Watch order

The Closer and Major Crimes watch order: one squad, two shows

Two shows, 214 episodesReviewed Oct 22, 2026

Watch The Closer first – seven seasons, 109 episodes – then Major Crimes, six seasons and 105 episodes. Major Crimes premiered on TNT on August 13, 2012, straight after The Closer’s finale, and carries on with the same squad under a new boss. There’s nothing to interleave, and as of October 2026 both stream on Netflix in the US.

See the order ↓Choose your route

Choose your route

01 First time throughThe Closer, then Major Crimes. Nothing to interleave.02 Starting with Major Crimes?What it gives away, and the six-episode bridge.03 Why The Closer endedKyra Sedgwick’s call, not the ratings.

Coverage & selection notes

A series-level watch order for The Closer (TNT, 2005–2012) and Major Crimes (TNT, 2012–2018), reviewed October 22, 2026. Everything outside the folded sections stays at each show’s opening premise and real-world facts. The folds cover Phillip Stroh and Brenda after The Closer. Episode numbers follow the original TNT order. Streaming details are as of October 2026 and can change.

The watch order

The watch order
Step	Watch	Why here
1	The Closer, seasons 1–7 (2005–2012): 109 episodes	Brenda Leigh Johnson’s show. The squad and Sharon Raydor both start here.
2	Major Crimes, seasons 1–6 (2012–2018): 105 episodes	Picks up the same squad, now under Raydor, the night The Closer ended.

That’s the whole franchise: two shows, 214 episodes, in the order they aired. They don’t overlap, so there’s nothing to slot in between.

The Closer’s season 7 aired in three runs: ten episodes in summer 2011, five that winter and the last six in summer 2012. Those last six, S7E16–21, were added to lead into Major Crimes.

Short on time? Our shortcut paths keep the episodes that carry each show’s story, with notes that stay hidden until you reach them.

Is Major Crimes a spin-off of The Closer?

Yes, and closer to a continuation than most spin-offs. It has the same creator, James Duff, the same LAPD division and most of the same squad. TNT ordered it in May 2011, more than a year before The Closer’s last episode, and Netflix bills it as a continuation.

What changes is the boss. Kyra Sedgwick’s Brenda Leigh Johnson doesn’t continue, and Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell) takes charge. The Closer introduced Raydor in season 5 as an internal-affairs captain from the Force Investigation Division: the last person the squad would pick.

The method changes too. Brenda’s squad lives on confessions. Raydor’s job is to build cases strong enough to force a plea deal, because the city wants to avoid the cost of trials.

There are only the two shows. A third, set in another LAPD unit, was floated in 2014 and dropped in 2015. Rizzoli & Isles aired alongside them on TNT, but it’s a separate show.

Can I start with Major Crimes?

Yes. Its first episode works as a starting point: it sets up the new boss, the new rules and the people the show follows.

The cost is The Closer’s ending. Major Crimes opens soon after The Closer’s finale, so its first hour gives much of that finale away. Some early tension also lands harder with the history: the squad’s distrust of Raydor comes from her years investigating them, and a case carries over from the old show.

The best bridge is The Closer’s last six episodes, S7E16–21. They aired in summer 2012, after a six-month break, and they are the six TNT added to the final season to lead into Major Crimes. Watch those, then start Major Crimes.

Want more of The Closer than that, without all 109? Our shortcut paths keep the episodes that carry each story, with spoiler-free notes.

Where to watch The Closer and Major Crimes

As of October 2026, both stream in full on Netflix in the US, including on the plan with ads: The Closer since December 22, 2025, and Major Crimes since September 3, 2026. It’s the first time on Netflix for both.

Both Netflix deals are US only. When we checked JustWatch in October 2026, the two shows were purchase-only in the UK and Canada, with no subscription service carrying either.

In the US you can also buy seasons on Amazon, Apple TV and Fandango At Home. Neither show was on Hulu, Max or Peacock.

Why did The Closer end?

Because Kyra Sedgwick decided to stop, not because of the ratings. TNT announced on December 10, 2010 that season 7 would be the last, and said the decision was hers. That year it called The Closer and Rizzoli & Isles the top two series on basic cable, each averaging more than 8 million viewers.

