Episodes I Can't Stop Watching, A New Series: Major Crimes: 'Boys Will Be Boys'

 

Before streaming existed there was a time when – almost always late at night – you would be channel chasing. Surfing through hundreds of channels looking for something to hold your attention before you went to bed.  Usually it was a movie, sometimes it was a late night show, you know, just something to kill time.

And then, usually by accident, you found it.  An episode of a series you had watched long ago (or in the recent past) that was now being syndicated on a network you didn’t know existed. You stopped changing channels and with laser like intensity, you watched that channel alone for thirty minutes or an hour.  It had been a show you watched, sometimes with intensity, sometimes your devotion flagged.  Some of these series were among the greatest ever made, some of them merely very watchable.  But for whatever reason, this episode in particular was one of your all-time favorites, one that you never got tired of watching no matter how many times you’d seen it before. It might be a comedy, it might be sci-fi, it might be a procedural. It might even be one of those serialized programs that have made television great in the last decade.  

And it might not be the best episode of that series in the conventional sense – other episodes might have won more awards or been fan-favorites in a way that this episode just didn’t. But it’s your favorite episode of this series and you will never get tired of rewatching it.

The Internet and many publications are always fond of ranking the greatest episodes in TV history. TV Guide seems to do every decade or so; there’s are blogs about online, most of them having to do with fan ratings and they will be broken down often by genre.  I’ve done more than a few over the years. In a way, this series of articles will be a variation of this. In a more important way, it won’t be.

I have been reviewing TV for nearly half my life. I can tell you why an individual series is a classic and why I think some are overrated. I can tell you why I love some genres more than others. I can tell you what series are the greatest of all time. But one thing I have never attempted – and very few critics have tried to do – is what makes an individual episode of television rewatchable. Not necessarily one of the greatest of all time – though some of the ones that will be part of this series will fit in that meter – but why we are drawn to them again and again.  This is true in some of the most iconic series of all time which have several extraordinary episodes. I know that critics and fans consider the ‘Once More, With Feeling’ episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer one of the greatest of all times and it is but there are reasons I would prefer episodes such as ‘Hush’ or ‘Fool For Love’ more watchable. (Are either of those going to be an episode I talk about here? You’ll have to keep reading this column.) Similarly Law and Order has been going on forever and has so many individually great episodes that I seriously doubt anyone can agree on a consensus.  The episode I always am drawn to, no matter how times I’ve watched it already, is one of the very first one they ever did and that is because it’s one of the most powerful.

Some of these series are not classics in the way television views them: they are merely very good shows that every so often produced an episode that, no matter how many years have gone by, I can’t get them out of my head. I don’t think anyone would shows call Major Crimes or Chicago Hope masterpieces but they were capable of producing episodes that were searing or left an impression I’ve never been able to shake.

I may have mainly given reference to drama in this column, but comedies do have the same hold on me. In this case, the lion’s share of them are real classics and some merely underrated. All of them are screamingly funny, even if they aren’t the episode that most fans love when they think of it.

This series of articles will go into detail some of the episodes that have given me the greatest pleasure or fondness over my more than a quarter of a century watching television. A couple of provisos: with one or two critical exceptions, none of these episodes are of streaming series because they do not fall under the same concept as what I am discussing. That being said, there have been a couple of streaming series over the years that have produced episodes that I have repeatedly come back to in my life and I feel they do merit discussion.

I should also add that while I consider several of these episodes rewatchable, if you want to seek them or the series they’re on out, it’s going to take a major effort. Some of them aren’t on streaming, only DVD and in a few cases you may not be able to find them on American made DVDs. I list them here because when the series in question was in syndication, I never missed a chance to watch the episode if I came across them.

And it goes without saying that all of these articles will contain spoilers. It’s a necessity given that the only way to explain why I consider them rewatchable is to give away every reason. Then again, most of these episodes are decades in the past, and the whole point of this series is to explain why you’d rewatch them even if you know what’s going to happen.

Anyway, here we go.

