Major crimes - season 5

1-Present tense

Rusty has a new haircut (good); he had a fight with Gus because when Gus took his hand in public he pulled it away, uncomfortable, and Sharon asks him what feeling is worse, “what you felt when he held your hand or being here alone now?”. Gus comes apologizing to Rusty, he seems in love but Rusty is not ready for that so he doesn’t say anything.

Andy talks to Sharon about selling his house and moving in together, and they dine together at her place: “table awaits my dear” :-)

Rusty wants his next identity-story to be about Buzz “I want my next identity to be about how a traumatic event in childhood can affect a person’s whole life and how they deal with it when they grow up” 

Fifteen-year-old Amanda is missing. She let homeless people stay at her parents other house, and her body is found there, in the basement. Her parents were about to adopt their foster son Tucker but they sent him back when they found out they were expecting a baby :-/  Now Tucker works with her at the homeless shelter; he didn’t want her to run away from home, from the house and the lovely parents that she had and he hadn’t, but she fought and “things got out of hand”, I guess he strangled her and then tried to revive her with a tracheotomy but she died anyway.

2-N.S.F.W.

Julio wants to become a foster parent.

Sharon Beck comes back to tell Sharon that she’s pregnant. Rusty tells his birth mother to give the child away for adoption. I understand him, it’s hard to trust someone that has let you down so many times: when she told him I thought she just wanted money from him…

Julio gets stood up while waiting to meet a girl, and the cop he meets at the hotel’s bar is found killed in the morning. 

Buzz’s father and uncle were killed when he was a child, and he wants to reopen the old case.

Some girls, just turned eighteen, did some porn videos and three of them died of overdose. The producer gave them drugs and the bartender who supplied the drugs killed the detective who was investigating them. Sharon also meets Bo, the man who found young girls online and convinced them to go to him at their eighteenth birthday: he says they agreed to the sex, but also admits knowing that many of them were on drugs, which means they could not consent to the sex!

3-Foreign affairs

A video appeared online showing a man being decapitated in the name of Isis, and the FBI thinks it happened in LA and ask Major Crimes to help find where it happened. 

One thing I didn’t understand: Julio says “the Military issued a worldwide alert bulletin to all members of the army services and veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq” and they all look weirdly at Amy who says “makes me feel special” … why? Maybe she should have received it too but didn’t? In that case, why?

They find the location and the body of ex-soldier Nickolas Greenbourne. The FBI is sure it’s terrorism and wants the case, but the doctor sends them away because he’s the authority in his lab and won’t release any body without a court order. 

The night he died Nick had been at a nightclub, heavily tipping a girl with banknotes that should have been destroyed in Iraq. 

Rusty can’t watch the video of Buzz’s father and uncle’s murder at the ATM machine because the tape is too dirty. 

When the FBI comes to collect all the evidence they have, Sharon gives them Buzz’s tape to clean up too. 

Nick and two soldier friends took the money instead of torching it. The friends killed him and took his share of the money. Vince says nothing and Miguel looks surprised that Nick’s dead but he admits to them taking the money; when pushed enough, he admits it all, I think, so the two friends killed him together, right? :-/ not sure…

The FBI gives them back the tape, cleaned, and they arrest Vince for terrorism, for decapitating his friend in the name of Isis. 

Rusty admits to doctor Jo that he doesn’t want Gary’s child in his life. 

Gus is having dinner with Sharon and Rusty, he cooked :-) Sharon and Gus get along well :-) Rusty insists that his mother should give up the baby for adoption. Sharon says: “Gus, you are very patient” and Gus: “with him it’s necessary but it pays off, don’t you think?” - “I do, I most definitely do” :-)

Rusty looks at the tape, Buzz sent him the link. 

4-skin deep

Andy is with Provenza and Buzz, looking for a house to buy when Buzz sees a body floating in the pool and jumps in. Why is everybody surprised that he did that? That he threw himself in the pool to ‘help’ someone? I thought it was very much like him!

