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Spoilers ahead. If you haven’t watched the season finale of The Killing, stop reading now. If you don’t want to know who I think the killer is, stop reading now.

Solid ratings for a TV show can be a mixed blessing. They don’t always lead themselves to well-paced storytelling.

The U.S. version of The Killing is based off of a Danish television show. In the Danish version, which will start its third season in September 2012, there is a new murder with a new killer each season. Based on the episode descriptions that had been released for season one of The Killing in the U.S., it appeared our version might follow a similar structure.

An early version of the released plot description for the season finale said:

“A twist in the polls and a death causes grief in the campaign. Sarah and Holder discover the murderer of Rosie Larsen and while doing so, cause a problem. Stan is released from jail and comes home to find no one in the house.”

But, a later revised version said:

“The police connect evidence to the campaign car and Rosie; Stan and Mitch reflect on the past and future.”

Clearly, Veena Sud and AMC decided that the show’s current cast and current murder mystery still had another season of mileage left.

I’m very worried that this will lead to a slowly-paced, watered down second season as 12 episodes of content are stretched to 24. I also think it’s an odd choice as The Killing isn’t a cast-driven or character-driven show. Rebooting season two at a later point in time or even in another city or country would have been pretty easy.

I shall now engage in some wild and potentially spoilerific speculation.

If you want to know who the killer was in the Danish version’s first season, it’s just a Google search away. I won’t say the character’s name here. But, go ahead and Google it if you want to know. I’ll wait.

Where Veena Sud and AMC may be playing this well is that I think the U.S. killer will be a different character than the Danish killer. The creators of the show are well aware that we can all easily find out who the Danish killer is, so why blindly follow the Danish script?

I think the U.S. killer is Amber Ahmed, the pregnant wife of teacher Bennet Ahmed. My reasons:

• Amber is in love with Bennet, seems to be completely dependent on him financially, and he is the father of her unborn child. She has everything to lose if Bennet leaves her.
• Amber was a student of Bennet’s when they fell in love, so she knows Bennet is capable of falling for a student.
• Amber and Bennet passed notes to each other when Amber was Bennet’s student. If Amber found any of the notes passed between Bennet and Rosie, that would make her feel very threatened.
• Amber said she parked outside the school dance but didn’t go in. She said being a pregnant woman in front of all the thin female students was too intimidating. Again, Rosie would have made Amber feel very threatened.
• When Rosie dropped the Koran of at the Ahmed home the night of her death, it contained the note about 11:45 p.m. ferry. Amber could have seen that note and thus known where Rosie would be that night. She may have assumed the note was intended for Bennet and thus set out to catch Rosie and Bennet in the act of an affair on the ferry.
• Bennet himself would seem to have an alibi as he was trying to smuggle the teenage girl to safety that night. But, it sounds like Amber didn’t know that and may have assumed Bennet was having a rendezvous with Rosie.
• If Amber followed Rosie to the casino, she would have been Rosie operating as a well-dressed call girl. Again, Rosie would have made Amber feel very threatened.
• It has been established that Bennet could potentially have had access to the Richmond campaign car because of his work with Richmond’s city program. So, as Bennet’s wife, Amber likely could have had access to the car too.
• If Rosie got out of the car and ran at the gas station, Richmond or another fit male might have been able to run faster than Rosie and catch her. Pregnant Amber could never have run as fast as Rosie. But, if Rosie ran three miles through the cold night and got tired while Amber used the campaign car to hunt her, Amber could have then managed to catch and overpower an exhausted, frightened, one-shoed Rosie.
• We know that Amber got to her sister’s much later than planned and that she was upset when she arrived.
• Amber is a fairly minor character, yet she was worked into the season finale even though her scene did little to advance the plot.
• Bennet Ahmed seems to be on the verge of death from Stan’s beating. Could Bennet’s death have been the death mentioned in the original plot summary for the season finale? (Admittedly, it could have been Richmond’s death, I suppose. But that doesn’t make nearly as much sense.)
• In Episode 11 we learn that Sarah caught an earlier killer but it resulted in the killer’s child having no parents and going into the foster care system. Sarah is clearly conflicted about that. If Bennet is dead and Amber is convicted of murder, their unborn child would likely go into the foster care system. Could this have been the problem that Sarah and Holder were going to cause when they discovered the murderer in the original plot summary for the season finale? Were Sarah and Holder going to let Amber get away with it to help save her child?
• Minor spoiler: Amber’s character is not the killer in the Danish version. But, I think that actually makes her more likely to be the U.S. killer rather than less.

I hope that season two isn’t slowly-paced and watered down. And, I will definitely be watching. I have to know who the killer is. And, I have to know who Holder is working with to frame Richmond. Mayor Adams would be my guess.

On to season two!

Francisca and I have loved numerous HBO shows for years. Entourage continues to be one of our favorites and we like what we’ve seen so far of In Treatment. I say “what we’ve seen so far” because we don’t actually get HBO. We’re watching the first 15 episodes of In Treatment on our Apple TV via the free official podcast and getting Entourage via DVD.

We made a decision to cancel cable (including HBO) last year, because we didn’t watch enough TV in an average month to justify $89.70 a month plus tax. (That happens to be the minimum non-teaser price from our cable company to get a package that includes HBO.)

Many of the shows we watch are available for free via an HD Over-The-Air antenna that works with our HD TiVo. And, most of those that aren’t can purchased for $1.99 either via iTunes and sent to our Apple TV or via Amazon Unbox and sent to our TiVo.

I say “most” because HBO doesn’t sell any of its content on iTunes or Amazon Unbox. I would happily pay HBO $1.99 per 30-minute episode of In Treatmemt, which seems more than reasonable to me, if it would just sell the show digitally. But, it won’t.

Hell, HBO doesn’t even sell old, discontinued content digitally. If you want to watch Six Feet Under from 2001 or Sex in the City from 1998, it means buying or renting DVDs. Is HBO seriously thinking that digital sales would cannibalize DVD revenue for content that old? It strikes me as a company that just doesn’t understand where content delivery is heading.

Up until recently, HBO was by far the best content provider on cable and so could dictate the terms of content delivery. I think that is going to change. Networks like FX, AMC, and Showtime are creating great shows and selling them digitally (though sometimes after a delay from when they aired on cable). The earth is moving under HBO’s feet.

At some point, I think people will tire of paying their HBO Tax and want to get their content when and how they want it. Let’s just hope that HBO wakes up to this fact sooner rather than later, as I really would love to keep watching its shows.