The Closer: Split Ends (Episode 408)

Just plain Brenda. There is someone in Brenda's kitchen. Using Brenda's knives. While Brenda and Fritz sleep upstairs. It's supposed to be ominous, but then it's just cutting coffee cake. Willie Rae and Clay are in town, thanks to the RV, and they've made a super huge and delicious-looking breakfast. Brenda and Fritz: gee... thanks. Come on! Breakfast! The best meal of the day!

Clay wants Brenda and Fritz to get married. Like, now. Brenda doesn't want to talk about it. She gets the requisite call from Sgt. Gabriel, calling her out to a murder, this time on a movie studio. She takes off to change, not very sorry, despite the "great breakfast, too!"

Her dress is super cute. Fritz reminds her that they agreed she wouldn't leave him alone with her parents anymore. She lies that she has no choice, and she didn't even know they were coming until last night. So Fritz makes a call to his cell phone and badly fakes a call from work. Lots of "horrible, horrible, that's bad, I'm on my way," to his fake bomb threat. Brenda, ever the selfless one, says that they can't leave Mama and Daddy there alone,implying that they're Fritz's responsibility. And also, incontinent cats. Fritz says they can tag along on one of the jobs, either the awesome movie studio murder or boring security tapes at the airport. Willie Rae: Is this where they do Dancing With the Stars?

The regulars are assembled on the set; Brenda has sent her parents on a tour so she can get to work. Victim is Rachel Hughes, hair stylist for a show called Trauma Unit. The body was stuffed in a storage locker under a truck; an electrician found her while searching for extra cable. They've hung a curtain over the body, which Tao rips down for Brenda. Sanchez squats next to the truck, lost in thought. Sniff. Brenda leans in to get a look at the victim, who is a beaten, bloody mess. She's covered in defensive wounds and likely was dragged. She has some deep gash marks on her cheeck. Eesh. No one heard anything. Flynn taps Sanchez, who comes to and supplies that Rachel stayed late last night; the make up artist that Rachel shared her trailer with told them that Rachel was waiting for someone. Sanchez stares at the body some more, totally out of it. Flynn answers for him, telling Brenda that the make up artist, Kim, told them that Rachel was waiting for a private client. She also knows that Rachel keeps her schedule on ehr cell, but that's at home. Rachel's keys are missing, but her car's still in the lot. Daniels is checking on whether Rachel had a boyfriend. Gabriel accompanies Brenda into the trailer while Tao talks to Sanchez outside. Buzz is filming the crime scene within, which is not pretty. Broken mirror, like Rachel's head was slammed into it, blood and hair everywhere, the hair likely from a cutting Rachel gave. Provenza and Daniels step in to tell Brenda that the hair probably belonged to her ex, Ryan. Rachel recently filed for divorce and had a restraining order put out against him. Brenda asks Flynn and Gabriel to head to Rachel's house to get her cell phone, Provenza to interview people on the set the night before, and Daniels and Sanchez to find Ryan Hughes. Brenda examines the blood spatters. Grim.

Provenza schmoozes Brenda's parents. Brenda wants him to take her parents home, but he's going to take them to the set for filming. Brenda lies that she'll be along soon. Instead, she goes with Gabriel and Flynn to Rachel's house, which is actually her ex-husband's house, and he's not exactly into complying with polite requests from heavily accented Southern women. Without a warrant, he won't let them in the house. Brenda asks when he last saw Rachel, if he can get in touch with her, and where she's living. Answers: he doesn't know; her cell, if not work; he doesn't know, since she won't tell her. The three PHD tag team him into acknowledging that he was on set last night for a hair cut, but he says Rachel told him he could come, despite the restraining order. Brenda: "She didn't like the way the visit ended." And then they arrest him for violating the restraining order.

Willie Rae snaps photos in the Murder Room of Clay being slapped into handcuffs. Har har. Brenda's whining to Fritz on the phone that the LAPD doesn't know anything about a bomb threat (because it's fake and in Canada), and she can't have her parents around while a) Sanchez is still mentally out of commission because of last week, and b) there's a probable wife-beating-murderer in Interview One. You can see how this would be a time for cookies, which Brenda shoves in her face while she whines. She asks when Fritz can come home. NEVER. Provenza volunteers to take care of her "poor parents," since Brenda's afraid to leave them alone in her apartment, where they will "do things." Provenza thinks this is pretty open-and-shut, so he's all for taking care of the elderly. Clay so doesn't want anything to do with Provenza, because he's a total lady killer. Willie Rae offers to make him dinner.Clay, his expression set in disgust, says that if Brenda's too busy, he'll just get to know her... friends.

