“Major Crimes” star Mary McDonnell shares with Variety her thoughts on the show’s final season, which saw her character, Sharon Raydor, killed off.

I have been watching, reading and listening to the fans’ reactions to Sharon’s death, and it’s taken me a while to find the essence of my experience. I have been approached by several journalists, but in truth, I was not ready to speak until now.

The fan reaction to the death of Sharon Raydor has been sharply illuminating, deeply, deeply humbling, and a true confirmation of what Commander Raydor stood for. When all of this was in the planning stages, I was hoping we would be able to both announce the end of the series and give a gentle warning as to the death that was coming. My original understanding was that the arc was created as part of an impulse and strategy that revolved around staying in control of the narrative, as it was clear the show would be canceled, which of course it was.

What surprised and humbled me, and in a deeper sense than ever before, woke me to the incredible power of the medium, was the level of authentic grief that emerged after Sharon’s death. Many fans were truly saddened, angry, and overwhelmingly frustrated. I knew how much Sharon was loved. I knew she was a role model. What I hadn’t totally comprehended was how much importance she held as a symbol. And how her importance had grown since the election last year.

Read the full article in our press archive.

And we come to the end of this 4-days journey together. What I’m presenting to you today from Razor and Season 4 is interviews and deleted scenes, which are mostly extended, meaning they are cut parts from scenes we’ve already seen on screen.
Thank you very much for everyone commenting, participating and celebrating this birthday with me, even if I must admit every day with you feels like a celebration because of your devotion, kindness and transporting enthusiasm on playing with me with your comments, gifs and such as. Thank you very much! Enjoy the President.

“How long do you have to live, Karen?”
The best line, really. Welcome to Day 3 of 3rd Birthday of Mary McDonnell Vault with Deleted Scenes from season 3. You’d wonder why they didn’t make an episode of 1h to include all this good material, but then there’d be no DVD extras.
Enjoy!

Welcome to Day 2 of Birthday Celebration, today as previously announced we dive into Season 2 DVD Extras with one video featurette and several deleted scenes. My favorite? Epiphanies of course, although the Commander calling Madam President “old friend”, LOL. Take a look and enjoy!

With Mary McDonnell, we welcome one of the top stars from the SF series Battlestar Galactica at FedCon 27. In her role as President Laura Roslin, she played the civilian leader of the fleet.

She is a two-time Oscar-nominated actress who is known for her dynamic character portrayals in both period and present-day screen roles. McDonnell currently stars as Commander Sharon Raydor on the TNT’s hit drama series, Major Crimes, the spin-off of the series, The Closer where she originated the role and earned a Primetime Emmy Nomination.

McDonnell received her first Oscar nomination and Golden Globe Nomination, for her portrayal of ‘Stands with a Fist,’ a white woman raised by the Sioux Indians, in Kevin Costner’s Oscar Winning film, Dances With Wolves. McDonnell also garnered a Best Actress Academy Award nomination and Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of a paraplegic soap opera star in John Sayles’ critically acclaimed Passion Fish. McDonnell’s extensive list of film credits include the Lawrence Kasdan films Grand Canyon and Mumford, Sneakers opposite Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier and Sir Ben Kingsley, Roland Emmerich’s smash Independence Day, with Bill Pullman and Will Smith, acclaimed art house cult-hit Donnie Darko and Margin Call”.

On the small screen, McDonnell starred in four seasons on the Syfy Network’s award-winning series, Battlestar Galactica in her critically-praised performance as the President of the Universe, Laura Roslin. The role earned McDonnell a Peabody Award and AFI deemed the series ‘TV Program of the Year’ for two years in a row. McDonnell garnered an Emmy nomination for her recurring guest role on the television series ER. Some of her other television credits include the critically acclaimed third season of FX’s Fargo, ABC hit-series Grey’s Anatomy, the CBS series High Society, TNT’s adaptation of Arthur Miller’s The American Clock, the critically acclaimed CBS movie Behind The Mask, and Lifetime’s Two Small Voices.

