Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Appearance is Everything on ‘The Closer’



By LillyKat
PTR Staff Writer

Stash of chocolate cookies inside desk drawer - $3.49

Catering bill for disrupted wedding - $30,000

Potential civil lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles from Bridezilla’s disgruntled wedding party - $10 million

Dropping the coffin down the steps of the church at your buddy’s funeral – priceless.

And so went the third episode of this season's The Closer – ironically titled “Saving Face.” (Note to Priority Homicide: probably a good idea not to have Lieutenant Flynn and Lieutenant Prvoenza pallbearers at another former LAPD colleague’s funeral any time soon).

Enter one dropped coffin. Two dead bodies. A closed church. An irate wedding party. A disgraced funeral home. And a whole lot of unanswered questions.

Since the now deceased former LAPD officer had quite the history of being smarmy off-hours, the team initially suspects some sort of hanky-panky foul play when a young, buxom blonde rolls out of said dropped coffin along with said deceased LAPD officer.

And there was.

Just not in the way one might think.

Turns out Botox Barbie (actual victim name: Sue Emery) was having quite the affair with her plastic surgeon. When things turned sour, she started some serious blackmailing of the good ol’ doctor who just so happened to be the surgeon for some of the most famous folks in Hollywood.

So, steal the book of those famous before-and-after photos, and well … you’ve got yourself quite the bargaining chip, complete with an LAPD officer turned Private Investigator hired as the go-between.

Oh what a tangled web we weave.

Especially for the doctor.

Motive anyone?

The episode also provided its fair share of comic relief – none more entertaining than Brenda being given the once over by the plastic surgeon, who is not impressed with her overuse of red lipstick and who also mistakenly thinks she’s come into have work done as opposed to questioning him for his involvement with the victim.
Brenda: “What do you think of my lipstick?”
Detective Daniels: “Are you asking me as a friend or as the Chief?”
Brenda: “How come you never said anything?”
Detective Daniels: “The same reason I never said anything about your sweaters.”
Ah, the neuroticisms of Brenda.

And the subtleties of Kyra Sedgwick – twisting herself into a pretzel as she tries to cover up her chest (of which the plastic surgeon had observed as a potential area of work) whilst simultaneously smearing off her lipstick in the next several scenes … truly hysterical.

But, perhaps what stole this episode was the irate wedding party, lead by the Bridezilla of Bridezillas, who wasn’t too happy with Brenda declaring the church – her church – a crime scene. And so, Brenda becomes the punching bag for Bridezilla, which of course was videotaped and uploaded to YouTube, where Brenda becomes “the most downloaded, fully clothed woman on the Internet.”

Do we all not know by now that we shouldn’t mess with Brenda Leigh Johnson when she’s investigating a murder?

Apparently, Bridezilla missed that memo.

And so goes the arrest of the entire wedding party, much back-and-forth threatening of lawsuits, and the squad making good use of the 18,000 tons of leftover food.

The kicker?

One fairly red faced Bridezilla, who ends up as one of those before-and-afters in that all valuable plastic surgeon’s book.

As we said, quite the bargaining chip.

Especially once in Brenda’s hands as evidence.

New episodes air Mondays at 9 p.m. on TNT.

3 comments:

TVFan said...

This episode was HILARIOUS!! I was laughing so hard at that entire opening sequence, the YouTube stuff, Brenda at the plastic surgeon and so on and so forth. Just brilliant writing and acting. LOVED the way Brenda kept herself in that "pretzel" shape for several scenes after the plastic surgeon alluded to her ample-ness.

LOVED your opening bit paying homage to those classic Mastercard commercials. BRILLIANT!!

Anonymous said...

This blog entry was as awesome as last night's episode! I laughed all over again. Kyra Sedgewick is just brilliant in this role! She truly is "The Closer".

Anonymous said...

So glad to hear others enjoyed the humor in this ep - it was definitely one of those classics! (Was trying to figure out a way to do it justice with this entry - thank goodness for those MasterCard commercials; they provided the right inspiration! :))