Major Crimes - General Discussion

[TrixieTrue]

On 5/6/2021 at 4:19 AM, Bastet said:

Every time I watch "Party Foul" (which I just watched a few minutes of, because it was one of the scenes that pisses me off and I wasn't in the mood), I am surprised anew by how much I came to like Patrice, because she gets my blood boiling in her first episode.  She's not the only one, but damn.

"I know a troubled kid when I see one."  Except apparently, the one living in your house.

"He's a crazy boy who couldn't take no for an answer."  Oh, you mean like your granddaughter who stabbed her boyfriend to death when he kindly and respectfully broke up with her?

Goddamn, the willful blindness not to see that everything she (rightly) accuses Wesley of applies to Keisha as well (except Wesley didn't, you know, kill Keisha when she only wanted to be friends).

And the audacity, to say Keisha shouldn't have to go to prison, because her uncontrolled temper means she's going to get her ass beat.  Gee, Patrice, maybe you should have gotten her some help sometime in the past 19 years so she could manage her anger.  You were a fucking ER nurse; ask the psych attending for a list of therapists specializing in troubled kids.

I hate that the squad goes along with this crap to make a deal.  "The court will never let her plead insanity."  Yeah, because she isn't!  She is guilty of second degree murder, and, under the law, her mental capacity means she belongs in prison rather than a mental institution.

Do I think she'll come out of a mental institution better than she'd come out of prison?  Of course; I'm not mad at the result, I'm mad at how they got there -- on a show that generally sticks to reality, this is written in a way that really distorts being colloquially "crazy" versus mentally ill and when, legally, mental illness means one is hospitalized rather than incarcerated.

There are a disgraceful number of mentally ill people who committed a crime because of that illness, suffering in prisons across America instead of being treated and then released if/when that illness is controlled so they are no longer a danger because of it.  Acting as if someone like Keisha can easily avoid prison, when those folks can't, is aggravating.

This is so interesting, thank you for posting it! 

Wouldn't Keisha be transferred to a prison after a mental institution deemed her "cured"? I realize cured isn't the right word, but after completing treatment, would she be expected to serve the rest of her term in prison?  

 

[Bastet]

1 minute ago, TrixieTrue said:

Wouldn't Keisha be transferred to a prison after a mental institution deemed her "cured"? I realize cured isn't the right word, but after completing treatment, would she be expected to serve the rest of her term in prison?  

No, the deal is to serve her time* in a mental institution.  She will stay there until her sentence is up, but could qualify for conditional release earlier depending on circumstances (just like from prison).

*We don't know how long they ultimately agree to; the lawyers are still in her room hashing it out but we're in the waiting room with Provenza and Patrice.

Ugh, I get angry again just thinking about this episode.  Patrice knows from the beginning Keisha may have done it, but she hands Wesley over as a scapegoat, and then just shrugs, "You thought it was a murder," when Provenza confronts her about it.

[shapeshifter]

16 minutes ago, Bastet said:

Ugh, I get angry again just thinking about this episode.  Patrice knows from the beginning Keisha may have done it, but she hands Wesley over as a scapegoat, and then just shrugs, "You thought it was a murder," when Provenza confronts her about it

So is the character of Patrice retconned thereafter (presumably because TPTB saw on screen chemistry between the characters of Patrice and Provenza) or should we just excuse her behavior because she assumed Wesley would be found innocent?

[Bastet]

3 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

So is the character of Patrice retconned thereafter (presumably because TPTB saw on screen chemistry between the characters of Patrice and Provenza) or should we just excuse her behavior because she assumed Wesley would be found innocent?

They didn't know how long they'd keep her around, so the character does change some later - but mostly that, unlike in her first two episodes, she has family she spends time with - but it plays to me like the writers don't even realize just how poorly she's behaving.  She's written as breaking down in the end, when Provenza says, "Whatever happened here, I know that you did the best you could," and she starts crying and asks, "Did I?"  (Here's a hint, Patrice: NO.)

So she has a realization after the fact, but I never feel like the scope of what happened is acknowledged.  A 19-year-old kid with a bright future ahead of him was murdered for doing absolutely nothing wrong (and his family is going to learn his killer won't go to prison for it), an 18-year-old kid was arrested for a murder he didn't commit, another 19-year-old kid is going to spend some of the best years of her life in an institution, and ALL of this could have been avoided if Patrice had recognized the problems in her own family instead of telling other parents they had a troubled kid on their hands.

