Brenda Leigh Johnson
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| Brenda Leigh Johnson | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Pilot episode |
| Created by | James Duff |
| Portrayed by | Kyra Sedgwick |
| Information | |
| Gender | female |
| Age | 42(est.) |
| Occupation | LAPD Deputy Chief |
| Family | Willie Ray Johnson (mother) Clay Johnson (father) Fritz Howard (fiance) |
Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson is a fictional character featured in TNT's The Closer, portrayed by Kyra Sedgwick. Brenda heads the Priority Homicide Division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). As created by Sedgwick, Brenda is an intelligent, determined, and exacting woman. Brenda may offend some people involved in her cases, or coworkers, but she has powerful skills to determine the facts of a crime, compel confessions, and close cases. Thus, she is "a closer".
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[edit] Biographical
Brenda Leigh Johnson spent 7 years with the CIA, 4 years with the Washington, D.C. Police Department, and 3½ years with the Atlanta Police Department before moving to the LAPD.[1]
[edit] Washington, D.C.
While living in Washington, D. C., Brenda was trained as an interrogator by the CIA. After joining the DCPD, she became involved with her married boss, William Pope.[2] After refusing to leave his wife, Pope broke up with Brenda. However, he later divorced that wife to marry his next wife, Estelle.[3] During this time, Brenda also met Fritz Howard, a FBI agent then working in D.C. who transferred to Los Angeles 3½ years before the show begins. Thus, Fritz left D.C. for LA slightly before Brenda left D.C. for Atlanta. Fritz knew about Brenda and Pope's relationship in D.C. [4]
[edit] Atlanta, Georgia
Next, Brenda was a Captain with the Atlanta Police Department.[5] Brenda's husband made false allegations which resulted in an ethics investigation while she was a member of the Atlanta Police Department. He accused her of having an affair with a younger police officer. Brenda believes that her husband did this because he was jealous of the time she dedicated to her work. They divorced soon after. The marriage was obviously a difficult one[6]:
| “ | If I liked being called a bitch to my face, I'd still be married. | ” |
After being cleared of the ethics violation, Brenda decided to seek a new job. Brenda was offered a job with Homeland Security, but decided to decline the offer so that she might head the LAPD Priority Homicide Division.
[edit] Los Angeles, California
The Priority Homicide Division handles any sensitive, high-publicity murder cases. As the Assistant Police Chief, Pope was responsible for her coming to the LAPD and is again her boss. He wanted her for the job because the squad was not providing prosecutors with cases they could win.[7]
During her first case, Brenda was told she would not be able to obtain DNA results from the LAPD for many weeks; so, she contacted associates at the FBI. Fritz noticed that the results were for Brenda and personally delivered them.[8] Brenda and Fritz became involved and are currently engaged [9]and living together.
[edit] Work life
[edit] Habits
Brenda's trademark is her "honeyed Georgia cadence" and her catch phrase is "Thank you; thank you so much." (Her "Thank you" is pronounced approximately [θeɪŋkjuː].)
In the pursuit of justice, Brenda is willing to use the Russian mob[10] or the Mexican prison system[11] to stop criminals she can not capture.
Brenda is a severe workaholic, to the sacrifice of her personal relationships. She tends to micro-manage her investigations and take a close look at details.
She loves junk food and sweets but is currently trying to lay off them. She usually hides all types of junk food in drawers, purses, and other places.
She's a bit of a slob, commenting that she doesn't get around to housework every day in one episode, and in another, during a small argument between her and Fritz over where her mail was, Fritz comments that if she looked at her mail daily instead of once a week, she would know where they keep it.
She also seems to be shy of change, perhaps due to her previous bad relationships. She is initially wary of Fritz moving in with her and even more wary when they talk of buying a house together, but Fritz uses desperate measures to convince her otherwise. She also is true to traditional values, and is overwhelmed when Fritz talks of having children after her pregnancy scare in season 2, because "they aren't married yet, and there's a certain order to things." She also speaks of wanting to protect against future unplanned pregnancies for the same reasons. However, she accepts Fritz's proposal with no hesitation.
[edit] Problems (Professional, Personal, and Health)
When she first started leading the Priority Homicide Division, the squad gave her a cold reception. Her entire squad applied for transfer in support of the former head of the squad of then-Captain now-Commander Taylor. She dismissed the lack of acceptance and threw their applications into the trash can, right in front of them. Her peers were also resentful of the rank she was given when she joined the LAPD.[12]
Brenda alienated the FBI[13] and the LA District Attorney's office.
Brenda is attacked in an early episode in Season One while investigating a victim's house. The suspect was acting on an online posting by the suspect, supposedly, saying that she wanted to be raped, and the suspect mistook Brenda for the victim. Fortunately, Brenda was able to get to her gun in time and was not raped, though badly banged up. Fritz shows up at Parker Center to take Brenda home and take care of her for the night, an early sign of his feelings for Chief Johnson.
Eventually, she earns Taylor's respect by solving the murder of the child of his friends.
