© (C) 2009 TNT Jon Tenney and Kyra Sedgwick in THE CLOSER - Season 5 - "Blood Money"

Television:

TV Review: THE CLOSER - SEASON FIVE - 'Walking Back The Cat'

A case is closed... all thanks to a dead cat.

Grade: B
Stars: Kyra Sedgwick, J.K. Simmons, Corey Reynolds, Robert Gossett, G.W. Bailey, Tony Denison, Michael Paul Chan, Raymond Cruz, Jon Tenney, Phillip P. Keene
Writer(s): Leo Geter
Director: Steve Robin
Release Date: June 29th, 2009

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By MARY BRYAN, Contributing Writer
Published 7/2/2009

In this week’s episode of THE CLOSER, one of Fritz’s cases is solved… all thanks to Kitty, him and Brenda’s dead pet cat, and her forgetting to take her out of her purse."Walking Back the Cat" was funny, tense, and yet heartwarming at the same time. Brenda and Fritz work on another case together, Major Crimes was part of the FBI for forty eight hours, and the mystery of Provenza’s new girlfriend is solved as well.

The one thing that has always made Brenda and Fritz’s relationship tense is when they have to work together. They seemed to have made a vow to stay out of each other’s cases when they got married, but after Fritz asks for a favor (even after once they decide they still shouldn’t) Brenda’s curiosity gets the best of her, like it always does. He asks her to look into a drug dealer who was wearing a wire for them when he went missing, but to keep it very quiet. Due to some unusual persuasion techniques that Brenda uses on Pope, she is allowed to investigate it since work is “slow.”

While everything seems to go alright at first, like always, the FBI and the LAPD butt heads, which causes friction between the couple at work and at home. Apparently the FBI likes to give their suspects bagels and be honest with them, and get on to Brenda about lying to the suspect. The line used by Brenda (“When suspects lie to us, we have to lie back. For heaven’s sake, if we all stopped lying to each other how would we ever get to the truth?”) was great, both funny and yet strangely informative. But while usually in the end one of the couple finishes the case unhappy with the results, this time they both got what they wanted, which was a great change.

While the FBI and the LAPD have frequently worked together, this was the first time that LAPD became part of the FBI officially for forty eight hours to be able to get clearance on the details of the case – which were few, and hardly even worth it. Who knew just signing a simple piece of paper could get you into the Bureau for two days?

Kitty is still a major player in the series, even in death. Fritz had gotten her cremated, and was telling Brenda how they can put her in an urn. Brenda at first rejects the idea, not wanting to be one of those types of pet owners, and yet instead puts Kitty’s ashes in Tupperware and puts her in her purse. What strange logic she has that somehow doesn’t make her one of those pet owners due to that is beyond me, but it was because she had forgotten to take her out when talking to Pope about finding the missing person that she got the go ahead. She started getting upset as she saw that she was still in her purse, and poor Pope looks positively horrified at the dead cat in the Tupperware that she put on his desk that he just gave her the go ahead. Brenda also seemed to try to use Kitty to her advantage during and argument with Fritz in which she started fake crying about her, but with a “that won’t work with me,” from Fritz, she cuts it off immediately. That was a bit tasteless for me, but Brenda is good at manipulation after all, so it was true to the character.

The mystery of Provenza’s girlfriend – and his flashy new suits – is revealed in this episode as well. Provenza brings his new girlfriend to the station, who is much much younger than him. Flynn seems jealous; the poor guy, and is bitter throughout most of the episode due to her. Amusing enough, Detective Sanchez asks her how old she is, which warrants a kick under the desk from Brenda and a lecture about how you never ask a woman her age. Provenza’s new girlfriend is a buyer of men’s clothes for a high-end department store, which explains all of his sudden flashy suits he’s been wearing recently. The entrance of her was mostly played for comedy, with scenes of them kissing in Buzz’s office and Buzz looking disgusted by it, along with others.

Another piece of news is revealed: Sergeant Gabriel is going to take the test to become a Detective. It’s revealed when Provenza introduces his girlfriend to him, so hopefully Sergeant Gabriel will pass the test during sometime in the coming season. It would be nice to see a promotion somewhere within the squad finally.

The end of the episode was very heartwarming, both with Brenda giving the money to the boyfriend to help with college and Brenda and Fritz settling down to watch Kitty’s “babysitting DVDs” (of which included “Cheetah and the land of the Lion” and “Birds of the Amazon”) in her memory. Overall this episode of THE CLOSER had all the essentials needed for a good episode, but still lacking a bit of something that makes it absolutely fantastic. But with last week’s episode being as amazing as it was, it would be difficult to try to top anyway.

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