Original Air Date: August 25, 2008
The moment I read the description, I knew this episode of The Closer, directed by Kyra Sedgwick’s husband, actor Kevin Bacon, was going to be one of the best I’ve seen. It didn’t disappoint either.
“Sudden Death” opens with the apparent drive-by shooting of Detective Julio Sanchez’s brother, Oscar, practically right outside the cop’s house and in broad daylight as he works on his motorcycle. The 19-year-old dies soon after he reaches the hospital, which is no surprise considering he was shot four times. Sanchez’s response afterwards in front of his colleagues, all of whom show up with their spouses or significant others, is unexpectedly strange, however.
Instead of the huge wave of anger I was expecting given his notorious temper, Sanchez is more concerned that his fellow cops have some pizza and understand how much he appreciates them coming. When someone asks if he wants them to contact his family, Sanchez says he’ll do it himself later since all of his family members are at work. Everybody has a different reaction to grief, I guess, especially in the early stages.
Of course, Brenda sends Sanchez home to get himself together and to keep him from interfering with the top-priority investigation. And, of course, Sanchez does neither. When Tao shares details about a possible suspect, a paroled gangbanger nicknamed Puppet, Sanchez arrives on the scene before Priority Homicide. Brenda has to force him to back down from scaring the bejesus out of the ex-con, who’s hiding on the floor behind a couch. Now that’s the Sanchez I know and love, even if his actions are ill-advised.
Eventually, an undercover ATF officer and acquaintance of Fritz’s helps crack the case when he buys the murder weapon, a .40 caliber gun, from an overly eager seller, another gangbanger and ex-con named Juan Guzman, aka Gooz. Here’s what happened:
Oscar was bringing his girlfriend of three weeks, Elena Contreras, to meet Sanchez, one of his six siblings, before starting college in the fall. At the same time, Gooz was out with his 14-year-old brother Tony hunting for any member of the rival gang East 18 to shoot in retaliation for another member of the same gang ratting him out while he was serving eight years in prison recently for another drive-by shooting. Yes, it boggles the mind, and even more so if you realize this kind of nonsense happens often in real life.
Gooz and Tony couldn’t find any East 18ers hanging outside, though. So, stupid yet scarily hardcore Tony settled on messing with the only guy they did see — Oscar. He ordered Sanchez’s brother to let him check out his baseball cap because apparently some cowardly/smart gangbangers put their gang’s number underneath the bill in lieu of proudly being walking targets by wearing gang-colored clothing. Oscar refused to hand over his hat for Tony’s inspection, so Tony shot him four times.
Brenda gets a confession out of the brat — and nabs his brother Gooz, too, since he was driving Tony around at the time a felony was committed — when Oscar’s girlfriend Elena has a panic attack in the hallway. This scene was so clever and fantastic, you have to see it to get the full impact.
Elena leaves the camera room after she informs Brenda’s team Gooz isn’t the guy she saw shoot Oscar from the car. But she goes crazy with fear in the hallway when she sees Gooz’s mother and brother Tony, who accompanied the gangbanger to the station. Her terrified exclamations about “him” seeing her makes Sanchez, who’s there to observe the questioning of the suspect everyone thought was guilty, realize exactly who the shooter is.
After the case is closed, the episode ends with the most touching scene I’ve viewed in The Closer’s four-season history. In the dark and empty squad room, Sanchez holds the bloody hat Oscar was wearing as Provenza enters. He finally breaks down and cries for the first time while revealing to Provenza that what happened is his fault because the hat Tony murdered his brother over was his gift to Oscar on his 19th birthday the previous month.
Oscar probably also never thought he’d get shot because everybody in the neighborhood knows his older brother Julio is an LAPD cop, and a very, very mean one at that. The only problem was Tony and Gooz weren’t from that neighborhood.