The best crime-fighting duo since Batman and Robin is back! Seattle detectives Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) are returning for the fourth and final season of AMC’s critically-acclaimed (and Starcasmly-acclaimed) crime drama The Killing courtesy of Netflix, who will begin streaming the final six one-hour episodes on August 1st. The first trailer for the new season was released earlier today, and fans will be glad to know it picks up right where Season 3 ended:
Holder’s voice opens the clip. “We just gotta keep our stories straight, Lin. No one’s gonna find out. No one’s gotta know what we did.”
From the Youtube description:
It all comes down to this: the fourth and final season of the critically acclaimed crime thriller is a six-episode Netflix original that wraps up loose ends and reveals long-buried secrets. Detectives Linden and Holder return to investigate both a gruesome mass slaying that exposes a dark family history, as well as a mysterious disappearance within the ranks of their own Seattle Police Department.
The mass slaying is that of a picture-perfect family, with the only survivor being the son , Kyle Stansbury (played by Tyler Ross), who suffered a gunshot wound to the head during the massacre.
Also joining the cast for Season 4 are Joan Allen, Gregg Henry, Sterling Beaumon and Levi Meaden.
Netflix picking up a season of The Killing is yet another example of an emerging paradigm in which streaming video services are able to provide a safety net and a second life to shows with devout followings that just couldn’t muster the numbers needed to survive in an advertising-based marketplace. (The most recent example of this phenomenon was Yahoo Screen stepping in to save the NBC comedy Community earlier this week.)
With a different bar for success, streaming services are able to pick up shows that have a guaranteed built-in audience, a rare and valuable commodity for a relatively new medium. The final episode of The Killing Season 3 brought in close to 1.5 million viewers, and if Season 4 is able to get a mere fraction of those numbers to try out Netflix for the first time then it will pay for itself very quickly!
I’m already a Netflix subscriber, but as a card-carrying member of The Killing‘s “devout following,” I can pretty much guarantee I would have at least signed up for a trial month just to watch Season 4! (And of course I would have sampled all the other amazing stuff Netflix has to offer.)
Now I just need to convince then to make my Linden and Holder dream a reality:
