TVSquad

(S02E04)  This week we get back to work and Brenda's personal life is pushed to the back burner-- sort of. It's her 40th birthday and she's a little upset about the number and, as several detectives suggest, she's acting stranger than usual.

The case was awfully convoluted, wasn't it? There were a handful of suspects, each with a motive, that kept sending Brenda in circles to choose a top suspect. She really, really wanted the killer of a restaurant manager to be Dennis Dutton, a man she knows kills women but hasn't been able to prove it. The evidence keeps pointing her to the woman's husband, the owner of another restaurant... everyone but Dutton. It turns out Karen, the victim, slept with each of the men in her life to get things from them: a restaurant, a job, and a good review. Two of the men she slept with knew she was using them, but the naive reviewer thought she loved him. At a fancy lunch, Brenda gets the reviewer to admit he killed Karen. Dutton isn't guilty. This time. And to laugh in her face, he sent her a set of chef's knives, like the one used to kill Karen. Brenda uses one of the knives to cut the yummy-looking chocolate cake that her staff bought her for her birthday.

The end of the crime storyline seemed a little rushed, didn't it? We kept going around and around in circles and suddenly it occurs to Brenda that none of the lead suspects is the killer. Good for her for ignoring her gut, which kept telling her that Dutton was the killer. Still, it seemed a little uneventful. Of maybe I kept getting sidetracked by all the fireworks going off in my neighborhood.

Brenda's boyfriend, Fritz, was right about Asst. Police Chief Pope, wasn't he? Now that he's splitting with his wife, he is trying to re-ignite the flame between he and Brenda. So far she is doing a great job resisting his charms. I imagine this will be an issue later this season.

I love how we're getting a little taste of the supporting characters this season. Tonight, it was Lt. Provenza (G.W. Bailey). As Det. Flynn was running down the crime scene and pronouncing everything wrong, Provenza was translating the correct pronunciations of jobs at a fancy restaurant ("Sauce-y-ay", he says). He had all the good one-liners, about not touching the flowers but the flower basket and suggesting that he and Det. Flynn should've shot both the french guys fighting in the restaurant.

Does anybody know why Brenda kept carrying around the giant bouquet of flowers? I guess she didn't want anyone to read the card and learn that it was her 40th birthday. Why not just pocket the card? It was a sight gag that got old real quick.