Major Crimes Season 2 DVD Gets Official Release Date


MCs2dvdWarner Brothers has announced that Major Crimes: The Complete 2nd Season will be released on DVD on June 10th, 2014.

From the press release:

Major Crimes is back on the case for a thrilling second season as two-time Oscar nominee Mary McDonnell continues as Captain Sharon Raydor, the head of the LAPD’s Major Crimes division, joined by an unforgettable ensemble cast. As the second season opens, the team immediately dives into some of the most challenging and fascinating crimes yet, including the murder of a big-time film producer’s wife, an apparent murder-suicide and a high-speed car chase that leads to a triple homicide.

Just as the squad seems to be adjusting to last year’s leadership change, Deputy District Attorney Emma Rios (new series star Nadine Velazquez – Flight, Hart of Dixie) arrives to challenge Raydor’s intentions and shake up the department. Torn between what is right morally and what the law commands, Raydor and her team are faced with more personal and professional struggles than ever as they continue to make deals and crack cases.

The 4-DVD set will include all 19 episodes from the 2nd season, as well as the following special features:

  • Major Crimes: Subjects Unknown (Featurette) – Examine how each character grapples with questions of identity in a season full of drama. Interviews with the cast and producers
  • Deleted Scenes

The set is available now for pre-order on Amazon.com

Source: TVbytheNumbers

“Major Crimes” Tackles Coming Out And Gender Dysphoria


1.08 flynn rusty raydorsIn a great new article in The Backlot, Major Crimes creator and executive producer James Duff and Graham Patrick Martin talk about tonight’s all-new episode of Major Crimes, the ongoing theme of “identity” in this season of the show, and how the stories continue to coincide with Rusty’s exploration of his own identity.

*Warning: contains mild spoilers for tonight’s episode”

“Procedural crime dramas aren’t typically the venue for three dimensional gay characters and nuanced coming out stories. The popular TV genre tends to focus more on the case of the week than character, but this season TNT’s Major Crimes is finding a healthy balance between the two.

The spin-off of The Closer is currently in its second season with high ratings and a weekly plethora of whodunit criminal cases dissected (and solved) by Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell) and her team, comprised primarily of characters carried over from The Closer like Detectives Provenza (G. W. Bailey) and Flynn (Tony Denison).

And then there’s Rusty.

Initially brought in for one episode at the end of The Closer, the troubled teen (played by Graham Patrick Martin) was carried over to Major Crimes as a regular character. (As he’s a major witness in a murder case, he’s been living with Raydor under protective custody.) Rusty’s orientation has been thus far unclear, but his past as a homeless a teen prostitute has certainly raised questions.

Rusty is heavily impacted by the crime in tonight’s episode, “Boys Will Be Boys” (written by Jim Leonard and out Executive Producer James Duff). The episode revolves around identity in that a 13-year old murder victim named Michelle. It’s quickly revealed that is a physiological male with gender dysphoria. We also learn that her family members are suspects– and they display various levels of acceptance with Michelle’s gender dysphoria. Rusty may not be involved in the solving of the crime, but he’s around enough to realize that the question of identity is something he can very much relate to.” —-> Read the entire article here

 

Mary McDonnell Steps Up in ‘Major’ Role


2013 TNT/TBS Upfront - Green RoomIn a new interview with the Miami Herald, Mary McDonnell discusses season 2 of Major Crimes, her reunion with Tom Berenger on the show, and her “ridiculously funny” cast.

How is it playing Sharon Raydor since 2009? Still fresh?

I am living, breathing her. There isn’t that searching for identity and wondering how it’s going to fall together. We’re done. Hello! It’s now, ‘Where do we want to take her?’ We are truly in some wonderful storytelling mode right now. There are some dangerous moments, for sure. I think fans are going to have a ball.

How is season two going?

I’ve been so happy with it so far; the dilemmas and interesting texture and new characters and all kind of things. A new district attorney [ My Name is Earl’s Nadine Velazquez] has come to visit the squad. On one hand, it’s extraordinary to have young female talent to come and help with a major case. On the other hand, she is presenting problems. It’s very exciting the way she interacts with the whole group and what she stimulates.

Any love interests for Sharon?

Oh, this [plotline] has been very fun: The introduction of Sharon’s estranged, but not divorced, husband in the form of Tom Berenger. He’s an amazing actor, actually. It’s a delight to work with him. Tom just jumped on board and dove right in. There wasn’t one bit of hesitation. We have some history, so we have wonderful chemistry. He and I did a play together with Kevin Spacey in London [2005’s National Anthems] when we were husband and wife. We were trying to do a movie together in the ’90s, Last of the Dogmen, but I had to back out of the idea because I was pregnant and couldn’t risk it as we were going to be shooting in the jungle. Barbara Hershey ended up in the role.

You tackle some serious subject matter on this show. What is the on-set chemistry like?

I’m telling you, it’s not a reach. OK, you gotta do your job, whatever it is. But boy, when a lot of the history is out of the way and you immediately trust each other enough to risk and it really clicks, it’s so much different than when it doesn’t! It’s a ridiculously funny cast. Doing table reads is like being with your siblings at Thanksgiving dinner. If we could, there would be a food fight every week, and people would be laughing. We just don’t have time. That’s the level at which there is the potential at any moment for high hilarity to break out.

You look beyond amazing. What are you doing? Or not doing?

Well, if I could give you my trade secrets, I would. But I don’t have any big ones. Genes, maybe. I feel very fortunate. I swim almost every day. I was an athlete as a child. I also have to honor the fact that the people in the crew honor me in what they do with me. I don’t want that to go unacknowledged. I mean, they help a woman, they help female characters look good.

