Joel Kinnaman and Mireille Enos will be back in a new season of "The Killing."

Credit: AMC

Because someone, somewhere, demanded it, "The Killing" lives.

Back in July, AMC declined to order a third season of the mystery series, and though Fox Television Studios insisted they would seek another buyer for the series, instead it's returned to its original home, with original showrunner Veena Sud still in charge, and stars Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman reprising their roles as Seattle cops Sarah Linden and Stephen Holder. Production will begin in Vancouver in late February.

“‘The Killing’ from day one has been a truly original take on the crime drama. Veena Sud and the rest of the talented creative team are hard at work shaping the lives of Linden and Holder, portrayed by the terrific Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman," AMC president Charlie Collier said in a statement. "We're so pleased to welcome back 'The Killing' for another season."

“I couldn’t be happier to know that I will be returning to work with AMC, FTVS and Mireille and Joel on what is and has always been a passion project for me," Sud said in the same statement. "To the fans that have supported the series, thank you for doing so. My team and I will work hard to deliver the best story that we can for season three.”

The second season ended with Linden seemingly walking away from her job after closing the Rosie Larsen case. The new season will pick up a year later, with Holder asking for his ex-partner's help when a missing persons case winds up connecting to one of Linden's old investigations. Wisely recalling the objections to the end of the first season, the press release says unequivocally that the case "will be resolved over the course of 12 episodes."

Reports of the series' possible revival have been going around for months, but most of them were tied to AMC's inability to find a new showrunner for "Hell on Wheels," creating a possible hole in the schedule. At one point, there were even talks with Netflix about sharing the production costs, akin to the deal NBC made with DirecTV for the final seasons of "Friday Night Lights." But "Hell on Wheels" got a new producer back in December, and Netflix doesn't seem to be involved in this new arrangement. UPDATE: Or, rather, that part of the deal may still be in the works, but not be finalized yet. Per an FTVS rep, "Netflix is not involved in this particular announcement. If and when we have something additional to announce concerning Netflix, we would do it at that time."

AMC just can't quit "The Killing," it seems. But with Sud still in charge — even if the second season was a marginal improvement over the first — I'm okay with the idea that it ended with the arrest of Rosie's killer.

What does everyone else think? Are you excited for more rain and more red herrings? Do you think that being freed of the baggage of the Larsen case — and all the bad creative decisions made in chronicling it — might improve the show significantly?

Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching

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Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com