Major Crimes Review: End of the Road
Jack Ori
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I really didn't see this one coming.
Sharon's heart problems have been the focal point of Major Crimes Season 6.
She got a pacemaker that didn't seem to work on Major Crimes Season 6 Episode 8 and asked her priest to administer the last rites just in case on Major Crimes Season 6 Episode 9.
And she refused to go home, continually saying her leave of absence didn't start til the following day.
But I didn't think she would actually die, especially not when the series isn't quite over yet.
I think I'm in as much shock as her friends and family that she's actually gone.
Sharon's struggle to accept the limitations of her illness was heroic and made for great television. I really would have preferred her just to retire as the series wrapped up.
Yet she died doing what she loved best, closing one last case, and maybe that's the way she wanted it.
Rusty: Mom, are you sure you shouldn't head home? The doctor said you shouldn't overdo it.
Sharon: I know, but I've spent so much time in this office and I'm not exactly ready to leave it.
Throughout the two hours, Sharon continually refused to stop working. This was the norm since she first discovered she had this heart condition.
She was always working. She was on the phone every time she was supposed to be in the hospital resting. Rusty, Flynn, and Provenza continually begged her to stop and rest.
The overwork probably hastened her death, and it didn't help that she was depressed about being sick and needing everybody's help.
Sharon: Sometimes I feel like it would have been easier for everyone if I had just died in that ambulance.
Flynn: It wouldn't have been easier for me.I would have gone through everything we did all over again just to have one moment more to hold your hand, to have you near me.
Sharon felt that it would be less inconvenient for everybody else if she died, and I guess she got her wish.
I'm really not happy about this development, to put it mildly.
Killing off characters can lead to emotional storylines, but I don't see why this was necessary. It would have been much better to see Sharon come to terms with having to work less and then be forced into retirement as the series wraps up.
In this case, killing her off closes storyline possibilities rather than opening them. Sure, there'll be a funeral and lots of tears, but then life will move on and Major Crimes will probably have one last case, likely involving Philip Stroh.
Sharon should have been there for that and had to struggle with not being able to help protect Rusty when he needed her most!
My mom is really sick and a serial killer may be after me and you're asking me if it's okay for you to date other people while I'm trying to decide whether I can trust you?
Rusty
This death had also better not be a vehicle to get Rusty and Gus back together.
Gus was severely annoying me, as usual. His behavior bordered on stalking Rusty, and Rusty has had to tell him more than once to leave him alone and not bother him at work.
He's acting like a 15-year-old, not an adult, and he really needs to learn that when a relationship is over, it's over.
Instead, he's cornering Rusty every chance he gets, turning down dates with people for no reason, and sending unwanted flowers.
He needs to go away. Period.
Instead, he appeared to be talking to Philip Stroh when he got the call about Sharon's final trip to the emergency room.
I doubt Gus is being used wittingly, but he is being used to get to Rusty and that is a serious problem on top of his insistence on bothering his unwilling ex-boyfriend every chance he gets.
Why Rusty called him during this crisis is beyond me. I guess he didn't have anywhere else to turn, but sheesh.
Sharon: I feel fine. I just hate that I put all these people through so much trouble.
Torres: Trouble? You had atrial fibrillation and your heart almost seized. If it wasn't for the pacemaker, you would have died.
I'm also not really sure why Dr. Torres didn't do more to impress upon Sharon how serious this was before it was too late.
He told Andy multiple times not to let her climb stairs, but he never put his foot down and told her that she had to leave her job behind for more than a few hours.
Commander, if you get tired, do not wait for us, not even for a second.
Provenza
That duty was left to Provenza, and of course Sharon wasn't going to listen to him.
Provenza was her friend, her second-in-command, and the resident cynic. Flynn never listened to him either until his own heart condition forced him to.
Once again, Curtis walks and there is nothing we can do. Anyone else feeling kind of helpless right now?
Flynn
My heart is really broken, especially for Flynn. He just finally married Sharon a few short weeks ago and now she's gone.
And before her death she was depressed and felt she was inconveniencing him because she was sick at all.
Despite having lived through Flynn's own health problems with him, she didn't seem to understand that he loved her enough to want to support her through this and get to the other side of it.
Mason: I took this job so that all of our money could go towards fighting crime, not lawsuits. I advise you to take that into consideration.
Sharon: And I have a long history of managing my job despite dealing with resistance from male egos. I am no longer interested in doing that. I advise you to take that into consideration.
I was so excited during the first hour when she stood up to Chief Mason, who was trying to micromanage her without having a real clue how to proceed with the case.
But undoubtedly that stress, too, contributed to her early death, and it's hard to enjoy that scene in retrospect.
Mason changed his tune when he found out Sharon was sick, and I have to wonder if it would have helped prolong her life if she had told him, and everyone else, earlier.
But that was Sharon.
Up until her last moment, she was trying her best to fight the existence of this disease and go on with her normal life. Accepting a leave of absence at all was a major step for her and if only she'd been able to take it maybe she would have had a happier ending.
As for the case itself, was it really worth it?
Several viewers predicted that Bill Landon was involved in the rapes and murders, and as soon as his wife was brought into Sharon's office, I knew she was the real murderer.
Ms. Landon was so coldhearted that she didn't seem to notice that Sharon had collapsed and was still ranting about her husband's misdeeds.
And I'm actually surprised that her son wasn't actually the murderer, since he was busy throwing his weight around and threatening frivolous lawsuits.
At the end of it, Ms. Landon was in jail, Sharon was dead, and Stroh was getting ready to make his move against Rusty.
I guess Sharon's death was meant to show that we never know how much time we have, but it just seemed she worked herself literally to death because of a bunch of sociopaths.
What are your thoughts on Sharon's death and on the conclusion of the case?
Weigh in below, and don't forget you can always watch Major Crimes online if you missed anything.
Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on X.
