It’s hard to not build expectations for an episode when you see the title. Especially when you have a title like “Maternal Instincts” coming on the heels of everything we have seen between Charlie and Brenda. I saw that on my cable box, and had a whole story worked out for Brenda and Charlie before the episode could even begin. Man, I could not have been more wrong about the path this episode ended up taking. I was also a bit taken aback by the way this episode portrayed Brenda. It was all in character, but this might be the harshest light we’ve seen shine on her.
Let’s get the case of the week out of the way right off the top. It was pretty good, keeping us guessing at the why of the shooting, and at who did it. Jake initially looked like a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that changed with the “entertaining” demonstration from Sanchez and Tao. Suddenly, the kid with the absentee mother looked like a drug dealer. We were then sent in another direction entirely, when Charlie uncovered the pregnant girlfriend. And one last time when it wasn’t the father.
That was all solid, but the real story here was Brenda, and Brenda trying to deal with Charlie. Two parts of Brenda’s story really stood out to me — dealing with Charlie, obviously, but also the notification with the DeLeon family. We’ve long known that Brenda gives no quarter when dealing with suspects, or even possible suspects. But the way she told the mother and father, who looked to be at best unaware, that their son was dead, bordered on cruel. I suppose, maybe, it was all in an effort to break the older brother. It seems like that could have been done away from the parents.
And then, there’s Charlie. Given the title, I thought this was going to be Brenda turning the corner and really starting to bond with Charlie. Yeah … not so much. The threats with the video were just jaw-dropping. Maybe it’s Brenda’s version of tough love, but it seems ill-conceived and ineffective, at best. That’s ill-conceived on the part of the character, not the writers, because I think they actually have done a very good job building this story on everything we know about Brenda. Her commitment to her job, and various eccentricities, make that move to a more maternal role very difficult.
That’s what we saw here. It was all highlighted beautifully in that last scene. You could just feel that Brenda wanted to do something, anything, to comfort Charlie, but she has no idea how to do that. I still think that scene between the two of them, where some sort of bond develops, is coming. It will require some give from them both. There was mention of Charlie heading back home soon, so I would expect it soon. Then again, I’m still not convinced Charlie is really leaving. Her arrival has opened up another fascinating door for Brenda’s character, and I would really like to see more.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Aug 18, 2009 @ 17:00 EST5EDT
Well I guess its better than “trying for a baby”, but still. Its very close to bordering on Cousin Oliver from the Brady Bunch and other “lets bring in a kid because we have run out of ideas”.
Seriously, Brenda has NO time for a child of any age. She is devoted to her job and there is nothing wrong with that.
I think that an opportunity was missed tonight to have that bonding scene. Both Brenda and Charlie connected to Jake in such a short time that sharing that grief would have been perfect. As Brenda is our emotionally stunted lead character, Charlie making the effort would have been a reach, but a believable one.