[MaryMitch]

I hated the last season in part because of all the multi episode arcs. There were just too many characters to keep track of.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, MaryMitch said:

I hated the last season in part because of all the multi episode arcs. There were just too many characters to keep track of.

Me too. I was on chemotherapy and recovering from surgery when they started that in season 5. It was a blur. Maybe I should binge one of those multi-episode arcs to see if I feel any differently about it, but I don't think I'm going to.

[Mabinogia]

5 hours ago, MaryMitch said:

I hated the last season in part because of all the multi episode arcs. There were just too many characters to keep track of.

Same, I prefer the predominantly single ep storylines, maybe an occasional two parter. I do like the British style of one full season being one story, but for some reason these multi multi episode arcs don't work for me. 

[Bastet]

I don't mind them - other than resenting that, with more time to tell the crime story and thus more time to throw in some personal information about the squad members, the same majority percentage of personal storyline time went to Rusty, Rusty, Rusty - but didn't like the entire final season being a series of three multi-episode arcs.  I liked the first two individually (other than, ya know, Sharon dying at the end of the second one), but those things work better as exceptions to the rule rather than back-to-back.  (Of course, that was TNT's requirement, not Duff's choice.)

[Jaded]

It's been a few years and I'm still pissed that they killed Sharon off and not even in the final episode. I admit to not watching the episodes after that all the way. I FF'd through most of them especially the last two mainly because of how much they focused on Rusty's annoying ass. 

[Bastet]

I'm off today, and have been doing a whole lot of nothing, including watching part of "Thick as Thieves" on StartTV.  Trials on TV always irritate me with their inaccuracies, and Slider's is no exception, but I try to let things go - like a death penalty case lasting a few days (especially irksome since they weren't totally out there with the time between arrest and trial like most shows are).  But there's a continuity error that annoys me:

Andrea refers to Bug's testimony (which we didn't see), in which she described watching Slider "as he started drowning Marianna Wallace in a swimming pool" and how the victim was "held underwater for over a minute".  Except there's no way she said any of that.  (Unless Andrea suborned perjury, which they certainly don't intend for us to infer.)

Bug ran back inside when "Alice" fell as Slider was chasing her, so before he even rolled her into the pool and certainly before he held her under when she yelled at him for trashing her phone.  Bug later saw him take money out of Marianna's pocket, and she helped him pawn the stolen items from the house after he put the body - which she wouldn't touch - in his trunk.  She knows he killed her.  But didn't see it.  It's one of the reasons Andrea was initially willing to offer Slider a deal.

Grrr.  With a year and a half between episodes, I don't expect the average viewer to remember.  I would like it if the writers did, however.

Of course, it's possible they did remember, but didn't care since they just wanted a shortcut to setting up Andy's dramatic demonstration of how long a minute is.  But that brings me to another annoyance, because Andrea would have asked the "Is that enough time to kill someone?" question of Dr. Morales, not Andy.  (In real life, if she had asked Andy, Slider's lawyer would have objected and it would have been sustained.)

I know, this is the kind of stuff that only bugs lawyers; it's one of the many reasons I don't watch most crime dramas.  But this show is typically better about that stuff than most, so it disappoints me when the writers get lazy.

[bobalina]

On 5/9/2021 at 11:39 PM, Jaded said:

It's been a few years and I'm still pissed that they killed Sharon off and not even in the final episode. I admit to not watching the episodes after that all the way. I FF'd through most of them especially the last two mainly because of how much they focused on Rusty's annoying ass. 

If they hadn't killed off Sharon Rusty could not have killed Stroh and that was the endgame. It had to happen.

[71dude]

I'm a year into watching this show (randomly) since Start TV added it. I finally saw the final arc this week - it was really silly and overblown, but watchable (once). However when I get around to watching the whole series in order I will cut it off with Sharon's funeral scene. Dylan was annoying AF (who cares about him and his underage girlfriend?), Emma's death was lifted from Friday the 13th, the body count was ridiculous (and none of them mattered anyway), the veteran characters were mostly kicked to the curb, and Rusty gets away with murder? That scene just didn't work at all. Some good moments here and there, but not enough to sit through again. 

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, 71dude said:

I'm a year into watching this show (randomly) since Start TV added it. I finally saw the final arc this week - it was really silly and overblown, but watchable (once). However when I get around to watching the whole series in order I will cut it off with Sharon's funeral scene. Dylan was annoying AF (who cares about him and his underage girlfriend?), Emma's death was lifted from Friday the 13th, the body count was ridiculous (and none of them mattered anyway), the veteran characters were mostly kicked to the curb, and Rusty gets away with murder? That scene just didn't work at all. Some good moments here and there, but not enough to sit through again. 

