Fans of The Closer, which starred Kyra Sedgwick, were disappointed when the show was cancelled after seven season on TNT.  Then, like a phoenix rising from the ashes came Major Crimes.  Remarkably similar to The Closer Major Crimes has a strikingly similar cast, with a new leader, and a new guiding principle.  It is no longer enough to close the case — now they want a confession, a conclusion that is so iron clad the D.A. can walk in and cut a deal, not only saving the citizens a costly trial, and meaning the state knows the guilty party will indeed go to jail, instead of pulling some legal wizardry at trial, and getting away with a trial we have just spent an hour being convinced they committed.

 After 109 episodes in which cases were closed, week after week, the Major Crimes division has spent 66 episodes making sure the criminals will go away.  One of the most interesting aspects of Major Crimes has been the use of Rusty (Graham Patrick Martin) to take a character who we gradually saw more and more of near the end of The Closer, Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell), and take her from a very brusque by-the-book officer on the side of Internal Affairs, to a more sympathetic, maternal team leader.

Rusty, a street kid whose testimony was needed in a trial, started as a rough around the edges boy who had no interest in the members of Major Crimes getting into his life and pressing him to testify.  Now, he is a part of Captain Raydor’s life, his adopted son, they have shown one another a definition of family that reminds the audience we can choose who we call family, and that being there for people, no matter what is perhaps the most important thing — mattering infinitely more than the value of physical gifts given at holidays, or shared DNA.

One of the great subplots of this season, that has extended to a series of online videos, has been Rusty’s realization that when he was living on the streets no one was looking for him.  But now, he has Sharon… and the team as well, but predominantly Sharon, and that means, above all else, he has someone who would file a Missing Person’s Report should he go missing.  It sounds so simple, and yet, to someone who has had no one to rely on, or trust, for so long, it means so much.

Upon seeing a Missing Person who was found dead, and realizing no one filed a report on her, Rusty sets out to identify the girl… the person who, under other circumstances, could have been him.

Rusty Beck’s series of Identity videos can be seen on Facebook, YouTube, or the TNT Website.

Major Crimes airs Monday Nights on TNT.