Read the entire article here

Ratings: Major Crimes Premiere Earns #1 Debut of the Year



MAJOR CRIMESFrom a TNT Press Release:

TNT’s Major Crimes Returns with More than 5 Million Viewers,

Ranks as Basic Cable’s #1 Returning Scripted Series Premiere This Year

 TNT’s enormously popular crime-drama Major Crimes pulled in more than 5 million viewers in Live + Same Day for Monday night’s second-season premiere. In the demos, the ensemble series scored deliveries of 1.2 million adults 18-49 and 1.5 million adults 25-54. Major Crimes‘ performance Monday night is in range of its overall Live + Same Day average for season one and even outperformed last year’s average among adults 18-49 by +6%.

Compared to other returning shows on basic cable, Major Crimes ranks as this year’s #1 scripted-series season premiere with total viewers and joins Sunday night’s two-hour season premiere of Falling Skies among the Top 5 with adults 25-54.

 

Major Crimes Intel: Mary McDonnell


mmd2In a new interview with TheTVAddict, Mary McDonnell talks about the challenges Sharon Raydor will be facing this year on Major Crimes, as her personal life begins to collide with her work.

‘Q: What can you tease about what fans can be expecting out of the second season of MAJOR CRIMES?

MARY:  What I can tease in terms of really new elements is the new D.A. that comes in to help out with the Philip Stroh (Billy Burke) case, which as we know Rusty is a material witness and that’s kind of how this beloved adoptive son situation came about. So the new D.A. presents so much potential and so much dilemma simultaneously for many of us in different ways.  There’s some very exciting issues that come up out of that and very human things that grow out of her presence — and Sharon Raydor is once again forced to try to understand her choices between what is right and what is right.  It’s always her dilemma.  It’s a very sophisticated line that she walks ‘cause she has a very strong moral and ethical code and she can see multiple choices.  She understands a lot this season about what has to happen, and she also understands another level that has to happen, and the fact she has to be able to choose between two right things is a very interesting dilemma.  I think that’s fun to watch.  And I think fans will be very excited about the new Tom Berenger visitation.  It’s very exciting.  He’s fantastic.  Their marriage [Sharon and Jackson’s] – I wouldn’t call it an odd marriage, but I’d call it a very understandable, interesting marriage with a lot of issues. Tom and I have worked together before and we have a lot of just innate history and chemistry, so playing it has been just a blast.  I think that’s going to be just so much fun.  Also because he comes into the home.  So it’s Sharon, it’s Rusty and it’s Jackson.  He gets to interact and sort of shake all of us in different ways.  That is so exciting and he is such a terrific actor. It’s going to be wonderful for the fans.

Q: Sounds like Sharon is going to have a lot going on the homefront this season between Rusty and Jackson!
MARY:  She certainly does!  Now all she needs is a male dog and she’ll be surrounded by a lot of boys.  (Laughs) It’s great actually.  It really is wonderful to watch.  I’ve learned a lot about Sharon and her life and her nature.  I’ve learned so much about her through having a husband around.  By the way, he’s not an ex, they have been literally separated for decades.  That adds an interesting element about it.  It is intriguing and raises many different questions.  I think Rusty goes, “What is it about you two? What happened?”  And it’s hard to explain.  So it’s one of those really complicated, wonderful, troubled and exciting relationships.  That’s how I would describe it.

Read the whole interview here!

 

Mary McDonnell on Major Crimes: There’s More to Sharon Raydor


2.02- raydor rusty provenzaIn a new interview with Chicago Red Eye, Mary McDonnell talks about the different facets of Sharon Raydor viewers will see in season 2, as her tensions with the D.A,’s office grow more complicated, her guardianship of foster son Rusty (Graham Patrick Martin) comes into question, and her relationship with her long-estranged husband is explored.

‘How excited you are for the new season?
I’m very excited. We’re in the thick of it and I am extremely pleased with the revelations of character, of relationship, of dilemma. I feel like in this ensemble is moving into just a whole new level of work. And we do have a new show on our hands. And what’s beautiful about it is that there was never a moment where we had to fully abandon the old, which we haven’t. But the organic growing into a new form has been such a delight to witness. So we’re all feeling very excited. It feels very fresh and I love that.

How has the show evolved?
Well, it’s changed in many ways. One is that if we just look at the reason that Sharon Raydor by story was put in the position that she’s in now, which is running the Major Crimes Division, has to do with some of her gifts which has to do with her ability to comprehend the overall—the politics of the state, the politics of the justice system. And all of those things are influencing the way justice can be disseminated. And she has a gift for the overview.

As opposed to another detective who is like a bloodhound who might have a gift for getting caught on one idea and following that line all the way through. Sharon has a gift for keeping the overview. So they put her in that position because the state of California can’t afford justice as it has been acted out prior to now. We can’t afford the convictions anymore. We have to figure out a different way to solution because the cost of keeping a convicted death row criminal waiting for trial and the cost of having appeals is so overwhelming and the state simply doesn’t have the money.

So what’s fascinating is that all of these politics and this situation is part of why she’s there. And finding out in fact that she’s actually really good at reformation and she’s really good at figuring out how to change the way things run. And one of the things that I’m discovering that I really love about her is that she’s a great leader in that she absolutely wants to draw out the very best of those around her. And so that has shifted them a little bit away from some of the power struggles that were running Season 1. It doesn’t mean to say there won’t still be power struggles in personality, but I think we’re in a new world in terms of the way we’re going about things as a team. And I love how she’s influenced that.’

Read the whole article here.