What I’m Watching: The Closer

The Closer: Season 6, Episode 13 “Living Proof: Part One” (B+)

Alas, here we have one of the only Christmas episodes in recent years to actually air the week of Christmas, giving its urgency an added oomph because the celebratory national holiday is actually upon us this Friday. And a national holiday it does seem to be rather than a religious one, because all of the members of Brenda’s team are taking advantage of the time off to get away to exotic locales – like Italy – or just to spend time with their families. It’s entertaining to see Sanchez in an elf’s hat and to hear Flynn summarily dismissed from gift-wrapping duty, and I was also amused by the pitches the various team members gave as to why their plans were deathly important. The episode had a rather violent opening, with some angry Albanian chatter and someone being flattened by a police car, and having the bad kid as the suspected killer was intriguing too. I wasn’t prepared for a “to be continued” cliffhanger because this show so rarely (if ever) does those, but I suppose it does make sense since they just weren’t able to solve the case in time. Captain Raydor’s presence is fun, as is having the Johnson parents in town. I can’t quite imagine them sticking around all the time, but it is funny to hear Fritz and an otherwise nostalgic Brenda try to think of excuses, like raising the security alert in the United States, to convince her folks not to relocate from Atlanta to Los Angeles.