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Major Crimes

Credits

Cast

Network

Reviewer

Paul Asay

TV Series Review

Los Angeles’ best closer may be gone, but that doesn’t mean killers and crooks catch a break in the City of Angels these days. Not, at least, on TNT.

After seven seasons as one of television’s best-loved cops, Brenda Leigh Johnson (The Closer) is no longer around to coax out confessions with her honeyed drawl. (While she was on the job, actress Kyra Sedgwick was nominated for five Emmys and The Closer became one of cable’s most-watched shows.) Not ones to leave their beat, though, Brenda’s old squad is still on the telly, just with Brenda’s best frienemy, Commander Sharon Raydor, at the helm. Under the title Major Crimes, the show is now in its sixth season.

The Opener

Sharon was introduced in Season 5 of The Closer as an in-department antagonist—a badge-wearing watchdog tasked with sniffing out instances where officers had used excessive force or stepped over a legal line while bringing bad guys to justice. Since cozying up to that line was at times a point of pride for Brenda and her end-justifies-the-means team, she and Sharon clashed. Frequently.

Now Sharon’s heading the same team that for three years barely tolerated her presence. Tension? Uh, yeah, at least at first. And Brenda and Sharon couldn’t be more different. Where Brenda was all Southern charm and toughness—a heaping helping of grits with a side of magnolia—Sharon’s a by-the-book professional, pleasant but a bit distant (except to her workchum/soulmate/husband Andy Flynn, of course). She’s not chummy and never silly.

How are the two similar? In the way they make the crook or cop who dares cross them rue the day they met. And clearly, after seven years with Brenda’s old crew, Sharon’s earned their trust.

Crimes’ Misdemeanors

Major Crimes, like its predecessor, still balances hardboiled crime-procedural plots with a light office atmosphere, full of banter and inside jokes. But it can be deadly earnest at times, too—and surprisingly touching.

Sharon also serves as adoptive mother to Rusty Beck, a one-time homeless teen prostitute introduced to viewers in The Closer’s waning days. Now he’s all grown up and is slowly creeping into same-sex relationships.

Due to Sharon’s by-the-book persona, the show also steers clear(er) of The Closer’s habit of pushing the law as far as possible (and sometimes even breaking it) in order to catch the bad guys. But Major Crimes still has some major flaws. Its language can be quite harsh, even straying into s-word territory on occasion. Crimes sometimes hinge on sleazy sexual escapades. And there’s almost always at least one dead body to be uncovered and examined/dissected.

Episode Reviews

Major Crimes: Dec. 12, 2017 “Conspiracy Theory: Part 2”

Sharon and the team continue to investigate the mysterious murders of two women connected with Tackles, a Hooters-like restaurant chain owned by a former star athlete. One of the victims was a lawyer who was filing a class-action lawsuit against the chain; but the case takes a strange turn when the team discovers that the victim was also exploring alleged rapes connected with the restaurant.

The other murder victim had apparently been sexually assaulted before she was killed: It’s suggested that her murder was a way to make sure she didn’t come forward. We see her dead body in a sitting position on her couch, some discoloration around her face and abrasion marks around her neck. We later learn that she was shocked several times with a stun gun (that left no obvious marks) before she was murdered. She crushed a wine glass in her hand during the attack, and dried blood covers her fingers. We also see her body in an examination room, mostly covered by a medical sheet. But her shoulders and part of her back are exposed.

Details of her alleged rape involve drugs and bondage. (The descriptions are so disturbing that two officers can’t listen to the full description from the women’s counselor.) We hear that the victim was suicidal, too—attempting to kill herself by overdosing on medication a few years before. We learn that the owner of the Tackles chain was accused of participating in a gang rape when he was in college. Though charges were never brought and the case was settled out of court, the victim later killed herself by jumping off a bridge.

Rusty has several angry conversations with his former male lover, Gus, during which they repeatedly rehash the context of Gus’s infidelity. (It’s suggested that Gus was pressured to have sex with his male boss, then was fired when he eventually refused. Lawyer-wannabe Rusty—despite his anger at Gus—helps him get a generous settlement from the former employer to keep the matter out of court. “No one can be fired for not sleeping with the boss,” he says.) They discuss sex frequently during these conversations, though without specifics.

