Accusations hit close to home in 'The Closer'

“The Closer” this week brought Brenda’s actions in the wrongful death of Turrell Baylor home in a way that up until now they have not been.

She was fussing at the dining table with Fritz, reading a subpoena – fresh in the discovery that Fritz had been summoned, too, along with her entire department – when she spilled a glass of merlot across it and she saw Baylor’s name in the pool of blood-red wine and suddenly the whole episode’s theme of culpability, forgiveness and compassion come to a head in the repeated, haunting phrase, “What have I done?”

All the way through the episode she’d reacted to a family circumventing an investigation to cover up a scandal at the center of a church – namely, a son murdering his cross-dressing pastor father and his family smashing the church’s computers and bleaching down the hotel room, along with re-dressing the father in his churchier clothes and taking him to a funeral home without a death certificate, which is how Brenda’s team gets involved.

In the season story arc, no less a person than Curtis Armstrong – who I remember best as Miss diPesto’s love interest Herb Viola in “Moonlighting” from a thousand years ago, and others will more readily remember as Booger from “Revenge of the Nerds.” That guy is holding up well. His Peter Goldman attorney character was very sneaky and a good reminder for the Major Crimes Division to peek around and see who’s in the room before they let fly with how deserving the victims might be in crimes they’re investigating.

Me, I think they’ve paced the series arc-level development very well, but it can’t come to much. They took Turrell Baylor to his home and dropped him off there, and then left. Do they stick around for any other suspects they return to their homes? Should they have posted an armed guard?

Certainly he was in legitimate danger – the blood stains out the back door of his home demonstrate his immediate fear was justified. But he’d gamed the system, too, in order to even be taken home in the first place. And since he’d committed and gotten immunity for a capital offense, he’d rolled those dice when he pulled the trigger and murdered three soldiers home on leave. Brenda can feel as bad as she likes about her role in the turn of events, but I for one would not want to be arguing this case before a jury.

New episodes of “The Closer” air at 9/8c Mondays on TNT.

Royal Pains

In other shows, speaking of guest stars, Ed Asner was cool and all and of course it’s always fun to see Matt Lauer, but this past week’s “Royal Pains” was mostly amazing for the guest appearance of Tony Hale. He took on his “Arrested Development” brother Gob’s role as an “illusionist.” He had an act where a wooden crate he was inside was meant to shatter to splinters seconds before a classic Astin-Martin smashed into it.

And the trick mostly worked, except between his various health issues and indicators he was becoming paralyzed while the trick was going on. Ta-da. More to the point, it was really just fun to see him because his instincts are so perfect in these semi-comic roles. Nicely done. New episodes of “Royal Pains” premiere Wednesdays at 9/8c on USA.

Rescue Me

Callie Thorne has been bringing it on “Rescue Me” on FX, especially with that other project she’s been doing – I’m just not staying as interested in USA’s “Necessary Roughness,” probably because the show seems to celebrate ridiculous behavior which, given its priority focus on off-the-field comportment of pro athletes, is probably only authentic.

Thorne was in full psycho mode as Sheila Keefe in this past week’s “Rescue Me.” Tommy Gavin unleashed her on a reporter running a hatchet job on the FDNY through Tommy’s rambunctious personal life. Which, to be fair, is she mentioning his saving Franco’s life? Hell, Franco barely acknowledges that. So when this reporter is licking her chops over the many, many, many out of hand situations cropping up at Ladder 62 and viewing Tommy’s affair with Sheila as the appetizer, Sheila shut her down mid-interview with a video clip Tommy’d handed off to her of the reporter herself getting out of a ticket with a traffic cop in the first way you can imagine.

Without missing a beat, she then sashays into the department headquarters and outs an administrator who Ladder 62’s Mike Silletti had in fact encountered in his office one Christmas party. I wasn’t as clear precisely as to how this got Tommy off suspension, but he was reinstated by way of, I suppose, containing the scandal.

