The CloserTijuana Brass
Original Air Date: September 8, 2008
Kristina - TwoCents Reviewer
kristina@thetwocentscorp.com
Oh, how I love Closer Monday's! We're down to the last episodes of the season. The preview of tonight's episode “Tijuana Brass” had Pope saying that he was shutting down Priority Homocide. Is he serious? Will Priority Homocide be split up? Will Brenda keep her job? Will Sanchez snap out of his funk? So many questions!
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[photo: Karen Neal/TNT]
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The Closer
ReplyDeleteTijuana Brass
Original Air Date: September 8, 2008
Kristina - TwoCents Reviewer
kristina@thetwocentscorp.com
Oh, how I love Closer Monday's! We're down to the last episodes of the season. The preview of tonight's episode “Tijuana Brass” had Pope saying that he was shutting down Priority Homocide. Is he serious? Will Priority Homocide be split up? Will Brenda keep her job? Will Sanchez snap out of his funk? So many questions!
The show starts with a man approaching a truck. He removes a taped down tarp from the bed of the truck revealing two dead bodies. He administers last rites and calls 911 as he walks away.
The Evidence:
1 Two dead bodies with bracelets in their mouths indicating ties to a powerful drug cartel.
2 Guns and badges clearly displayed on the front seats.
3 Truck was reported being stolen the night before,
4 Two unidentified sets of finger prints,
5 Blood spot on the truck that doesn't match the victims.
6 Police report of shots fired with only one security guard in the area saying he hadn't heard the shots. Gee, that's not suspicious is it?
7
The Drama:
1 Ramos wrote part 1 of his article about Priority Homocide and it's bad.
2 Pope is freaking out.
3 This freaking out leads to the infamous quote from the preview. “Priority Homocide has run it's course. I'm shutting it down.”
4
Brenda is justifiably upset. How do you think she dealt with the situation?
The Players:
1 Fritz!!! Apparently Matteo is actually Manuel Rivera. He's a former Commandante on the Tijuana police force. He has helped the FBI catch several groups of drug traffickers in the US.
2 Commandante from Tijuana.
3 The Priest. Brenda can't talk to him without permission from the Archdiocese who seems reticent to give permission.
The Investigation:
1 3rd set of prints identified as Manuel.
2 Manuel had alerted the FBI that the drug cartel had found him. His nephew recently visited and was killed when he returned home supposedly in an accident.
3 The officers who investigated the nephews death??? Come on, I'll give you 2 guesses? Yep, the dead Tijuana officers. Sanchez gets ahold of a picture of the nephew's body which shows he was beaten to death, not shot.
4 The coroner finds that the wounds on the dead Tijuana cops lean toward self defense.
5 Everything keeps coming back to the church because “Even cartels are afraid of God”. So what is Brenda Leigh to do since the Archdiocese refuses permission? Brenda decides a friendly visit is in order.
6 Brenda learns from the Priest that there's a price out on Manuel's head. The word is whoever kills Manuel Rivera while he's in jail will get $50k for their family. So, Brenda has the church surrounded so that no one can get inside to Manuel. (Can you imagine Chief Pope's reaction to that?)
The wrap up and confession... sort of.
1 Unidentified blood spot? It's a few days old and is a rare type that matches the nephew. But wasn't the truck supposedly stolen the night before?
2 The Truck? You'll never guess who owns it.
3 The 4th set of prints? Given the registration, Tao matches them to the truck owner. do you know who it is yet
4 Buzz found the truck in border video crossing from Mexico! When the Tijuana Commandante comments that the truck was just stolen yesterday, Brenda corrects him that the truck was reported by the Commandante when he realized his murder plan had gone awry. She then shows him a picture of himself driving across the border just behind the truck. She asks to see the passport he used to cross the border, but he has 2 passports on him.
5 Since she can't prove he sent the dead cops to kill Manuel thus making him culpable for their murder, Brenda charges him with carrying a false passport. But with the multiple identities, she's uncertain of his real name so, until they can figure it out, she charges him as Manuel Rivera. (Remember that price on Manuel's head? The Commandante knows about it too.) He freaks out and attacks Brenda. It takes the entire team to wrestle him to the floor. cuff him, and carry him off to jail. I love to see justice served but do you think arresting him as Manuel, which assures he'll be killed, was wrong?
6 The confession? Brenda went back to the Priest to admit that “Manuel” had been killed in jail before she could get a full confession from him.
The drama wrapup:
Now I'll spare you most of this. Let's just say I found Pope and Taylor falling all over themselves for Ramos to be painful to watch.
1 They're reorganizing “Priority Homocide” into “Major Case”.
2 Of course, Brenda points out that she'll be investigating all sorts of different types of cases because well, murder isn't the only “major” crime. What type of case would you like to see her solve?
3 She also sneaks in that Capitan Taylor will now answer to her and the rest of her team will remain with her.
4 With Ramos there, Taylor and Pope can only smile and nod in agreement.
Now next week is our season finale and it looks like the season will be going out with a bang! Pun definitely intended. Explosions, a bomb maker, an unknown target? Next week will definitely be an edge-of-your-seat hour! The end of the preview leaves us hanging with “And one may not make it.” Do you think they will kill one of the team members off?? Who do you think it will be? Do you think Sanchez's past couple of weeks will put him at risk? Talk to me and let's fill up the week until next Closer Monday!
I just started watching the Closer in 2022 ~ hard to believe, right?? One of the best shows ever on TV and love the whole team and her very eccentric parents.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Thank you so much for your commentary which was a help. I found this episode very confusing. I'm still confused about the priest at the end in the confessional with Brenda but I can watch it again (DVR). Happy New Year!!