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RSS'The Closer': Brenda, Charlie and the big betrayal
Brenda is good at all sorts of things ... well, ok, make that exceedingly good at one thing: solving crime. But this episode of "The Closer" makes a persuasive case that she knows nothing about parenting a teenager -- or acceptable behavior.Brenda is in the midst of chewing out Charlie for the pot brownie incident when they're interrupted by panicked people fleeing. Someone is shooting in a parking lot. Brenda tells Charlie to stay in the car and goes to investigate. She finds one boy dead, another wounded and hiding under a car. Then she hears footsteps and swings around -- and almost shoots Charlie, who decided to bring Brenda her bag. Charlie! Next time, Brenda, you cuff her in the car.
Brenda rides in the ambulance with Jake, the survivor she found under the car, and has an officer bring Charlie there. After Charlie disappears again -- she went to the bathroom (the nerve of that child!) -- Brenda decides to teach her a lesson: Charlie's job is to stay at the hospital waiting for news of Jake, who's still in surgery. She's to call Brenda as soon as Jake wakes up. Except... oops, Brenda confiscated Charlie's phone. Fortunately, Charlie is very much of Brenda's line: She lies to the hospital that she's Jake's sister, and lies to Jake that she's a youth volunteer. Which is how Charlie comes to be ensconced in Jake's room, hanging out and chatting away, while everyone else just sort of waits.
And that will become important in a bit, but first there's a red herring to get out of the way. The dead teen is Tomas DeLeon, who has a backpack full of pot and $800 in small bills on his person. Taylor starts fairly salivating about working with Narcotics, but a couple of inconvenient facts come up. One, all the drugs -- including a brick of pot in a fake gas tank -- are still there with Tomas, so that rules out robbery. Second, the shooter apparently fired five or six times -- and Tomas was only shot once, while there were a whole bunch of bullets flying in Jake's direction. as the shooter seems to have leaned down to shoot Jake under the car, Brenda thinks he was the actual target.
And here's where she strays into seriously squicky territory. She tells Charlie that sure, she can go talk to Jake... and bugs the ICU room. Yep, she's using her unwitting niece to ferret out information. It works -- Jake tells Charlie that his girlfriend dumped him after she got pregnant, and her dad threatened to kill him. But the problem is, that was a completely illegal recording. It can't be used in court. So Brenda prepares a statement for Charlie to sign, and threatens to send her parents the DVD of her talking to Jake (in which she confesses to sleeping with her boyfriend often, with great vigor, and occasionally in her parents' bed) to her folks. "I'm only doing this to protect Jake!" Brenda protests when Charlie expresses her disgust. "No one believes that, including you!" Charlie responds. "Including me," Fritz adds. Ouch.
Which makes the next bit even more painful. Charlie wakes Brenda and Fritz in the middle of the night. She's hysterical -- she was just on the phone with Jake, telling him how Brenda had betrayed them, and suddenly his fever spiked and a nurse made him hang up. Charlie wants to go to the hospital immediately to be with him, but Brenda refuses. She goes in Charlie's stead, and winkles Jake's girlfriend's last name out of him. That leads them to the girlfriend's house and to the realization that (1) said girlfriend told her dad that Jake raped her to explain her pregnancy, and (2) dad heaped enough bile on Jake's name that his son decided to kill him.
Which he did -- Jake dies of an infection brought on by a perforated intestine. Brenda comforted him in his last moments by pretending to be his mom (who was a flight attendant and couldn't get back from Hanoi in time). But Charlie didn't get a chance to say goodbye -- "Why didn't you even give me a chance!" she sobs. I had to choose between what you wanted and needed, and solving a crime, Brenda replies. I chose solving the crime. And I can't fault her for that, but I do think she should have been open with Charlie when she left. Fritz comforts Charlie, and tries to comfort Brenda -- but she holds herself apart. Is it because she thinks she doesn't deserve the comfort? I don't know.
Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends
- OK, what's your take on the Charlie situation? I think Brenda using her as an unwitting stooge was unforgivable. And bullying her into signing the statement by threatening to reveal all to her parents? Worse.
- It's worse when you contrast how she treated Jake -- she comforted him, was there for him, told him what he needed to hear -- with how she used Charlie. It's not that she can't deal with teens, it's that she made a conscious choice to use Charlie as a tool for her own ends. Yes, it was important that she caught the killer, but did she really need to do that to Charlie without telling her?
- Flynn tells Brenda that a few people at the scene saw someone with a gun -- a woman in a brown dress with blond curly hair. That would be Brenda herself. "Oh, that's horrible," Brenda says. "Not completely -- one of the witnesses described you as being in your early 30s!" Provenza says. Hah!
- I loved Fritz's reaction when he realized that Charlie had dissembled herself into Jake's room. "You two are SO related!" he chortles.
- Tao and Sanchez were having way to much fun with the crime scene reconstruction. I kind of love them for that.
- Provenza reveals that he's bought a ring for Lauren -- he's going to ask her to marry him! Flynn is...unimpressed.
