There are a lot of wonderful parts in this episode. One aspect that always amuses me about the first season is Amy Sykes, even if her cluelessness feels a little excessive on occasion. Is she really so stupid as to bring their victim’s wife to the crime scene where her husband is still hanging upside down with his head smashed in? Or to reveal vital information in front of a potential suspect? The latter, I might be inclined to give her on account of her inexperience, but the former seems a little too dumb. I enjoy the way Sharon interacts with her, however. When Sykes blurts out that the victim was accused of rape, Sharon patiently explains that they prefer to be more deliberate about revealing information like that. These early scenes between them hint at the way Sharon will mentor the young woman over the course of the show, and I am so here for that! Her relationship with Provenza is hilarious, though. If Raydor really hired her to annoy Provenza, it was a strike of genius! Yes, her bumbling approach to some parts of their cases does the trick, but that is not the amusing part. She was supposed to report her findings to Provenza, or at least, that was his idea. But despite the way she acts occasionally, Amy isn’t stupid. She knows who signs her time sheet at the end of the month. She works for Captain Raydor, and she doesn’t allow Provenza to use her in his little power play or temper tantrum or whatever he intends to accomplish. When Provenza orders her to do the background check on their victim earlier, she looks at the Captain for confirmation, and he has to insist before she gets going.
Towards the end of the episode, when Provenza is packing up is desk in protest, Amy really gets into teasing the old Lieutenant. She recommends Florida as a good place to enjoy his retirement, mentioning that her grandparents really love it. The way Kearran Giovanni delivers those lines leaves it completely open whether Amy is serious or pulling his leg, and I love it! That’s the beauty of her character in those early episodes, that she acts like a clueless idiot one moment and a brilliant detective the next. It is hard to tell who she truly is, just as we can’t really tell if she honestly likes and respects the Captain or if she is just sucking up to the person who can help her advance her career.

At the beginning of this episode, during a home visit by Rusty’s social worker Cynthia, we learn a few more things about Sharon Raydor’s private life, too. Or maybe it is mostly a reminder of information we got on The Closer. She has adult children who don’t live with her, but seem to visit, because they keep clothes at her place. And she has a husband who is not living with her, but also keeps a suit in her guest room closet. What is that about, anyway? Rusty seems just as puzzled by that relationship as I am, although I do not share his astonishment at the fact that someone was willing to marry her. Rusty seems curious about her life in that way teenagers are—without revealing that they are actually interested, so his digging for more information is camouflaged as sarcastic remarks like “wait, someone married you?” or his suggestion that she should see a shrink to find out what happened to her marriage. We also learn that her two children went to a private catholic school and went on to go to good colleges. She tries to encourage Rusty to think about his future education, too. The first step is getting him enrolled in that catholic school, but she does already think farther ahead, even though she reassures him that they are looking for his mother. Either she rightfully thinks that finding his mother won’t change his status as her foster son, or she wants to make sure that he fulfills his potential even when he is no longer her responsibility.

This episode is somewhat of a first turning point in their relationship. While the first episode implies that their cohabitation is supposed to be temporary, just until Cynthia can find a suitable home for him, the fact that the second episode starts with a home visit hints at a more permanent situation. Sharon also begins to broach tougher subjects. In the first episode, she allows him to lash out at her and, apart from some ground rules (“The next place you’re going will have locks on the door and bars on the windows”), she shrugs his disrespectful behavior off. That starts to change in this episode. She carefully feels her way towards making him understand that a) she is on his side and b) she is the boss in their relationship. At first, it seems a little as if she doesn’t know how to handle him, as she allows him to shoot her suggestions down, for example when she cautions him to watch what he’s doing on the laptop, when she suggests seeing a therapist, and when she tries to nudge him towards moving his stuff into the guest room instead of taking over her (previously) neat living room. But she mentioned her vast experience with teenager, so it is hard to believe that she doesn’t know what she’s doing. How do you get a child with Rusty’s past to cooperate, though? He spent time living on the street where no one told him what to do, and even before that, when he was living with his addict mother, he was probably left to his own devices much of the time. I love how she is so careful with him, allowing him some time to get used to the new situation. In the end, though, she does lay down the law. She packs up his things and sends him to his room, where he is supposed to be by eleven pm every night—a concession to his previous life, because her original request was lights out at 10:30, to which Rusty replied that 10:30 was rush hour at his last job. It shows that she is willing to work with him and take his unique circumstances into consideration. His experiences differ significantly from those of most other sixteen-year-olds, after all.
One very significant moment happens at the very end of this episode. Rusty objects to being sent to his room, saying that Sharon is not his mother. Sharon’s response (“You’re right, I’m not your mother. And how do we know that? Because I am here. I am here, and your mother is not, and you’re gonna have to try and make the best of it.”) seems to shock even her. During that long pause between the first and second “I’m here” you see the shock, regret and compassion cross her face, and I will never tire of watching that particular moment. We see some of her snark and that she might have a little bit of a temper that leads her to saying things she would not have said otherwise. But we also see her compassion for his situation and her understanding of his need for honesty. She could have sugarcoated things, but she decided to go with the truth, and we have seen and will see how much he values honesty.

At the same time as she is carefully asserting her authority with Rusty, she is also beginning to work things out with Provenza. While she allowed him a lot of leeway to express his frustration in the first episode, at the start of this episode we see a little of her snarky side peek through when she asks him if he is in over his head because he asks when she’ll be at the crime scene. This is also the first time we see a marked change between Sharon’s leadership style and that of Brenda Leigh Johnson. Brenda would have dropped everything to race to the crime scene. She would have insisted on being part of every aspect of the investigation, no matter what else was going on in her life. Sharon is different, and this moment is when we are beginning to see that. She trusts Provenza to handle the initial phase of the investigation without her supervision, and that, I believe, is a large part of what made this transition work. You have this vastly experienced team with almost a century of collective experience in the form of just its two senior lieutenants and a captain who, as far as we know, has never worked homicides before. It would be naive to think that they would simply accept her leadership without question. What she does in that scene, and continues to do throughout the show, is give Provenza more responsibility than he had under Brenda. He is no longer just second in command in name only, but truly gets to take the lead in certain situations. It shows true respect for his experience. The fact that she has Rusty to take care of certainly helps in facilitating this dynamic. At least in the beginning, his presence in her life makes it hard, if not impossible, for her to do the job the way Brenda did, and I would argue that that is a good thing.
At the end of the episode, Sharon finally confronts Provenza, but not with rules or reprimands, but with compassion and understanding for his situation. Above all, she gives him a way out, a way to save face. He is ready to pack it in, to walk away from his career, despite always having claimed that he would die with his stapler in hand. When Sharon suggests that he should stay on the team until he finds a workplace that is completely fair, we all know that such a place does not exist—including Provenza. But it offers him a way out of the corner he navigated himself into without looking like a fool, and it is the kindest thing she could have done in that situation. The two of them still have a long way to go, but I think this was the first significant step.

All in all, I think it is safe to say that everyone is slowly getting used to the new situation. This episode is a transition on many levels. We see that both Lieutenant Flynn and Tao seem to have accepted the change and their new boss. Sykes is still trying to figure out where she fits into the new team, and I am not sure whether or not she has a harder time doing that, because she has no prior loyalties to either side. Julio doesn’t appear to be convinced yet, as indicated by the above-mentioned incident, and we have talked about Provenza’s issues at length. Buzz is a bit of a mystery. He is definitely not pleased about being assigned babysitting duty, but I think he is too polite to be too obvious about his misgivings. All these relationships have a lot of potential for development, and in the course of the following seasons, we will see a lot of that potential realized.