Daniels and Sanchez are still working on trying to find Rachel's current address, though she's made it difficult. Tao is also waiting for her phone records. Flynn has the run down on Ryan, who broke Rachel's wrist and gave her a concussion. She checked out of the ER, filed for a restraining order, and moved out. But she's still paying the mortgage because Ryan's acting and bartending gigs don't add up to much cash. Buzz pops in to tell Brenda that Pope and Taylor are waiting for her in the media room.

Where she rips into a Soy Joy. Product placement is delicious AND nutritious. Pope asks Brenda if the husband is good for this one, and Brenda's like, long story short, probably, but I'm not done yet, why? Pope is thinking that if this is a lock, they should hand it over to the DA now, since Ramos is doing such a bang up shit-storm piece on the LAPD and PHD in particular. Brenda asks if she's in trouble. Taylor says her work is incredible, but the issue is the press painting PHD as having a bias towards the rich, white, famous, cop-related, or again, famous-ish. Pope wants to avoid it looking like Brenda got this one because it's got the sheen of Hollywood on it. Brenda: "But that is why it's a priority, innit?" Pope is like, yeah, but we can’t say that. Brenda says to tell Ramos that Rachel’s death might be an isolated incident, but they’re making sure people aren’t breaking into movie studios and offing people. Taylor thinks that might stop Ramos. Brenda’s all, “stop him from what?” Doing a hack piece on the PHD? Pope tells her to never mind, carry on.

In the interview room, Ryan tells Brenda that Rachel’s setting him up by telling him she’ll cut his hair, then calling the police. To ruin his career. Brenda: What career, fool? Tell me about last night. Ryan says he has a part on a feature film, so Rachel volunteered to cut his hair. Gabriel asks if they argued, if Rachel took a little too much off the top. Negatory. Brenda remains unconvinced, so Gabriel reminds him about the very thin trailer walls. Amended: Rachel and Ryan had a small disagreement. He says he did everything Rachel asked him to, apologized, even took anger management classes that Rachel’s friend Donna suggested. He’s a passionate, sensitive actor, not an asshole! He stayed away, just like Rachel asked him to. Except for last night? Ryan pushes out of his chair, angry as hell, and literally spits at Brenda as he says Rachel was okay with it. Not so much with the anger management, then. Brenda doesn’t believe that after Ryan broke Rachel’s wrist and gave her a concussion that she’d call him for a haircut; if that was true, why did he lie about it? Ryan says he didn’t want trouble, he just made a mistake. He and Brenda argue over each other about the extent to which he violated his restraining order until Brenda whips out the crime scene photos of Rachel’s banged up corpse. Ryan is stunned into silence and then asks if she’s dead. Brenda: “Murdered. Savagely beaten. And to me, it looks like someone was very angry.” Ryan looks at both cops then asks for a lawyer. Brenda leaves, Gabriel gives Ryan a phone, and upstairs, watching Ryan’s reaction, Taylor muses that this guy is a better actor than they thought.

Dinner at Fritz und Brenda Haus with the parents and Provenza. Who, it seems, spent the afternoon driving the Johnsons to various wedding chapels. Brenda has lost her appetite, and she’s confused about Rachel: she stood up for herself with a restraining order, but then let the bully live in her house. She doesn’t get it. Provenza waxes nostalgic and horrified about his own marriages, all four of them. Clay is all, ignore him, Brenda, get married! Get married today! Brenda excuses herself, and her mother chides Clay for pushing. Clay makes a “if they don’t get married soon then I’ll be dead” comment. Fritz gets up at Willie Rae’s suggestion to look after Brenda.

She’s in the kitchen, indulging in a glass of wine and fingerfuls of frosting off a cake. And y’all, what she’s doing is gross: licking the tip of her finger and then running it right back around the bottom of the cake for more frosting. Fritz says HE doesn’t get why Brenda’s putting up with her dad’s bullying, given how she’s so badass at work. Instead, she’s hiding in the kitchen! Brenda has one of her epiphanies, realizing that Rachel learned to hide, and that’s why they can’t find her address. She calls Flynn to have him check for domestic violence shelters (maybe with a worker named Donna in them) in the area of the hospital where Rachel went after Ryan beat the shit out of her.

They’ve found Donna at a shelter, with photos of Rachel the night she came there. Ryan found out and threatened Donna one night because Donna had recommended she get her own place and not give out the address to anyone. Women who come to the shelter learn to protect their privacy. Brenda asks for Rachel’s address; Donna has the spare key instead.

