What I’m Watching: The Closer

The Closer: Season 6, Episode 14 “Living Proof: Part Two” (B+)

This two-part holiday episode really proved to be quite deadly, but there’s just something so wonderful and entertaining about the cast that makes it all work so well. While they’re always funny and never short on one-liners, what we don’t always get is the incredible teamwork that makes them such an effective bunch. In this case, we have the carefully-scheduled trickery on the part of Brenda and the rest of Major Crimes, determining that the killer isn’t covered by spousal privilege because he’s not actually married, and, as they have done before, clearing him of one charge so that he gets cocky and all but admits to another. Supplementing all of this deadly Albanian cleansing we have some great humor from the Johnson parents. Their cordoning off of the crime scene when their RV was burglarized was quite funny, and I enjoyed their very serious reactions to the whole affair. It’s absolutely brilliant and entirely hilarious that the burglary was actually Fritz’s Christmas present to Brenda, which of course served to convince the Johnsons that they should in fact stay in Atlanta rather than picking up and relocating full-time to the West Coast. Ending on the image of the entire Major Crimes group, plus Pope, Taylor, Raydor, and Dr. Morales eating together was a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed the fact that Dr. Morales was the one who volunteered to do the carving, and that he put his glove on before doing so. We still have one more episode to go this season, and I’m looking forward to it as always.