Major Crimes Aftermath: Who Feels Most Guilty? And Was Stroh Involved?
It’s all over but the crying, as they say.
TNT’s Major Crimes, with another doubleheader starting tonight at 9/8c, explores the aftermath of last week’s sudden death before revisiting a familiar threat and then, in time for the series finale, doling out some happy endings.
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In the wake of Raydor’s tragic death, series creator James Duff tells TVLine that he and star Mary McDonnell “both thought that there will be a lot of grief in this moment, and that will help people grieve the end of the show. That they will begin to accept it. None of us wanted to leave the show, and we took the audience through the stages of grief that we ourselves were going through.”
But who is hurting most by shouldering “blame” from the loss? Did the recently resurfaced Phillip Stroh have anything to do with Raydor’s heart attack? And what did Sanchez want to talk to the commander about, before she died? Get answers to those questions and more below.
WHO WILL BLAME HIMSELF FOR SHARON’S DEATH? | Provenza may kick himself for not immediately pulling Raydor out of the interrogation that got her so spun up, but husband Andy (played by Tony Denison) will suffer the greatest survivor’s remorse. “There are several tough scenes for him,” Duff warns.
DID RAYDOR’S DEATH KILL ANY CHANCE OF MAJOR CRIMES BEING ‘RESCUED’? | After all, it seems like it would be hard to “shop” a show that has no lead. Duff, though, quickly dismisses the suggestion that killing off Raydor was one of the “complications” that he has said got in the way of a rescue via Netflix, Hulu or whomever. As he explained, “Streaming platforms and other cable channels, all the places where the show could have gone, want to do other, new things” — things that they own, whereas Major Crimes is a Warner Bros. TV production. “It’s all about ownership.”
WHAT DID SANCHEZ WANT TO TELL RAYDOR? | Viewers will find out what Sanchez wanted to speak to his boss about, before she put him off until later in the day (or as it turned out, forever). Without spoiling details, Duff shares, “I want to say that Julio is going to be happy at last. That’s what everybody wanted for him, and that’s whats going to happen.”
WILL ANYONE ELSE GET A HAPPY ENDING? | Among the series-ending beats, “We will bring finality to Provenza’s position; we will deal with Buzz’s desire to work full-time as a detective; we will sort of indicate what happens between Wes and Cami; and we are going to wrap up our Gus and Rusty story,” Duff says.
WATCH AN EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK FROM EPISODE 10
THEN READ ON FOR MORE PREVIEW
FOR HOW LONG WILL STROH LAY LOW? | The franchise’s longtime nemesis (played off-and-on by Billy Burke, since Season 4 of The Closer) quietly popped up toward the end of last week’s episode, as a customer at Gus’ restaurant. “That was sort of a shock for a lot of people, as it was a very unusual place we found him, at a very unusual moment in the story,” Duff notes. But as hinted in the sneak peek above, Stroh won’t lurk in the shadows much longer. “There’s another death right after the funeral” that brings the serial rapist/killer’s suspected return to the fore. “I have to say, Billy Burke is one of the most outstanding actors I have ever been privileged to work with, and he continues to be interesting this part.”
COULD STROH HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN RAYDOR’S DEATH? | Stroh’s reappearance on the heels of Raydor’s heart attack led some to suspect that he “hacked” her defibrillator-pacemaker and forced the cardiac arrest. “We’ll deal with that [theory],” Duff allows, “but the answer is no, Stroh had nothing to do with her death. That would have been dishonorable to the character [of Raydor]. I would never have done that.” (Similarly, nor did Sharon fake her death to get the drop on Stroh. As Duff previously assured TVLine in last week’s post mortem, Raydor is truly dead, though viewers have not seen the last of the beloved character.)
Want more scoop on Major Crimes, or for any other show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line.
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