@71dude, a lot of us (probably most) share this opinion of the end of the series.

[mammaM]

15 hours ago, 71dude said:

I'm a year into watching this show (randomly) since Start TV added it. I finally saw the final arc this week - it was really silly and overblown, but watchable (once). However when I get around to watching the whole series in order I will cut it off with Sharon's funeral scene. Dylan was annoying AF (who cares about him and his underage girlfriend?), Emma's death was lifted from Friday the 13th, the body count was ridiculous (and none of them mattered anyway), the veteran characters were mostly kicked to the curb, and Rusty gets away with murder? That scene just didn't work at all. Some good moments here and there, but not enough to sit through again. 

Honestly, if I'm rewatching, or just happen to catch some on tv, I won't even bother with the last season. Like you said, silly, overblown, annoying, ridiculous and ultimately infuriating. I mean, come on, they killed off Sharon!!!😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠

[Bastet]

I've always had a laugh at how every age-appropriate gay/bisexual/pansexual guy Rusty encounters (the kid from his chess club, Lina's friend in "Do Not Disturb", T.J., Gus) - plus poor Kris and her twice malfunctioning gaydar - is attracted to him, but a Lifetime marathon tonight just reminded me how particularly stupid that is when Dr. Joe immediately picks up on T.J.'s attraction based on Rusty's totally benign storytelling in "Snitch". 

I know he's supposed to be a great psychologist and I love him, but come on.  Rusty is on about the latest development in his hunt for Alice's identity, the discovery of her voicemail messages and his thoughts about what revealing those to the police/DA will mean for his project.  He says, "Thank God T.J. was there to give me the security question for her pass code, otherwise --" and Dr. Joe cuts him off to ask who T.J. is.  Rusty explains he started off as a source - no one at any of the other cell phone stores wanted to help, but T.J. was interested in what he was doing - and now is "kind of a friend".  Dr. Joe asks how old T.J. is and jumps right to, "And he took a real interest in Alice or in you?" and it escalates from there.

Seriously?  That is some tremendously clunky writing to establish T.J.'s feelings for Rusty and Rusty not being ready (period, and especially with a dude who's in the closet), setting up the scenario where Rusty uses and then discards him (with a dramatic swerve by T.J. into stage five clinger territory that gets shrugged off); there is no reason for Dr. Joe to have jumped to that assumption when he did, and it happening to be true doesn't excuse that leap.

[Bastet]

But on the flip side, Sharon's reaction to coming home to find her living room filled with Provenza's stuff in "Personal Effects" never fails to make me laugh; she can roll with the craziest shit at work, but when she's hit with something totally unexpected in personal situations with her guard down, she can have these delightful little flustered moments and this is one of the best.  Mary McDonnell nails the tone of voice and hand gestures.

Everyone's reactions to those hideous duck lamps amused me from the beginning, but once I learned they belonged to James Duff and everyone - including his husband (the actor playing Buzz, of course) - hated them, so he "gave" them to Provenza and wrote everyone else as wanting no part of them, I've laughed even harder.  I mean, fuck him with a chainsaw eternally for killing off Sharon in a self-indulgent fit, but he has a good sense of humor (thus why, across all writers, there are consistently funny moments in serious episodes, and some of the best comedic episodes of dramatic shows in all of TV).

[wknt3]

14 hours ago, Bastet said:

I mean, fuck him with a chainsaw eternally for killing off Sharon in a self-indulgent fit,

This is unnecessarily harsh. If we are going to abuse the poor man with power tools, it shouldn't be for killing off Sharon which actually worked dramatically, but for the bit of self-indulgence in the final arc that failed utterly - having Rusty come in and kill Stroh in cold blood and asking us to cheer for it. Which is also far more disrespectful to Sharon Raydor than mere death.

Edited August 7, 2021 by wknt3

[Bastet]

Well, yes, I meant the whole thing in mentioning his self-indulgent fit since he killed off Sharon in order to indulge his Rusty vs. Stroh fantasy as the final storyline, but I'd be upset however he annihilated Sharon Raydor from this world, since he lied after Taylor was killed and said no one else - other than the victims of the week - would die ("This isn't Game of Thrones"), killing off Sharon contributed to the "expendable woman" problem on TV, and it perpetuated the notion the only interesting thing for female characters to do is suffer (since one of his half dozen reasons for his decision was that he realized he'd given a two-time Oscar nominee precious little to do for five years and ought to give Sharon a meaty personal storyline).

