Tag Archives: The Closer

Rusty Beck’s Identity Series

On Major Crimes the character of Rusty has been searching for a missing person’s identity.  The person may have been “missing, she may now be dead, but does that mean she need only be known, forever, as a Jane Doe?

If you have already been watching Major Crimes, but have not watched the Identity Series of videos the Rusty Beck character has been posting on youtube, we are gathering them here so you can find them in one place, and order, to view.

Identity: Part 1

Identity: Part 2

Identity: Part 3

Identity: Part 4

Identity: Part 5

Identity: Part 6

Identity: Part 7

Identity: Part 8

Identity: Part 9

Identity: Part 10 (the conclusion)

Major Crimes

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.

Major Crimes

When the character of Sharon Raydor was first introduced on TNT’s The Closer she was what that show needed.  A counter-balance to Brenda Leigh Johnson, Sharon Raydor is a strong woman who follows the rules, to the letter, and did the tough job of investigating officer involved shootings and trying to prevent lawsuits against the LAPD.

In those early appearances, where she was guest staring in the world of characters the audience had come to know and love over several seasons, there were virtually no soft edges, especially in the beginning.  As time wore on we found out she had children — it was almost a revelation when the audience discovered she had a heart.  Sharon Raydor felt Brenda Leigh Johnson was a kindred spirit and they might have the potential to be friends, and the two seemed startled to refer to one another as friends.

Then TNT announced The Closer was coming to an end… and Major Crimes would rise in its place.  It was an odd feeling to many regular viewers, since The Closer had been all about the team in the Major Crimes division.  Why change the name of the show?  What was happening?  A cast shake up was happening, but was that all?

Then there was the feeling of how was Sharon Raydor, who was a solid upstanding character, but had thus far lacked the charisma of Brenda Leigh Johnson, going to take over as the lead of the show?

Graham Patrick Martin, in the role of Rusty Beck, made the difference.  Rusty, who first appeared at the very end of the The Closer, as a witness to a crime, gave the audience a new perspective from which to see Captain Sharon Raydor… suddenly she was not just the always at the office, always on duty cop.  Rusty needed a protector, a guardian, and through him we got to see her as Sharon, in her apartment, occasionally even with her heart on her sleeve.  Through Rusty she was humanized, opened up, and softened into a character the audience could care about just as we had grown to know and love Brenda Leigh Johnson.

The strengths of The Closer were carried forward into Major Crimes, even as a new leader brought a new style, a new goal, and subtle shifts in how the episodes unfold.  I may miss Brenda’s drawer full of candy, and her forever saying Thank You, but in the end I love that not only does Sharon close the case with a confession, she goes that step further and gets a deal that means we know the guilty party will do time.

And, as an added bonus for long time watchers of the shows, Jon Tenney has been reprising his role of FBI Agent Fritz Howard (otherwise known as Brenda Leigh Johnson’s husband), until recently with just the occasional appearance.  But the final three episodes of the current season clearly set him up with the opportunity for a spin-off of his own.  With a strong-willed, determined second in command (Laurie Holden), and a detective with a skill for going undercover (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) those three could could make a strong core cast to yet another powerful show.