 

Major Crimes:

‘Boys Will Be Boys’

Those of you who have read my blog over the last few years in particular know that I have gone through a major reassessment of TNT’s The Closer. While I initially thought the Kyra Sedgwick series was an undervalued masterpieces, I know consider her character of Brenda Lee Johnson as the prime example of everything that is wrong with policing in America today.  I believe I once considered her a Karen before the term was founded, and that’s actually putting it mildly: she was a control freak, a habitual liar to everybody, who never listened to anyone, including her fellow detectives or her eventual husband, who basically thought her badge gave her a license to put people in jail – and if she couldn’t do that, arrange it so they died rather than face justice.  I often wonder if the Innocence Project could have set up a branch dealing with the cases that Priority Homicide investigated.

I have also made it clear that the spin-off – really, a follow-up – Major Crimes was an infinitely superior show even though it essentially had the exact same cast with a few minor additions and Sedgwick completely absent. And indeed, the writers and creative forces were essentially the same. Why do I think this? Because the moment Kyra Sedgwick left the series, every other character on the show somehow managed to gain at least twenty IQ points and another dimension. In The Closer every character was more or less a cliché, only there to make Sedgwick’s character shine brighter. On Major Crimes, the unit worked as a team with each detective having more layers than they were ever able to show under Sedgwick’s tenure.

There are several episodes of the series I have enjoyed rewatching in the nearly six years since Major Crimes ended in 2017 but the one that has the greatest hold on me, even a full decade after it aired is Boys Will Be Boys. This episode was edgy because it dealt with an issue that was only starting to become gradually discussed in 2013 – gender identity issues – and deals with the very real horrors it can lead to, not merely for the person involved but for the nearest and dearest.

The episode opens with a missing child. A hysterical parent calls 911 and tells them frantically his daughter Michelle is missing.   Major Crimes, led at first by Detective Flynn (Tony Denison) and the videographer, Buzz (Phillip Keene) go to the Brand house. There they meet John, the father (Craig Sheffer) and Michelle’s older brother, Matt. Both of them are certain that Michelle has been the victim of an online bully, who earlier that same week sexually assaulted her in a mall bathroom and posted the pictures online. Buzz looks at the photos and asks the obvious question: “Is Michelle a boy?”

The center of the story is clear divide between the parents about Michelle. John is warm and supportive, while admitting his initial resistance. Anne (Gail O’Grady) keeps referring to her as ‘Michael’ and keeps snarling at John, blaming him for what’s going on. Eventually Lt. Tao, the tech expert tracks down the bully who posted the pictures and Detective Sanchez (Raymond Cruz) chases him down at his house.

 Sanchez is almost always habitually angry towards the people in the interrogation room, but there have rarely been few subjects who deserve it than Lewis Gates. He continuously refers to Michelle as ‘it’, feels no remorse for what he has done, even though it constitutes not just on-line harassment but sexual battery of a minor.  His attitude would almost seem one-dimensional were it not sadly so typical even today.

Provenza (the always wonderful G.W. Bailey) considers a critical missing. Provenza is by far the senior detective on this force and has always had difficulty dealing with so many of the changes in today’s world. Often this is a source of comedy. Here it isn’t. Provenza clearly has an idea going forward what he is going to find, and we’re not entirely shocked when the first act ends and he and Flynn have found Michelle’s body, with her skull smashed in.

The entire squad is saddened by this but Provenza and Flynn, who have been here the longest, very quickly see that there is something even darker afoot. Michelle’s body has been buried. Her eyes have been closed. Her body has been positioned to look like she has gone to sleep. These are not the actions of someone who is the victim of a hate crime.  There is something terribly sad in the way Provenza tells them to search the house. “Family first, as I always say.” Then he orders one of the detectives to go to the Brand home, gather the shoes and bag them separately.

Sharon Raydor, the head of the division (Mary McConnell, who is always incredible) has been doing her level best to maintain authority, but its clear this crime has already hit her hard. When she goes to see her ex-husband (Tom Berenger) and asks him to watch over her foster son, he asks her what happens. He gently says: “So it’s a hate crime.” And she says: “Every crime is to somebody.” Later on, looking over the body, the ME says: “I can never get used to this.” Raydor says: “Let’s hope we never do.”

She then notifies the family. Their collective reaction is troubling. Anne and John immediately begin to start yelling at each other, blaming each other for their daughters death. An infuriated Todd shouts at them to stop pretending this was all about Michelle.  John’s reaction is very strange, at least to the detectives. He wants to see Michelle’s body. The second act ends with him shouting that demand at a closed door.