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I wish the writers would read a law book or something! Why did Brenda let the kid who died brother go for lack of evidence when she didn't even bother to ask him the right questions? The kid had a bag full of drugs and it was fairly obvious the whole family knew about it but she let him go and we never heard from them again. And whilst it is illegal for Brenda to bug the ICU room none of that information would have been used in court anywy since it wasn't a confession. The information she got should have come up eventually in the course of her enquiries since it wasn't exactly a secret that his ex girlfriend was pregnant.
I'm even more in love with Fritz from this episode. He tells Brenda when he's miffed with her but understands her enough to be really supportive just when she needs it and he man's up totally when faced with a room full of weeping women. I don't think Brenda held herself apart; afterall this is a drama not a sitcom - Fritz with his arms round two weeping women wouldn't have been right and in this case Charlie needed the most comfort - Brenda's a grown up and it's not her first death, not to take away from her grief.
Now that the Closer seems to be handing out troubled teens willy nilly, where is that boy Brenda's parents are supposedly taking care off? And how is it that Brenda who doesn't want children is suddenly suitably qualified to look after a teen? This week's episode shows what a balls up she made of this! Although I can't really fault her for putting her job first she always has why people expect her to act differently is beyond me. She should have told Charlie yes, but life's tough and if it helps her get a killer Charlie's feelings should be second - she'll get over it.
I really thought Flynn was putting on a black armband when Provenza showed him the ring and I loved Showtime with Tao and Julio! Talk about Overacting Theatre - they played their parts with such relish I was half expecting a big musical finish!
There were legal questions regarding this episode. That aside, this was the season's best. Kyra's scenes, notably with the dying victim, should get her an Emmy nod (next year). Even when the show has problems, Kyra is always wonderful. God, she should get an Emmy this year!
I understand that Brenda has a job to do, but....
Where to start on her bad behavior this week? I think what bothered me most was that she was completely tactless and discomp***ionate when she told Tomas' family that he was dead. Sure, she was angry at his brother and certain that he was the source of the drugs. But that was no reason to be cruel in letting his parents know that their "good" son had been murdered.
Good point, SEU, on the brother's being let go. They could have at least had a line later like "Oh, chief, good news. Narcotics got Oscar DeLeon and he's going to jail again for dealing drugs."
I want to throttle Charlie, but it was wrong the way Brenda use her. She probably could have said "Charlie, I need your help. Jake won't tell me everything and you would really be helping him - and the police - if you could get him to talk about who else might have done this."
But our Brenda doesn't do subtle. Which is part of her charm but still makes me squirm some.
Fritz is a saint.
i didn't quite buy alot of brenda's actions this episode---but i blame whoever wrote it.
I agree, I think if Brenda had just asked Charlie for help it would've gone over much better. Sometimes I think Charlie is really impressed with Brenda and how she does her job and then Brenda does something like bullying Charlie like she did last night.
I thought that one of the reasons she didn't want Charlie to go was that it would be even harder on her than it was on Brenda to watch that boy die. Even if that wasn't the case maybe she should have told Charlie that to make her think that Brenda was thinking of her feelings. She could have at least worded it a little better when she was explaining why she didn't let Charlie go.
Loved the Flynn/Provenza scene when Flynn but the blood pressure cuff on. I thought there was some great non-verbal acting from the two of them last night. I also loved Fritz tonight. He went from showing frustration to support. Very well done.
Overall I thought it was a very strong episode despite being totally frustrated with Brenda's behavior. I will say, I can sympathize with her somewhat since I am dealing with my own 15 year old teen!
I think she was treating Jake better because he was dying.
Brenda was obviously touched by Jake's plight. Cops have to build up a wall to avoid getting too close or losing their focus, and I think some of her aggressive behavior is over the top because she's going out of her way not to fall apart. And I think some of her worst behavior is prompted by fear: that Charlie could have been shot, for instance. But there was a better way to do that than yelling at her. (On the other hand, what idiot goes into a shooting scene to giver her aunt her purse?)
She could definitely have handled Charlie better - there were a lot of lessons she could have learned last night that she won't because she got angry at Brenda. (Although, I was with Brenda on giving back the phone: Charlie's apology wasn't sincere.)
Obviously Brenda's bottom line is to solve the case. But her tunnel vision to that end is going to cost her a wonderful husband and any friends she could lay claim to. Her "win at all costs" is going to backfire in a big way some day.
Finally, am I the only one who thinks it's insensitive that Brenda brings a bottle of wine to dinner every night when her husband is an alcoholic? I hope we aren't going to be saddled with a "Fritz fell off the wagon" storyline. That's so predictable.
You know, binky, I never thought of that but you are 100% right. My father is a recovering alcoholic and we've never, ever drank in front of him again and it's been almost 20 years. My sister-in-law is a recovering alcoholic and same thing. Sometimes she is in a social setting where some people are having drinks and you can't help but, but all of us family members refrain from drinking alcohol in front of her. I wasn't fully paying attention to that scene so I didn't really think anything of it at the time but now that really bugs me!
How exactly is Charlie related to Brenda? If Brenda was a comp***ionate person she'd be a wonderful parent but probably a lousy closer.
I think Sosi Bacon did a great job with her part. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree! Here's a case of nepotism (Kyra being a producer on the show) being a good thing.