By Brandon Nolta

You know, I hate to say it, but I wasn’t feeling the love for this week’s installment of THE CLOSER. There are a couple of reasons why, but essentially, I felt like the writers passed up an interesting story to stay with what felt safe. A good show—and THE CLOSER is one of those, even on an off week—shouldn’t be afraid to stray off the beaten track when a story goes there, and maybe the gang got a little gun-shy for this one. Let me explain in a little more detail.
   
The basic crime for Chief Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) and her merry folks to resolve is the murder of a successful businesswoman, who owned a fleet of tour buses that tended to cater to Chinese tourists. What makes this a little more interesting than usual is that virtually all the major players that get pulled into the investigation—victim, suspect, various people with something to hide—are Chinese nationals, and are thus steeped in a very different culture. Even Lt. Tao (Michael Paul Chan) is somewhat at a loss, being fourth-generation American and thus is just a little less of an outsider than his colleagues. There are hints of international intrigue, as some of the victim’s tour guests were Chinese government officials, but nothing really comes of this. In the end, as Chief Johnson so capably discovers with Lt. Tao’s help, what it comes down to is the dark side of mixing business and family, especially when business requires you to get in bed with the devil as it were.
  

 This is really nothing new, as “fish out of water” stories are an honored staple of the narrative art form. What’s unfortunate is that the writers take something that isn’t as familiar with Western audiences (namely, the intricate family dynamics that can exist in Asian cultures), build it up to start drawing parallels to Western family dynamics, and then abandon it for basic police procedural situations. Police procedurals are fine entertainment, but when you can add something to make the story richer, why wouldn’t you do it?
           
I really thought that’s where they were going, especially seeing as how the episode spends so much time developing the strains between Fritz (Jon Tenney) and his soon-to-be in-laws (Barry Corbin and Frances Sternhagen), as well as the strain in the squad room, a family of its own, with the unexpected revelation of the relationship between Daniels (Gina Ravera) and Gabriel (Corey Reynolds). In fact, it seemed like all the pieces were there … and then, the episode wrapped up in a flurry of terse statements and expectations that went nowhere. It seemed like they wanted to go there, but then decided they had to provide some kind of closing for the menopause thread and so compressed the other stuff. What was the most potentially interesting moment of the episode—a conversation between the victim’s husband and his father in an interview room—was treated perfunctorily.
   

Then again, in a show that’s so uniformly good, the writers can be forgiven a weak episode or two, and the actors do their usual fine job. Tenney gets a little more to do this week, as his tremendous patience gets a workout from being caught between Brenda’s overbearing dad and the faux-flighty machinations of Brenda herself; he allows different shades of anger and resentment to play out across his face, and it should reassure certain fans of the handsome FBI agent that he’s not all nice and goody-goody. Chan also gets more to do, and it’s always a pleasure to see this veteran character actor do his thing. As the season wraps up, one hopes that the writers let their better instincts out more often and let the narrative take the actors where it will. Damn good TV only stays damn good when it breaks away from the pack, and this week’s episode just didn’t quite have what it took. Here’s hoping for next week.