Major Crimes star Mary McDonnell still isn't exactly sure how she ended up as the star of TNT's newest cop drama.
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The Battlestar Galactica alum first stepped into Capt. Sharon Raydor's shoes during The Closer's fifth season, when her Internal Affairs investigation put her at odds with Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) and her team. Three years later, Brenda is gone and Raydor is now leading the squad on the spin-off Major Crimes.
"I've never had something grow this way," McDonnell tells TVGuide.com...
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Question: Let's play armchair programmer. While I am enjoying Major Crimes, it does feel a bit like we're just waiting for Brenda Leigh to show. Do you think they could have benefited from holding Major Crimes until the traditional December run of The Closer to let us get a little distance? Or is it purely a creative question? Major Crimes looks just like The Closer. Could the show benefit from some slight visual tweaks? Perhaps a slightly different opening sequence? — Steven
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The Closer went out with a bang.
The series finale of the Kyra Sedgwick show drew 9.1 million viewers on Monday night, just 100,000 viewers shy of the series high set by the Season 3 finale. The finale was also up over last week's penultimate episode, which drew just 6 million viewers.
The Closer postmortem: Brenda gets her final confession
The Closer spinoff...
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[WARNING: The following story contains spoilers from the series finale of The Closer. Read at your own risk.]
When it came time for The Closer's Brenda Leigh Johnson to get her final confession, she didn't even want to hear it.
TNT says goodbye to The Closer, hello to Major Crimes
The groundbreaking TNT drama's series finale found Brenda (Kyra Sedgwick) once again squaring off with the elusive defense attorney/serial rapist Phillip Stroh (guest star Billy Burke) — only this time, Brenda had an eye witness in the form of orphaned teenage hustler Rusty Beck (Graham Patrick Martin). One problem: Rusty wouldn't identify Stroh unless the Major Crimes Unit located his mother, who had abandoned him....
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One of the things I'll miss most about Brenda Leigh Johnson is her sweet tooth: that secret compulsion and most shameful addiction indulged by the Deputy Chief of the LAPD's Major Crimes Division whenever she reaches for that overstuffed top desk drawer, a Pavlovian response to the nerve-wracking stress of her high-profile job. In a more typical L.A. crime story, the hard-driving boss reveals a weakness for booze. With Brenda, it's the soothing waft of chocolate when she peels back the foil from a Ding Dong, savoring the guilty pleasure.
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