.
PGH: Said apartment is on Mount Washington, directly above Station Square.
COP: Jensen has stash of cop files/photos at home.
COP: On her own time, Jensen investigates a crime scene. At night!
PGH: Eagle eyes will spot some “KIDS” graffiti.
COP: Forensic psychologist also flagged for “issues” and long-suffering wife.
COP: Killer tortures naked woman in abandoned building.
PGH: It’s the “Mayview Plant,” a.k.a. the former Mayview Hospital.
COP: Killer does that now-I’m-nice-now-I’m-raging thing.
COP: It’s raining.
COP: Psychologist can “feel” clues at victim’s apartment.
COP: Killer collects trophies of victims.
COP: Jensen collects paintings of serial killers’ homes.
COP: One painting is of her family’s home!
PGH: Ohmigod, I know where that house is!
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2014.
Uh, yeah, you might want to try to pay more attention while you watch these things if you are going to write about them. Case in point: there was no “functioning steel mill” in the first episode. In fact, it was the exact opposite. The mill was being dismantled for scrap. How this was not evident is beyond me. In fact, this statement in the article makes it difficult to believe, given how often that location appears in the episode, that the episode was even actually watched prior to its writing.
Then there is the matter of the body. What on earth gave you the idea that she was a prostitute?!?
Seriously, did you even watch the show?!?