Adventures In Writing

The Closer Season 3 Episode 2: "Saving Face"

Tonight’s episode of The Closer totally rocked! Although there was the usual murder, mystery, and mayhem, there were more chuckles and outright laughter than seriousness. The first couple of episodes this season have been emotionally-heavy. Not much to smile about with a case of mass murder involving a family and the in-fighting going on between team members.

“Saving Face” opens at a funeral where Detective Flynn delivers a eulogy for a fallen comrade. Unfortunately, the dead man’s history tended to be flamboyant – to say the least. Flynn has no problem segueing into a one-man, a routine based on innuendo and behind-the-scenes hijinx that had gone on before. Lieutenant Detective Provenza is howling in the pews and having a hard time covering up his amusement at the whole situation. Detective Tao is with him and is embarrassed by the whole thing.

But that’s not nearly as embarrassing as when they’re acting as pallbearers and accidentally drop the casket. After rolling down the steps, the casket breaks open and spills out TWO dead bodies instead of one. The beautiful blonde young woman with the dead man is nude and wrapped in a sheet. Not exactly the kind of funeral anyone would want.

The camaraderie of the detectives shows up instantly. Flynn and Provenza elect to bundle their dead friend back into the casket and proceed with the funeral rather than embarrass the widow or the family. Tao isn’t happy with that.

At the gravesite, Brenda arrives and puts a hold on the burial. That upsets everyone there. She takes Flynn and Provenza to task for not calling her in and for moving the body. (This is a definite cue that the episode is not going to be one of the more serious ones. Both of the detectives are far too professional to do something like that had the script not called for it.)

Back at the church, Brenda runs afoul of a bride-to-be and her family. She demands that the dead body in the crime scene go away. Brenda stands her ground. And she gets her butt kicked in the process. Personally, I couldn’t believe she got manhandled so badly. I so wanted Brenda punch the bride and stretch her out unconscious. But then everything that happened afterwards wouldn’t have been as funny.

In short order, Brenda finds herself up to her neck in trouble. The bride and her family are planning on filing a civil suit against the LAPD and Brenda for interfering with their wedding. The widow isn’t happy about how her husband was handled. And no one knows who the dead woman is or what she was doing in the coffin.

There are twists and turns aplenty in this episode, and all of them are fun – especially the arrangements Provenza makes regarding the wedding catering. Brenda, never at her confident best among the women of L.A., gets blitzed by a plastic surgeon she interviews that thinks she’s there to have some cosmetic work done. Those scenes are priceless. On the home front, Fritz has narrowed down their house search to three candidates, but we still don’t know when or how soon Brenda is going to allow herself to be moved.

The end resolution, with Brenda facing the guilty party, feels a little off this week because it doesn’t take place inside the police station. I figure the show was trying to give the fans a different look on things, but it really jarred. This was another great episode in this fabulous series.