Edited August 7, 2021 by Bastet

[friendperidot]

Just watched Sharon and Andy's wedding again. Every time I see it, I cry. 

[bobalina]

On 8/7/2021 at 12:13 PM, Bastet said:

Well, yes, I meant the whole thing in mentioning his self-indulgent fit since he killed off Sharon in order to indulge his Rusty vs. Stroh fantasy as the final storyline, but I'd be upset however he annihilated Sharon Raydor from this world, since he lied after Taylor was killed and said no one else - other than the victims of the week - would die ("This isn't Game of Thrones"), killing off Sharon contributed to the "expendable woman" problem on TV, and it perpetuated the notion the only interesting thing for female characters to do is suffer (since one of his half dozen reasons for his decision was that he realized he'd given a two-time Oscar nominee precious little to do for five years and ought to give Sharon a meaty personal storyline).

Sharon; took in an abandoned teen hustler who was a material witness. Melded him and her own kids into a family. Reunited him with his mother. Got him turned around, through college in 3 years. Dealt with a nasty, drunken husband with a gambling problem, had a romance at work, nursed her boyfriend  through heart issues, married said boyfriend  while dealing with her own heart problem. And chose to die rather than take a heart from someone else. All the while running an elite murder squad. I'd say she got plenty of storyline. 

And the vision goes to the creator or show runner not us fans.

[Bastet]

The only one of those personal storylines which isn't about a guy is her own health problem, so the only interesting personal thing she got to do on her own was die.  If this was truly a procedural, where we just didn't generally get into personal stuff, I'd chalk it up to the nature of the genre.  But existing in the same universe as seven years of exploring Brenda's life, it sticks out, and even within just its own bubble we learned more about Rusty's personal life than we did hers.  Hell, we learned more about Philip Stroh's personal life than we did hers.

Sharon was a terrific character, but it was an odd treatment of a main character.  Rusty being the character Duff based on himself, even more so than he did with Brenda, is not a coincidence when looking at the percentage of the small amount of non-case storyline time doled out to him compared to the other characters, including the main one.

[shapeshifter]

Unlike Brenda, Sharon was more of the Alex Trebek of the 2 series, excising her own ego from the situation in the service of the victims, something Brenda struggled with, but Sharon did with ease, out of habit. Perhaps her religiosity was supposed to explain this trait of hers?

There were moments when the strength of Sharon Rador's character dramatically appeared, although I'm not sure that occurred in every episode, or even every other episode, but, for example, telling off the other Sharon.
I don't think that it matters that this example is about Rusty, because it could have been about a victim or a work colleague.

[bobalina]

I rewatched both the Closer and Major Crimes today. The Closer is definitely a star turn for Kyra Sedgewick. Major Crimes is far more of an ensemble show.

[Bastet]

Yes, it was conceived that way (thus the differing focus in the titles), and the ensemble nature is one of the reasons I prefer Major Crimes to The Closer, and in fact it can make it hard for me to watch The Closer (other than the Sharon episodes, as I love her), because what was fine at the time can be annoying to me in hindsight after seeing what the squad members are capable of when allowed to do more.

Lifetime is showing the middle of season one tonight.  I love Sharon’s trajectory over that season, in how she adjusts to the job and how her relationship with the squad members and Rusty evolves, and I also like the Provenza arc in this middle stretch of episodes.

“Citizen's Arrest" shows us he took that obnoxious life strategist Thorn’s advice in the previous episode about changing himself if he wants his circumstances to change; starting with "Citizen's Arrest", he deals with Sharon and Amy differently.  In an impressive moment of personal growth, he steps back and takes an objective look at his new work situation and acknowledges Sharon is a great strategist and Amy has a specific skill set, both of which add the squad’s collective expertise; he takes Sharon's side in a disagreement over plan of attack and suggests Sykes take the lead because of her SIS experience's relevance to the case. 

Accepting and grudgingly appreciating these changes to the squad instead of wallowing in resentment leads to a real turning point in the next episode, "Out of Bounds", when Amy puts her physical self and Sharon puts her job on the line to solve the case.  Although he certainly continues to be irritated with them at times, they both have his respect from that episode on.

