Major Crimes season 6: What we’d like to see with Rusty Beck

He’s come along way since fans first met Rusty Beck back in the series finale of The Closer. He was the teenage male prostitute you felt sorry for, but also believed he was the rudest teenager on the face of the Earth. In the beginning of Major Crimes, fans began to see a different side of him, especially as Cmdr. Sharon Raydor began to uncover just who this young man was. Despite being rude and blunt, he showed he was caring, accepting, and capable of loving a woman who isn’t his biological mother, but a woman who loves him for who he is and despite everything he’s been through. This was shown even more after Sharon adopted him in Season 3 of the TNT hit series.

Graham Patrick Martin plays Rusty Beck perfectly and understands the character well. Rusty’s growth from the troubled teenager to successful student shows Martin’s acting ability and how well he was able to transition with his character. Now going into the series’s sixth season fans have the opportunity to once again see Rusty grow.

So moving into the upcoming season what can the show do with Rusty Beck?

Continue to challenge his relationships – The biggest relationship of Rusty’s that has been tested is with Gus, his steady boyfriend. At the end of Season 5, Rusty and Gus left things in a confusing state. While Gus seemed to be thrilled that Rusty was willing to give long distance a shot, fans couldn’t help but feel that Rusty believed it was essentially over. However, this fan-favorite relationship has revealed so much about Rusty.

When Sharon took him in, she waited for him to accept her in his life and never once pushed him to open up. She went at his pace. The same can be said for Gus who has sat back and supported Rusty in every decision he has made and even waited to tell Rusty he loved him until Rusty was ready to say it back to him. Basically, people in his life wait for him. Now fans are seeing that Gus doesn’t want to wait anymore and this is what truly is great about this relationship. It now challenges Rusty to do something he hasn’t had to do in a long time: wait for someone else. The last time this happened he was waiting for his mother to return and look where it got him; he was living on the streets trying to survive by soliciting himself.

Perhaps this could be why he is so scared to wait for Gus because he’s afraid he won’t come back. By focusing on this dynamic during Season 6, it shows fans a side of Rusty we haven’t seen since his early days in the show, but with a different perspective now that he has a new mindset.

A father figure in his life –  Fans of the show know that Rusty has never had a true father figure in his life. In Season 1 of Major Crimes, he met his biological father and while it seemed to go smoothly, it eventually ended with his father beating him. Since then, it’s always just been him and Sharon. That is until she entered a relationship with her Lieutenant Andy Flynn.

We also know that it was Rusty who made Sharon realize that she was in fact dating Flynn and Rusty seemed to be happy about it. Now with the wedding of the two set to occur during Season 6, will this be a problem for Rusty? Fans have seen in the last few seasons and that he and Flynn seem to get along smoothly, but it would be interesting to see if this will change once the realization sets in that Flynn is going to be Rusty’s father. Depending upon how Rusty would react, it would certainly speak to how far he’s come or if he really hasn’t changed at all.

A career path – One thing is for certain, Rusty has changed his career path several times throughout the series and that’s completely normal. Everyday a kid is changing what they want to be when they grow up, but now that Rusty is getting to an age where a decision has to be made, we hope to see him settle somewhere.

Currently, he is interning for DDA Andrea Hobbs and has plans to be a lawyer. During Season 6, we hope that Rusty continues to work and have a set goal for himself. We see he is driven and it would give him something throughout the season to strive for.

Overall, Rusty Beck is the character that helps to inform the audience of what is occurring during the episode; he represents the audience. He is a strong character who isn’t perfect, but is proof that you can come back from anything. The writers have written him perfectly and Graham Patrick Martin has played him with such talent. We cannot wait for October to arrive.

Major Crimes returns October 31 on TNT. For more news related to Major Crimes, be sure to visit this link. (Photo: TNT.)

This story was written by Samantha D’Amico. If you want to follow her on Twitter, you can do so at @SAM_iamXO.