Heather was a big name in the real estate business, but loved by nobody, she was not a nice person. Also, a lot of her body had been under plastic surgery. The doctor tells Sharon and Amy: “this gorgeous head of hair? Extensions” - Sharon: “really? this looks incredibly convincing. I can usually tell” :-p

She had been hit, then thrown in the pool alive to drown. Andy keeps making comments on Heather’s body-implants… Sharon doesn’t find it so funny :-p 

Heather’s parents have custody of her child. Heather also had illegal surgery from a doctor Yu, bred and born in America but playing with a fake Korean accent for business reasons, who is not really a certified doctor. When they interview Yu, he tries to bribe them offering surgery to Provenza and Andy :-p 

Rusty doesn’t want to change home, because “I never lived anywhere so long in my whole life as in my mom’s condo. It feels like home” - it always surprises me how easily he calls her mom. Maybe it’s because I don’t “feel” how long it has been, I mean, how long have they known each other? It feels to me sometimes like they just met, but it’s been a long time right?

Andy likes that new house, so Provenza releases an interview saying that the house in cursed, haunted, a doomed dwelling :lol: so that nobody else would want it :lol: it was very funny, and it worked, he promised Andy he’d get him that house :-p 

When they watch it, Provenza goes: “look, the news is interviewing George Clooney. Oh wait, it’s me” :lol: I love how he said that :lol

Andy tells him: “why don’t you just tell reporters we’re gonna dig up the backyard to look for more corpses?” and Provenza: “ooh you need to tune in at eleven” :lol:

Rusty asks Andy if he’s in the way but of course Andy reassures him, telling him that obviously he’s part of the picture. 

Provenza says to Buzz: “Spock, you’re wanted on the bridge” and to Rusty: “Chekov, you have the helm” :-p

Heather said to her boyfriend Greg that their eight-year-old-son was not his, but he kept caring for the child. Heather then said her other boyfriend, dentist Irwin, that he’s the father. 

Ethan’s grandparents wanted sole custody so Sharon: “to grandmother house we go” which made me think of the wizard of Oz :-D 

They had nothing to do with Heather anymore, but they liked Greg a lot before Heather pushed him away. Irwin confesses to the murder when pushed.

They do another paternity test and it turns out that Heather lied about this too, because actually Greg is the father, so they reunited a family, because Ethan, his grandparents and greg really like each other.

At the end, Andy Sharon and Rusty go to see the house together, but then they learn that there’s black mold in it, toxic mold, so they rush away, with a smiling Rusty following them…

5-cashed out

Julio’s late because Child Services showed up at his house, met his mother. They’ll also need statements from his colleagues before he can be a foster parent.

A man is cut to pieces and burned. When they identify the victim, Adrian Silva, there’s the additional problem that he’s been active on the internet the whole time. The guy who killed him posted for him. The team is waiting for him at his house but he shows up at work, with only Provenza and Julio there, and Julio runs after him. The guy took a girl hostage and Julio put his gun away and talked to him and convinced him to surrender. 

All through the episode, a woman has been interviewing them all to determine if Julio’s fit to become a foster parent. Rusty runs after her to give her his own. Nice.

The police investigation on Julio was simply to determine if he should receive a Medal of Valor for risking his life to save others.

6-tourist trap

Two English tourists are attacked, the man killed. He survived cancer to get shot in a parking lot in LA. The murderer threw the gun into a canal, and divers retrieve lots of weapons from down there, including the right one. 

The wife paid a man to kill him because after she had cared for him throughout his illness, now he wanted to leave her, and they did it in LA because it’s much easier to buy guns there, of course. 

They give the exclusive to a British reporter.

Badge of Honor has won the tv-choice award. Tao is late to the crime scene because he came in a limo from the show. Flynn keeps acting jealous of Tao’s tv success. At the end, there’s a cake with apple cider to celebrate Tao :-) but Flynn doesn’t look too happy :-p

Rusty’s mom tells him she’ll give the baby to Gary’s parents. 

7-moral hazard

A man shoots three people because they wouldn’t release to him his car after he parked it in a residential area and was taken away. The squad can see it all on camera. After shooting them, he takes a big bag out of his car, and that bag is full of weapons!

This Elliott had already killed the man who fired him. He kills another one, and plans to kill a lot of the people he blames for ruining his life (mortgage brokers or something). They surround him, he fires a lot against them then kills himself, throwing himself off from the fifth floor. Provenza got hit, but he had a vest.

Flynn and Sharon tell Taylor that they plan to move in together.

