The Closer is an American police drama starring Kyra Sedgwick, who plays a Deputy Chief of Police at the LAPD. Sedgwick plays Brenda Leigh Johnson, an ex-CIA interrogator. She is a southern belle and her easy going charm has surprised more than one criminal during an interrogation. She always gets the bad guys. She was put in charge of the Priority Homicide division of the LAPD.
She’s had to deal with conflict from Commander Taylor, chief of detectives, since she was promoted over him from the outside to her current position. Her team are seasoned veterans, some close to retiring like Lt Provenza, others like Sgt Gabriel just a few years into their police careers.
Her personal life wasn’t always as stable as it is right now. She’s currently engaged to an FBI Agent named Fritz Howard, who helps her from time to time on some cases. They’ve just sold Brenda’s bungalow and moved into a temporary space as they search for a new house to buy.
Brenda is a severe workaholic, to the sacrifice of her personal relationships. She tends to micro-manage her investigations and take a close look at details. She loves junk food and sweets but is currently trying to lay off them. She usually hides all types of junk food in drawers, purses, and other places. She is also known to be a “bit of a slob”, commenting that she does not often get around to housework every day in one episode, and in another, during a small argument between her and Fritz over where her mail was, Fritz comments that “if she looked at her mail daily instead of once a week, she would know where they keep it”.
The Closer is one of the best police dramas on television right now and is in its fourth season on TNT. Each summer sees 13 episodes. A feature length episode is shown over the holidays.
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This was a great episode. The chief has to investigate the death of a man who was convicted of manslaughter. Things don’t go as planned as the investigation turns to the people whose daughter was murdered. The culprits are surprising, but the leads are evident.
I’m surprised that stuff like this doesn’t happen more in the world. Insurance scams are all over the place.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
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Brenda and Fritzi are in bed. They fool around a bit. They make love. While he carries Brenda to another room, his back has spasms.
The deputy chief is called away on another case. She is uncharacteristically in a good mood, which surprises Gabriel and Taylor. Rory Wilkinson is the vic. He lives in a halfway house. He’s been dead since 2AM. Taylor says that Wilkinson was convicted in 1992 for killing a girl named Carli. It was Flynn’s case. He only got 8 years.
They go to the halfway house. The chief has to tell Flynn to quit being sarcastic. The woman working there says that someone on the outside was hassling him.
Tao and Provenza are recreating the hit and run. The killer drove around the block and drove over Wilkinson a second time.
Pope tells Johnson that she can only question the Mayans in his office. The Mayans are the ones who lost their daughter Carli to Wilkinson. They aren’t very receptive to the chief’s inquiries, especially when they realize that they are suspects. They leave without giving out much information.
Brenda arrives home late and finds that Fritzi hasn’t moved since she left this morning. He’s still lying on the floor. His back is out. He doesn’t want any drugs. He’s an ex-alcoholic. He doesn’t want to see a doctor. He wants a big bag of cookies and the remote to the TV.
Daniels gives Brenda a call. Wilkinson has got a life insurance of 80K$. The beneficiary is Patricia Simmons. She works at the halfway house. She was helping him with his GED. She didn’t know that she was the beneficiary. Patricia says that someone sent flowers. They didn’t make him happy, he just threw them away. She took them out of the trash and brought them home.
Provenza doesn’t want them investigating the flowers. He knows something. Flynn confesses that he sent the flowers. He sent a card saying happy death day.
The parole officer arrives. It turns out that Laura Mayan turned out at the places that Rory was working, and passed out newspaper clippings about what he to her daughter. The parole officer says that Mayan wasn’t the kind of person to stop.
Chief Johnson takes off the velvet gloves and confronts Laura for harassing Rory. Laura admits that she followed him in his car. She remembers an old junker that he drives. She even remembers the license plate number. She’s cleary going insane.
Jerry Nimic is the owner of the car. His last known arrest is the halfway house. The car isn’t anywhere. Jerry Nimic was killed in a hit and run. He also had a life insurance policy. The chief wants to know who else has a policy.
They question Francis. He doesn’t know about the life insurance policy in his name. It’s not his signature. The two women from the halfway house are in an interview room. The chief leaves them to stew. She uses a ploy to check up on them through the CCTV cameras. One of them tells the other that they have nothing to worry about.
She wanted them to see that they are talking to Francis. She lets them stew for a minute or so. Rory had a second policy for 150K$. The beneficiary was Karen. They made the same arrangements for Jerry Nimic. They wait until the policies are vested before killing them. It turns out that only Karen is the beneficiary of the policy on Jim Francis. The women start cat fighting. The chief reads them the rights.
The chief says that she’s going to write one of them up for murder in the 1st. The other one will be an accessory to murder. Patty starts talking first. She tells them what happened. Karen drove him over twice to make sure that he was dead.
Brenda comes home and finds that Fritzi hasn’t moved at all. She’s about to make herself a drink, but then looks at Fritzi and thinks that it’s not a good idea. She sleeps with Fritzi on the floor.
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