The apartment is a wreck, ransacked, but the door isn’t busted. Brenda remembers that they didn’t find Rachel’s keys at the crime scene, so Ryan probably took them and let himself in, thought it doesn’t explain how he found out where to go. Tao finds a bloodied lamp. “How did we end up at another crime scene?” Brenda wonders. Sanchez makes a few bad theories while Provenza has Flynn read the highlighted, girl parts of a script while he plays the doctor. No, that’s not dirty. Brenda wants them to cut it out and get her Rachel’s cell phone. Tao’s found strands of blonde hair on the lamp, though Rachel wasn’t a blonde. Gabriel wonders if Rachel had a roommate. Donna thinks Rachel may have taken in another battered woman. Flynn appears with the cell, which does have Ryan’s haircut in it. Utterly confused, Brenda finally concludes they’re looking for another victim.

On set, Gabriel and Brenda talk to a co-worker of Rachel’s who is not terribly helpful, despite Gabriel’s assurance she is. He gives her his card, and Brenda’s like, gross. They talk to another hairstylist, who tacks her license to the mirror. Brenda notices and asks if she always does that; turns out, they’re required to. Back in the Murder Room, Tao confirms that Rachel’s new address was on her license. She obscured it, but the killer ripped the license down and got the address. He also wore creepy zap gloves, which are responsible for the marks on Rachel’s fist. They have steel on them to protect the knuckles. Brenda asks to track down the manufacturer to see if Ryan ordered any.

In the media room, Pope and Taylor watch Ryan read a movie script. Taylor suggests to Brenda that they hand him over to the DA now. Brenda: “Without a confession?” Anathema to Brenda’s very being, this suggestion! Pope lays it out for her: Ramos is writing a two-part piece on PHD. It’s not good, one-sided, unfair, and bad for the city. Pope’s tried unsuccessfully to kill it. Brenda offers to talk to Ramos, which Pope unequivocally says is not happening. Brenda says to tell Ramos, basically, that she’s only half done, given that there’s another victim; she’s about to give them another option when she sees an ad for a wedding chapel stuffed in her purse. She’ll be bullied by her dad, but not Ramos: she tells the guys that she won’t let Ramos dictate the way she does her job. Boo. Yah. Taylor thinks she doesn’t get it. Pope says she doesn’t want to.

Brenda spars with Ryan and his lawyer, threatening to hold him up for his movie role. She pokes until he gets pissy again, defending his studious attention to his script by saying that all actors highlight their lines when they first get them. Epiphany #2 for Brenda. She leaves and immediately runs to Provenza for the script he took from Rachel’s apartment.

This leads her straight to Kelly Rivers, recent guest star on Trauma Unit, Rachel’s show. Brenda talks to her at the door, and Kelly clutches a robe about her tightly. She has a gash on her scalp. She won’t let them in. Brenda quietly says she understands. Kelly asks what Brenda wants to know, silently revealing a set of gashes on her collarbone that match those on Rachel’s cheek. Brenda signals behind her back to have some of the team go around back while she and Kelly continue to confer quietly on the doorstep. Flynn and Gabriel ready their weapons. Brenda offers Kelly her hand, her way out. And from behind the door, an asshole in a bandana grabs Kelly in a chokehold, dragging her back into the house. The PHD rushes the house, though Kelly screams that he didn’t mean to kill Rachel. They separate the two, Flynn finds Rachel’s studio ID, and Brenda gets right in the killer’s face to arrest him. Awesome apprehension scene without a confession.

Pope’s office. Ryan’s lawyer suggested they explain the murder to Ryan and apologize to him. Brenda tells Ryan what happened to Rachel: she talked another woman into leaving her abusive boyfriend, who then beat Rachel to death. Ryan: Rachel died defending someone else? Yes, because she was a good person, and you clearly are not. Which is what Pope says, as he offers his apology. “On behalf of the entire LAPD, allow me to say how sorry I am that you lied to us so much and that you knocked your wife around to such an extent that we considered you a suspect,” he says. Oh, Will Pope, sometimes you are AWESOME. Brenda thinks so, too. Ryan leaves all offended, and Pope thinks one day, they’ll probably get to arrest him.

Willie Rae and Clay are leaving. Brenda, her voice shaking, tells her dad that she and Fritz are getting married when they want; it’s their business; and she won’t be rushed into setting a time or place by anyone. (Hear that, Fritz?) She reiterates, when I want, how I want, and we’ll talk about it when I want to. Clay asks if he can still take her to dinner. Surly, but putting up with it. Fritz looks proud. He follows Brenda to the bedroom to tell her so: it was inspiring how she stood up to her dad. “Sometimes the only way to deal with a control freak is to lay down the law,” he says. Which is why he’s giving her the ultimatum that they’ll get married in early 09, and the next time they talk about it, he wants a date from Brenda. She stares in the mirror, totally dumsquizzled.