Senile isn’t Futile on ‘The Closer’

By LillyKat
PTR Staff Writer


And now back to our regularly scheduled episode.

After last week’s brilliant albeit intense, humorless and uncomfortable child molestation/murder episode, I was looking for a little bit of a breather with The Closer last night.

And it did not disappoint (even though it did make me want to call my 81-year-old grandmother to let her know I loved her).

The fifth episode of season three, affectionately titled “The Round File,” took an interesting look at an award-winning nursing home, and the criminal behavior of its directing manager who just so happens to think it’s a-ok to off those patients who a) have run out of money to pay for care; b) have run out of family and friends of which care for them.

It was kind of sad, actually.

There are plenty of real-life tales of the unscrupulous dealings of various nursing homes that neglect the elderly patients who live there. The Closer is not the first show to explore this territory nor will it be the last. I don’t even think this episode presented the most disturbing or complex point of view on the subject.

But, it did serve to remind us that getting old is not fun, and just because one is old doesn’t mean he or she is useless.

In fact, one can be pretty darn sly.

Case in point: one of the nursing home residents (Donald Baxter, a former reporter who used to cover the LAPD homicide beat back in the day) gets himself arrested by claiming to have poisoned seven other residents of said nursing home just to ensure he gets the attention of the department (seeing as his original complaint/report hit “The Round File” thanks to Commander Taylor and Robbery Homicide). After learning Mr. Baxter was telling the truth (not about poisoning anyone himself) but that residents were being offed by the managing director in attempt to keep occupancy rates full with paying clients (read: not on Medicaid) and ones with lots of family and friends to come visit (read: not left abandoned in the home), thus, “turning old age into a business,” even Brenda realizes she hadn’t been taking Mr. Baxter all that seriously because he appeared “old, difficult and delusional.”

But the old guy gets everybody in the end – and he even gets to write another story, too. Awww …

I know this all sounds as if the episode was very serious. But actually, it was filled with those classic Closer light-hearted moments: Brenda first referring to Mr. Baxter as Rumpelstiltskin, given he wouldn’t give up his name nor any details about the alleged poisoning of victims for which he claimed to have been responsible (which, of course, he wasn’t … and we all know the fairy tale story of Rumpelstiltskin, right?); the aging Lieutenant Provenza being asked if he was “here for a tour” when going to investigate Mr. Baxter’s room at the nursing home; Provenza teasing the recently-returned-from-suspension Sergeant Gabriel that “there’s no need to beat a confession of this man ... he’s been confessing all morning”; Baxter telling Brenda “if there was a good lookin’ broad in this department back when this was my beat, I might never have retired.”

But, as usual, Brenda takes the cake on providing infinite comic relief throughout this ep as she and Fritz try to make an offer on a new house. She seems wholly unable (or incapable?) of finding a fax machine that works to fax the over an offer on the house, yet she seems to have no trouble faxing over her search warrant to Fritz instead.

Classic Brenda – disheveled, scattered and clueless but spot on whilst investigating her murder.

Turns out, though, the nice elderly lady whose home Brenda and Fritz wanted to purchase only put it on the market to meet nice people after her husband died – “it’s so hard to meet people in Los Angeles … I started out going to AA meetings, but it turns out you have to stop drinking completely, which seemed a bit extreme.”

Ba dum bum.

Who said the elderly was futile?

Seems to me they’re pretty darn clever.

Hug a grandmother (or grandfather) today.

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