Major Crimes - Four of a Kind - Review

We’re back with a fairly straightforward murder to solve. Four one-percenters are delivered to the hospital in the back of an SUV. Three are dead. One is in surgery. The victims are quickly identified. But the crime scene location is a mystery.

Julio seems a little out of it. When he answers a question about the location of the operating room with some oddly specific information everyone twigs to the fact that this is the hospital where his wife died. It’s very subtle but clear that the other detectives are aware and filled with compassion. But Julio indicates that he’s okay so they give him space.

When Julio asked the nurse to put him into contact with his wife’s doctor I feared that his goal is to vent his anger with this person over the deaths of his wife and child. Hopefully, we will find that he’s ready to let his anger go. I really like Julio (all of the detectives in the Major Crimes unit, really) and want him to get a ‘happily ever after’ for his story.

Dr. Morales informs Raydor and the team that the victims were seated when they were shot and that it was such a surprise that they didn’t even have time to move. He also provides them with a clue to the location of the crime scene. There are fibers on the victims’ clothes that point to a rug shop.

Blood on the floor verifies they have the right location. The owner of the store has been out of the country for a few weeks so he’s innocent. Raydor realizes the their victims were playing a high stakes poker game. Poor Buzz, being a volunteer police officer gets the job of searching the garbage dumpsters in a several block radius, looking for clues. There’s a very happy Uniform Cop out there somewhere.

The bulk of the episode was like this; regular police work netting a small, but important piece of information that helps them piece together the big picture. The assumption is that someone came in to rob them but for some reason, having to do with the survivor, Prager, the thief opened fire. They finally get their first real break when Julio gets the name of a potential witness. They bring in Prager’s driver. Dan Willis puts the clues into context and leads the to the rather heartless woman who put together the illegal poker game, Molly Pace.

The phrase ‘piece of work’ was invented for people like Molly Pace. She pays Willis to help her transport the shooting victims to the hospital. But, while she and Willis were putting the victims into the SUV, she asks for the dinner receipt. Priorities, right?

When Andy, Provenza and Amy go to pick Pace up, at a small airport, Pace tries to run. Andy grabs the car door and tries to jump into the drivers seat. Pace executes a dangerous driving maneuver that throws Andy to the pavement. He’s out for a few minutes. Provenza helps him up and he passes out again. This freaked me out.

Andy and Sharon’s relationship is still pretty new, at least to the audience, and in some shows and movies that the harbinger of the death of the character. When Andy passed out the second time I got really worried. To make matters worse Andy begs Provenza not to tell Sharon. I spent the rest of the episode thinking he was going to have an aneurysm and die before the credits rolled. He didn’t. Thank goodness. He is checked out, at the hospital, again and ends up bunking in Rusty’s room (remember Sharon saying they’d be taking it slowly? Remember Andy’s reaction?) while he’s recuperating.

Pace is informed that she has no room for negating so she cooperates. They realize it’s not logical for her to have robbed her own game or killed her customers. They find the killer by chance. Raydor is about to notify Prager’s daughter, Anna, but her reaction to seeing Willis’ son in the precinct changes the direction of the conversation. Anna recognizes him, though they’ve never met.

My initial thought was that we were heading for a lover’s crime scenario. Raydor’s unit has better instincts than I do. They immediately begin to put 2 and 2 together. Noah is the thief. He didn’t anticipate being recognized but his father bragged about him and showed Prager photos. Every cop in the room gets is on the same page in less than a minute. Noah realizes the cops are maneuvering to stop him from leaving the building and runs. He doesn’t get far. I chuckled when a Uniformed Cop, who just happened to be passing by, tackled him. I suppose it is good policy to assume any civilian running through a precinct needs to be stopped.

Raydor needs to know if Noah’s father, Dan was in on his robbery attempt. When Dan realizes that the police are right about his son’s guilt he immediately confesses. The confession doesn’t hold up but the ‘father’s instinct’ was sweet. I personally don’t believe that it’s good for a parent to help their kids avoid the consequences for their actions, but Dan didn’t seem like a bad father; more a good father who got a bad kid. It happens.

Rusty ambushes the testy judge that had the final say on his VLOG about Mariana during the first part of this season. This half of the season Rusty wants to tell the story of the guy accused of killing Mariana. My initial reaction is that I have never liked the guy (he was pretty smarmy when Rusty first spoke to him) and don’t really care to know more about him. Then I gave it some thought. It might actually be an interesting story. Will understanding what made this guy who is his soften or harden our reaction to him? Will we cheer to end up on Death Row?

I’ve grown used to Major Crimes telling complex twisty stories that having a case that feels like everyday real cop-work was a minor disappointment. It was a good episode but not, for me, one of their best episodes. It wasn’t anywhere close to one of their worst either. Did you guys enjoy the episode?

About the Author - Prpleight

Prpleight is a screenwriter and senior software engineer with solid geek cred. When not writing code, screenplays, or watching TV (sometimes she does all three at the same time), she uses her broadsword Bessie to battle evil. She's been a frequent contributor to the SpoilerTV discussion boards for several years now.

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