^Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. All these points!
Brenda won over the guys by being competent and taught them to not be such judgy jerks. I loved how they’d all collect in the media room to watch her interrogations and expected her to fail, only to be impressed.
Raydor has already proven to be good at her job and showed herself to be so loyal to them and Brenda, frankly more than they deserved. I can maaaaybe understand Sharon the character attempting to be more like Brenda to appeal to the team, after seeing how they kind of hate her, but she shouldn’t need to. It doesn’t even seem to have anything to do with the FID stigma, just some random contrived adversity for her to overcome. That first episode was so jarring, trying to do the whole new series routine all over again and Provenza, of all people, being completely unprofessional and presented as the guy who needs to be won over. And to be won over by being so caring and emotional. Feh.
I’m especially confused and unpleased by all the EMOTING she has to do now that she’s a female lead (sudden flashbacks to Janeway). I’m not saying she has to be a stone cold bitch all the time but…can we have that at least some of the time? I can’t think of even one moment this episode when she wasn’t hesitant or teary-eyed (except maybe that bit at the expense of Sykes, lol).
And does Rusty’s mom drama need to be the focus there, considering the enormous other problems that poor kid has? Like…where’s the counseling and therapy. That kid has had a terrible life for a long time and I can see that while he maybe thought his mom coming back would just fix everything, why are the rest of them going along with it?
I am liking Sanchez more, though. But then, we haven’t had enough time to see those strange inconsistencies (*cough*Gabriel, Pope*cough*) from Closer where perfectly fine characters would turn into douchebags every once in a while.