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. This conflict has been resolved in season 4. Commander Taylor is now one of her staunchest allies. Her team are seasoned veterans, some close to retiring like Lt Provenza, others like Sgt Gabriel just a few years into their police careers. Daniels was promoted off the squad and this season, there is a new conflict with Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell), who investigates any civilian deaths in officer involved shootings.
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. For this season, the episode format has changed. The show has returned for five more episodes in 2009 and season 5 started out a few weeks ago.
I’ve been a bit lax about posting reviews, but rest assured that all Closer episodes were watched and reviewed. They just haven’t been posted. They will find their way onto this site.
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This is the first time that Deputy Chief Johnson comes head to head with Captain Raydor. She investigates officer involved shootings and Johnson is in her way. Thankfully, Johnson is a chief and this is above a captain. Still, it doesn’t make for an easy investigation with Raydor trying to sabotage her case.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
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Gabriel is having a drink with Taylor. Taylor wanted to see if he could fix the relationship between Irene and David. Taylor tells him that it cost him for his career. His squad doesn’t trust him implicitly anymore.
There are shots fired nearby. Taylor contains the situation and Gabriel investigates. He shoots an assailant twice after he found the body. The assailant fired twice at Gabriel. After, Taylor tells him to go with the victim.
Captain Raydor is FID and she is investigating the office involved shooting. Taylor sends her to the wrong hospital. Chief Johnson arrives at the right hospital and advises Gabriel to call his attorney. The major case squad won’t be investigating this case, until the FID resolves theirs. As far as FID is concerned, they only found bullet casings from Gabriel’s gun. Raydor arrives on the scene right after the Chief. She arrived with a breathalyzer test.
Kitty is throwing up. Brenda doesn’t want to make a big deal of it. She dumps her in Fritzi’s lap.
Taylor is being questioned by Pope and Raydor for the info that he gave Raydor on the night that it happened. Raydor is mandated by federal law to investigate this officer involved shooting. Pope rules that Raydor and Johnson must share the crimescene to investigate their respective crimes. Raydor later warns the Chief, but she doesn’t get far. Taylor warns the Chief that Raydor is part of IA.
Persal is being autopsied. The wounds were caused by wad cutters, target practice rounds. The bullets are flat bound. The weapon is a revolver. This explains why there weren’t any casings at the scene.
Persal emigrated from Israel and operated a newspaper stand.
The squad heads out to the scene. Buzz can’t come with them. The Chief has other ideas. Buzz films away. Buzz gives the Chief an idea. There might have been another person involved in this shooting. Tao says that it’s syzygy.
The shots were kind of aligned and it just appeared that the shots came from the kid. This is why Tao mentioned syzygy. The Chief test fires Gabriel’s gun to check out his exact location. It appears that the initial location was mistaken. They find the slugs from the attacker. They find wad-cutter rounds.
Whoever killed Persal fired on Sgt. Gabriel. The Chief has Flynn and Provenza distract he kid’s parents so that she can question the kid. She tells him that the officer in the ambulance told her that he said that nobody was supposed to get hurt. Gabriel told her this. The Chief mentions transferred intent. If a homicide occurs during the commission of a felony, everyone involved is as much responsible for the murder. He’s about to talk when the parents and the lawyer come back. Brenda thinks that this is some kind of hate crime after she hears the father making a racial slur against Arabs.
The Chief stalls Ricardo with an exclusive for 24 hours. Fritzi phones Brenda to tell her that Kitty’s time is up.
Raydor is getting pissed. Johnson isn’t telling much. It turns out that Mrs. Witner’s brother died in Afghanistan. He was a sharpshooter. This could have been a revenge crime. Israelis look like Arabs to Hillbillies.
The kid’s cousin was using a neighbor’s fence for target practice. They find wad-cutter. They can get a search warrant thanks to this. The Roths are en route to Nebraska. The revolver underneath Billy’s bed matches the bullets. Each witness IDed Roth independently as the shooter. The kid won’t be in custody for another 48 hours. The Chief has to get what she needs from Eric. Eric is Billy’s cousin. The Chief uses Ramos to squeeze info out of Eric. She manages to make him waive his rights. Eric says that he didn’t know about the gun. He thought that they were going to kick that guy’s ass. Billy shot him and stole his money. Billy also shot at the officer while Eric was holding up his hands. She tells him that Persal was Israeli and Jewish. She has Eric arrested.
Taylor is giving Gabriel advice on what to say to the shrink. Sanchez also gives him some things to say about his alcohol consumption. Gabriel is cleared and the bad guys get arrested. Gabriel tears up a letter he had written fro Irene Daniels.
Brenda comes home and she tells Fritzi that she called Doc Robbins to take care of Kitty. Her time has come. Brenda was being selfish.
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memoirs on a rainy day 
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