The Closer: Ruby

Wow. Just... wow. I had to keep reminding myself to breathe during this episode. I held my breath as Brenda and the Priority Homicide team looked for a kidnapper. And then I held it as Brenda, and then Sgt. Gabriel, interviewed the creepiest sex offender ever shown on television. And then again, as they found the kidnapped 8-year old they were looking for. Let's just say my brain didn't get a whole lot of oxygen.

And let's talk about that sex offender for a second. Was he scary or what? I am going to have nightmares about that guy. I kept muttering, "Oh my God" to myself as the guy said, "You see, everyone pretends kids don't want to have sex. But they do." *Shiver*

That was some ballsy dialogue on the part of the writers. I can't even imagine hearing something that extreme on Law & Order: SVU.I was actually very thankful when the focus of this episode shifted from the kidnapped girl/sex offender to the covering of Sgt. Gabriel's butt. Besides Lt. Tau, Gabriel is the one in the squad room who is a rule follower. We know he has been simmering a bit lately and hasn't been seeing things in black and white (legal vs. illegal), and this kidnapping was the last straw for him.

I honestly didn't know how on earth Dep. Chief Johnson was going to save Gabriel's job and her case, but Dep. Chief Cmdr. Taylor sure came to the rescue, didn't he? Of course, Taylor was doing it for Gabriel and not for Brenda... but still. He cleverly offered to book Roger, the sex offender who had a confession beaten out of him by Sgt. Gabriel. And, oops!, he put the guy in with the general population of prisoners and let the word slip that he was a child molester.

Prisoners may be bad dudes, but they all hate child molesters and beat Roger to a bloody pulp... covering up any evidence of what Gabriel had done. Sort-of sick and wrong, but in the grand scheme of things, much less sick than Roger.That opened the door for Brenda to do her thing.

She knows that Roger has a mother complex and she comes in as the mother figure--the protector--and gains his trust. And when she catches him in a lie, she gets real stern with him. And gets him to confess... not just to the murder of the one kidnapped girl, but also to two other murders. She also drove him to suicide by gaining his trust and then being so disgusted by him, like his own mother is disgusted by him.

I don't know about you, but this struck me as an Emmy-worthy episode. Brenda's quirks and weirdness were completely gone and she was just in all-out detective mode. She had to switch from being angry to being sympathetic, and finally to delivering some tough love to both a sex offender and Sgt. Gabriel. It has become obvious that Brenda's role in the squad room has become 'mother hen' and I get the feeling she doesn't like that very much. Watching her in this episode made me feel exhausted. Kyra Sedgwick truly was spectacular, and she was backed up by a terrific script that let her show a very large range of emotions.