Estelle and Pope divorce. When Chief Pope is going through divorce proceedings, he asks Brenda to go through a deposition at his custody hearing. She agrees to do so.[14] Pope gains custody of his children and Estelle, furious at Brenda for her deposition, goes to the Squad Room and yells at Brenda, in front of everyone, that she better not find out that she is sleeping with Pope again. Everyone in the Squad room, including Commander Taylor learn that Brenda had previously had an affair with Pope. They ask themselves the inevitable question, was she transferred here and given such a high rank due to her relationship with Pope?[15] Brenda is embarrassed by what happened and refuses to talk about the subject. Commander Taylor later makes a statement in front of the entire squad about what had happened. He discredited what Estelle had said and that Brenda had been falsely accused. Brenda later gathered all the pictures and memories of her relationship with Pope and threw them out in the office trash.[16]
Near the end of season two, Brenda was put on administrative leave (with pay) when a shooting occurred in her division. While investigating the death of a former mob hitman's wife and an FBI agent, Brenda realized that it was the hitman (a mob informant for the FBI) himself who killed his wife when he learned she had an abortion. The hitman had been in protective custody at the time. Another FBI agent had helped the hitman's wife go to a doctor to have an abortion. When the hitman discovered this he shot the FBI agent in the murder room by grabbing Detective Lt. Provenza's gun right out of his desk. Det. Sanchez shot the mob informant and he died.
While Brenda is on administrative leave, her squad is taken over (and basically dismantled) by Commander Taylor, with whom she has had a difficult and quarrelsome relationship. She was contacted by an old CIA friend to investigate (secretly) the death of an Arab teenager. She solved the case (her way) and recovered her squad.
Brenda is also wary of her very Southern and traditional parents finding out about her living with Fritz, hence their separate phone lines. In season 2 when Brenda's mom comes to visit, Fritz is forced to wait until her mother leaves to move in with Brenda and both have to constantly cover up their relationship. Finally, as Brenda's mom is about to leave, she reveals that she knows of the relationship and approves, but won't reveal it to her father. In season 3, Fritz accidentally picks up the wrong phone and ends up talking to Brenda's dad. Brenda is furious and fearful of her dad's reaction, especially because he won't talk to her and says he sent a letter. Brenda says the last time she got a letter from her dad it was when she got a B in college. She is emotional when she finds that her dad's letter is of forgiveness and happiness for her, and not anger.
In the third season, it is revealed that Brenda has become sick, which increasingly alarms her squad and Fritz. Her symptoms include hot flashes, mood swings, nausea, cramps, and dizziness. Her cases keep her from seeing a doctor immediately, despite Fritz's attempts to make her go. She confesses in the episode before her diagnosis that she is scared of what she and Fritz believe it is (menopause). The next episode reveals that she is indeed suffering from early onset menopause, which is unusual in someone her age, so she must undergo more tests to ensure that it is not cancer. Although this news is grim, Fritz proposes to her during this particular doctors visit, so the severity of her diagnosis somewhat gets overlooked. Finally, she is told that her condition is reversible and has something to do with insulin aka her intake of sugar and that she will have to have ovarian drilling, but will be able to have children, much to the excitement of her parents, her mother in particular.
Also, Brenda is attacked with a cattle prod in the third season and escapes after she is forced to shoot the suspect. In the next episode, the department psychologist deems her unfit for active duty after Brenda shows no concern about her attack, her parents' impending visit, her and Fritz's recent engagement, their search for a house, and her then diagnosis of early onset menopause. Then, in that same episode, she is involved in a shoot out while giving a ridealong to a young journalist. The journalist was killed, his cameraman badly injured, but Brenda and Sgt. Gabriel escaped relatively unscathed.
[edit] Trivia
- The Priority Homicide Division was originally named the Priority Murder Squad, and thus had the unfortunate acronym of PMS. Pope changed the name after Brenda pointed out the problem.[17]
- Brenda's favourite drink is a "big glass of Merlot".[18]
- Brenda got her house, and her cat, from a murder victim whose case she solved.[19] The cat is female and named "Kitty", though, comedically, she always refers to Kitty with male pronouns (he, him, etc.) because she initially thought that the cat was male until it gave birth to kittens.
- Brenda was a "military brat"; her father was a Captain in the U.S. Army.[20]
- Brenda speaks "German, Russian, and [is] fully conversant in Czech"; however, she does not speak Spanish. Thus she feels somewhat at a disadvantage in Los Angeles.[21]
- In a recent episode it was revealed in a conversation with her father, that she graduated from Georgetown University.
[edit] References
The citation style for specific episodes is Season # : Episode #, " Episode Name ".
- ^ 1:4, "Show Yourself"
- ^ 1:1, "Pilot"
- ^ 1:2, "About Face"
- ^ 1:1, "Pilot"
- ^ 1:1, "Pilot"
- ^ 1:1, "Pilot"
- ^ 1:1, "Pilot"
- ^ 1:1, "Pilot"
- ^ 3:8, "Manhunt"
- ^ 1:3, "The Big Picture"
- ^ 1:9, "Good Housekeeping"
- ^ 1:1, "Pilot"
- ^ 1:3, "The Big Picture"
- ^ 2:10""The Other Woman"
- ^ 2:12 "No good deed"
- ^ 2:12 "No good deed"
- ^ 1:2, "About Face"
- ^ 1:2, "About Face"
- ^ 1:3, "The Big Picture"
- ^ 1:4, "Show Yourself"
- ^ 1:13, "Standards & Practices"
[edit] External links
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