Rusty is obsessed with Buzz’ case, and Gus is veeeery patient :-/

Provenza’s first wife Liz is about to get remarried so he won’t have to give her money anymore, and Patrice wants him to retire :-p “I planned to die face down on my desk” :-p He wants to be honest with Patrice, so he tells her everything: “I got hit today and it hurt, but leaving here wouldn’t just hurt me, it would probably kill me, and that’s why I’m asking you to look at this from my perspective, just for a moment, try to see that even on a bad day, even if it’s not rational, even if it doesn’t seem reasonable, to me still, still, this is the greatest job in the world and I don’t know who I’d be without it” - “I get that honey, I do, but can’t we at least come up with some kind of compromise? Something we can both live with?”  - that’s a joke, of course she tells him he can stay at LAPD because she loves him for real. I love Patrice and Provenza :-)

8-off the wagon

Rusty takes Sharon (Beck) to the doctor: she’ll have a baby girl. Gary’s parents gave her a choice: go live with them (away from Rusty I guess) or give the baby up altogether. She chooses the latter to be near him, but at the end Rusty drives her to Gary’s parents to live with them. Before he leaves, Gus looks very strange (why? what was that expression supposed to mean? Did he think Rusty wouldn’t come back?)  so Rusty walks back and tells him that he loves him. Gus takes his hands “I’ll hold you to your words” - “I want you to hold me” awwww

An actor died, believed overdose, but Flynn’s daughter asks him to look into it so they all do. Andy’s daughter’s friend was right, Chris Walker was killed by his ex agent who wanted his new young client to get his role.

Andy keeps being jealous of Tao until he asks an agent how much money a technical consultant makes and he says 11-12000 $ so he’s relieved, he thought more :-p Later he finds out that it means “paid by episode” :-p

9-family law

A divorce lawyer is found dead at the Beautiful Greek Theatre run by Alfredo, a real Italian apparently! 

The lawyer saw an escort from time to time, and the young girl’s father killed him because he didn’t know of her job and thought he had seduced her.

Julio is given his first foster child, a troubled eight-year-old, Mark, who hates Mexicans. Mark’s mom is found dead, and Julio doesn’t know what to do with the kid.

Buzz found a match for the partial fingerprint and has the name of one of the men that might have killed his father and uncle. 

Andy has sold his house :-)

10-dead zone

They investigate the murder of Mark’s mother. Julio strongly opposes writing Mark as a witness, he wants to protect the boy. Mother and child had lived for a while with a dangerous group of crazy racist people, that’s why Mark talked that way, but it’s heartbreaking the scene when he asks for his mom, crying that he’s sorry and that he’ll be good if they take him to his mom…

Sharon calls the Doc to give Mark the bad news, poor kid.

They also interrogate Hecht and Buzz does a good job with him. 

11-white lies part 1

It’s Dwight Darnell’s trial, and in the middle of it he raises a loaded gun and starts shooting around, and before Shannon could shoot him he had already shot Doctor Joe :-( and Taylor!! and the DDA Rosen. What a scene!

Later Darnell dies in the hospital. Taylor died right away! This was a shock!

They investigate to find Darnell’s movement’s weapons and also how he managed to have a loaded gun in the courtroom.

12-white lies part 2

Sharon talks to a priest about her total lack of guilt about shooting Dwight. 

Everyone is absolving Sharon for what she did, she had to, even Dwight’s mother says she understands why she had to shoot him, and she feels a little better, but their investigation’s still a long way to go…

Buzz continues his investigation on his father’s murder. 

13-white lies part 3

They find who told Darnell to shoot all those people in the courtroom and they send Ms Darnell to him with a wire to get proof, but as soon as she has confirmation, she takes her gun out and shoots him because he has money and she’s afraid he might buy his way out. 

Julio has to give Mark away because his grandparents want custody 

:-( Mark is so touching, sweet little thing, saying that he’s sorry that he said bad things about blacks and mexicans but he’ll be good if they don’t send him away… poor thing, he has to go to his blood relatives, and Julio tells him that it’s also for his safety, because he knows some very bad people.

With Provenza, Buzz arrests the man who shot his father and uncle. Rusty thinks he must be happy now but he isn’t, because he arrested the father of two children who will now grow up without a father, like he did: “what have I done?”

