It’s the Summer finale of The Closer, and it was a pretty big episode. There was a crazy dude killing ambulance drivers and old folks while hatching plans to kill firefighters and cops, there was nerve gas, Courtney B. Vance, and most importantly, the mayor finally announces who’s going to be the next Chief of Police.
Even though I’ve never been able to figure out how the show would make Brenda as Chief work, it still came as a bit of a surprise when she didn’t get the job. They’ve really been setting Brenda up over the past few episodes to get it, so seeing some random dude get the position was a little disappointing.
Don’t get me wrong: I love Courtney B. Vance, and he’ll make a great addition to the show — I just wish we would have met him earlier. If you’re going to spend 10 episodes leading up to this decision, at least let us meet some of the other players. The only candidates we knew were Pope and Brenda, and after he was knocked out of the running a few episodes back, Brenda was our sole candidate.
Of course they did bring in “Tommy,” as Brenda so disdainfully calls him, for this case, giving us most of the episode to get to know him. He and Brenda butted heads, but he came over to her side pretty quickly, so it makes me wonder what their actual working relationship is going to be.
The guys seem pretty worried about Major Crimes getting shut down. While that obviously won’t happen, it would be interesting to see if there’s a bit of a reorganization that goes along with the new building and the new Chief. I’ve been saying all season that The Closer is getting a little long in the tooth, so a re-org could be just what it needs. It won’t be as drastic as Brenda being Chief of Police, but maybe she could get Chief Pope’s job, since he seems so concerned about his job security.
As for the crazy manifesto guy, I will say that I loved the ending in the parking garage. His line about the NYPD being the largest police force, so maybe Brenda should keep her ego in check, was pretty amazing — as was Tao stopping the can of nerve gas with his foot and yelling, “Holy crap!” Because really, what else is there to say in that situation?
What did you guys think of the finale? Was it a satisfying ending, or was the whole “search for America’s Next Top Chief” storyline a little anti-climactic?
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Sep 14, 2010 @ 15:00 EST5EDT
I watched quickly, but didn’t like Vance’s character. That said, I don’t have a clue who the current chief of police is, so I am not too worried about him. It was obvious he was a player, and Brenda is a risk taker. Guess the players always get shoved along to the top. Sad face.
This episode was great. It felt like a movie. The pan from the ambulance over to the left with no apparent cut was perfect. The villian was perfect. I especially liked how Vance and Sedgwick played off each other. He’s basically playing his “Flash Forward” role again and I like that. He’s a strong character that’s not been overused and it’s great that they are replacing J.K. Simmons (even though I like the guy, the way he played his part “Up in the Air” was awesome).
You see this is the reason why Sedgwick got her Emmy and this is an episode that validates the standing of “The Closer” as a series and it just goes to show how idiotic it is to just grab one single episode and judge the whole series by that. *sigh* It just doesn’t do the show any justice and to be honest I’d really LOVE to find out what a certain person would’ve thought about this episode. Too bad.