‘Major Crimes’ season 4, episode 4 review: A bad day for a ride-along
When Buzz had an opportunity to embark on his first day as reserve officer, who knew that it would turn out like this? Monday night’s “Major Crimes” brought us its own version of a red wedding, one where an alternate suitor to the bride was found dead in a bathtub and we were left wonder who was left to spill the blood.
This is not an episode you will remember for major character moments. Let’s just leave it at that. Fans of more serialized stories can probably sit this review out. It probably sounds if you are a frequent CarterMatt reader that we have some sort of predisposed vendetta against procedural episodes of crime dramas; that is not entirely true. What frustrates us are the lazy ones where you have some sort of mob involved or there is a case where one of the detectives is somehow framed for a crime. There are so many such shows that it is easy to almost get into the mentality that “other crime shows have already done everything, so who cares if we’re copying them?”. The statement may in some ways be true, but you can find little moments that make you stand apart.
This is what “Major Crimes” pulled off with what was our personal favorite case of season 4. It was easy to presume that it was the fiance who killed a guy out to steal his bride-to-be, but that was not the truth. Surely he did enjoy the man making an impromptu cameo at rehearsal, but his ukulele had already been smashed. (We never imagined writing that sentence pretty much ever.) Also, is murder suddenly the way to his woman’s heart? Not exactly. He already heard from her that she did not think she would be able to go through the ceremony.
Through most of the episode, the question on our mind was one of motive. While there were reasons to be upset over this guy turning out and potentially ruining a relationship that was the result of time and effort, killing is a little extreme. Then, it turns out that money is involved, and the father of the bride saw the financial motivations of such a union. This was apparently enough to kill for, and to plant as much evidence as possible to suggest it was suicide.
We at least deduced that the father could have been behind this, but the reasons kept us enough off guard for the episode to work. Cheers to the writers for the case, and for the presentation of it, as well: The whole reason Flynn and Provenza stopped at the hotel to begin with was to respond to a domestic, and everything else unfolded from there. The setup was different than the standard case, and from here came the payoff. Episode Grade: B+.
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