Throng

Friday 17 July, 8.30pm

TV ONE continues with a new season of The Closer, with Golden Globe Award-winner and Emmy Award nominee, Kyra Sedgwick, as CIA-trained Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson - the feminine yet forceful investigator and interrogator with a remarkable talent for trapping criminals in their lies (tonight at 8.30pm on TV ONE).

The new season sees the entire cast - twice nominated for an ensemble Screen Actors Guild Award - return. In addition to Sedgwick (The Woodsman), The Closer stars JK Simmons (Spider-Man), Corey Reynolds (The Terminal), Robert Gossett (Arlington Road), GW Bailey (M*A*S*H), Tony Denison (Prison Break), Michael Paul Chan (Arrested Development), Raymond Cruz (Nip/Tuck), Gina Ravera (ER), Phillip P Keene (Home) and Jon Tenney (You Can Count On Me).
A former Atlanta detective brought to Los Angeles to head a special unit of the LAPD that cracks sensitive, high-profile murder cases, Brenda is an expert at digging into a person's secrets and obtaining confessions - despite constantly struggling with her own imperfections and neuroses. She's a great liar - as are the killers she interrogates. Yet despite her brilliance as an interrogator, she is hopeless at LAPD politics.

Brenda faces antagonistic roadblocks, even from her peers, and must manage a team that remains wary of her unconventional style. She clashes at times with her fiancé, FBI Special Agent Fritz Howard (Tenney), and has begun to wonder how much she really knows about the man she is about to marry.

This season The Closer will delve deeper into Brenda's life, as she faces new challenges, both personally and professionally. "We are going to examine the issue of power, especially how much power we really have over our own lives," says show creator James Duff. "We live with the illusion that we are in control of our lives." The drama starts tonight as Brenda tracks an arsonist while a reporter follows her every move.

Griffith Park is a blazing inferno, threatening sections of Los Angeles, Glendale, Burbank and San Mateo. With four people dead and firefighters desperately trying to keep the flames at bay, the Priority Homicide Division is called in to begin an investigation. Things turn ugly when a nemesis of Brenda's - pyromaniac Bill Croelick (guest star Jason O'Mara, Life On Mars) - enters the scene. To make matters worse, a reporter has been attached to the squad as part of a PR campaign for the LAPD.

Meanwhile on the home front, Fritz and Brenda have moved into a duplex, but the owner doesn't allow pets. That doesn't stop Brenda, however, from doing everything she can to keep Kitty under wraps, even if it means fighting with Fritz over the situation.