“Rescue Me” this season has seemed a little removed from itself, mainly because it was filmed last year. The references all hold, but in that there was mention of President Obama earlier and no mention of Osama bin Laden’s long since overdue death, the attitude of the show seems a bit off somehow. Of course, final season, it has its own storytelling to wrap up and while that’s occasionally dark, gritty and a little self-involved, I am absolutely enjoying it. New episodes of “Rescue Me” premiere Wednesdays at 10/9c on FX.

Take the Money and Run

I had a chance to see something called “Take the Money and Run” on ABC Tuesday. It’s a cross between a reality show and a game show.

It’s hard to shift from talking about “The Closer,” where the writing is so good and Kyra Sedgwick presents such a capable interviewer, to this particular production, even with a little break in between. But in that I must, the show is OK, but there are some structural issues.

“Take the Money and Run” pits a pair of contestant-contestants against a pair of cop contestants for a prize of $100,000. The contestants have an hour to hide a briefcase full of money, then they are arrested and put in what looks and seems to operate like a real jail. They are held separately and fed bad food, while for 48 hours, the cop contestants try to discover where the money is, retrace their route using a GPS tracker, checking back through the call logs of the phone the contestants are provided with and whatever information can be gained by two interrogators.

In that this is a game show, the interrogators are the weakest link. The cops are motivated. The contestants are motivated. These interrogators don’t have any skin in this game. So when the contestants, gasp, lie to them, they’re motivated to find the truth behind the lies so as not to look foolish, but the contestants have fully $100,000 of motivation to stick to whatever lies they want to tell, and if that’s tough, it’s only tough for 48 hours.

In the pilot episode, the contestants won by sending the cops on a wild goose chase, claiming to have held onto the money for much longer in the hiding process than they actually did. They stashed the money at a friend’s house where no one was staying – it would’ve been very hard even with legitimate search warrants for the cops to have tracked the cash to any given private residence. Then they called their babysitter and got their stories straight and then everyone kept their lips zipped for the remainder.

Now, if these interrogators knew how to play the contestants against one other – I mean, they’re allowed to lie too, no question about it – I think it would be a better game. As it was, the contestants get to seem all strategic and clever and the cops run around like they can’t find their butts with both hands because their search radius is something like the South Beach of Miami, and the interrogators … just don’t seem to be especially good at this.

“Take the Money and Run” airs new episodes Tuesdays at 9/8c on ABC.

Falling Skies

The first season finale of “Falling Skies” aired last weekend and we saw more of the stick-figure aliens, while we got to witness harnessed humans transforming into Skitters. In that that seems physiologically impossible I can’t wait to see how Noah Wyle is planning to save the day.

Incidentally, I know it’s been 10 years and I know they’re evil alien overlords and we’re the good guys, the resistance, out to save and rebuild humanity, but resistance fighter Tom Mason firing an RPG into one of the ships, sending it crashing into the giant structure the aliens had built? Still disturbing, Steven Spielberg. It’s a little worse because you can totally identify with their cause and as you’re cheering, realize that there are situations where you can feel good about smashing planes into enemy structures, and ... not really feeling very good about that.

Coming up

Coming up there are a couple more “Doctor Who” specials in the works before the sixth season resumes Aug. 27 on BBC America. This weekend they focused on Matt Smith’s adventures as the 11th incarnation of the Doctor, and next weekend they will explore some of the monsters the Doctor has faced over the years. I’m not sure how useful this weekend’s special was. They ran clips from the series intercut with actors and comedians giving not-always-relevant asides, so it was like “I Love Doctor Who,” as opposed to those VH1 “I Love the ‘80s”-type things. That said, it was more interesting than “Outcasts,” so … there’s that.

Also, ABC Family is premiering one of eight or nine “let’s switch places” concepts set for this fall called “The Lying Game,” 9/8c on Monday. Then on Tuesday, they’re airing the season finale of “The Nine Lives of Chloe King,” that’s at 9/8c. BBC America is hosting the season premiere of “Law & Order: U.K.” at 9/8c and the series premiere of “The Hour” at 10/9c, the first of several “Mad Men” inspired Golden Age network entries starting this fall, and it looks like it will be amazing.