Reviewing the Women of Summer: NURSE JACKIE, WEEDS, THE CLOSER, SAVING GRACE & HAWTHORNE
June 8th, 2009
By: Aleks Chan
Summer television is all about the girl. Correction: all about the cable girls. Yes, cable has found itself a reliable refuge for film actresses to find work that is ostensibly of the caliber they are used to – thus Holly Hunter as a spry, hedonistic Oklahoma City detective, Kyra Sedgwick as a master interrogator, and Mary-Louise Parker as a suburban pot dealing widow. This month Edie Falco – whose film career is outsized by the grandeur of her work on THE SOPRANOS – and Jada Pinkett Smith – wife of Will and of The Matrix trilogy – join the throes as nurses predisposed to be snappy and impassioned to help their patients.
Our attention is first turned to simply suthun’ Kyra Sedgwick on THE CLOSER (returns tonight at 9 pm est on TNT), where she plays “Depewty Cheef Brendalee Johnson,” of the LAPD. If hadn’t already been implied, her character is from the south, which somehow demands such a drawl that half of what she says can hardly be taken seriously. Twice as befuddling is how Brenda is venerated for her ability to elicit a confession that holds up in court, because the cases are so easy, a children’s program with slimmer plot workings would be more challenging. In the fifth season premiere, the humdinger of a homicide hinges on street addresses. Other plot points of the season include Brenda’s cat falling ill, Lt. Provenza (G.W. Bailey) gets a girlfriend, and Mary McDonnell guest stars as a internal affairs officer. It has thankfully scaled back Brenda’s junk food addiction (I couldn’t handle another sensuous bite into a Ho-Ho), but by a fifth season, you’d think it would’ve have progressed to something more than outline of an actual TV show.
In keeping with today’s theme of 
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