"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Monday, June 8, 2009

The Closer Re-Opens Tonight - Looking Back on Season 4

Hey, The Closer, one of my favorite off-beat detective series, opens Season 5 tonight on TNT, so I thought I'd do my part and provide a little retrospective on Season 4.

First, I would say that The Closer is probably the closest to Bones in its mix of serious detective work and comedy, and in further particular, with a lot of the humor coming from the lead woman (Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson in The Closer, Bones in Bones) and her interaction with her boyfriend/fiance/husband FBI guy (in The Closer) and not-yet-fully-expressed soul mate FBI guy in Bones (Booth). The supporting cast is also savvy and hilarious in both series. Otherwise, the two have little in common.

The past season of The Closer featured Lt. Provenza (close to retirement age, smartly played by G. W. Bailey) in an episode in which he goes undercover as a love-interest and you can believe it, a spectacular shoot-out on a roof which rivals something you would see on 24 or The Shield, and Brenda and FBI agent Fritzie finally getting married (Kyra Sedgwick and Jon Tenney are terrific together).

Brenda is an indefatigable closer - nothing, even Fritz's work, ever gets in the way of her closing a case. But in the best of episode of Season 4, and perhaps of the series, she and her team meet their nemesis in the form of a lawyer who, it turns out, not just defended his client but used his client to get out of Brenda's clutches for a series of sexual assaults culminating in murder that he, the lawyer, committed.

It will be fun to see what Brenda and her southern drawl does about that this season, maybe starting tonight....

See also President Laura Roslin vs. Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson on The Closer









5-min podcast review of The Closer






The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book


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1 comment:

Robert said...

Well done Paul, it's a shame I cannot watch that DVD itonly seems to work in the States. great audio though. Hve a great week. ;O)

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