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Thursday 30 August 2012

The Closer 7.12 "You Have the Right to Remain Jolly" Review

Santa Randy falls from a zipline whilst trying to come down the building.  Gabriel (Corey Reynolds) finds someone tampered with the equipment.  The 'zip experience.'  Provenza (GW Bailey) "according to the elves, I've been waiting to say that my entire life."  Lisa (Ivory Tiffin) was his wife and Carmen (Barbara Costa) was his girlfriend.  Buzz (Phillip P Keene) says "he's not the real Santa."  Buzz's sister Casey (Christine Woods) is in town.  Buzz has already told her about the others as she goes through each of the team.   Sanchez (Raymond Cruz) "threatens people."  Gabriel is the sharp dresser.  Flynn (Anthony Denison) is the cynical toned one and Provenza is grumpy.   Tao (Michael Paul Chan)  has his bag of tricks.  Casey is afraid of bears.

Santa Jack (Fred Willard) runs the village.  Brenda (Kyra Sedgwick) finds Randy and Lisa were having problems.  Outside the elves fight much to the pleasure of Provenza et al.  He doesn't want the fight to be broken up as someone might incriminate themselves.  More like it's a chick fight!  Drugs and cash are revealed in Randy's sack.  Fritz (Jon Tenney) tells Brenda she's meant to be at Gavin's (Mark Pelligrino) office to focus on the Federal lawsuit.  Brenda tells him, "you have the right to remain jolly."  Which is what this episode was meant to be but something was missing from this ep as it wasn't up to the show's much better storylines.  Fritz: "ho, ho, ho."

Gavin says Goldman used the leak in the division to get litigants for the lawsuit.  He goes through the names mentioned in last episode Nick Koslov stabbed teenage prostitutes and was an FBI informant.  Stimple the child molester.  Vasquez the Mexican Federale who was corrupt.  Kyle who killed himself in custody and Philip Stroth whom Brenda has been harassing  since two years.  He receives flowers on 5 May as Brenda says he raped and murdered Jessica.  Gavin is just presenting a milder version of Goldman's case.  He gives them a gift from the firm and tells them their punitive damages could be removed and by the way adds his retainer has gone.  Brenda wants to keep the tree ornament.

Jack, Donna and Randy all signed off on the zipline.  Gabriel can't stop ogling Casey, just like the others.  Randy and Lisa got a business loan to begin their own Christmas village.  Sanchez can't stop staring either.
Donna says she couldn't manage the people Jack hired and knew Randy was a drug dealer.  Flynn brings in Jack egg-nogged to his heart's content and doesn't Mirandize him.  He admits he paid Randy to take his place and take the jump.  Brenda asks if Buzz got the statement on film since it could  be useful, "depending on how much you believe in Santa Claus."

Pope (JK Simmons) walks in with Taylor (Robert Gossett) and asks why they're still here.  Provenza says they're working overtime.  Buzz tells Jack he's "meant to come down the chimney not smoke like one."  He's ruined all of his Christmas memories and he doesn't recognize Buzz either.
Gabriel finds Jack had an insurance policy which guaranteed him the previous year's earnings  if the village was shut down.

Sanchez: "she's hot sir, but she has opinions."  Casey seems to be the opposite of Buzz whereas he's more quieter, she's more talkative and doesn't keep her views to herself.  The 'jaded police officers' are all enamoured of Casey.  Brenda refers to them as "diabetics standing in front of a candy store."  Brenda knows all about candy.  Brenda tells Pope she needs more money and Pope tells her he'll fix it.  Gabriel says the brakes on the zipline were tampered with and he'll be paid $600,000 for shutting down.  Jack tells them about being there when his float caught fire; the health department shut him down after the brownie with botchulism and his mini van brakes gave out.  It could only have been Donna since she's the landlord so she stands to gain.  Brenda realizes someone killed the wrong Santa.

Fritz removes Stroth's stuff from the guest room and she shouldn't hold onto the past as it's also hurting them.  Is it worth rushing their whole future and they should "not freak out in advance," giving Brenda the clue she needs for the case.  Brenda adds that's not right.

She watches Buzz's film and sees Donna on film freaking out before the Santa leaps from the line.  A real estate company offered her money for the land.  Brenda tells her she'll not go for the death penalty if she confesses and she admits she'd try to kill Jack again if she could.

Pope tells Gavin that Brenda being a public servant isn't paid so much and he says he saved the city money in the lawsuit.  Pope tells him he will be seen on TV and this will generate a lot of publicity, as well as being the first resort of any law enforcement officer so Gavin should take on the case pro bono; which he hasn't done before.  He agrees as he likes Brenda.  Gavin also lets slip that Fritz paid for the lawsuit before.

Buzz finds Casey's letter to Santa Jack.  Jack sold the Christmas village to hire a lawyer for Donna and brings champagne.  Another mall will be built which Provenza says typifies Christmas.  Buzz is shocked he sold Christmas.  Casey appears on the weather forecast telling children about monitoring Santa's journey and is glad to go to a cut!

This was the 100th episode of The Closer which received mixed reactions.  I didn't like it as much as the other episodes, though it did contain plenty of Closer humour.  Setting up some storylines for future episodes such as the Federal lawsuit, Brenda finding out Fritz paid for the first retainer and just going over old ground from the last episode in reference to Brenda's past cases.  Not so much ho, ho, ho as ho hum.

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