TVSquad

(S02E09) Brenda's wardrobe just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn't it? That black, strapless dress looked okay at first glance, but then the camera zooms out and we see a tule slip underneath. That has to be from somebody's prom in the '80s! And then she wore some horrible, polka dotted skirt with a grey, cowboy-looking jacket and hot pink shoes. To Brenda, clothes are an after thought. It's a wonderful little touch for her character.

Well, this wasn't my favorite episode this season. We had a short run there of about four episodes that were really stellar. Some of them were downright hilarious and last week's was just plain stunning. This week, we're back on track for the type of script full of red herrings that we expect from The Closer. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as the past few weeks have been.

Right off the bat, this episode takes a lot of twists and turns. We begin with an hysterical mother in an operating room and a chauvinistic hospital administrator who tries to block Det. Daniels' questions about the death of a little boy. The administrator proceeds to rub everybody the wrong way-- from Brenda to Chief Pope-- and the priority homicide unit shuts down the operating room and launches an investigation.

While the doctors and staff are acting awfully suspicious following the death of the little boy on the operating table, the mother also starts looking like a suspect. She may be suffering from Munchausen-by-proxy and may have been making her son sick ever since the boy's father died last year. Her house is a sterile, ouch-proof environment, she scares children and adults with her overprotectiveness, and she has a motive: her son is the recipient of a $3 million trust fund.

How messed up is that mother? She had her son released to her medical school so she could dissect him? Ew! Anyway, her extreme actions were warranted. Her autopsy of her son showed that the doctor did not stitch up a tear in the boy's artery as he said he did, and essentially watched as the boy bled to death on the table. Hospital surgery video shows the doctor faking the stitches. But, the mother's autopsy video won't hold up in court since the body was out of the chain of evidence so Brenda has to kick it into gear and get a confession out of these dirty docs.

She does get a confession, but it doesn't matter. The Asst. Dist. Attorney refuses to charge the men because he sees it as a case of malpractice and not maliciousness. Brenda is super pissed off because her off-the-book performance didn't get her a win this time around. Just as she's trying to make Det. Daniels feel better about the way things ended up, they hear gun shots in the parking garage. The mother of the boy has killed the doctor who decided to let the boy die on the operating table. She delivers a terrific last line, "I think Dr. Woods thought he was God. Turns out he was wrong."

This was a very Law and Order-style ending, in my opinion. Dick Wolf loves crime victims to be vindicated and go to jail for noble causes and that's what this mother did. I'm not sure I loved the ending. I would've been happy with the depressing ending where Brenda says, "We don't punish, we don't prosecute. We just find out the truth."

With the very serious subject matter of a dead little kid, the writers were able to tastefully add some humor to this episode. It started with a quick joke about men not asking for directions, then the good cop/bad cop conversation between Brenda and Lt. Provenza where Provenza says, "How bad do you want me to be?", and Lt. Tau's encyclopedic knowledge of medicine.

And I agree with one commenter from last week about not buying the Sgt. Gabriel/Det. Daniels relationship. He's too much of a wimp for her. At the very beginning, he quickly makes sure that Brenda knows that Det. Daniels is the one who declared the operating room a crime scene. I don't think Det. Daniels will appreciate being with a man who doesn't respect her judgement as a detective. I hope we see her tossing him aside in an upcoming episode.