‘Tommy’ Episode 12: Donn Cooper shows his true worth as Tommy’s Chief of Staff in dramatic finale
Spoilers for Episode 12 'Cause of Death'
CBS’s crime procedural that barely lasted for a couple of months finally came to an unexpected end after 12 episodes. Fortunately, the ending wasn’t that disruptive and depressing as we had thought it would be.
In a dramatic finale, Chief Abigail Thomas/Tommy (Edie Falco) gets fired from her position as the LAPD chief, after the ethics commission investigation got skewed. The former police chief, Milt Leakey (Corbin Bernsen), former detective Len Egan (Paul Schulze) and real estate mogul, Jonathan Lovell (Micheal Cumptsy), along with Rascal Santos (Philip Anthony-Rodriguez) had set up a secret committee to bring down Tommy. They had also managed to involve her Chief of Staff, Donn Cooper (Russell G Jones).
When Cooper was a part of the entire conversation and had a clandestine meeting, we weren’t sure what to think. The penultimate episode had turned out to be such that it seemed that Cooper might also be up against Tommy and there were preceding events that probably pushed him to join his old friends. But somewhere we also knew, from whatever we had seen of him that Donn Cooper is not the kind of man who would go behind his chief’s back. Instead, he is known to be Tommy’s best confidante and one of the few friendly faces in the department that Tommy could always trust and rely on. When he sat there with Leakey, Egan, and Lovell, quietly listening to their agenda, it seemed like he felt threatened and for a man at his position, he would not want to lose his job or end up on the wrong side of such dangerous and powerful men.
But after Howie Ford’s accident, when Tommy started to doubt that something is wrong with Cooper, she faced Cooper and he spilled the details of what has been going on and how there is a big scheme going on against Tommy. He lays it all out in the open for Tommy to take action, helping her get to the root and have Lovell arrested. Cooper also suggests ways to Tommy about how she can nail each one of them and save her job. And thus, he restores her faith in him as her friend and chief of staff and Cooper proves that no matter what, he will always have Tommy's back, as an aide should.
Had it not been for Donn Cooper, Tommy would have never known of the conspiracy and confronted Mayor Buddy Gray (Thomas Sadoski), arrest Egan and Lovelle. Unfortunately, Lovell doesn’t get a chance to face the law and in a sudden shootout at the precinct, he gets gunned down by Santos. But, in a way, it all seemed to turn out well for Tommy and it was not a disappointing ending after all.
Though, we cannot say how “well” it would turn out to be for the department, Tommy, and the city of Los Angeles, now that the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the mayor she at least is back in business.
For a series cut short and canceled after its very first season, we would say that ‘Tommy’ did wrap up the story well enough, despite all the questions that remain unanswered.
‘Tommy’ aired its series finale on Thursday, May 7, at 10 pm/9c on CBS. If you have missed the show, you can catch up on all episodes on CBS All Acess.