Soup of the Week & The Closer: Saving Face

With broiled mozzarella cheese bread on top, this hearty soup is delicious. It's ready in no time and is excellent.

Onion Soup with Sausage

1/2 lb pork sausage links, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 lb sliced fresh mushrooms
1 cup sliced onion
2 cans (14 1/2 oz each) beef broth
French Bread
Shredded mozzarella cheese

In a large saucepan, cook sausage; drain if needed. Add mushrooms and onion; cook for 4-6 minutes or until tender. Stir in the broth. Bring to a boil Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 4-6 minutes or until heated through. Ladle soup into ovenproof bowls. Top with a slice of bread; sprinkle with cheese. Broil until cheese is melted.

The Closer: Saving Face
Does anybody else really, really want cake? The scene near the end of this episode where the entire team was eating an angry bride's wedding cake made that cake look so good. Yeah, it was a good episode. But, what stuck with me was the cake.

I love when the writers pull out episodes like this one. Sure, there's a dead person and an investigation, but the entire episode still manages to be light-hearted. It all started with Lt. Provenza dropping a coffin down a flight of stairs, then proceeded to a fight between an angry bride and Brenda, and to the entire homicide team eating the bride's $30,000 catering (including that cake).

There were a lot of great scenes in this episode involving Brenda (the bride fight was pretty great), but my favorite was in the plastic surgeon's office where the surgeon made Brenda speechless. He tried to guess what she was in for and started saying very rude (but true!) things about how she slathers her red lipstick on, making her mouth look huge. So, she's suffering from self consciousness as she attempts to solve a murder. And it only gets worse when she looks to Det. Daniels for advice on new lipstick and Daniels takes her down another notch by bashing her wardrobe. Brenda's wardrobe, incidentally, is probably my favorite quirk of her very quirky character. The woman constantly pairs contrasting patterns and looks as if she shops the sales at JC Penney.

Lts. Flynn and Provenza got some good play in this episode as naughty little boys. It was like a playground dynamic between them and Brenda and Lt. Tau, who had to run and tell Brenda about the murder the minute the victim was discovered.There wasn't really much controversy to this episode and I didn't get a whole lot of overall plot advancement, but that's perfectly fine with me. I was entertained. I got a little of the Brenda/Fritz relationship where she's under pressure to go look at houses, but the Brenda/Sgt. Gabriel riff didn't come up this episode. Best to let that simmer, I say.

I was a little uncomfortable with the blackmail practiced by Johnson and Pope at the end of the episode. I guess the justice system is full of this type of blackmail-- if you do this, we won't charge you with that-- but it seemed a bit unethical.

A couple of great one-liners:

"Not a wet eye in the house." - Lt. Provenza to Lt. Flynn after his eulogy.
"Nothing tastes better than someone else's wedding cake. Mine tasted like prison food." - Lt. Provenza
"Oh, well. We're hateful people." - Dep. Chief Brenda Johnson
"Does this case have anything to do with the LAPD?" - Chief Pope"No." - Lt. Provenza"Then give me a big piece (of cake) from the corner." - Chief Pope