Monday, September 03, 2007 Rant Archive
Different crime shows focus on different parts of an investigation; it’s rare for a show to follow a single case from initial event to verdict (like MURDER ONE did several years ago), but in general, each show tends to have its own particular area on which it concentrates. For THE CLOSER, that focus is on investigation and confession, the pieces that lead to arrests, trials and convictions, as we generally assume that our heroes didn’t screw up and catch the wrong bad guys. But what if they did? What if an investigation was flawed and the protagonists are wrong? That’s one of the threads running through this episode, the first part of the season finale.
Chief Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) has traded in her health worries for an all-new problem: combining the finances of herself and fiancé Fritz (Jon Tenney) into a cohesive unit, as befitting a married couple. Meanwhile, the Priority Homicide Division is looking into the murder of a high-profile divorce lawyer who managed to make enough enemies to populate a small city. The structure of the episode is a little unusual; for the first time that I can remember, THE CLOSER employs flashbacks, showing both the investigation and the resultant trial. As the trial progresses, the defense manages to illustrate some disquieting holes in the prosecution’s case in spite of general incompetence, and Johnson may end up on the wrong end of the fallout. Worse, in the process of combining insurance policies, Johnson discovers something in Fritz’s past she wasn’t aware of, and there’s certain to be fallout from that. Oh, the tangled web we weave …
Part of the attraction of WEEDS is that wherever you think it’s going, you’re probably wrong.
There’s been previous reference to the new religious-based community, Majestic, that’s opening next door to Agresta. In this episode, we meet its president, Sullivan Groff (Mathew Modine), who comes toilet bowl seat in hand (literally) to the Agresta city council. Apparently in planning his community, Groff forgot to provide a place for its effluent (a fancy word for what you and I call ca-ca) to go. He’d like to run it into the Agresta sewage system.
Over the protests of Celia Hoades (Elizabeth Perkins), Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon) is voted back on the council to handle the negotiations. He understandably wants to take an aggressive stance with Majestic because “We got them by the sphincter.”
Meanwhile, It looks like Andy Botwin (Justin Kirk) is going to go to Iraq despite the fact that he has only eight toes. Though that voyage may be slightly delayed because he narrowly missed getting hit by a small missile hit his buddy square in the chest.
I did not see this one coming. As the season finale unfolded, everything was finally coming together for the boys. They made it to Cannes, there are hot chicks everywhere, and there’s a bidding war for their movie, MEDILLIN.
And then, they screen the movie … and it sucks … really, really bad.
So now we’re back to square one. The $75 million-plus deal the boys were supposed to have is gone, they have no movie to show, and the future is, well, there is no future. It’s a bummer about them not taking all those offers before the screening. But really, someone maybe should have watched this thing before sending it off to the biggest film festival in the world, no?
But at least Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) found his dream girl, who just happens to be a huge Viking Quest fan. Too bad he’s got no money to keep her.
Don’t you know what happens when you try to add new members to a band? It didn’t work when Fleetwood Mac added Stevie Nicks. It didn’t work when CCR tried to replace John Fogerty (but he was the only one in that band with talent anyway, so what are ya gonna do?). And I don’t even have to tell you what happened when L.A. Guns tried to add a singer other than Axl Rose (bad things, man).
It isn’t going to work for FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS either. But that doesn’t stop Murray from bringing in Todd the bongo player – who immediately causes a rift among the boys and prompts them to split into two separate bands as Bret finds Dmitri the key-tar player (half keyboard, half guitar) to form THE ORIGINAL FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS.
Both bands are finding incredible success, but nobody really likes either new member. And booking both bands at the same night on the same stage (playing the same songs, no less) is not a good idea.
I liked Grace Hanadarko (Holly Hunter) a lot more before I got to know her so well. Perhaps familiarity really does breed contempt. It’s just that I’m now really worried about the possibilities of actually SAVING GRACE (TNT, Mondays at 10 p.m.).
In “Yeehaw, Geepaw,” the body of a Native American veteran just returned from Iraq is found burned and buried in a shallow grave. Along side his body is an owl feather, which will keep his soul from doing whatever good souls are supposed to do. Uncertain of the symbolism, she finds Grace consults her grandfather, a Choctaw, or at least tries to
They had a wonderful relationship, these two. He taught her to ride when she was a child. He calls her Champaili, which means Sweet One. And now she’s shocked to discover he has Alzheimer’s. It is, of course, something Grace would have known had she returned one of her sister’s persistent phone calls. Sis wants to put grandpa into a facility where they don’t have to worry about him; Grace says no and elects to spend time with him.