Well, I fell into this. In this morning’s posting “Removed!”, I reported myself as at the end of several tethers, one of which I addressed in this observation:
I’m not sure whether I can bear watching the news any more, and I’m not sure whether I can bear not knowing about what’s happening. For the moment, I’ve retreated into letting all six seasons of Major Crimes (which I’ve seen several times) go past me in the background while I work.
Ellen Kaisse then wondered about the show, and I embarked on an appreciation of it. And ended up with something worth expanding on a bit and posting on this blog.
(#1) An early poster for the show (+ marks characters I’ll discuss below): +Sharon Raydor in the upper right; then in four rows, left-to-right: in each row — 1st row: Detective Lieutenant Andy Flynn (Tony Denison), Detective Lieutenant Louis Provenza (G. W. Bailey); 2nd row: +Rusty Beck, +Fernando Morales; 3rd row: Civilian Surveillance Coordinator (videographer for crime scenes and interrogations) Buzz Watson (Phillip P. Keene), Detective Amy Sykes (Kierran Giovanni), Detective Lieutenant Michael Tao (Michael Paul Chan); bottom right corner: Assistant Chief Russell Taylor (Robert Gossett)
I’m not going to give you an account of the whole show, which ran for six years in hourlong episodes, but just notes on a few of the characters and a few bits from some of the story lines.
The overview. Of Major Crimes: each episode has a story about the Major Crimes unit of the LAPD, under Sharon Raydor (Captain (later Commander) Sharon Raydor, lead officer of the Major Crimes Division (played by Mary McDonnell)); these exterior stories range wildly — several are tremendously funny. Then of course there’s a developing story line about all the people in the unit and how they work together. Then there are two further intersecting long story lines: one about a teenager, Rusty Beck (Russell Beck, Sharon Raydor’s teenage ward, and, eventually, adopted son (played by Graham Patrick Martin)), working as a street hustler when he comes across a man trying to cover up a murder, so Rusty becomes a material witness, is eventually put under Raydor’s protection, and through one of her cases meets a young man, Gus Wallace (Gustavo Wallace, played by Rene Rosado, a Puerto Rican actor and producer), who becomes his boyfriend; and one about the truly chilling serial killer Phillip Stroh (a cunning former lawyer who resurfaces periodically and lethally (played by Billy Burke); my 4/18/24 posting “It’s that actor again” has a section on Burke)).
The plotting is, as you can see, intricate (and I’ve suppressed several important subsidiary story lines and a great many significant characters). The acting and direction are first-rate, and most of the recurring characters are likable and interestingly complex, and they develop over time. So the show has the feel of a big 19th-century novel, enacted in modern LA, with a gigantic ensemble cast. Something of a tour de force, in my view. And Rusty and Gus have some wonderfully sweet moments.
(#2) Gus and Rusty: dark / Latino / solid paired with blond / Anglo / rash
As a bonus, there are two recurring characters — the medical examiner and a court psychiatrist — who just happen to be, unobtrusively, gay:
— Dr. Fernando Morales, the medical examiner (played by Jonathan Del Arco, who is a gay activist); Morales gets a (touching) episode of his own (S5 E17 “Dead Drop”), when his father, a retired detective from Montevideo, Uruguay, comes to visit.
(Morales is a wonderful character. Every so often he gets to remind the LAPD and FBI officers in a case they’re investigating that he doesn’t work for them, he works for the people of Los Angeles County, and that the morgue is his territory, not theirs. Meanwhile, he’s a source of information (offered quietly but authoritatively) about gay life and the gay world, which come up surprisingly often in the progress of cases.)
— Dr. Joe (Bowman), Rusty’s therapist, an occasional consultant with the Major Crimes unit (played by Bill Brochtrup, who came out as gay in 1997).
There are tugs at all sorts of emotions: profound sadness, great delight, suspense, amusement, and devastating shock. Several of the characters find true love, and one of them develops very gradually over the six years from foolish crank to wise hero — along with Rusty’s development from selfish out-of-control kid to resourceful and accomplished young man; you could view the show as his Bildungsroman, filmed. There’s some breath-taking wickedness, but also a great many admirable characters, of several sorts. As in a big 19th-century novel.
October 29, 2024 at 9:52 pm |
I also watched, and enjoyed, the entire series of *Major Crimes*. For me it was positioned as a continuation-with-changes from *The Closer*. (I don’t know why I’m reluctant to say “sequel” or “spinoff”.) There was significant overlap of cast, including the introduction of Mary McDonnell in the latter parts of the run as *The Closer*. (And this was shortly after McDonnell’s role as President of the remains of human interstellar civilization :-). )
October 30, 2024 at 7:15 am |
The first time through, Major Crimes came to me as a spinoff from The Closer, and following it. Almost immediately, MC struck me as narratively more intricate, with more complex characters, who also showed that they were able to change. And then there’s Raydor’s central role as a moral force throughout.
Raydor changes too, an initially stiff and unyielding, not terribly likable, character who grows to respect and value the people who work for and with her, in all their complexity, as they come to respect and value her. They all become a big, complex, family, with a lot of familial gripes but also genuine affection. And they change one another, in often unexpected ways.
The Closer had bits of this, but tended to treat its central character, Brenda Leigh Johnson, as just a lovable scatterbrain with an uncanny ability to drive evildoers to confess to their crimes.
November 8, 2024 at 7:54 pm |
(8 November) With the fairly fresh memory of reading this entry, I was primed to recognize Graham Patrick Martin in the most recent Law & Order SVU. Lest we disturb anybody highly concerned about spoilers, I’ll just say he did a fine job of acting — though the writers did not do anything of a job of surprising us at the story outcomes.