With season one of The Closer being about the squad getting over themselves and accepting Brenda, this show’s first season about the squad getting over themselves and accepting Sharon could easily feel repetitive.  But Duff and the writers wisely had everyone but Provenza come around pretty quickly and gave him a longer but realistic trajectory given his individual issues beyond stubborn resistance without dragging it out – by episode six, things are no longer fundamentally divisive even with our lone holdout.  Not perfect, certainly, but the foundational respect came quicker this time, and that makes sense given everyone’s previous experience; the conflict is not drawn out for manufactured drama, but instead resolved at a natural pace.

And then the next episode, “The Shame Game”, brilliantly brings together the parallel stories of Rusty’s and Provenza’s evolving relationships with Sharon in that pitch perfect scene where Rusty melts down over the discovery of his biological father and accuses Sharon of wanting to get rid of him.  An eavesdropping Provenza steps in to yell at Rusty in defense of Sharon’s care of him, Sharon waves him off and tries to assure Rusty while barely making it out of the cubicle before they can see her cry, and Provenza quietly chastises Rusty for the hurtful fit Rusty already knows was totally out of line.

The state of the relationships at the end of the first season and then at the beginning of the second after a long break are established at an impressively organic pace.

Edited August 28, 2021 by Bastet

[CheshireCat]

On 8/26/2021 at 9:50 PM, bobalina said:

Sharon; took in an abandoned teen hustler who was a material witness. Melded him and her own kids into a family. Reunited him with his mother. Got him turned around, through college in 3 years. Dealt with a nasty, drunken husband with a gambling problem, had a romance at work, nursed her boyfriend  through heart issues, married said boyfriend  while dealing with her own heart problem. And chose to die rather than take a heart from someone else. All the while running an elite murder squad. I'd say she got plenty of storyline.

And after everything she went through and had finally found a good guy who loved her the way she deserved to be loved, she was killed instead of getting a happy ending.
If Duff hadn't wanted her there, he could have found a different way to write her out. Killing off a character is almost always the most convenient/simplest way to go, therefore, I find it lazy, which in turn, I find disrespectful to the character.

When someone creates a character, they do create a human being and I hate when they then do something simply for the drama and/or shock effect without any respect or consideration to the character's feelings or the other characters' feelings. I find it immature, too.

Yes, tragedy and suffering are part of life but so are happy endings. Sharon was a good person, and killing off Sharon says to me that Duff didn't care enough about her to reward her with a happy ending.

[bobalina]

8 hours ago, CheshireCat said:

And after everything she went through and had finally found a good guy who loved her the way she deserved to be loved, she was killed instead of getting a happy ending.
If Duff hadn't wanted her there, he could have found a different way to write her out. Killing off a character is almost always the most convenient/simplest way to go, therefore, I find it lazy, which in turn, I find disrespectful to the character.

When someone creates a character, they do create a human being and I hate when they then do something simply for the drama and/or shock effect without any respect or consideration to the character's feelings or the other characters' feelings. I find it immature, too.

Yes, tragedy and suffering are part of life but so are happy endings. Sharon was a good person, and killing off Sharon says to me that Duff didn't care enough about her to reward her with a happy ending.

Characters are not human beings. They exist for dramatic (or comedic ) purpose. They don't get full, realistic lives. They get whatever moves the story forward. Sharon got the guy she deserved, the job she loved and she raised 3 great kids. She then chose to take her chances and let the heart issue play out rather than take a heart from someone else.

Most shows nowadays have a Bible, a longterm plan where the characters will go, Major changes and where they will be at the end, if they're not canceled before. I think the Stroh thread was always planned for resolution in the finale and that Sharon dying was always the plan. What did happen was the happy ending compared to the other possibilities for a cop.

And I do think heart issues were over used here. Three main characters had heart issues in the last couple of years.

[shapeshifter]

1 minute ago, bobalina said:

I think the Stroh thread was always planned for resolution in the finale and that Sharon dying was always the plan

I read the Stroh ending got postponed to the finale because Billy Burke was busy with Revolution and Zoo, but really don't know if this was accurate.
But I am pretty sure I read an interview with Duff saying that Sharon dying was not the plan until after the news came that the show was on its last season.

 

6 minutes ago, bobalina said:

And I do think heart issues were over used here. Three main characters had heart issues in the last couple of years.

On this we can all agree! 
I wonder if Duff thought physical heart issues were the show's metaphor for emotional stuff/crap -- perhaps his own?
I don't really know. Just speculating.

[wknt3]

21 hours ago, bobalina said:

And I do think heart issues were over used here. Three main characters had heart issues in the last couple of years.

