Happy New Year! Hope everyone has an awesome 2016. This is the last Major Crimes we'll have for a few months, and it was pretty interesting. As with all of this season, this episode took a different approach to the story. We usually ride along with the Major Crimes unit as they try to figure out who the killer is. This episode, we know what the killer looks like from the beginning. It's a matter of figuring out who he is and what his motives are in order to find him.
When we meet the killer, we find that he’s making a movie. The police cars rushing to the campus offer ‘free production value’; the people begging for their lives offer best performances if he doesn’t try to direct them. My first thought was that he was making a movie, but consciously directing himself playing the killer. Nope, he’s taken up residence in Crazy Town, the movie is his masterpieces, and he’s got a hostage.
The killer doesn’t have a record, so Major Crimes has to gather information from other sources to try to identify the killer. Provenza’s theories were pretty humorous; completely off base but funny. The interview with the husband of the killer’s first victim, the real estate agent, was a literary manager for screenwriters before becoming a real estate agent. In her video she kept apologizing for not remembering him so we can guess the killer is a failed screenwriter.
We start to get a clearer picture of the plot of the movie Brad is making. It’s a revenge flick disguised as his breakout movie. The Major Crimes Unit manages to stop Brad from killing either his brother or sister-in-law, but he’s certain they won’t be able to stop him from filming the climax of his movie. I expected his reaction to seeing the police to be some stereotypical suicide by cop thing, but that’s not the case…he remains true to the “original script”. He drenches himself with gasoline and lights the match. Unfortunately, he chose to stage this scene by a swimming pool. Sanchez tackles him, knocking him into the water. The final evidence that this guy is definitely off his rocker is that he’s not angry that Sanchez saved his life, or ruined his movie. He’s upset that his phone is destroyed because that was the only copy of his great masterpiece.
Slider gets his death sentence. His lawyer tries a move to leave himself an opening to file an appeal, but my favorite judge from the entire run of the series slaps him down hard. Rusty decides to take a chance, despite what he told Gus last week, and asks Gus to lunch. Gus can’t make lunch so Rusty invites him to the Major Crimes Christmas party. It’s not really clear whether Rusty burned his bridges with Gus. Seems like Rusty lost his chance.
Rusty’s nightmare about Slider has me a little worried that they’re considering doing another stalker story for him. I’m hoping it’s just his guilt about lying to Slider and his guilt about not being upfront in his dealing with Gus.
Sharon discovers that Rusty’s birth mother has been released from prison, but has made no effort to contact Rusty. That contact will likely come in the next season (which we know is going to happen, yay.) I’m curious as to how that will play out, but I’m also hoping it’s a question that will be put to a final rest.
I really enjoyed this episode. As I said, they approached the story a little differently with this episode. I liked the way the writers handled the revelations about the character and his motives.
Did you enjoy this episode? What about Rusty's story? Are you looking forward to his relationship story? Do you think this relationship will work? What about the prospect of Sharon Beck's return?
