Hmm. You know, I’m not quite sure her father is capable of voicing those words that way. That is, he might point out that she’d be likely to neglect her husband and the rest of her family if she were Chief of Police, but to straight out say, “Brenda, you are incompetent to do this job”? No. He’d feel obliged to punch anyone other than his wife in the face for doing so.
Her mother might say it.
Granted.
He was falling into a common trap: Figuring everyone else is just like you are. Taylor is power-hungry, and assumes everyone else is as well. Since Brenda would be in line for the AC position (assuming Pope gets promoted), Taylor will automatically assume that she would want the job, thereby stopping him from getting it. That leaves him angling for the highest available position, head of Major Crimes.
His blinders aside, he’s a very good network climber – he knows exactly who to schmooze, whose ass to kiss, and how not to overreach. He’s not going to stab anyone in the back who may still hold authority over him.
Which is pretty much my point. Taylor either deduced or was told directly by Pope that Pope intends to make Brenda his number two if he becomes Chief-no-Qualifier. He is thus making the best move available to him.
The problem for Taylor is that he’s making a false assumption here. Brenda would very likely not want Pope’s current job, nor any other job which would pull her away from what she’s best at. Moving up any higher would entail far more politics than it would police work.
If Taylor could see that, then he’d be aiming higher. Ironic, since he’d be far better suited for the assistant chief job than Brenda would (assuming he could…you know…not be such a douchebag).
What false assumption?
As I read the conversation between Taylor and Our Lady of the Wheels, he was only assuming that Pope would offer Brenda the Assistant Chiefship, not that she would necessarily accept it. Since he was correct in that, angling for her job is reasonable. Moreover, if Brenda declines the Assistant Chiefship, having her see him as supporting her for the job costs him nothing. His only error was not to take into account the idea that she might be in the running for Chief-no-Qualifier.
Apropos of nothing: Is it just me, or does it sound odd for Deputy Chief to be outranked by Assistant Chief? I’m not saying the show made a factual error; just that the names of the ranks seem to be reversed from what you’d expect.
ETA: Also, he can’t aim higher until he knows that Brenda has declined the Assistant Chiefship.
Even the amount of Raydor now is too much Raydor. I can’t like the character.
Given that the show’s writers were unable to deal with another woman on the squad (Detective Irene Daniels) I think they’d all have apoplexy if Brenda had to report to another woman with whom she shares so much animosity.
I’m starting to lean towards hoping for a “Pope becomes CoP, Taylor (or new character) becomes Brenda’s boss, and Brenda/her team stay as they are” resolution. Taylor has done favors for Brenda, and they seem to have found an amenable working relationship. This would all change when Taylor becomes her boss and reasserts his season one persona.
Now that the universe knows what I want, it will undoubtedly be a “Taylor becomes CoP, Raydor becomes Brenda’s boss, Pope retires to spend more time with his family, Fritz dies and Brenda’s niece moves in permanently” resolution. Maybe I should just reset the TiVo now ::sigh::.
Don’t forget “Brenda loses her driver’s license on a technicality and Provenza becomes Brenda’s driver.”
Wouldn’t it be Gabriel? He’s pretty much her aide-de-camp, no?
Yeah, but Provenza provides more opportunity for hijinks to ensue.
After last night’s episode (23Aug10), I’m going to go with **RealityChuck’s **theory of Commander Taylor become the chief and Pope and Brenda stay where they are, possibly with Pope taking another Chief job in another city.
And I really hated this part:
Moving Fritz to be the LA liasion was just stupid.
When they started with that at the beginning of the episode, I initially thought it was some underhanded tactic orchestrated by Pope. You know, he uses some influence to get Fritz appointed to the liason position and then Brenda getting the Chief’s job would be a conflict of interest so she’d be out of the running. Much more interesting than him getting pissy about it.
When Fritz finally got exasperated with Brenda failing to congratulate him on his promotion, I was puzzled. I didn’t realize it was a promotion. I mean, Fritz didn’t seem all that puffed up about it; how are we supposed to know if it’s a good move for him or a demeaning assignment? But he was right in calling her on it.
I figured the FBI promotions office said “well, he spends all his time helping them anyway, might as well make it official”.
Yeah, sort of like Little G on Homicide. Does the FBI actually give anybody that assignment?
Anyone else find Brenda way the hell out of line with the reasoning for the arrest this week? I mean, I get the felony murder statute, but in my reality the D.A. is going to phone Brenda and bitch her out for expecting him to try and make a murder charge stick. The guys who murdered the security guard are dead, and none of Brenda’s sanctimonious overreacting is going to change that. The mastermind is going away for life for bank robbery, quit trying to shoehorn in blame for the murder as well.
They’ve pulled this line of reasoning before, so its consistent, and rarely do we see the DA’s reaction or wether or not there is an actual conviciton out of it. We’re supossed to be impressed with her ability to close cases - and in the early episodes she was much more effectual and ‘sneaky’ about the way she did it - lately its almost all bully tactics.
I dunno, you’d think the *last *guy the FBI would make the official liaison would be the guy who killed a civilian two episodes ago.
Hal Briston, California has a lot of pointless punishment laws that make any member of a group committing a robbery responsible for a fatality during the crime. Even if the ex-marine security guy had died of a heart attack, all the members of the robbery group could be held responsible for his death. Odds are good the DA would get her conviction.
I also agree with **simster **that it’s all about Brenda. She never seemed to consider the “guilty” death of the robbers as any different from the “innocent” death of the guard. She’s becoming the one-dimensional Avenger of the Dead.
I almost missed the gotcha moment - when the nice-guy suspect admitted to casing out the bank. If he hadn’t admitted to that, they couldn’t have charged him with the murder. It seemed a little weak to me, too.
While I like to see Fritz and Brenda clash over a shared case once in a while, it won’t be any fun if they’re doing that every episode.
Oh yeah, we’ve definitely seen Brenda go the felony murder route before, but those people have all been actively involved with the crime. This one is 100% bullshit. Telling people “no, robbing this bank is a very bad idea” doesn’t come close to meeting the standard in my book.