Review of Darkness: Those Who Kill

The series starts out like a welcome sequel in tone and style to The Bridge. Acting seems solid and the plotline is also promising. Then we start experiencing the glaring mistakes and strange holes in both plotline and the psyche of the main characters. The clearly psychopathic female killer is suddenly gripped by fear and panic when she finds out her accomplice is wanted by the police. Later she displays the classic "crazy eyes" everytime she is doing something sadistic. Watch just a few serial killer interviews or documentaries, and you'll understand that real, deeply psychopathic killers don't get gripped by panic or necessarily put on a "crazy face". In fact, their most chilling character trait is their LACK of an emotional response during stressful episodes. The killer is also in an abusive relationship where she is presented as the submissive party - which is completely out of character for a controlling, manipulative and sadistic psychopath. Unfortunately, the writers had to present her this way to surprise us with a plot twist (the fact that she is the brains behind the atrocities). Our heroic psychologist also points out that when the female killer is looking at the police officer during interrogation, she's bring truthful - while lying when looking down or to the side. Absolute nonsense, since compulsive liars actually often keep an even more intense eye contact when they are lying, simply to "sell" their lies more convincingly. The last two episodes are a mess. From illogical police activity (waiting outside the house of the last showdown instead of going in) and convenient fumbles (losing the killer while in costody) to keep the plot moving forward. It could have been a really good show with a surprising end - especially if they had done their homework and let the killer behave like an actual sadistic psychopath. But the writers were either lazy or uninformed, so we end up with a run-of-the-mill ending and a predictable plotline