 

20 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

On this we can all agree! 
I wonder if Duff thought physical heart issues were the show's metaphor for emotional stuff/crap -- perhaps his own?
I don't really know. Just speculating.

I don't think it was anything so high fallutin'. I just think Duff had his particular hobbyhorses that he rode into the ground. Heart issues, foster care, etc. If there was anything deeper at play in the way that so many of those plots/themes kept repeating in the last couple yeras of the show's run it was that the network was so busy interfering in how the show told stories that nobody had time to think too much about what stories they were telling.

[Bastet]

6 hours ago, wknt3 said:

I don't think it was anything so high fallutin'.

There's always the potential for highfalutin to be an aspect of Duff's creative decisions - this is the man who assigned every season of both shows a different esoteric theme (e.g. identity, expectations, reason, risk) and asked not just the writers, but the actors to play to it each episode (when Mary McDonnell signed on for the original three-episode guest star gig, she asked Kyra Sedgwick how the hell one acts these themes, and Kyra said they just ignore him, heh).

As for why heart issues were his go-to when giving characters a health crisis, maybe he partially based that on heart disease being the country's (and world's) leading cause of death, but most TV writers reach for cancer (number two in the U.S., not even in the top ten worldwide).  But mixing it up a bit would have been better.  (And having the men all bounce back but the lead woman die wasn't the best idea, either.)

[Bastet]

On 8/28/2021 at 9:28 AM, shapeshifter said:

But I am pretty sure I read an interview with Duff saying that Sharon dying was not the plan until after the news came that the show was on its last season.

I somehow missed this the first time around.  The show had not yet been canceled when he decided Sharon was going to die.  Duff decided that before they even started filming season six, and the cancellation news didn't come until shortly before it started airing, when Sharon's death had already been filmed.

But the writing was on the wall; the guy who'd taken over TNT several years before never supported the show, even though it stayed the network's number one drama through all the timeslot changes he imposed, because he wanted "edgy" programming, and Mary McDonnell's contract was up at the end of season six, but there had been no renegotiation talks initiated.  And Duff used to use killing Sharon off as leverage to get him to renew the show; TNT dude would say, "No, don't do it and we'll pick it up."  (Because he needed to hang onto it as a cash cow while he developed his "edgy" programming, and knew without Sharon viewership would drop.)  This time, TNT didn't object.

So Duff didn't officially know, but he knew - no one was surprised by the cancellation, only that it was announced before season six even started airing.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Bastet

[Raja]

3 hours ago, Bastet said:

As for why heart issues were his go-to when giving characters a health crisis, maybe he partially based that on heart disease being the country's (and world's) leading cause of death, but most TV writers reach for cancer (number two in the U.S., not even in the top ten worldwide).  But mixing it up a bit would have been better.  (And having the men all bounce back but the lead woman die wasn't the best idea, either.)

Maybe because he had just gone with cancer with Chief Johnson's father Clay in The Closer. But alas he survived and mom Willie Ray didn't make it to the end.

[Bastet]

Just now, Raja said:

Maybe because he had just gone with cancer with Chief Johnson's father Clay in The Closer.

For whom he'd earlier written a heart attack.  He was fond of people's hearts malfunctioning in the middle of the Murder Room - Clay, Fritz, Andy, Sharon.

[Liddy52]

2 hours ago, Bastet said:

For whom he'd earlier written a heart attack.  He was fond of people's hearts malfunctioning in the middle of the Murder Room - Clay, Fritz, Andy, Sharon.

Also, didn't one of the newly appointed chiefs/ captains/ assistant chiefs/( can't remember the rank, but the big boss) suffer a fatal heart attack in the middle of the murder room?

[Raja]

3 minutes ago, Liddy52 said:

Also, didn't one of the newly appointed chiefs/ captains/ assistant chiefs/( can't remember the rank, but the big boss) suffer a fatal heart attack in the middle of the murder room?

Chief Delk had a brain aneurysm shortly after taking office and Chief Pope took over as interim Chief of Police 

[Bastet]

4 minutes ago, Liddy52 said:

Also, didn't one of the newly appointed chiefs/ captains/ assistant chiefs/( can't remember the rank, but the big boss) suffer a fatal heart attack in the middle of the murder room?

It was an aneurysm.  Tommy Delk, the guy who was appointed Chief (when Brenda was in the running).

[Liddy52]

Thanks @Raja and @Bastet! I just remembered him collapsing and dying! With the discussion of heart issues, I started thinking that might have been the cause of his death. I had completely forgotten about Fritz having a heart attack. 

