‘Major Crimes’ season 4, episode 16 review: The Rusty crisis comes to a head

For the past few weeks on “Major Crimes,” we’ve seen Rusty continue to be a man on a mission: Trying to prove that Slider’s situation is a product of circumstance, and not something that he inherently just wanted to do. We’ve seen an unusual bond form between the two, and let’s just say that this turned problematic when we started to enter the courtroom.

For one, Rusty’s relationship with Gus, brother of the late Marianna, has started to dissolve over a lack of communication. You have to wonder whether or not Rusty handled the issue the right way, but the simple answer there seems to be a clear “no.” There are many things that he could and should have really done differently, given that they would have spared him of some of this embarrassment and had him in a different place now rather than trying to figure out the scope of all of the relationships in his life.

Even Sharon, who has given him a little bit of freedom when it comes to how he has handled his communications with Slider, has started to become frustrating to her. We do understand why, mostly because he has operated with almost tunnel vision and without much thought to whether or not he hurt any feelings in the process of doing his work.

Aside from the courtroom stuff, we really cannot say that the case-of-the-week this time was all that compelling. The main moment of intrigue came with starting to see Andy back in his element a little bit more, though it would have been nice to see more of his adjustment back into work following what happened to him.

In the end, we’d say that this was good mostly in that it sets up Rusty having to learn more about the consequences of his secrets. However, it probably leaned a little too heavily on what he was up to, to the point that there was not enough Sharon – Andy and there wasn’t enough time for the latest investigation to be anything other than flimsy. Grade: B-.

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