If you aren’t watching this season of Major Crimes, last night you likely missed the best episode of television this year, which made us do a double take as to whether this was a midseason finale special cliffhanger ratings booster.  It wasn’t.  Likewise, it was the best TV pilot we’ve seen in ages (more on that later).  And add to that one of the most satisfying conclusions that The Closer and Major Crimes writers James Duff and Mike Bercham have concocted yet.

Directed by The Closer, Major Crimes, Dallas, and NYPD Blue director Michael M. Robin, the episode “Two Options” took an almost Dragnet approach to a police procedural and crammed more drama into an hour of TV than we thought possible.  And the climax might have caused someone to claim it as the best stand-and-cheer moment since Eowyn killed the Witch-King at the end of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Reviewers write about new seasons and finale episodes all the time, but it takes a great hour of regular programming to cause you to stop in your tracks and tell everyone about it, especially in the week full of press briefings leading up to Comic-Con.

For regulars of the series who haven’t watched the episode yet, we’ll just note that everyone gets his and her moment–Sharon, Louie, Andy, Mike, Julio, Buzz, Amy, Taylor, Rusty, Dr. Joe, Cooper, and even Fritz.  Although if we worked in the actual district attorneys’ office in Los Angeles we’d probably not be too happy with the portrayals of last years’ Deputy D.A. Rios or last night’s D.D.A. Gloria Lim.

That brings us to our prediction.  Allow us to summon the ghost of Carnac the Magnificent.  (Drum roll, please).

We watch enough of Major Crimes to think we know when something is going on that is not entirely… overt.  After ten years of this team at the LAPD it’s sort of like the back-of-your-hand kind of familiarity.  Sort of like being able to solve cases via medicine we learned from Dr. House to predict outcomes successfully before House’s team does by the last few seasons of watching House, M.D.  Sort of like using years of watching Law & Order to pass the criminal section of the bar exam after law school.

So here’s the prediction–A new TNT Network drama called S.O.B.–Strategic Operations Bureau or maybe James Duff will follow the Law & Order spinoffs and call this new series Major Crimes-S.O.B. 

It’s just too good to pass up an opportunity to have Jon Tenney’s FBI Agent Fritz Howard team up with the tough-but-instantly-likeable acting deputy director Ann McGinnis, played by Laurie Holden.   Especially since Tenney hit it off so well opposite Rebecca Romijn in the great and fun but short-lived King & Maxwell.  And Holden has her own following, coming off her role as Andrea in The Walking Dead, Agent Murray in The Shield, and Mulder informant Marita Covarrubias in ten episodes of The X-Files.   A spinoff is a sure-fire win.  TNT, “boom” is right.

And how do you pass up a title like S.O.B.?

Here’s a quick intro for last night’s episode:

It’s episodes like “Two Options” that should make the executives at TNT happy they signed the Major Crimes crew for an eleventh season together last week.  Bravo, TNT.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com