[shapeshifter]

7 hours ago, Bastet said:

As for why heart issues were his go-to when giving characters a health crisis, maybe he partially based that on heart disease being the country's (and world's) leading cause of death,

If so, perhaps having Sharon --a woman-- die of heart disease while all the male characters with that affliction (Andy, Fritz, Clay) survived was to draw attention to the issue of heart disease not being readily diagnosed in women (because the symptoms are somewhat different) and with the later diagnosis being fatal (I've heard/read this in various places, but here's one: cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/time-women-die-from-heart-attacks-more-often-than-men-heres-why--and-what-doctors-are-doing-about-it).

I did some Googling to try to discover if maybe Duff had lost someone to heart attack, but nothing like that came up. However, in this article (latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-fi-ct-himi-duff-20131117-story.html) I stumbled upon an interesting bit of background about Duff:

Quote

Meeting a mentor: After graduating from high school in Lubbock, Duff enrolled at Texas Tech University, where he met his mentor, actor G.W. Bailey, who was teaching an acting course. “He was a big influence on my life. He told me I didn’t have to be a lawyer and that I didn’t have to do any of the things that I didn’t want to do and that I could follow my passion.” Duff never forgot the early advice and would hire Bailey years later to work on his TV shows. Bailey plays police Lt. Louie Provenza on “Major Crimes” and “The Closer.”

 

[proserpina65]

On 8/28/2021 at 12:08 PM, bobalina said:

And I do think heart issues were over used here. Three main characters had heart issues in the last couple of years.

At least they didn't all have brain tumors.

[bobalina]

1 hour ago, proserpina65 said:

At least they didn't all have brain tumors.

 

1 hour ago, proserpina65 said:

At least they didn't all have brain tumors.

True. I also think we all think way more about this stuff than anyone connected with any show,

[shapeshifter]

15 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

At least they didn't all have brain tumors.

Or amnesia. 🙃

 

14 hours ago, bobalina said:

I also think we all think way more about this stuff than anyone connected with any show,

True. But it’s probably healthier than ruminating about a lot of other things. 
And I’m now attached to my idea that all those heart attacks on the show were metaphors for broken hearts —even if it wasn’t consciously intended on Duff’s part. IRL a broken heart can seem to emanate from the heart.   

[CheshireCat]

14 hours ago, bobalina said:

True. I also think we all think way more about this stuff than anyone connected with any show,

I would interpret that as we care more about the show and characters than they do (which is not something I'd want anyone to say about me if I had a show).

[torqy]

On 8/27/2021 at 9:42 PM, Bastet said:

Yes, it was conceived that way (thus the differing focus in the titles), and the ensemble nature is one of the reasons I prefer Major Crimes to The Closer, and in fact it can make it hard for me to watch The Closer (other than the Sharon episodes, as I love her), because what was fine at the time can be annoying to me in hindsight after seeing what the squad members are capable of when allowed to do more.

 

Brenda was "quirky," which can be fun in small doses, even in real life, but 7 years of it got tiresome.  Agreed about the squad being fleshed out better in the second series.

Rant: Whatever happened to TNT and USA, who gave us shows like this and Burn Notice?

 

Edited September 4, 2021 by torqy

[Tabbygirl]

On 1/13/2019 at 2:03 AM, Bastet said:

She continues to beat-feet it out of there upon anything beyond tearing up in front of anyone until near the end <sob> when she full-out cries telling Andy it might have been better for everyone had she died in the ambulance rather than scaring them all into rearranging their lives to nurse her towards an uncertain future.

I didn’t realize until a recent rewatch of the episodes where Fritz comes onboard as Deputy Chief of SOB that he was essentially given the same heart issue as Sharon in the end or close to it. But after a few episodes Fritz’s health issue is never mentioned again.

[Bastet]

8 minutes ago, Tabbygirl said:

I didn’t realize until a recent rewatch of the episodes where Fritz comes onboard as Deputy Chief of SOB that he was essentially given the same heart issue as Sharon in the end or close to it. But after a few episodes Fritz’s health issue is never mentioned again.

Fritz, like Brenda's dad and Andy, had a heart attack (and then was put on blood thinners for an arrhythmia, so that might have been A-fib, but they didn't get into it) .  Sharon had the world's most rapidly progressing case of cardiomyopathy.

(Presumably Fritz having a heart attack and not telling Brenda or anybody at LAPD other than Mike was going to be a storyline had the SOB spin-off come to fruition, but since it didn't, they just dropped it.)

