"Blindsided"
Are we running out of superlatives yet to describe this season of
The Closer? As I previewed in
my earlier blog entry, this week's episode
really wowed me. When Kevin Bacon (the director of the episode) told me that it opened with a shrink session and that Brenda was ordered to sit on the bench, I was a bit skeptical, fearing that it would be a very touchy-feely outing.
I was wrong. (In ways.)
Even though Bacon gave us fair warning, the rifle assault on Gabriel, Brenda and the news team totally caught me off guard. And then the blood... so much blood. Why everyone leaped to think it was a hit on Brenda and not the news weasel didn't make complete sense to me - I pegged him as the target instantly - but Flynn's tally of people who hate BL delivered a chuckle. ("We're gonna need a bigger board.")
As always in a sitch like this, it was most enjoyable watching Brenda bob and weave her way into an investigation she has been cut off from, all culminating in that elevator face-off, the scene I told you
screamed Emmy and made my eyes well up (in
public, during my commute. Not cool.). Though Brenda was "acting" to suss out a confession, you knew deep down she was unleashing all the anxiety her shrink had picked up on. That line of hers, though we knew it was coming, rang so emotional: "I am alive, but I am
not OK."
Did you hear that down in hell, Lucas D. Jones?
Even the stuff at home, which for me has been hit-or-miss this season, was firing on all cylinders. Barry Corbin is a superb match to Frances Sternhagen, and while we're in the family room kicking back with some iced tea and pancakes, let's also give props to the guy playing the put-upon SWAT agent. Dude stole many a scene.
Let's break for some bullets:
" The shrink enumerating all the stresses in "OK" Brenda's life.
" Brenda to Pope: "Are you seriously giving me advice on how to handle an interview?" And Pope then pleading, "Just please don't make the news."
Oh well on that one.
" This week, on
The Closer! A close-up of Brenda's cell-phone provider! Conspicuous name-brand cookies!
" Brenda to Gabriel: "'Pope'? He's your buddy now?" Someone is jelly bean! (And what a sweet hug later, when she apologized for being mean to him all this season.)
" Tao noting of a victim, "He was only a[n Oscar] nominee. He didn't actually win."
" The news reporter echoing some
Closer fans, asking, "What makes a homicide a priority?"
" Brenda's father scoffing at Fritz's cat: "You can talk sense to a dog."
" One week Kyra undressing, this week her showering silhouette? Is it Christmas already?!
" Provenza "playing Brenda," calling on each squad member.
" Provenza coaxing a confession from Gabriel re: his romance with Daniels.
" Pope visibly uncomfortable with the squad seeing his videotaped reaction to Brenda's near-shooting.
" The police-station receptionist asking Pope about Brenda's "voice recognition lab" and "gun residue lasts five days" fibs.
All of which brings us to the episode's coda, Brenda Leigh demanding her purse back from evidence, fishing her engagement ring out and then blurting out the news to her folks. Hugging his future father-in-law, Fritz inisists the house cat is not his, prompting BL's daddy to say, "It is now, son. And you better make it very happy."
Sniffle.
UPDATE: I sought clarification from TNT re: number of episodes left. It's "three episodes left until the finale," meaning four. And that is not including the mid-autumn "special episode" which they are again doing this year.
