'The Closer': Nookie! Catfights! Flat Fritz!

The Closer gives us plenty to love in this episode: Brenda experiences afterglow, Flynn is at his most Flynnlike, Pope and Brenda argue in front of the kids, and Brenda and Taylor spar. Too bad the perps were so obvious the moment they came on screen.

Oh, sweet mystery of spoiler, at last I've found you...

Folks, I hope you're sitting down, because we open the episode with Brenda and Fritz gettin' it on. As in pre-marital relations. As in (are the Johnson parents anywhere in earshot?) s-e-x. Of course, they're immediately punished for their naughty bouncy funtime when Fritz throws out his back while carrying Brenda to yet another room to do the deed. But even flat on his back, unable to move, Fritz is man enough to propose a nooner. Yowza.

Brenda is so flush with endorphins that she positively trills her hellos at this week's crime scene, causing Gabriel and Taylor to suspect head trauma. Brenda is not bothered, even when the corpse she's called to investigate is a drunk who died in a hit and run. Unfortunately, the drunk was Roy Wilkinson, who was convicted of a high-profile crime a decade ago, and Flynn was the one who put him away (and disputes his manslaughter conviction, saying it should have been straight-up murder and he should have fried.) Tao does his forensic voodoo and figures out the car that hit our victim ran him down, paused, then circled the block to run him over again. It was no accident - it was murder.

Wilkinson lived in a halfway house, and Brenda finds his one-year AA chip in his room. But the corpse was stinking of alcohol, so already something is hinky. Did he fall off the wagon, of was he pushed? It doesn't help that his victim's parents are high-profile studio execs, and that Mrs. Mayhen got Wilkinson fired from job to job by stalking him and telling everyone what he had done.

Another obvious suspect is, unfortunately, Flynn, who had taken to sending a bouquet of flowers to the deceased wishing him a "Happy Death Day" on the anniversary of the murder. Brenda thinks he just possibly should have brought that up early on, but Flynn is unrepentant. Ah, Flynn - I love how dependably FLYNN you are.

This being television, however, the obvious suspect can't be the actual perp. Brenda discovers that the dead guy had a life insurance policy that named Patricia Simmons, a volunteer at the halfway house, as his beneficiary. She's shocked, shocked! A little digging proves that several men who had lived at the halfway house had died in similar circumstances, and they all took out life insurance policies - one that paid $80,000 to the volunteer, and one that paid $150,000 to Karen Silva, the woman running the joint. Karen piously ells Brenda they o this to make sure they can afford funeral expenses for all the poor dead men. But there's one exception to the pattern: Gary Francis, who is remarkable because (1) he's not dead yet, and (2) he only named Karen as a beneficiary.

And that leads to one of the most delightful scenes in a delightful episode: a full-on, girls-gone-wild, hair-pulling catfight, which leaves all the watching cop aghast and amused. The two chief things I love about this scene: One, it plays with the girlfight paradigm by having a couple of somewhat dumpy older women rolling on the floor - because how often do you really get a couple of actress/model types throwing down in an interrogation room? This seems much more likely. Two, Brenda uses the opportunity of the fight to read the women their rights. Seriously. She even gets a response. Hee!

Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends:

• Sorry that I'm so late with this recap - I'm on a secret overseas mission, so my Zap2It compatriots had to smuggle the episode to me using a cadre of trained chipmunks, and the little furry extortionists demanded additional nuts before forking it over. You don't want to know what I had to o to get those cashews.
• The Brenda-Fritz interaction was lovely, and I'm not just talking about the nookie. I loved the scene where Fritz talked her down from forcing vicodin down his throat, saying giving pills to an alcoholic isn't wise. Brenda still can't deal with the iea of addiction, although this episode showed her trying to figure it out - you could see it in her eyes every time she asked what could have set Wilkinson drinking again. Plus, the last scene, of them snuggled up on the floor together, was just adorable.
• The other couple on the show isn't doing so well - Gabriel and Daniels are still at odds, to the extent that even Taylor notices. And when Daniels is working late, she says something about not having anything to go home to. Maybe she's not pregnant after all.
• The Flynn and Provenza show was predictably fabulous. Provenza tries to cover up about the bouquet, which of course makes it look even more suspicious. When the news is out, though Provenza can't keep his mouth shut. He sent a card, too! He chirps. Thanks, Provenza.
• Flynn is just so pissed off, so sure that he's right about Wilkinson. And maybe he is, but Brenda is right in saying they can't choose which people deserve to have their deaths investigate. And I love that even after Flynn id so much to piss her off, Brenda made sure he'd get to deliver the press conference clearing the Mayhens the next day.
• I loved watching Pope and Brenda fight using Gabriel as a proxy. The poor guy so idn't want to be in the middle of things, but they weren't going to let him go. Hee!
• Brenda on the phone wiggling her butt and proposing the nooner be postponed to a niner, while Pope looked on, was creepy, uncomfortable and way too funny.

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