Now that Brenda’s on the short list for Chief, does she think she’s God? It was only a few weeks ago that we had a storyline involving a doctor serving up his own brand of vigilante justice, and you know what Brenda did to him? She threw his ass in jail. So it’s a little weird to me that she literally orders a man to be killed in this episode, and makes Sanchez and Gabriel accomplices to this. By a little weird, I of course mean, “completely fucking insane.”
Yes, it is awful that a gang member got his twin brother and two other soldiers killed a day after they returned from Afghanistan. Yes, the crime he committed at the convenience store was awful– nobody likes a guy who kills grandpas and kids — but how does that give Brenda, a woman who could be Chief of Police, the right to order his assassination?
Make no mistake, that is exactly what she did here. When Brenda allowed Reggie Moses to make as many phone calls as he wanted, using what she called, the LAPD’s “unlimited calling plan,” she was effectively putting a hit out on Turell. What she did was no different from the doctor who was murdering rapists and giving their organs to needy recipients — except in his case, some good was coming out of it. In Brenda’s case, all she’s getting is revenge.
Nobody likes to see a murder go free, but if police officers are just allowed to kill the ones that do, they’re certainly not going to stop at the ones who are definitely guilty. Maybe next it will be a guy who just seems really guilty, or who gets on their bad side. This storyline is huge, but I get the feeling that it’s not going to be treated as such at all.
As a viewer, this looks like an episode in which Brenda has gone off the deep end. I would say that she’s taken Sanchez with her, but come on: dude’s obviously a psychopath already. Gabriel, however, isn’t — but now he’s complicit in these murders. After all, he drove the getaway car.
Yet during the episode’s airing, creator James Duff tweeted, “Turell may have immunity from the LAPD, but the street has its own code.” What? this is not the street’s code! I mean, it is, but this code’s enforcement was orchestrated by Brenda. This isn’t natural street justice — it’s vengeance, pure and simple.
I would love to see this made public and have it completely ruing Brenda’s chance at being chief, at the very least. However, the episode’s ending gives me the distinct feeling that we’re never going to hear another word about this. What do you think? Is Brenda now judge, jury, and executioner — or just a thorough cop?
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Aug 31, 2010 @ 00:17 EST5EDT
I kept expecting Tball to give up his immunity when he saw the group closing in and I really thought that was her motivation. While she can edge right up to the line to get a confession/close a case, this time she definitely went crossed the line.
I’m with you, I kept waiting for someone in the car to open a door in the car, letting him give up the immunity deal.
I disagree. They guy was a slime ball, and once again POPE forced her hand to do something she knew was completely wrong. By allowing someone to use a phone, no matter who it is, she did not put out a hit on him. Did she know the street would take care of her unfinished business? Yep. But whether done in the station or outside, it would have happened nonetheless. She wasn’t the one who killed the bastard, it was Pope and Mr. Brady.
Can’t agree with you here, Mod. She knew the consequences of her action, and knew what would happen. She crossed a line in this episode, not that she hasn’t crossed several before, but nothing like this. It his her, and the LAPD’s, job to stop murders, not encourage them.
Eh, we always disagree. ;-) I’m going to keep my mouth shut because tonight I had the honor of breaking two of my window screens clean in half trying to put them into the windows. It is not a good day. Methinks I’d be making decisions much like Brenda Lee’s.
If you believe CJ, I apparently disagree with everyone, sometimes just for the sake of it.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s a big part of me that agrees with Brenda’s motivations … and like Jon, don’t mind a vigilante streak in my fictional cops. But that’s not her style, at least not that we’ve seen to date to my memory.
If you’re going to set this arc up, I hope to see them follow up on it.
I agree with Ivey! It’s so not Brenda’s style to do the vigilante thing, and even I was a little bit shocked by the way the episode ended, by her telling Gabriel to just leave the scene when clearly she knew what was going to happen. I was WAITING for Turell to revoke his immunity and when he didn’t, and that cop car pulled off, I was literally breathless. On further thought, I do think this is part of some kind of arc…maybe Brenda already had other officers in place to take down all the other gang members who were intent on killing Turell, wiping out a large portion of the gang while protecting the witness? Just because we didn’t hear about it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen :-).
