Tapped Out (13 Jul. 2009)

Brenda deals with a psychotic wannabe detective who holds the keys to her case involving the murder of a pick-up artist. Unfortunately, he also holds her evidence and Chief Pope's career in his delusional hands.

Director:

Adam Arkin

Writers:

James Duff (creator), Adam Belanoff

Stars:

Kyra Sedgwick, J.K. Simmons, Corey Reynolds

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Kyra Sedgwick	...	Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson
J.K. Simmons	...	Assistant Chief Will Pope
Corey Reynolds	...	Sgt. David Gabriel
Robert Gossett	...	Commander Taylor
G.W. Bailey	...	Lt. Louie Provenza
Tony Denison	...	Lt. Andy Flynn
Michael Paul Chan	...	Lt. Mike Tao
Raymond Cruz	...	Detective Julio Sanchez
Phillip P. Keene	...	Buzz Watson
Jon Tenney	...	Agent Fritz Howard
Andrew Daly	...	Richard Tracy
Erica Piccininni	...	Marie Morgan
Kathryn Meisle	...	Jill Pappas
Brian Avers	...	Mark Bernstein
Jonathan Chesner	...	Mr. O'Keefe

Storyline

Brenda and her team investigate the shooting of Mark Bernstein, aka Intrigue, who offers counseling on hooking up with hot babes. By the time Provenza and Flynn get there - with Chief Pope who is accompanying them on a ride-along - everything seems to be well in hand. Det. Richard Tracy gives them a rubdown on what he thinks happened. Pope is suitably impressed and Tracy offers to log in the evidence for them. The only problem is that there is no Det. Tracy on the force and the wannabe detective is now going around impersonating a policeman. He's doing a pretty good job investigating the crime and seems to be one step ahead of them. When they finally get him in custody, Brenda realizes that they need his help since he has more evidence than they do. It's Brenda however who manages to get the confession in the end.

---

Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

---

Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

13 July 2009 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Shephard/Robin Company, The, Warner Bros. Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

45 min 45 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson: [upon learning the victim seduced eight women for his TV show] He did this to eight women and he only got shot once?

---

Connections

References Dick Tracy (1950)

User Reviews

Deceiver

Just when you thought The Closer could not get any funnier or eccentric... Brenda locking horns with Captain Raydor (#5.3), Provenza's girlfriend and the adventures of the remains of Kitty (#5.4)... This one beats them hands down. One can only wonder how many takes they blew by not being able to refrain from bursting into laughter while filming. And despite all the hilarity, there is still a legitimate police series under there. Really, how this series has (at the time of writing) a rating of only 7.6 is baffling, since it should be obvious to pretty much everyone that the only police series constantly this good is The Wire.

The makers of the Closer know when to do a mix of comedy and drama, and when lean more heavily on the other. Since the previous episode was a rather troubling look at the world we live in, raising even a logically valid question of how could there possibly be a benevolent god responsible for creating this world, a near-hysterical episode like this is needed to balance things out. This also makes it difficult to predict what tone the following episode will take - unlike in most other police series, where they are all pretty much the same. This show makes being great look so easy that one may take it granted, failing to appreciate the incredible amount of effort that goes into scripting, directing and acting master-class stuff like this. Accept no substitutes.