The Closer

In the third season premiere, budget cuts are hitting the LAPD hard, and Brenda must give up one of her team members to the counterterrorism unit -- or force Provenza into early retirement. Meanwhile, the team investigates the murder of a family, with the prime suspect being the son who survived.

The body of a long-missing 16-year-old gang member turns up with Provenza's business card in his pocket. The kid apparently tried to speak to Provenza years earlier about shots that had been fired at a police car, but he disappeared shortly after that. When a priest, credited with turning around the lives of gang members by protecting them from the police, is caught in the middle of the investigation, Gabriel comes to his defense. Meanwhile, Fritz accidentally answers Brenda's phone when Brenda's father calls, giving away the secret that they're living together.

During a funeral for one of Flynn and Provenza's former police colleagues, the squad discovers the dead body of an unknown, buxom blonde in their old friend's casket. As Brenda investigates, Flynn and Provenza slowly realize that they know more about the victim than they originally thought. Meanwhile, a dangerous and belligerent bride holds Brenda personally responsible for ruining her wedding.

In a special 70-minute extended episode, a young African-American girl is abducted on her way home from school, and in a race against the clock, the team must find out who took her and where she is. When the investigation focuses on a convicted sex offender now on parole, Gabriel takes matters into his own hands, jeopardizing both the case and his future with the LAPD.

Priority Homicide Division confronts a mysterious old man who won't identify himself but who confesses to murdering seven people. Meanwhile, Fritz and Brenda may finally have found the home of their dreams.

To Brenda's irritation, Pope requires her homicide team to undergo training to deal with a potential attack involving weapons of mass destruction. Fritz helps Brenda find a way around the resultant manpower problem. Brenda is perplexed by her current murder case because the witness, a parking valet who called 9-1-1 to report the crime, refuses to answer her questions. Although Brenda eventually persuades the witness to reveal what he saw, the situation is complicated by a less-than-brilliant suspect who also tries to dodge Brenda's interrogation. Meanwhile, Brenda is too busy to cope with disturbing physical symptoms that she initially blames on stress.

Brenda is called in to investigate the murders of two Hispanic teens who may have been killed as part of racially motivated gang shootings over the past couple of months. A cousin of one of the victims is convinced that the incident is part of a racial war between African-American gangs and Latino gangs--and he's determined to exact revenge.

The wife of a deputy district attorney is found dead on the beach, the apparent victim of a serial killer. The murderer's chosen weapon is a cattle prod that he uses to torture his victims prior to killing them. The squad's investigation becomes a race against the clock to prevent another woman from dying.

Since Brenda's traumatic incident with a serial killer has left her shaken, the department psychologist takes her off investigative duty. To keep Brenda busy, Pope assigns her to a television reporter doing a story on the LAPD. While Brenda and Gabriel are escorting the journalist, their car is attacked with a barrage of gunfire, leaving the reporter dead. Because she is a witness and off active duty, she is not able to participate in the investigation ... at least not overtly. Meanwhile, when Brenda's parents, Willie Ray (recurring guest FRANCES STERNHAGEN) and Clay (recurring guest star BARRY CORBIN - "One Tree Hill"), visit, Fritz meets Clay for the first time. Brenda still has not told her parents about her engagement. Series star Kyra Sedgwick's husband, actor KEVIN BACON ("Mystic River," "The Woodsman"), directed the episode.

When a young Chinese woman, the owner of a lucrative tour company, is found murdered in one of her tour buses, the case comes to Brenda's squad because the company had been shuttling around a number of high-profile officials from the Chinese government. The investigation takes a turn, however, when the detectives uncover salacious details about the backgrounds of some of its employees. Meanwhile, with Brenda working, Fritz is forced to entertain her parents, Willie Ray (recurring guest FRANCES STERNHAGEN) and Clay (recurring guest star BARRY CORBIN).

When a woman's body is found at the bottom of a cliff near her wrecked car, it initially appears to be an accident scene. But Brenda and the team find out that the victim was from Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., and was auditing the LAPD. Also, the body indicates that someone pepper-sprayed her, stabbed her and, after the crash failed to kill her, smashed her head. Sorting through the suspects that the auditor had angered proves difficult once the FBI gets involved, but Brenda persists -- and her investigation leads her to make a shocking discovery about the dead woman's connection to someone Brenda knows.

Brenda is put on the witness stand by the prosecution in a murder case, since she is certain that the defendant, Jonathan Schafer (recurring guest star TBA), is guilty. Flashbacks show how the LAPD's investigation unfolded. A wealthy divorce lawyer has been found drowned in his swimming pool, and the evidence points to Schafer, who was one of his clients. But because of exasperating missteps by a member of Brenda's team, some crucial evidence is disallowed by the judge, making it easy for the defense lawyer to claim the death was just the result of an accident, not murder. Meanwhile, as she tries to combine her insurance policy with Fritz's, Brenda learns a shocking fact from his past.

Brenda's reputation is jeopardized by her inability to provide usable evidence to the beleaguered prosecution in the case of a murdered divorce lawyer. She remains convinced the defendant, Jonathan Schafer (recurring guest star MICHAEL WISEMAN), is guilty, but when Schafer's alibi is strongly supported, even the prosecuting attorney wants to drop the case. With only one weekend to break Schafer's alibi, it's going to take all of Brenda's interrogation skills -- and some hard investigative work from her team -- for justice to be served. Meanwhile, Brenda and Fritz have a very serious argument that could change their relationship forever. Commentator LARRY KING, journalist DOMINICK DUNNE, attorney RIKKI KLIEMAN and Congresswoman LORETTA SANCHEZ guest star as themselves.

As Brenda reluctantly allows Fritz to decorate their house for Christmas in order to help sell it, she is called to the scene of a robbery of an armored car in which two guards were killed and one, Wesley Reed, was wounded. But before Brenda can talk to Wesley, he flees, and his gullible teenage brother reveals that Wesley left the state and went to his Georgia hometown -- which is coincidentally near where Brenda's parents, Willie Ray (recurring guest FRANCES STERNHAGEN) and Clay (recurring guest star BARRY CORBIN), live.

Through a series of unexpected circumstances, Brenda finds herself transporting a robbery suspect, Wesley Reed, from Georgia to Los Angeles in a recreational vehicle driven by her parents, Willie Ray (recurring guest FRANCES STERNHAGEN) and Clay (recurring guest star BARRY CORBIN), and accompanied by Fritz, Flynn and Provenza. Along the way, Brenda and the others form a surprising bond with the vulnerable, young fugitive. But in her eagerness to get a break in the case by interrogating Wesley, Brenda makes several questionable decisions that may come back to haunt her when the team arrives back in L.A.