At the end, Andy collapses in front of everyone…

p.s. I love that every time they use the printer they keep putting coins into Provenza’s jar :-p it’s a lovely continuity-symbol

14-heart failure

Fritz is assistant chief Howard now, and Agent Nolan is with them now. A woman is found murdered. The girl’s rich boyfriend is the first suspect because they think she rejected his marriage proposal and he killed her; they don’t have enough to hold him so Sharon provokes him until he punches her in the face. Rusty: “wow, my mom’s a badass” :-p

Andy is not on active duty, doc’s orders. 

Rusty is an intern at the DA’s office.

Deputy chief of operations is Winnie Davis (Delia from Ghost Whisperers), and she’s very unpleasant. But it was funny when she said: “go ahead, your boyfriend’s calling” :-p

She complained because Provenza cheated on a training exercise :-p

Gus texts Rusty that they need to talk and he’s afraid he might want to break up with him, or ask to get married and then break up when he says no… at the end, Gus asks Rusty to move in with him.

15-cleared history

A guy’s throat was cut in a usually quiet neighbourhood. Gavin had worked for a security company, but was much more: he stole things from the house he worked in, and then blackmailed the owners. The squad also finds child pornography on a computer in Gavin’s house. They find the owner of the computer and the pictures in it. The owner accepts the deal of 25-to-life for murder with no child-molesting charges in exchange for names and ip addresses of other people who have or who exchange those pictures.

Rusty told Gus he didn’t want to move in together and they broke up; later Rusty explains to him that after spending two years of his life letting guys pay him, now he needs to be able to support himself and not live with someone who pays for everything. Gus missed him badly too, so they’re back together..

16-Quid pro quo

Another episode where we are presently seeing the trial and their testimony, and seeing the case in the flashbacks. 

The what’s-her-name defense lawyer (Jeri Ryan) makes it look like Amy withheld evidence. They suspect the victim’s wife’s ex-husband, and he hires the what’s-his-name ex-cop-now-p.i. and Amy showed him the app and the photos she had on her phone. 

When Mark (?) waited for Amy in front of her house she acts worried that her boyfriend might see him… why?? I didn’t know she had a boyfriend, but any way why should he be angry?

Amy is sure that Mark told Linda (?) about her phone. All the squad supports her totally. 

Commander Mason runs the Criminal Intelligence division of LAPD. Everybody likes him but Andy, maybe because he’s a candidate for the same position as Sharon and Winnie, and I like him too :-)

They make a deal when they prove the guy hired his brother to kill the man.

The judge tells Rusty that he’s very proud of him for moving his interest from journalism to family-law :-)

Little Mark runs away and comes to see Julio.

17-Dead drop

Due to some problems, Mark’s grandparents want Julio to be his legal guardian. Grandma signs the document that grants Julio legal guardianship :-) 

Dr Morales brings his father Eduardo to the crime scene because as the only one of five sons who became a policeman, he kind of exaggerated and told him he was kind of in charge :-p Provenza has him climb a tree to observe the body then leaves him there :-p

Sharon is very indulgent with him, and very patient. The doc keeps insisting on taking people’s shoes every time they question someone :p

 Eduardo was a detective, and is also a fan of Mike’s show, so he also takes picture of his son with Tao :-) He records everything. Of course he knows the truth, but is happy that his son has many friends :-)

Andy wanted to take Sharon away for the weekend, but had to cancel. He asked Rusty to get him a reservation at the fancy restaurant where he took her on their first real date, but she can’t go. Andy reveals to Rusty that he has a ring and wanted to propose to her, so Rusty offers to plan it for him, something that Sharon might like. 

At the end, we see Andy on his knees giving her the ring :-)

18-Bad blood

Mary Conrad is murdered. She was a detective, and Provenza’s classmate from police academy but he doesn’t remember her at first. 

Sharon fired her because she stole things. A woman has been paying everything for her for years because Mary was her aunt (I liked this actress), but her husband got angry and killed her when he found out that she did have money!

Sharon’s son Ricky comes in to congratulate them on the engagement, but they had not told anyone yet, and he’s sorry he ruined the surprise.

Ricky already talk to Jack and a priest about getting an annulment so that she could marry in a church, but Andy’s divorced too! Rusty has a plan; somehow I guess he convinced Andy’s ex-wife Sandra to ask for an annulment herself! 

Julio gets permanent guardianship from a judge.

19-Intersection

There are so many hit-and-runs, so many bikers die in this city, that now Chief Howard considers hit-and-runs major crimes. 

