When Charlie's estranged brother is accused of the death of his recent boxing opponent, Charlie and the team wrestle with the possibility of his guilt.
Tropes:
- Accidental Murder:
- Rickie's autopsy reveals him to have sustained a number of bare-knuckle punches originating from his rematch with Jack, initially being deemed the cause of death. While Jack is unapologetic about what happened between him and Rickie, he still chooses to take responsibility if one of his punches actually did kill him.
- After losing to Jack in their rematch, Rickie made plans of dropping Lizzie as his manager and heading to Los Angeles to try his luck there. Max was more than ready to go with him, only for Rickie to call him just as big of a leech as Lizzie while revealing that he had no intention of bringing him along. Upset that he was just going to be abandoned like that after everything they went through together, events led to a fight that ended in Max accidentally bludgeoning Rickie to death with a stretching rod, then going on to frame Jack by dragging Rickie's body into the ring and posting the video of the fight.
- Asshole Victim: It's kind of hard to feel too sorry for Rickie's death considering how much of a Jerkass he was to everyone around him. The people who backed him were no exception. Even in-universe, people are seemingly less sad about what happened and more shocked as to how someone as strong as Rickie could have been killed so easily.
- Bait-and-Switch: The morning after Jack and Rickie's boxing match, Sarah asks Charlie if he has heard from Jack since last night due to a body turning up at the gym. The two worry that the victim might be Jack as the report never mentioned a name, until the scene transitions and reveals it to instead be Rickie.
- Boxing Episode: This episode introduces us to Charlie's younger brother Jack, who works as a journeyman boxer helping rookies to train and pad their wins. However, Jack shows animosity towards his brother for an undisclosed reason until later on in the story. Then things take a sudden turn when Jack's latest client Rickie Morgan is found dead at the boxing gym the morning after their match, with Jack being the number-one suspect due to their secret rematch involving them boxing bare-knuckled.
- Career-Ending Injury: Rickie's trainer Max was a rookie fighter like him who started boxing around the same time until an injury to his fingers derailed his career. He still retains the moves, as shown when he tries getting into a fistfight with Charlie to avoid arrest.
- Caught on Tape: Shortly after Rickie's body is discovered, a video appears online revealing that he and Jack had a secret rematch where they were fighting bare-knuckled, ending in Jack knocking Rickie out cold and then leaving. Despite it making Jack a more likely suspect behind Rickie's murder, the Major Crimes team work to try and figure out who posted it as they are likely to have the answers to everything that transpired that night. Max shot it with the intention of posting it on social media to boost Rickie's popularity with the expectation that Rickie would beat Jack, only to instead use it to frame Jack for Rickie's murder.
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: The reason for Jack's bitterness towards Charlie is because Charlie bailed on him during the most important fight of Jack’s career, which caused Jack to lose his confidence and his manager to drop him, leading to Jack becoming a journeyman. While Charlie points out that he did apologize and his reason for leaving being that he just made detective and got his first case at the time, he also calls Jack out for blaming him for his mistakes instead of trying to become more than what he is or talk things out. Jack doesn't take any of it well and walks out. Subverted in that Jack eventually admits that Charlie's words did have truth to them and decides to try and become more, with Charlie offering to help his brother train for the upcoming Olympic trials.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Rickie's rematch with Jack ended in the latter completely flooring the former, which alongside finding out that the first fight was fixed apparently bruised Rickie's ego enough to make him decide to drop Lizzie as his manger and head off to Los Angeles to try his luck there. According to Max, Lizzie promised to make it up to Rickie by getting him a match with a famous boxer, only for Rickie to not believe her and only fueled his decision to leave.
- When he's cornered by Charlie in the boxing ring at the gym, Max tries to get in a fight with him in a last-ditch attempt to escape. The detective immediately floors him in one hit and proceeds to slap handcuffs on him.
- Frame-Up: Jack is the number-one suspect in Rickie's murder due to being claimed to have been the last person to see him alive and the video of their secret rematch ending with Jack knocking Rickie out. Charlie however is insistent that his brother couldn't have been the culprit, while Jack claims that Rickie was still alive when he left the gym that night. He's telling the truth. Rickie's real cause of death was from being bludgeoned by Max with a stretching rod.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: In an attempt to get Charlie and Jack to talk things out, Sarah invites Jack over for dinner. Things don't go as planned as the brothers end up in a huge argument before Jack decides to leave, with Sarah afraid that she only made things worse between them. Subverted at the end of the episode, as the two admit that each other was right in their criticisms and make up.
- Jerkass: Rickie isn't the most pleasant person to be around, in or out of the ring. He gets Jack suspended from boxing for thirty days due to a technical knockout and then brags about it on social media, which only serves to further mess with Jack's livelihood. Jack ended up teaching him a lesson in their rematch in response, which Rickie apparently didn't take too well and prompted him to strike out on his own. It eventually caught up to him when his poor treatment of Max ended in Rickie getting the back of his head smashed in with a stretching rod.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Apparently, Rickie had no idea that his first match with Jack was fixed by his manager Lizzie to help him build his confidence and win streak. He wasn't too pleased upon finding out about it from Jack, leading to their rematch that ended in Jack completely flooring him and Rickie making plans of going to Los Angeles to try his luck there despite Lizzie's claim that he won't make it out there on his own.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Rickie has a rather overinflated opinion of himself, enough that he considers himself ready for the big leagues despite still being a rookie boxer and claimed by Jack to be "all sizzle."
- Spotting the Thread: In a desperate attempt to get Rickie to stay after he found out about his match with Jack was fixed and their rematch ending in Jack decking him, Lizzie made up a false promise on the fly about setting him up with a fight against a famous boxer. After Lizzie explains the situation herself, Charlie realizes that Max told him the exact same story earlier on in the investigation when it was supposed to be a lie, which places Max at the scene and outs him as the real culprit behind Rickie's murder.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Jack delivers multiple of these to Charlie. The first one for not having his back in the investigation and another for walking out on him during the biggest fight of his career.
- Donovan also gives one to Charlie about letting Jack get under his skin and making things a conflict of interest, causing the superintendent to take over Jack's interrogation while ordering Charlie to go find out who it was that shot the video of Jack and Rickie’s rematch.
