Officer down on "The Closer"

I am suspending my recaps of The Closer. Initially, I was attracted to summarizing one of my favorite quirky dramas with the added bonus of what the press releases were calling a recurring lesbian character, played by former Miss Columbia, Paola Turbay. This character was supposed to be tough, hard-driving, and punishing. What could be better than that?

Well, present would be nice.

Paola Turbay doesn’t know when Detective Mikki Mendoza will be appearing on The Closer again. Responding to my tweet from a few days ago, the lovely Columbian replied that she loved the character, but didn’t know if or when when she would be back.

This is disappointing that a lesbian character was billed for the show, and at this point is a relative no show. As I commented in my recap last week, from what we have been given of the character, how are we supposed to know she is a lesbian?

According to an interview Turbay gave to TVguide.com, she informs us that we will not see Mendoza’s personal life, but her dating preference will be revealed when she enters the squad room and is introduced to the other detectives. So far, this revelation has yet to be made.

So what happened? It seems like the lesbian part of the character was left on the editing room floor. Perhaps TNT is saving this titillating tidbit for the box set. Either way, I was hoping that recurring referred to the character and not a bad dream.