Brenda Leigh Johnson is having a rough week. She’s being sued, Chief Pope is on his way out and she has a crime scene with seven murders. However, none of that compares to the fact that she’s now reporting to Commander Taylor. It gets so bad, in fact, that Brenda talks about quitting multiple times in the season premiere.
Now, this being the last season, it’s not surprising that they’re laying the groundwork for Brenda being unhappy. After all, she’s going to be leaving soon, and that decision can’t come out of nowhere. Putting Taylor in charge is the perfect way to build up to that too, since working under him is about the only logical reason that career-obsessed Brenda would dream of leaving her team.
Chief Delks is in full command and seems to enjoy walking around puffing his chest out. Although he certainly seems self-important, it is only natural that someone coming in as Brenda’s boss would question her tactics. Yes, she gets results, but there’s definitely an argument as to whether the ends justify the means.
Brenda spent the entire first half of the episode blaming the murders on the FBI because they gave some deliberately inflammatory information to an unstable man, only to turn around and use the exact same tactic in the second part of the episode. Yes, Brenda was able to catch Antoine in the middle of an attempted murder, but as Captain Raydor pointed out, an innocent woman was pretty badly beaten in the process.
Kyra Sedgwick tweeted during the episode that the lawsuit was going to hang over Brenda’s head for the entire season. I’m kind of okay with that. It’s good for Brenda’s methods to be questioned every once and a while. As Chief Pope pointed out, her confessions do hold up in court, but she can be pretty reckless.
While it was a solid season premiere, it was of course the last scene that made everyone’s jaw drop: As Chief Delk stood in front of the entire team and began to commend Brenda on a job well done, he seemed to suffer a stroke and collapse. Sedgwick seemed to indicate that he does in fact die, so there’s a very good chance that a.) they’ll need a new chief, and b.) Pope isn’t going anywhere.
As much as I’m not looking forward to another Chief search, I was going to miss Pope. However, if he’s Chief, will Taylor still be Brenda’s boss, or will she have to find a new reason to leave when the season’s over?
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Jul 11, 2011 @ 22:52 EST5EDT
It was an excellent way to start the last season of a really outstanding show. I have enjoyed it from the first and, based on what we, have seen–it is going to continue to be one of the best series of Basic Cable TV.