Mary and I have been watching the the AMC series The Killing. We tend to have different viewing habits, but we're both enjoying it a lot.

One thing struck me with the first episode, though: the uptight, withholding, driven, duty-focused redheaded homicide cop Sarah Linden (played by Mireille Enos) seems like exactly the same character as the uptight, driven, etc. redheaded CIA agent Maya (played by Jessica Chastain) in Zero Dark Thirty. Is this some kind of "leaning in" cultural stereotype in the making? And who is going to direct Legally Blunt?

Sarah Linden does have a son, and seems to occasionally have relationships, sexual and otherwise, unlike Maya. She also has a last name.  But there is a more important difference between the two.

Sarah Linden is sometimes wrong. She'll even admit it. Maya is never wrong. Sarah may destroy herself. but Maya will someday be responsible for an incredible disaster--and that story is one I think I will try to write, because Maya was one of the most annoying and dishonest and potentially fascinating characters I have seen in a while. She deserves to be freed of the frame she had to fit for the movie.

But two redheads don't make a trend.  If we spot a third one, I can say you heard it here first.