What happened to Sharon on Major Crimes?
MAJOR Crimes was a police procedural television television show that aired on TNT but finished in 2018. It was a continuation spin-off of The Closer, set in the same police division. Mary McDonnell's character, Sharon Raydor, who was the main character on the program, died on the show several episodes before the series finale. Raydor was the Commanding Officer of the LAPD's Major Crimes Division during Major Crimes until Conspiracy Theory, Part 4 of Season 6. To the surprise of fans, in the final three episodes before the show finished, the actress' name was removed from the credits of the show she'd been the star of for six seasons. In an interview with Variety published in 2018, McDonnell addressed Raydor's death and discussed how she felt when creator James Duff suggested it to her. 3 Major Crimes finished in 2018 Credit: TNT  "I understood what he was talking about as an artist," McDonnell told the outlet. "For himself and for the fans, he wanted to have some control over how the show ended and what kind of story he brought to his final season." Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Duff offered several explanations as to why the protagonist of his show was killed of several episodes before the season finale. "There were a ton of reasons. Let me start with the creative reasons: I have an actor in a leading role who has been nominated for two Academy Awards, and I wanted to give her something extraordinary to play. She did an amazing job. She knocked it out of the stratosphere," he began. "Also, we knew we were not going to be back because of the way the network had treated us. Well, we had no idea they were going to cancel us before we even aired; that was a huge surprise." 3 Fans were shocked when Sharon Raydor was killed off Major Crimes three episodes before the show finished Credit: TNT  "We knew the show was finished even though that has not been announced. This is what would have happened: Mary would have been trapped inside our show after it had literally died, and she would not be offered work," Duff continued to explain. "Shes a mature artist. I wasnt going to put her on the shelf and hold her there just to see if something would happen on some wild hope. We accepted our fate." "I feel like we made the right choice," he concluded.