Not disappointed in the end of Season 1 of The Killing

Lot of spoilers to come so don't read this if you haven't seen the first season of "The Killing," an excellent series that was worthy competition to the slightly more upscale and broader in scope thriller Homeland in competition for this year's awards. Both were deserving - and make of this what you will but both are based on original series from Europe. Since when did America begin importing pop culture? Many have noted that the final episode of The Killing was a disappointment in that at the end of Season 1 we still don't know who killed Rosie. I disagree - I don't think we need to have the same expectations for closure in a series that we have in a traditional detective novel of segment of episodic TV. The season ended with the sense of completion of a full arc of the story - the arrest of mayoral candidate on the murder charge - but it should have been obvious to most viewers that his arrest does not resolve all of the unanswered questions and open problems. So at the very end there's that surprising twist: Det. Holder, Det Linden's partner, appears to be a crooked cop - faking evidence, on someone's behalf, to pin the crime on the yuppie mayoral candidate. Of course, I'm sure that's not what it seems, either, and we'll learn much more about Holder - whom all of us, including Linden, were beginning to like, thanks in large part to the unusual episode 11 that pulled both of them away from the murder investigation and built their friendship, as Linden searches for her son who's been cutting school. Marielle Enos as Linden is the heart and soul of The Killing, just perfect for the part of the tough, smart, stubborn, emotionally troubled detective. Among the elements left loose at the end of season 1: why would Holder fake evidence in the investigation and on whose behalf? why would the candidate get so involved with a prostitution ring, and did he in fact have Rosie in a campaign car on the night she was killed? Why does he come home soaking wet - what's his explanation? If he didn't kill Rosie, who did and why? What's with Rosie's mother - why was she so uninvolved with Rosie? And Rosie's aunt - is there more to her than meets the eye? She actually drew her young niece into a prostitution ring? Why on earth? We know very little about the death of the candidate's wife. What's the story there? Is there anything to Rosie's father's ties to the mob, or is that just a red herring. What about family friend Belco - the last scene shows him shooting the candidate (echoes of many political assassination attempts in the U.S., as well as All the King's Men) - he obviously fails, but is he involved with Rosie in any way? Is there more that the teacher can tell us if he recovers from his coma? These are just some of the questions - and it's to the great credit of the plot that almost every element seems credible, part of a fairly typical, though high-profile, murder investigation in an American city.