This week, TNT decided it was time to make a play for the coveted Bob Sassone demographic1. That, of course, meant a guest starring gig for Amy Sedaris. And dang, what a good bit of casting that was. Last week I said that Stroh was one of my favorite villains ever on the show. This week, I can easily say that Sedaris, as Claire, is one of my favorite guest stars ever.
I liked Claire from the get go. She has such a manic energy, that when dropped in the middle of the Brenda and Fritz dynamic, it’s just a big ball of fun. It goes a long way to explain where Fritz came by the patience that is so often necessary in keeping things steady with Brenda. As fun as that was though, the real magic came when Claire met up with the team down at Major Crimes.
When she went into her goofy trance and started tossing out clues, I was pretty sure they were going to end up matching with the case. Why else would she be there? What I didn’t expect was Tao’s fascination with all of the clues. As each of them appeared, his reaction to it just became more funny. The reaction of the rest of the team was more what I expected. You just knew that Flynn and Provenza would be having none of it. My favorite bit though, came in the exchange with Sanchez.
Claire: You’re a Virgo, aren’t you?
Sanchez: Stay out of my head lady.
Some other contenders for best Claire moments:
Her explanation of her title. – “I prefer the word intuitionist. People hear the word psychic and they think whack job.”
The line that ruined Flynn’s day. – “If I could just hold the clerk’s hand, I might be able to see the killer through his mind’s eye.”
And how she got out of the health club game. – “I got caught in the middle of a power struggle in the yoga community.”
Through it all, the most surprising thing about Claire was probably Brenda’s reaction to her. After their introduction, I thought Brenda’s head might explode by the end of the episode. That is just a lot of craziness out of Brenda’s control. But they ended up finding some common ground and actually have the makings of a good, if unconventional, relationship. I’m chalking that up to the positive growth for Brenda through her relationship with Fritz.
While Claire was the focal point, we got a little follow up on a couple other issues as well. Clearly, Brenda is not done with Stroh. With any luck, we’ll get to see more of that story before the end of the season, but I haven’t heard anything either way. And we finally returned to the Gabriel/Daniels shenanigans. That one has been a little uneven, but it’s good that they haven’t forgotten about it. Pope’s offer, and Provenza’s interpretation of it, lead to some interesting questions. Will they really ship one of them off to the CI Division? And if so, who will it be? My bet is on Daniels, partly because Gabriel is generally more involved in the cases, but also because Brenda once ran down her resume as being more valuable than Gabriel’s.
All things considered, it was a great episode, and things should only get better. The wedding is just two weeks away now, which suggests that Clay and Willie Rae should be showing up at any time. Who doesn’t want to see what happens when they get in a room with Claire?
1Bob loves him some Amy Sedaris.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Feb 17, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
While I like Amy, she was just a bit too much for me in the already crazy world of Brenda Lee. I lost sight of a lot of the episode nuances, which I normally enjoy.
One thing though – now I TOTALLY understand how Fritz can walk around with Brenda and think she’s completely normal. I can only imagine the rest of his family!!
Boy that was an annoying episode. I fast-forwarded through all of the Amy Sedaris scenes and it was still barely sufferable. I simply don’t believe in psychics and with Psych, The Mentalist and Lie To Me on TV it’s not really hard to understand why.