Ahead there be spoilers.
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Currently on TNT’s THE CLOSER, series protagonist Brenda Johnson, a deputy chief with the LAPD, is considering (after being courted) applying for chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. I love the show and the character, but I can envision no scenario in which I’d want her in charge of an entire police department. I can’t imagine her having the patience to deal with a budget or the City Council, and her people skills are…what’s a good way to put it…largely imaginary.
Anyway, that’s just my opinion. The poll question is this:
Imagine you are a member of whatever body in CloserLA that is responsiblefor choosing the new chief of police. You somehow retain all your knowledge of the characters’ personalities that you’ve gleaned from the series. Who do you want for which job?
Bear in mind that I’m not asking what you think as a fan of the show; nor am I asking you to predict what WILL happen. Not in the poll, anyway. You can do either of those in the thread.
(Poll coming in just a moment.)
Looks like you and I agree. Also I think that what will ACTUALLY happen on the show is ‘Brenda & Pope retain their current jobs; someone else becomes CoP.’ There is no show with Brenda as Chief and a lot of the character development plays off Pope as her immediate superior.
More that it’s an entirely different show with her as Chief, or even as Assistant Chief. And of course, only Ftiz, Pope, & Taylor remain characters if she becomes Chief or Assistant Chief.
Well, maybe Gabriel. She couldn’t get away with making Gabriel head of Major Crimes, but she’d take him along with her wherever she went in the LAPD until he decided to run for City Council.
I just watched this show for the second time ever last night. (First time was on a plane and I have no idea how old that episode was.) What was with the guy who wouldn’t follow any of her orders? I wanted to smack him upside the head.
Pope should be Chief of Police; someone else takes his current job; Brenda stays in Major Crimes.
I mean, Brenda could realistically deserve a promotion, but I don’t see the show being as interesting without her being the pointman on the actual cases. Pope is a better bureaucrat. But having Brenda report directly to someone new could definitely make for some drama and new storylines. Maybe President Roslyn?
Brenda would be useless as chief of police; she has trouble running her own department, let alone the entire force (granted, there can’t be too many Flynns and Provenzas in the force, but still). In any case, she is ill-suited to be chief (you saw how she looked when Pope was dressing up to schooze officials) and she loves working suspects, which she’d have to give up if promoted.
From a story point of view, she’s staying in Major Crimes. The show with her as chief, or even in Pope’s role, would stop being The Closer and become The Bureaucrat.
If they want to go for a twist, have Commander Taylor become the chief and Pope and Brenda stay where they are.
It’s not believable that anybody is really considering Brenda for Chief of Police. She can’t do politics, and everybody knows that. They will hardly let her even speak to the press now. I think she’s just meant to be the token female applicant - which is obviously what Pope thinks, too.
What do y’all think of this season so far? I thought the second episode, with Captain Raydor following Brenda around, was really good. Great showdown at the end.
While the murder plot in last week’s episode (the terminally ill guy’s wife was shot) wasn’t great, it was a nice way to highlight the deficiencies of Flynn and Provenza, who put their own sense of right and wrong above the law.
This week we got the annual Flynn and Provenza screw-up episode. It was fun, but nothing tops the first one (“Skybox tickets!!”).
I could also envision a plotline that included Pope as chief and Taylor taking his job (this may be what they’re building towards with the whole ‘no office’ thing). The tension between Brenda and Taylor could make for good drama too.
Can police officers skip ranks? I wondered how Brenda could become Chief over Pope’s head, since he outranks her. Could Taylor really jump from a Commander to Chief? Or Raydor from Captain to Chief?
Brenda would be a horrible chief of police and Battlestar Gallactica lady should have given a reason why all the obvious reasons it is a bad idea aren’t actually beyond simple identity politics.
They don’t really show Pope doing enough to have any sense of his abilities as a Chief of Police. But he’s a character that could be written out of the show without much issue if that’s the way they want to go or they could promote him and still have him around and not have it impact the show much.
It would be easiest to have the COP job go to someone else but unless that chief of police becomes a significant ongoing character it will then have been an entirely wasted story and I’ll be annoyed that they wasted the viewers time.
Maybe next they can do a long story line demonstrating why in the world Fritz puts up with her. I know. They did that already, but I still don’t get it.
Seriously, the *last *thing I’d want to see is Brenda proving she can <cough, cough> suck a golf ball through a garden hose, so to speak. Fritz is ok, I’d be alright with him naked. Or Lt. Gabriel. Why he seems to worship her is a mystery as well.
Brenda has to stay The Closer. Maybe she’ll try out a new position, but it won’t last.
I’m getting tired of Pope. I like the actor, but the character is kind of blah. Why he and Brenda ever had an affair I’ll never know. Thank goodness it happened before the series began.
The one thing I hate about the show is that I always know that whoever the guest star is, that’s who the killer will be that week. It ruins any surprise coming up.
It’s also possible that Captain Sharon Raydor (played by Mary McDonnell / President Laura Roslin) is getting Brenda to apply because it would make her (Raydor’s) application look more reasonable.
Raydor every week would cause me to have a stroke. That is just TOO MUCH RAYDOR. But The Devil’s Grandmother’s theory is not bad. Having Brenda and Raydor compete could be fun, as long as Raydor gets a house dropped on her in the end. I also agree that The Closer has to stay The Closer; therefore having Pope promoted to CoP and getting a new character would bring a good new spark to the series.
Moreover, I think the point of the plotline is to generate friction between Brenda & Pope (and, to a lesser extent, between Brenda & her husband).
I wonder which character, if any, WOULD ever point out to Brenda what a disaster she would be? Pope is likely too proud; Fitz is not stupid enough. Of her crew, she’d listen only to Gabriel, and he’s not stupid enough either.
ETA: I can’t see Taylor applying for the Assistant Chief’s job. His angling to take over Major Crimes makes no sense unless he has already ruled that out.