[Tabbygirl]

On 1/29/2019 at 9:39 PM, shapeshifter said:

Oy. And I missed that too. Lydia's Mom was right on par with Rusty's.

I thought it was Lydia’s dad who put the sleeping pills in her milk because they make a point of saying he hadn’t expected her to wake up so soon.

I love Billy Moses, though that ending was shocking. Even his attorney was horrified.

[Bastet]

3 hours ago, Tabbygirl said:

I thought it was Lydia’s dad who put the sleeping pills in her milk because they make a point of saying he hadn’t expected her to wake up so soon.

He knew his wife drugged their daughter when he was out of town in order to have uninterrupted sexy times with Zapata - the affair over which he ultimately killed both parties - without the kid knowing. 

So, not wanting the cops investigating her murder he staged to look like a burglary gone bad to know his wife was having an affair, he had to come up with a benign reason Elaine would have drugged the kid.  He thus said Lydia always freaked out when he was gone, so Elaine gave her a pill to sleep.

But Lydia fell asleep before consuming enough to sleep through not just the usual sex, but a brutal murder as well.  So she, awakened, came down the stairs and saw the attack; he was convicted based on her testimony's corroboration of the physical evidence.

Imprisoned, he later gaslighted Lydia to make her think she'd screwed it all up - based on watching a scary movie earlier that night in which a husband killed his wife and then Mike questioning her the next day and feeding her the answers - and the intruder scenario he'd set up was the truth all along.  So she, made to believe she screwed over her father, recanted.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Bastet

[Spartan Girl]

No matter how many times I watch that episode, it never fails to shock me when he tells Lydia to her face that the only thing he regrets is that he didn’t kill her too.

Poor Lydia. 

[Tabbygirl]

On 5/19/2019 at 12:06 AM, Bastet said:

“Acting Out” is a nice palate cleanser, because I love it – mostly.  I’m a bit annoyed with Rusty (the world’s worst buffer) in the end, because he not only knows how private Sharon is but feels that way himself.  It’s not cute to gang up with Nicole and do the whole “But they’re definitely not dating, as far as you know or as far as they know.”

I didn’t mind that because Rusty could see things were turning dicey between Andy and Nicole, but even after that Shandy were still clueless. Loved as they walked out the door Sharon says again “We’re not dating” and Rusty replies “Several times a month.”

What I didn’t like was that going forward Nicole is never seen again, at the wedding and even when Andy was in the hospital those few times. And he always said he had children, but Nicole is the only one mentioned by name or shown.

[Bastet]

23 minutes ago, Tabbygirl said:

What I didn’t like was that going forward Nicole is never seen again, at the wedding and even when Andy was in the hospital those few times.

That's because the actor became a regular on those Chicago Med/PD/Fire shows, which filmed in Chicago, the next season.  The health scare stories worked without her, because Sharon calls her (she's out of the country) when Andy collapses during the blood clot storyline, and everything between him collapsing in the Murder Room and being largely recovered from that heart attack occurs off-screen during the hiatus.

But, yeah, the wedding.  Not only was her absence glaring, but Little Adolf Mark being the ring bearer instead of Andy's stepgrandsons was silly.  They should have tossed in a line about Nicole out of the country again and the boys home with the flu or something.  (And then, of course, she wasn't at the funeral, either, but a shit ton of characters who would have been there weren't.)

26 minutes ago, Tabbygirl said:

And he always said he had children, but Nicole is the only one mentioned by name or shown.

That one doesn't bother me, because it took Nicole a long time to reconcile with Andy, and we knew from a couple of brief references his son was even slower to come around.  So they could have given him a name, sure, but not seeing him was fine.  We only know the name of/saw one of Mike's three sons, too, and don't know the names of/never saw any of Provenza's various kids, stepkids, and grandkids, either. 

[Tabbygirl]

On 8/25/2019 at 12:02 AM, Bastet said:

Or maybe I should have suspected her from the moment Julio was interested in her, heh.  Poor Julio, for his first foray back into actual dating to end in such disaster, but “as first dates go, it was pretty bad” makes me laugh.

In Hindsight was confusing to follow, especially over five episodes. I really had to finally sit down and pay attention to it on one of Start TV’s reairing of it. I was bummed that Stephanie turned out to be the killer because I liked her and I liked the idea of her and Julio. It was one of the few episodes that I really liked Julio and I felt sorry for him.

I’m probably in the minority but I liked Hickman and I liked the chemistry between him and Amy.