The Closer Creator James Duff: "Smells Like Murder"
It isn't easy to change the way people look at us. Our parents, for example, take years to recognize us as adults. Bosses often refuse to view us as capable of any other job than that for which they hired us in the first place. And inexperience, denial or willful ignorance often leads us to believe family members are perfectly all right when they are anything but. All these situations are at play in "Smells Like Murder."
Certainly, Sgt. Gabriel wants to transform how the LAPD considers him, primarily by adding the word detective to his rank. And our victim was boxed into a corner by the perception — wrong or right — that he was a wastrel who would never amount to anything. Even worse for Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson and Special Agent Fritz Howard, their visiting teenage niece, Charlie, proves her parents were right to be anxious over her current conduct. I don't want to give too much away, so I'll merely say that Brenda will be thinking about everything differently following a good old Southern dinner prepared for her by her most rebellious relative. True, Brenda's personal life once again inspires her with the solution to her case, but holding on to that discovery turns out to be harder than — well, harder than changing how she looks at chocolate.
"Smells Like Murder" also features the return of Terrence Heinz. Terrence (as long time viewers might recollect) is the Morgue Assistant who went back to med school to become a pathologist. Now doing his internship in the decomp room, Terrence, or "Dr. Terrence" as he is quick to correct those who address him, has a long-held crush on Brenda that survives every test reality can throw at it: disinterest, marriage, impatience. Like the cartoon skunk, Pepe Le Pew, the relentless Terrence has pursued Brenda for five years in an epic tribute to the power of misplaced optimism. Tonight, for one, short splendid moment, Terrence gets a hug. And Bob Clendenin proves, once again, why he's one of the great, comic character actors in Hollywood.