McDonnell began her career in theatre and has starred in a wide variety of both Broadway and Off-Broadway productions.  She received an Obie Award for her performance in Emily Mann’s “Still Life” and has starred in off-Broadway productions such as Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Buried Child,” John Patrick Shanley’s “Savage in Limbo,” John O’Keefe’s “All Night Long,” Michael Cristofer’s “Black Angel,” Kathleen Tolan’s “A Weekend Near Madison,” Paula Cizmar’s “Death of a Miner” and Dennis McIntyre’s “National Anthem.”  Her Broadway credits include Tennessee Williams’ “Summer and Smoke,” the title role in Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Heidi Chronicles” and Emily Mann’s “Execution of Justice.”

Born in Pennsylvania, Mary McDonnell has spent the first twenty years of her career playing preferred roles in a variety of Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. On the FedCon the popular actress will have a lot of interesting stories to tell. Save tickets in our Ticket-Shop.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY MCDONNELL VAULT!
If you ask me, 3 years ago I had no idea I would make it past even the first year, and here we are three years after the opening moment celebrating this wonderful event!

So many things have happened during these years, and many traumatic and tragic ones during just the last few weeks, but nevertheless we have all been standing by Mary McDonnell’s side and supporting her. And it’s with the same spirit of support and celebration that, like any previous year, I will go on for 4 days with gifts.

As you all know it’s my intention to make of this site a corner of paradise for all Mary’s fans and build it as most complete as I can with the means I’m given. I don’t know how you all see it so far but I’m very proud of the achievements! I know, you will say, last year’s gifts were 12 days of Battlestar Galactica, true but the fact is that in the moments of darkness and loss I found in Laura Roslin my guiding light, and considering the previous weeks I have confided into her again and the series. So much can be still done to cover this particular project and I intend to at my best. So to conclude the 2017 in glory, and celebrate the fansite birthday each day I will be sharing and posting caps and videos from DVDs extras of Battlestar Galactica starting today with Season 1 and Miniseries. Enjoy and again Happy Birthday MMV! – Claudia

And here we are to the very end of this, the last appearance of Mary McDonnell on Major Crimes. I wish I could say we aren’t all bitter still, but it would be a lie, I’ve been talking to many of you for all these past 7 days and I can feel your anger, I can feel your sadness, I can feel your disappointment. I have been angry, I’m still sad and also disappointed, not by Mary though, or any other of the cast. Each one of them has been spectacular and this episode showed how much they have worked through trying honoring the Commander. The point is that for us, the fans, it’s not enough and it’s not okay, because we still have our vision on how we wanted the series to end in just 2 weeks, but it’s not to us to decide and what is done is done.
I was hoping this episode could give us a closure and an explanation, for me it hasn’t come, but other things have, things that before I saw differently and now I see them in line with what Mary told us in her last podcast (which you can hear on youtube if you haven’t yet!), so at least something good came out of it I guess.

With this post I conclude the category of Major Crimes, which I have been promoting and collecting since episode 13 of Season 3, when I opened this fansite 3 years ago! I will leave this post here with HD screencaptures and a transcript of Lt. Provenza (G.W. Bailey) eulogy for Commander Raydor, because I thought it was very beautifully written, acted and very much describing of the Sharon Raydor we all loved and supported all these years.

Today we honor Commander Sharon Raydor. The cops’ cop, an exceptional mother, a loving wife and a great good friend. She was also a person of faith, she believed in rules, in law and God. These believes gave her the strength to lead and compelled to uphold the values by which we live.
Those of us gathered here today feel her passing as a personal tragedy, for which we will mourn for the rest of our lives. But to the community in which she lived, and the civilization she struggled to defend, her death is nothing short of calamity.
In moments like this, we often hear it’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness; and so in my heart, I light a candle in Sharon’s honor. But I curse the darkness also, this awful shadow falling across our hearts, the cloud darkening the principles for which she stood.
I ask that, with Sharon as our example, that we leave here today recommitted to the rule of law and dedicated to the cause of justice for which she sacrificed her life.