The Closer

Season 1 opens with the LAPD's new Priority Murder Squad (PMS), soon renamed the Priority Homicide Division (PHD), under the direction of Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson investigates the murder of a technological genius. Brenda has recently joined LAPD after a long career in law enforcement, including with the Atlanta and Washington, D.C., Police Departments. We soon learn Brenda is originally from Atlanta, Georgia, was CIA-trained, and was recruited by her former married lover, Assistant Chief Will Pope. Brenda is resented as an outsider by much of the LAPD and seen as an adversary by Robbery-Homicide's Captain Taylor, who initially persuades her squad to request transfers en masse in an unsuccessful effort to force Brenda's resignation. Brenda soon wins over her assistant, Sgt. David Gabriel, and the grudging admiration of the team when she shows them why she is called a closer; but her battle is far from over. As the season progresses, we see Brenda struggle to establish her authority and earn the respect of her squad, despite the efforts of Taylor and Detective Lt. Andy Flynn to both undermine her authority and hamper her investigations. Slowly, one-by-one, Brenda wins over her team; and, by season's end, she has earned the loyalty of them all, even the hard-boiled Det. Flynn, as they stand united against Capt. Taylor's final attempt to remove Brenda from the squad.

Brenda is now firmly established as leader of Priority Homicide, with her team firmly behind her. The theme for Season 2 is partnerships, which is established as the opening episode centers around an exploration of partnership within the LAPD and in Brenda's life. The theme plays out as the Flynn/Provenza partnership comes front and center early in the season and as Brenda's relationship with Gabriel grows and strengthens while she forms an uneasy working alliance with Commander Taylor. At the same time, Brenda's romance with Fritz grows serious as they make the decision whether they should live together.

The theme for Season Three is family. The PHD has now come together as a unified division, and their stories center on how they function as a family that must cope with a budget crisis. Episodes this season explore issues of family, beginning with a tale of bigamy, and ending with two stories of family pitted against one another. The season also explores the elements of family life in America, the secrets a family keeps and the horrors a family must face. In Brenda's personal life, we meet her father for the first time along with Fritz, with some interesting results. Brenda faces a personal health crisis even as her relationship with Fritz takes a large step forward.

When a massive fire breaks out in Griffith Park, Priority Homicide is on hand to help. Meanwhile, Brenda and Fritz are living in a small apartment and getting on each other's nerves.

While investigating the homicide of an entire family, the team once again finds themselves entangled in an FBI case. They also find themselves distracted by an unusually surly Provenza.

After a man is murdered while taking pictures of the stars from his balcony, the squad suspects the crime is somehow connected to the woman with whom he was having an affair. But their investigation is hindered by a missing murder weapon, as well as the difficult adjustment of moving into a new office.

Brenda and the squad investigate the owner of a hip-hop record label when one of his rap artists and six innocent bystanders are gunned down. The case hits home for Gabriel who knows two of the victims from church. Meanwhile, Chief Delk is getting ready to announce the department’s new organizational chart just as Brenda becomes the target of a civil suit against the police department.