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“The Closer” 5.1 mini-cap: “Products of Discovery”

Last April, AfterEllen.com reported that The Closer cast Paola Turbay to play a recurring lesbian character and antagonist to Chief Inspector Brenda Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick).

Growing weary of the continuing presence of Megan Fox turning up like a very beautiful, but bad penny, I approached AfterEllen.com for the chance to recap this new material. The only problem before now was that The Closer requires a bilingual blogger. Luckily, I grew up in the Junior League of Atlanta, and I speak Brenda Leigh – colloquialisms and all.

Brenda is now married to FBI special agent Fritz Howard. I have to wonder if having two spouses doesn’t in some way make Brenda Leigh feel an illegal kinship to those women of the fundamentalist LDS, but without Big Love hair. Wonder which husband will get the most attention, Fritzy, or work?

Wind chimes ring in a quiet neighborhood; an ice cream truck traverses the street. It’s a false peace as a 911 call is made by a frantic neighbor. Four dead.

Major Crimes arrives at the scene. Sgt. Gabriel is there. I guess that answers who got the CI promotion from last season. The lovely and sassy Detective Irene Daniels and Sgt. Gabriel applied for the position to save the squad the collateral damage from their failed personal relationship. For my taste, I prefer a weekly eye treat of Daniels, but I guess it’s not to be.

Chief Johnson arrives. I find myself anxious to see what color trench coat she will be wearing. Pink, a color not lost on the fact two children along with their mother and their grandmother have been murdered, execution style. They had been eating breakfast together.

The only person seen leaving the house is the husband/father, Victor Rivera. The crime scene is chaotic. Symbolic chocolate bars are strewn on the floor. The coroner and Provenza are late, sent to 26th Place instead of 26th Street.

Brenda interrogates Rivera about his domestic violence charge. He says he’s changed; he goes to church. Brenda asks if God gives him the strength not to beat his wife. His whereabouts this morning? He said home with his family. Brenda reveals they are all dead. Having taken no time for breakfast, Rivera throws up the grief.

Victor needs to talk to someone. Desperate to avoid him lawyering up, Brenda said she is listening. He wants Brenda to pray with him. He wants God to forgive him for what he did to his family. Smelling closure, Brenda pulls from childhood Southern Baptist tent revivals, and assures Victor God will forgive him, tell her what he did. He had an affair. His wife found out, and he said he would stop. Dang.

The woman involved in the affair said Victor loved his family and would never do anything to hurt them. At the time of the murder she attends an exercise class every morning. It was Victor’s idea. He is very strict about being healthy, even with his kids – no sugar, no candy. Strange, remember the chocolate?

Provenza is complaining and droning on about love as the motive. This from a matrimonially snake-bitten man who is pro gay marriage because “Why should heteros take all the punishment?” He drives the chief to the wrong address again. Intuitively, Brenda draws her gun. An unseen FBI agent quickly extracts the resident.

Brenda is home verbally sticking it to the FBI goons that took her suspect and petting that really roadkill-looking hermaphroditic cat. Brenda believes the real killer mixed up the addresses and meant to kill another instead. Fritz wants to take Kitty to the vet. She is not eating. He leaves and tells Brenda to play nice with the other armed children.

Hector Cruz is a drug trafficker turned FBI informant. Brenda knew it; Hector was the original hit put out by Baran, a suspect already in custody. Brenda wants the case file. The FBI agent in charge is a pompous ass and refuses. Always knowing the intelligent questions to befuddle a pompous ass, Brenda wants to see the discovery files provided the defense.

We learn the candy bars are part of a fundraiser at the local public school. Sgt. Gabriel finds an entry in the discovery files where the FBI did not redact the address of the witness. The address was the incorrect Rivera family address, 26th Street.

Brenda watches camera footage of Baran and his girlfriend on visiting day. He slyly arranges the hit in cryptic conversation with the girl. But how did he get her the address? The tape merely shows him leaning over and getting an incarcerated man’s glassed-off peep show.

Brenda gets out of the shower and right on cue, she has a “Closer moment”, an epiphany when completing some mundane task like wiping the steam off the bathroom mirror. For Heaven’s sake.

Chocolate comes through for Brenda again as she learns the girlfriend’s half sister is selling chocolate bars. The chief sends the detectives to check the girlfriend’s home; she just might be stupid enough to take the gun there. They always are.

Brenda conveniently takes Baran’s place on visiting day. She reads the moronic woman her rights with some kind of stupid-girl reasoning, and of course the mental misfit said she didn’t want an attorney.

She puts on her sweet, scrunchy face and asks the girl if she is pregnant. Obviously. Now Chief Johnson wants to know if she recognized the photo of the witness she was supposed to murder, when she was selling candy door to door and took that family by surprise. The gun they found at her house matched the ballistics of the victims. Chief Johnson breathed on the glass of the seldom-cleaned partition fogging the address for all to read.

Brenda tells the woman unless she confesses, her baby will be taken away in prison. She admits to the murders, and says she wants her family. Brenda asks her if she really believes that killing other people’s children will get her that?

At home, Brenda calls for he/she Kitty. Fritz tells her Kitty is not doing well. Brenda tears up. There is too much death at work, and now at home.

Next week: Det. Mikki Mendoza (Paola Turbay) debuts kicking in doors, sliding across cars, and annoying Brenda.

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