Sedgwick said she wanted to do other work, and to leave while viewers still wanted the show. She told James Duff first, and said he backed her decision.

TNT made use of the notice. The final season was planned at 15 episodes; in January 2011 it added six more, for 21, to build towards a spin-off, and in May it ordered Major Crimes. The finale drew about 9.1 million viewers, the show’s second-biggest audience, and Major Crimes started straight after it.

Brenda after The Closer Spoilers — open to reveal

The finale ends Brenda’s time at the LAPD. Already passed over for promotion, she is suspended over how she goes after Stroh, and she retires from the force to run the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation. The closing scenes set Raydor up to take over the division.

Brenda never appears in Major Crimes. She is mentioned now and then, mostly through Fritz, who stays on in the new show.

It wasn’t for want of a plan. Sedgwick called a guest spot “definitely a possibility” in 2012, and in 2017 Duff said she had agreed to three episodes, but the schedules never lined up.

Why did Major Crimes end?

TNT ended it and never gave a reason. On October 3, 2017, four weeks before season 6 premiered, the network said those 13 episodes would be the last. James Duff wrote that it was “not at all my idea” and told fans he was sorry he couldn’t prevent it; Mary McDonnell said the writing had been on the wall.

Duff later said the ratings had held up and the show wasn’t expensive to make, and called the cancellation a business decision. TNT had changed management and was moving towards edgier shows. It was still TNT’s most-watched drama, but its audience skewed older than those of Claws and The Librarians.

It wasn’t the first close call: Duff first planned the season 5 finale as a possible series ending, in case TNT didn’t renew. This time he saw it coming midway through production, so the last episode was made knowing it was the end. The finale aired January 9, 2018, for 105 episodes in all.

Who is Phillip Stroh?

Phillip Stroh (Billy Burke) is a smooth defence attorney Brenda meets in The Closer S4E13, representing a suspect in one of her cases.

The rest is folded below.

Stroh: the details Spoilers — open to reveal

Stroh: the details
Show	Episode	On screen or mentioned
The Closer	S4E13	On screen: his first case against Brenda
The Closer	S5E5	Mentioned
The Closer	S5E8	Mentioned
The Closer	S7E10	Mentioned
The Closer	S7E16	On screen
The Closer	S7E21	On screen
Major Crimes	S1E1	Mentioned
Major Crimes	S2E1	Mentioned
Major Crimes	S2E18–19	Mentioned: both parts turn on the case against him
Major Crimes	S3E16	Mentioned
Major Crimes	S3E18–19	On screen
Major Crimes	S4E1	Mentioned
Major Crimes	S6E1–3	Mentioned
Major Crimes	S6E9	On screen, in the closing scene
Major Crimes	S6E10–13	On screen (sources differ on S6E11)

Billy Burke is on screen in nine or ten of these, three of them in The Closer. The rest mention Stroh or turn on the case against him. Major Crimes’ second season builds towards his trial, so he comes up in passing in more episodes than are listed here.

Stroh: the spoilers Spoilers — open to reveal

The Closer never convicts him. He walks in S4E13 for lack of evidence and stays out of reach in S7E16. In the series finale a teenager living on the street, Rusty Beck, sees him getting rid of a body. Stroh breaks into Brenda’s house to silence them both, and Brenda shoots him, then calls an ambulance rather than finish him. He survives and is arrested.

Major Crimes takes up the prosecution, with Rusty living with Raydor as the key witness. Rusty testifies in S2E19. In S3E19 Stroh, in prison and acting as his own lawyer, kills the judge appointed to oversee his bid for a better deal, and escapes. By S4E1 he is thought to be abroad.

He comes back in the final season. In S6E10 he kills Emma Rios, the deputy DA who ran the case against him, and a young hacker working for him listens in on the squad. In the series finale (S6E13) Provenza corners him on a boat at a marina. As Provenza arrests him he reaches for a gun strapped to his ankle, and Rusty shoots him dead. Provenza says publicly that he fired, to protect Rusty.

More on these shows

The Closer’s final season has an explainer of its own, for when you get there. The show pages list every episode, with path notes that stay hidden until you reach them.