They find inconsistencies in John’s story. He was not stuck in traffic at the time of Michelle’s death; he was in Santa Monica looking for an apartment. He also moved $80,000 out of his account. Sharon is trying to hit him, so she agrees to his request to see his daughter’s body. Flynn takes John  to the morgue and tries to talk him out of it. John walks in, sees his daughter on a slab, and collapses in grief.  Watching from outside Sharon asks Flynn if that changes his opinion. His response is cold: “He looks guilty. Most murderers break down when they see what they’ve done.”

Sheffer is a good actor whose career started out like gangbusters in A River Runs Through It but never received the same respect or prominence as his co-star Brad Pitt. In the scene afterward, you get a sense of just how good he is and he seems completely numb to the questioning. “Time’s come to a complete stop,” he tells the cops. Then he explains his actions. He was moving to Santa Monica to establish residency in order to change schools for Michelle. She hadn’t wanted to go back after being bullied. He cashed in his retirement fund to pay for hormone replacement therapy.

We now cut back to Anne, who is maintaining her level of barely held contempt for what Michelle wanted, saying that’s it was expensive and not the kind of decision ‘a child whose only thirteen should make’. She says she was just trying to be a good mother. At this point Provenza, who is interviewing her with Sharon says: “This shovel calls your parenting skills into question.”

He and Sharon tell her they found the shovel in the trunk of her car, and that it has the same dirt found on her daughter’s grave. She continues to dig a hole for herself, eventually saying: “I am a good mother.” Provenza then says: “Mrs. Brand, we have reached the point in our relationship where the lying has to stop.” Anne says: “I am a good mother, and I want a lawyer.”

In the penultimate act, Provenza, Raydor and DA Rios (Nadine Velasquez) are discussing the problems with the case. Rios has already proven herself to be squeamish around blood (she attended the autopsy but didn’t look at the corpse). Provenza shows the pictures of the positioning of the body and compares it to that of Michelle lying in bed. Rios looks away and Provenza loses his patience. “No you look at it!”  It’s rare he gets this angry at anyone.  Rios argues that the case will put the victim on trial. Provenza snaps and demands another DA “who isn’t afraid of losing in a good cause!”  He then shows a rare sign of humanity, admitting that he’s having trouble wrapping his head around on it and he understands the jury will too, but he doesn’t care because this child has been beaten to death and deserves justice.

However at this point Raydor, who has been looking at the phone logs of the service, has made a connection that throws everything open – and if anything makes the ending even more heart-wrenching. Provenza and Raydor go to talk with John and Todd (Anne has been arrested and is waiting a hearing). Then Sharon tells him a truth that a mother would know. Teenagers don’t call, they text. But Todd called Michelle’s cell phone nearly a hundred times while she was missing. And then fifty times more after she was dead. “So you could hear her voice again.”

The look on Mr. Brand’s face when this is revealed is heartbreaking. And in a way what happens next explains why Major Crimes was a better show than The Closer was. While Brenda always saw the world in binary terms, every so often Major Crimes would see that there were more levels.

Todd went to pick up Michelle when she called him. And Michelle started telling Todd that she and her father were moving to Santa Monica. Todd unravels saying that everything in his life has been about Michelle and he has been living in the chaos.  This action will snap the final thread that has been holding the Brand family together – and Michelle (who we see in a flashback) doesn’t seem to care. “She thought I’d be happy for her!” he shouts.

I don’t pretend that Todd’s actions aren’t horrific – he beat his sister to death with a bat, and his final remark to his father is singularly cruel. (I won’t repeat it here.) But the viewer can’t help but feel the tiniest bit of sympathy for him, if not his actions. We hear so much about the horrors that those who need gender affirming care need, the violence that they must go through, the prejudice that they have to live through every day. We never hear about the collateral damage that their families have to go through. Is the story of the Brand family more extreme that all the ones we hear about it? Honestly I think it was the norm more than the exception, and it probably still is now. How does a father, a mother, a sibling, live in this world and keep their sanity?   I honestly think the reactions of all three survivors of Michelle’s death are mirror images of what those with the families of gender identity disorder have to live through every day.

I think that’s why every time ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ airs I watch it. We can’t say its any less relevant than it was ten years ago. In a grim irony,  some channels took it out of syndication because some people believed the terms in the episode amounted to ‘hate speech’. That’s the very reason we need to watch it over and over. We need to know not only those people are out there, but so much of the issues that are involved are never easy to deal with.