I agree with you.
This isn’t the first time recent memory that a show about the police has resorted to this sort of resolution, and it never fails to piss me off. This time is worse because of Brenda’s stance on the transplant surgeon.
And it isn’t that I can’t appreciate a show about “vigilante” cops. Dexter is one of my favorite shows, and the multiple transgressions during The Wire were entertaining and enlightening.
Like you said, if this comes back and bites Brenda on the ass, I will rescind my displeasure. But if this is chalked up as a win for the good guys with no repercussions, I will be disappointed.
Oh, and Gabriel is complicit, not complacent.
Ha. I actually had ‘complicit,’ but I mistyped it and spell check decided it should be ‘complacent,’ which I didn’t notice. Anyway, thanks!
Jon, I think there’s a distinction between her being a vigilante, and allowing vigilantism.
It makes her a hypocrite, which is still believable, and totally works for the character.
I do hope it comes back to bite her, though, but I’m not sure where that story arc goes.
If she would have let him back into the car, it wouldn’t be that much of an issue. Sure, it’s still inappropriate, but she’s often inappropriate. This was straight-up murder, and that’s crazy.
This is not the first time Brenda has done this, back in the early seasons she also basically sent a russian mafia guy into death for killing 2 prostitutes by letting his family know he was cooperating with the FBI then releasing him. This way of dealing justice has always been in her history so I wasn’t really surprised.
Maria is correct, and bye the way–welcome to the real world. Does anyone really think the rapist/murder suspect–(doctor candidate in prison in N.Y. awaiting trial– comitted sucide without help?
Brenda Leigh as mob boss? Not so much. Rather than ordering a hit on the piece of human debris who not only killed, but did so without conscience, she simply let natural law run its course.
Clearly troubled as her car pulled away from the jungle, her understanding of her circumstances was clear as well: for the greater good of preventing even more bloodshed, T-ball had to be cut loose.
That’s my point though: it wasn’t letting “natural law run its course.” She knowingly orchestrated it. Did he deserve to die? Maybe, but that’s not Brenda’s decision to make. Her job is to protect and serve, and she did neither.
I don’t know Kona, the show has always been like that. There are so many things that aren’t the way they are in the real world. I think it’s the other way ’round. This is the first time a killer wasn’t “dumb enough” to reneg on his deal to stay alive but go to jail, and with it made a dumb decision. And since that is what the perps on this show always do, it was well within what happens on the show all the time.
It’s what I would have criticized on Aryeh’s review of the show but didn’t since he found so many things unlikable I chose not to mention it.
Brenda always gives the people she interrogates two choices. She did so in the car. She asked whether he wanted to drop the immunity agreement. He chose not to. It’s his choice.
The only difference between this show and “The Shield” seems to be that on “The Shield” it’s faily natural for the cops to do things that are “going too far” while on “The Closer” we expect them to follow a code of decency. In a city where each day “a couple” (!) people die, in the past I found the way they portrayed the way they handle things to be jaded and extremely far away from how I expect the reality for a major crime unit to be. With all these murders it’s irritating that the lives of these people aren’t more affected. Even more, I found the way Sanches _wanted_ the kid to stay with him and the way he asked the mother out at the end of the episode fairly irritating and not very likable for my tastes, but with it far more “real”, again like “The Shield” always seemed to be.
I think this is also why Sedgewick got the Emmy. This show isn’t your usual cop show people seem to think it is. It’s far more in the corner of “The Shield” or “Southland” than it lets on.
I was pleased with the Emmy but a little surprised as well. Even wondered for a minute if perhaps there was a touch of Madoff sympathy vote involved….:)
I don’t know if ya’ll cover Rizzoli and Isles, which I’ve been enjoying this season, but did anyone notice that in last night’s episode, the Boston PD basically did the same thing that Brenda did in War Zone? Moira’s life was in danger from a mob boss who hated her mobster Dad…. she refused to let her father protect her by offing him so the detectives took it upon themselves to let her father know when they ID’d the rival. ( I know, tres confusing if you didn’t watch, but the same exact theme….. letting a killer kill another one for the greater good ).