Women employed by Tackles wear tight, midriff-baring tops. We hear details of how a woman was shot in the head. On a funeral program, we read Psalm 23:6, “And I dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Characters say the s-word twice. We also hear “a–,” “d–n,” “h—,” “p-ssed” and “t-ts.” God’s name is misused about 10 times.

Major Crimes: Aug. 1, 2016 “Moral Hazard”

Sharon and her team look frantically for a man who gunned down three people in a car impound lot. He’s toting around a bag full of heavy artillery, and the Major Crimes team believes he may be just getting started.

Audiences see the killer shoot those three victims multiple times, leaving them dead in the room. Police soon discover his brutally bloodied first victim—an old employer whom the killer bashed on the head with a lamp, taped to a chair and tortured before killing him. (In a flashback, we see the killer draw a knife across the man’s forearm, though the fatal wound was to an artery in the man’s leg.) Another man is shot twice in a car. Someone else plunges from a balcony, landing on the ground below with blood pooling around his head. A hotel room gets shot up, and someone suffers a gunshot to his bullet-proof vest. There’s talk of someone being suicidal.

A partially dressed man and woman are evacuated from a hotel. (He’s shirtless, she’s running with a shirt only partly covering her bra.) Lt. Louie Provenza and his girlfriend, Patrice, decide not to get married (because Louie refuses to retire), and Louie’s thrilled that things will remain as they are. Sharon and Andy tell the police chief their intention of moving in together. Characters say the s-word once, as well as “h—” three times, “d–n” once and misuse God’s name about a half-dozen times. Louie also says “ye gods” twice.

Major-Crimes: 12-30-2013

“Year-End Blowout”

A car dealership turns into a hotbed of crime and catastrophe as a year-end blowout sale becomes a low-rent blow-up. Literally. The son of the family patriarch who’s run the place for decades gets killed when a car bomb decimates his ride. The forensics guys are picking up pieces of his clothing all over the place as the crack team of cops starts picking up the pieces of the sordid story that prompted his murder.

Turns out that the unhappily married Little Ted had a gay lover on the side. His wife sues the company as part of her divorce proceedings, and skeletons start popping up all over the lot.

We see a pic of Ted and his lover shirtless and embracing at a pool. We hear about how Ted proposed “the minute the Supreme Court made it legal … that very minute.” Big Ted is oblivious to the infidelity of his heir, meanwhile, but quickly gets up on his moral high horse when it comes to the business’s profitability. Rusty complains about his mom’s love for rules and talks about learning to drive when he was 12, with his mom OD’ing in the backseat. Foul language includes an uncensored “bulls‑‑‑,” a “h‑‑‑” and three exclamations of “son of a b‑‑ch.”

Major-Crimes: 9-3-2012

“The Ecstasy and the Agony”

A corporate bigwig is shot in the chest and killed. (We see the bloodstain.) Turns out, the guy’s high up in the Israeli mob, his business a cover for smuggling Ecstasy. Oh, and his wife has been sleeping with her “life coach,” who was putting the whole sordid business into a screenplay.

The life coach had been having sex with several mob wives, actually, and he realizes he’ll have to leave the country to stay alive. Lt. Provenza advises him to keep doing what he’s good at: sleeping with rich, married women. “That’s the sort of business it sounds like you could start anywhere,” he says. Provenzo admits he’s been married five times himself and that sometimes sexual relations “overlapped” a bit.

We hear the s-word once, as well as “h‑‑‑,” “b‑‑tard,” “b‑‑ch” and “p‑‑ck.” There are a half-dozen misuses of God’s name.

More palatable and “chewable” is this: Rusty gets in trouble at his new Catholic school (“I’m not even Catholic,” he complains to Sharon), for “lying” (actually, truthfully talking about how he helped catch a serial killer) and fighting with classmates. The priest wants to kick Rusty out, but Sharon talks him out of it, asking if throwing out a boy for telling the truth and defending himself was “an example you want our congregation to follow?” Still, she upbraids Rusty for making trouble. And later, when Rusty talks back to her (a regular thing this episode), Sharon says he should spend the afternoon thinking about the word civility. And, she says, “if it might be proper to treat me with the same respect that I am showing you.”

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Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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