Jumping the Shark: The Closer

I am finally watching the latest episode of The Closer; right now the, I am the 21 minute mark. I am severely annoyed by this episode; whoever wrote this particular script should be beaten profusely about the head and neck until such time as s/he gets a clue.

Synopsis:
Lieutenants Flynn and Provenza are goaded into recovering Provenza's ex-wife's wedding ring which she hocked to one of those 'we buy gold' type businesses. She sold said ring for $49.00 despite the $500.00 Provenza paid for it many years ago in order to buy prescriptions for her ailing dog. During the transition sequence, these three people and the dog make their way to one of the detective's police car, and everything turns as stupid as possible.

Flynn drives while Provenza's ex rides shotgun and Provenza rides in the back the patrol car with the dog. This does not happen.

Flynn decides to play with the lights and sirens because he finds it amusing. This too is something that doesn't happen for any number of reasons. Notably among which are departmental policies, state laws and the personal financial liability that comes with doing so. Qualified immunity evaporates in bad faith.

While playing with the sex lights (I've always called them that because whenever you seem them on someone is about to get fucked), he decides to stare at the ex-wife while they joke and laugh. This too doesn't happen. The public do not like seeing police officers running code while laughing, and complaints come in. Police officers do not turn on their lights and then stare at the driver's seat for better than 30 seconds at a time because all police officers are fully aware of one of Murphy's laws of police work:  the lights and sirens police officers use to clear traffic only attracts it.

They enter the gold selling business where we meet a very attractive lady standing behind the counter who is sorting various items of jewelry, wearing latex gloves and who announces to the detectives that the store is about to close. In the background, one hears a loud drilling type noise.

Provenza badges her and hands her a receipt for the ring and indicates he'd like the ring returned; the counter attendant returns to the back room to look for said item. She returns with the ring, gives it to Provenza. After having been complimented on her beauty by Flynn, she wishes them a good day.

Flynn walks up to her and grabs her gloved hand while paying her more compliments about how beautiful she is, how great her smile. He nods towards the glove, which she removes so he can start caressing her hand. This too doesn't happen, and is indeed all on its own one of the few ways a civil servant can be fired immediately.

They walk out and notice the lady and a man running to get into a car about 20 yards away. Neither Flynn nor Provenza bother to jot down the tag number even though they now realize the jig is up and they walked into a robbery.

They re-enter the store, with a civilian and her dog, weapons holstered, and haven't called it in yet.

Provenza's ex-wife's extremely sick and dying dog somehow manages to break away from her and resists her pleas of 'no'. This dog walks about a quarter of a mile per hour, and none of them makes an attempt to step on his leash, or walk the two feet necessary to cut the dog off.

The dog, despite the pleas and 'oh noing', sallies forth on his quest to move as slow as possible, turns the corner and starts eating the glove that was left on the counter (which somehow got to the floor). These police officers recognizing that it's evidence, don't attempt to stop the dog beyond asking it not to continue eating the glove, while they're bending over to make it clear that they're asking the dog not to eat the glove. Mind you, the store they're in was just robbed and they've yet to determine what happened to the actual attendant.

Turns out said attendant is dead in one of the backrooms. They've still yet to call in the fact that this store was just robbed.

At this part of the show (the 20ish minute mark), we join Provenza on a stakeout with his ex-wife as his partner, and her dog too. This is set up because the robbers have been either a.) impersonating police officers to rob places, or b.) are actually police officers who are robbing places.  The dead attendant had told his business partner that two police officers had shown up to raid the place pursuant to a warrant, and that one was male and one was female. So, the writer wanted to keep the male/female appearance for the business partner's benefit when he later shows up.  Provenza's wife is not a police officer (and apparently the entire LAPD only has 3 women working for it - all of whom were too busy so a civilian is sent instead to help conduct the undercover police work.)

While on the undercover job, she starts babbling about all the times Provenza and she shared, and how she kind of sometimes misses being married to him. Provenza notes he misses a few things . . . takes the wire he's wearing and disables the transmitter to let his ex-wife know they have about 5 minutes before the suspect is due to arrive, and he could show her one of the things he misses.  No police officer, ever, under any circumstances, would disables a bug or wire in an undercover buy where that's how his backup is monitoring what's going on inside. Ever. For any reason.

Because it's a sure pathway to being killed.

Also, having done a few undercover buys in my time, I can assure you that one thing not on any police officer's mind during them is getting some ass. You're far, far, far too busy taking note of the minutest detail around yourself, and being aware that the next few minutes of your life might well be the last few minutes of it.

I get that this is a show and one has to suspend a certain amount of disbelief.   But this episode is ridiculous, and is an insult to its audience.