'The Closer' meets The Crying Game

Let's see, we've got fat jokes, transvestite jokes, a liquefied corpse, $3 million in stolen diamonds, and a couple of cranky recuperating manly men this week on The Closer -- and somehow, it all kind of works. Mostly.

This spoiler will NOT be having soup for quite some time.

Our Corpse of the Week belongs to Phil Adams, the obese former manager of a Los Angeles diamond broker who was caught on tape robbing his store of $3 million in stones. He's found wedged in the trunk of his car, where's he's been for several days. It's not pretty -- especially when the car slips off the tow truck and careens down a hill into a power pole. They tow the car back to the crime lab and cut off the trunk -- leading bits of Phil to come splashing out. It's utterly disgusting.

The best bet for how Phil died is positional asphyxiation -- basically, he was wedged into the trunk and couldn't breathe. But how did he get there? Well, there's evidence that he took someone out for a fast-food dinner the night he died, which was paid for with his wife's credit card. Also on the credit card: Three plane tickets from Tijuana to Mexico City to Antwerp, plus a subscription to a website called Quietaffairs.com. Did the widow hook up with someone online, then use him to kill her hubby?

Not so, she says -- yes, that was on my credit card, but it was Phil's subscription. He met a man online, and was basically using him to live out a fantasy life online. She never thought he'd actually meet him. And those three plane tickets? They were just for two men -- Phil needed two for himself.

The team finds out who Phil had been chatting with -- spiceboy85, a.k.a. Keith Reyes. They go to his house, but he doesn't seem to be there. His lantern-jawed girlfriend is there however, although she won't give her name and she claims she only speaks Spanish. The team arrests her for trying to drive away without a license and brings her in. At the office, Sanchez gets cozy with her, and discovers (1) she's lying about speaking only Spanish, and (2) she's a decent kisser. This becomes even MORE problematic when her fingerprints reveal that she is, in fact, Keith Reyes himself. She's a man, baby!

Keith claims that Phil invited him out, took him for a drive, and then pulled over. He climbed in the trunk of his own car and told Keith to drive them to Mexico. Keith freaked out, turned around and drove back to LA. He had no idea that Phil was actually dead! And he definitely didn't know Phil had $3 million in diamonds and tickets to Europe --  "Where in Europe? I totally would have gone for that! I am such an idiot!"

Brenda is dubious about Keith's story, but without the diamonds, she can't prove that there was a conspiracy to commit murder. Fortunately, Willie Ray makes a remark about showing off assets as she's altering Brenda's wedding dress, which gives Brenda a brainstorm -- the diamonds are actually on his aggressively blinged-out dress! OK, fine, Keith says, I do have the diamonds, but Phil gave them to me, and I had no idea they were stolen -- and you can't prove otherwise.

Brenda goes home to ponder the case, and Fritz provides a breakthrough -- if you can prove a pattern, you can prove intent, which means it was murder even if Phil DID get into the trunk under his own volition. All the fat jokes reminded Fritz of another case, that of an Arizona bank manager who was found under similar circumstances. He robbed his branch and was caught on tape with a young lady -- who was actually Keith. There's the pattern, there's intent, and there's the murder charge.

The home front and the squad room
Sanchez is back on the scene! Well, sort of -- Provenza let him out to play while Brenda was taking a personal day. He reveals himself by getting into a yelling match with the tow truck driver. Busted! Brenda tells him he's chained to his desk. Sanchez still refuses to get counseling -- until he realizes that he accidentally made out with a man. Apparently man-cooties are much more psychologically scarring than being shot, several painful surgeries and almost dying, because Sanchez immediately scampers off to the therapist as soon as he realizes what has transpired. Sigh. At least he's now good to go for active duty.

Back at home, Clay is being a difficult patient -- he micromanages how breakfast is made, refuses to go take a walk for fear that his sunscreen will interact with his heart medication, etc. Eventually, Willie Ray puts her foot down. I'm going on the cruise -- you can either accompany me or go back to Atlanta to heal on your own. Clay reluctantly agrees, and Fritz and Brenda have the house to themselves again.

Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends

• When the team finds the decomposing, bloated corpse wedged in the car trunk, they all rear back in disgust -- expect Provenza, who keeps calmly munching on his Danish.
• Flynn tries to tell Brenda how Phil died. Positional asphyxiation, he says. The car slips its bonds and goes rolling down the hill. "He could also have died from some bizarre traffic accident," Flynn says. The electrical box shorts out and falls on the car, setting it alight. "Or maybe an electrical fire." Hee.
• Terrance, the guy wielding the saw in the police lab, is jubilant when the trunk comes off -- and Phil's remains splash out. "That's why we call it a chop shop! YES!" Urgh.
• Terrance also refers to Phil as "The soup of the day."
• The receipt in the trunk says that Phil had purchased four triple burgers with extra cheese, six orders of fries and a Diet Coke. "Sgt. Gabriel, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Brenda asks. "Why the Diet Coke?" Gabriel responds.
• Fritz contemplates the case. "You know what's really beginning to bother me about all of this? The fat jokes." "Oh, you're right! " Brenda replies. "I'm terrible! I'm spending much to much time with Lieutenants Flynn and Provenza!" But it was the fat jokes that reminded Fritz of the old case. Apparently cops are the same the world over.
• Sanchez makes out with Lady Keith, to the extent that fingerprint ink gets seared across his face. "Detective Sanchez, do you realize you were kissing a  possible murder suspect?" Brenda asks. "Yes ma'am," he replies. "And she doesn't know enough Spanish to be from anywhere they speak it. Unless she's really stupid. And she's not that stupid, because she's into me."  SHE might not be stupid, but Sanchez was sure feeling dumb soon thereafter...
• Keith doesn't call himself a female impersonator -- he's an illusionist. "I don't do drag. What you saw today was magic." At the end of the episode, he shrugs off the handcuffs, so maybe he's right.

E-mail

• Digg
• Facebook
• Fark
• Yahoo Buzz
• Stumbleupon