Feel that change of seasons? Hard not to notice on this Monday night, as two of cable's best summer series- TNT's popular signature drama The Closer and Showtime's quirky classic Weeds- sign off with life-or-death cliffhangers, a week before the official network season gets underway. ( The Closer's story will pick up again in the new year, with five episodes remaining in this split season.)
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Cheers to The Closer for giving Raymond Cruz a shot. The versatile actor (My Name is Earl, Training Day), who's often overshadowed by the showier members of the TNT drama's ensemble, stepped into the spotlight with an episode in which his character, Det. Julio Sanchez, lost his brother in a drive-by shooting. The story line was a cliché — Deputy Chief Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) warned him not to investigate because he was too close to the case, but Sanchez wouldn't listen — yet Cruz impressively ran a gamut of emotions from panic to shock to rage to grief. Perhaps it's no coincidence the episode was directed by another skilled actor, Kevin Bacon (Sedgwick's husband). He brought out the best in Cruz. • Share your own raves and rants about other shows on the Reader Cheers & Jeers discussion board.• We may feature your Cheer or Jeer on TVGuide.com or in TV Guide magazine!
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Its final season may have been built around a number of Big Lies, but here's the honest truth: HBO's The Wire is TV for the ages. Though it spent much of its acclaimed existence under the pop-culture radar, despite annual appearances on critics' best-of-year lists, this heartbreaking and searing masterpiece of urban decay and corruption will live on as all great literature does. Any self-respecting DVD library would want to include the five seasons of The Wire. It's that good, and that rich.Sunday’s expanded finale wraps up much of the complex story, but as usual, not in a tidy fashion. Ambiguities, moral compromises, deals struck with a variety of devils, all par for the course in David Simon’s bleak version of Baltimore. No cheap sentiment here, although there is a memorable scene involving a surprise wake at the Irish cop bar.The ironies are deep and dark as McNulty (Dominic West) sweats out the consequences of his scheme being exposed, of having created a fictional ser...
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Welcome back to Red Herring Central, aka a new season of TNT's The Closer!For any newcomers to the superb series, we are glad to have you here to break down the week's episode, twists and turns and double-backs included. You’ve chosen a real crackerjack of a show to test-drive, and you shall be rewarded for your expenditure of brain power every Monday night. For the regulars from Season 2... here, have a pastry.Let's start with a show of hands: Who thought the Wallaces' son did it? Yep, my hand is up. I know, I know, it's rare that the prime suspect proves to the be culprit in Brenda Leigh-land, but I thought for sure this was going to be a "he did it/no, he didn't/oops, yes he did" reveal. That is, until they unveiled the secret second family. You know, early on I was pondering, "The dad spends a lot of time with this unseen shrink, maybe they are one and the same?" I see now I should have stuck with that. That whole cell-phone-behind-the-wet-bar clue threw me, too. I thought,...
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So, did you watch TVGuide.com's live webcast with the cast and creator of The Closer? Wasn't Miss Kyra positively luminous? (Though the way she kept shifting in her seat, I suspect that director's chair was wicked uncomfortable.)Ladies, did Jon Tenney live up to his cutie rep? Could Tony's baseball analogy have been any more, um, "involved"? Doesn't the road trip/U-Haul episode sound like a hoot? What do you think of Robert Gossett's "Salt & Pepper"/Taylor-and-Provenza spinoff idea? Should we not read too much into the fact that Gina Ravera was MIA, seeing as Corey Reynolds said Daniels and Gabriel will continue dating this season?Did the question you sent in make the cut, and get answered by one of our fab guests? Share your thoughts on what was discussed, and the coming season as a whole, here and now. Thank yew!
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