William Sax was killed on his way back home on his bike. When they tell his fiancée the poor girl falls apart. 

Provenza and Patrice are at Sharon’s place to celebrate her engagement, with a healthy-cake Andy made :-p

Provenza is upset because this William was a good kid who attended law school and did nothing wrong, or so he thinks. He’s so upset with the senselessness of this death, he actually tells Patrice that he wants to retire!

William had changed his name from Malik Lewis after he killed a boy in a car accident: the boy suddenly ran into the street, he tried to avoid him but couldn’t. He stopped but there was nothing he could do. William wrote to Kevin’s mom to say how sorry he was for his death, but she blamed him completely and killed him. 

Mason gives Sharon advice on how to become the new chief. When Provenza is about to tell her about him retiring, she tells him that if she’ll become the new chief she’ll promote him and he’ll be the new captain of major crimes!

Sharon is worried that Straw might come back to seek revenge.

20-Shockwave: part 1

While they’re investigating the death of a man, Albert Luna, shot in his home, the crime lab van blows up and a lab girl, Haley Williams, is killed. The daughter of the dead man is brought to a hospital with a concussion but is later cleared by the doctors, and the patrol officer that was with her is now into a coma. The bomb was probably inside a radio that Tao thought suspicious and had it put in the van; he had ordered Haley to take it and process it. 

The bomber attacks a kid only so that he could call the cops, then he leaves his bike full of explosives. It is taken in as evidence and put in the evidence room. Christian Ortiz went to prison for manslaughter but kept saying he was innocent and blamed everything on his cheating wife. He killed her father, Luna, so she’d get back for his funeral. There, Ortiz takes pictures of the entire squad (except Andy who can’t take any part in action operations. Then, he makes his bomb explode before leaving.

Deputy chief Winnie Davis goes on tv talking about it. She keeps calling it terrorism, but the squad doesn’t agree. 

Gus is offered a promotion to chef and suggests Rusty might relocate and continue his studies there, only 30/40 minutes away, but Rusty gets upset, I guess he doesn’t like the idea at all, and Gus leaves, but then sends him a text “you win, I won’t take the job”.

Buzz keeps trying to help the family of the guy who killed his father, against Provenza’s advice. 

21-Shockwave: part 2

The bomb was in a flower vase by his grave. Ortiz spent 11 years in prison, saying that his wife killed the man and framed him, but the LAPD was to blame for his imprisonment as much as she was. His wife gives them the location of the storage unit where he keeps all the stuff he stole from the Marines, but he’s cleared the place already, leaving only their pictures and the writing “I was innocent” on the wall.

Andy realizes that the guy doesn’t know his face so he goes there, where he is, without saying anything to anybody. He stops him, but the guy has time for one last move, and makes another bomb explode before Andy knocks him down with the back of his gun. The wife’s luggage explodes in the squad department, but Sharon had just shouted for everyone to get out, so they’re ok enough. 

Rusty goes to talk with Aidan, Gus’ boss. Aidan is very disappointed that Gus turned down that great opportunity in Napa - “what can I do? Gus can’t see what’s in his best interest cause he’s in a relationship with a really really un-secure college student” - “does that come up a lot? Gus saying no to you because he’s already in a relationship, have you been turned down before?” - “more like ‘turned away’ but yeah.. I’m guessing that’s because of everything you did for his sister, why else would a needy boy like you call all the shots when he could be doing so much better?” - “like being with you?”  and Aidan: “ehi, why don’t you tell Gus that it’s not all his hard work or talent that I’m rewarding, that his promotions are just because I’m physically attracted to him, please tell him that, and if you  won’t, consider how Gus will be constantly weighing what he sacrificed to hang around you while you grow up. You think you’re done making mistakes?” …wow, that was something..

Rusty realizes that everything that went on between them was always on his terms, and he tells Gus, and also tells him to go to Napa, while he’ll stay here, and they’ll have a distance-relationship. Gus is touched and happy, but I think that for Rusty it’s over (he says goodbye after he goes out), he probably thinks that Gus will end up with Aidan..

At the end: Mason is the new Assistant Chief, not Winnie and for her relief not Sharon, but he promotes her to Cmdr. The last line: he tells her that he wants to change major crimes into something better…while outside everybody still probably thinks that she got the job :-p