TV

“Rizzoli & Isles” Subtext Recap (2.02): And baby makes three

Right, so this week we open with our heroines Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles all naked and dirty together. I knew there was a reason I loved this show. The ladies are having a spa day and relaxing in hers and hers mud baths. Well, Maura is relaxing. Jane is complaining. You’d think their old married couple shtick would get old, but it really never does. Bicker on, you adorable Bickersons.

Before they can really get into the fun of shushing on another, they hear screams for help. Earlier, we saw a young woman running frantically through the forest from a shadowy knife-wielding figure. Then the woman stumbles and, wait — dammit, I’m having flashbacks to The Killing. Are we going to have to watch the whole season to finally find out who killed her, only to be told at the last second it really wasn’t him after all? Come on, was it the dad from Once & Again or not?

Oops, sorry. Got sidetracked there for a second.

A good Samaritan rushes the gravely injured young woman into the spa. Jane and Maura spring to action, in terry cloth robes because sometimes even superheroes don’t have time to get dressed, to help. The woman is already dead from her stab wounds, but they unzip her jacket and see she is pregnant. So Maura performs an emergency C-section on the spot using only a pocket knife and warm towels. Suck on that, MacGyver.

Even though the procedure was a success, Maura is worried about the poor, motherless newborn. Jane assured her, “We’re going to find him a family.” Well, not to state the obvious, but I see two people who would make great parents standing right there. Love makes a family, ladies. And if these two’s ability to give each other sweet, meaningful eye lovemaking (sex is too crass given the circumstances) over the body of a recently deceased pregnant woman isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

Back at headquarters, Rizzoli, Frost and Korsak are making little headway on the murder. Frankie arrives all, “Uh, what, big sister? I wasn’t trying to learn how to be a super cool detective like you behind your back. Just, um, came to say, ‘Hey – hey.'” But Jane is too perturbed by their mother’s meddling in her life to pay attention. I mean, she packed the woman a lunch and wrote her name on it with a smiley face. Det. Jane Rizzoli does not do smiley faces. But she will take the chips. I love a girl with her priorities straight.

At Casa Rizzoli, the reason for Jane’s perturbed state becomes clear. Mama Rizzoli has painted color samples onto Jane’s wall without her permission. And they are orange and purple and pink, much to Jane’s continued dismay. Look, Mama R, you can call it “begonia” all you want, but a butch like Jane knows pink when she sees it. And she hates pink.

This, of course, brings up long-simmering childhood tomboy resentments — like the time Jane wanted a bunk bed so she could build forts and her mom got her a pink canopy bed instead. Oh, how the well-meaning mothers of little lesbians-in-training the world over try and fail to make us more girlie. And how we make this exact same face at them each time they try.

In the autopsy room, Maura and Jane are examining the Jane Doe. Maura is poring over her stomach contents. Jane gives her a look like “I cannot believe I let you see me naked,” when Maura tells her it’s her favorite part. Then talk returns to the orphaned baby. Jane is going to check on it in the hospital later that night, but Maura has already been that morning. Jane gives her another look and says, “Really? Are we getting…” Yes, she said “we.” As in, “Honey, are we getting baby fever? Because we talked about this and said we were going to go slow.”

Jane and Frost go to check out the victim’s hotel room. They burst in, guns blazing. Every time Angie Harmon points her gun, lesbians everywhere take to their fainting couches. Smelling salts, STAT.

They bring in the woman’s fisherman husband for questioning. Jane tries to think of ways to push his buttons in interrogation and Frost helpfully suggests she be “good cop” and he be “black cop.” I like him so, so much more now that he isn’t vomiting every five seconds. Blah, blah, husband red herring, blah. Which, given that he is a fisherman, I guess is only appropriate.

Jane goes to see Maura and knows, instinctively, that something is wrong. Maura says nothing is wrong, but Jane says, “Tell that to your face.” After years and years of studying every inch of that beautiful face, she knows.

Turns out not only is the fisherman not the baby’s daddy, the woman is not the baby’s mama. Tracy, the now-identified Jane Doe, was a gestational surrogate. Maura knows because she had “quite robust reproductive organs.” Jane looks jealous for a split-second at Maura’s noticing of another woman’s reproductive organs.

But, hey, who has time to worry about reproductive organs when there’s a yard sale to be held. Mama Rizzoli had co-opted Jane’s block to tell off her old junk. Jane chases off a yuppie couple who only want to pay 50 cents for a pair of bookends, but will spring $1,049.99 on a stroller. Maura knows the exact price because she was trolling the online baby store. Jane gives her the, “Seriously, baby fever, again” look.

Then Maura picks up a small, fairly hideous painting. Before she can unleash her full and educated art critique on it Jane’s mom walks up and proudly proclaims herself the artist. So Maura buys it immediately. Ugly yard sale painting? $500. Overpaying to suck up to your future mother-in-law? Priceless.

Frost, wearing a muscle shirt in a blatant attempt to attract more than just lesbians to this show, gets all excited when he sees some sort of Transformersesque action figure. He offers $100, Maura talks him up to $120. Jane calls Maura a show-off and Maura gives Jane a little wink. And, as we all know, a wink is the eye sex equivalent of a quickie.

The investigation leads Frost and Rizzoli to a fertility clinic. There an over-eager nurse with terrible gaydar tells them they would have beautiful interracial babies together. They give each other a look of horror and Jane gives the nurse an “Oh God, no — so no”-finger wag.

While they wait to speak to the clinic director, Jane noticed all the staff’s purple Croc footwear with similar horror. Just because she’s a gay lady does not mean she had to embrace some of our community’s more unfortunate footwear choices.

Back at the yard sale, Maura and Mama are cleaning up. Mrs. Rizzoli tells Maura being a mother was the only thing she was ever good at and she should see her with a baby. Um, did she just ask for grandkids? Because, I think she asked Maura for grandkids.

The victim’s baby mama/baby daddy drama drags on. I think this is the writer’s coy way of bringing the pregnant lesbian storyline into the show. The good news, no lesbians or heterosexual best friends who touch a lot and sleep in the same bed were actually impregnated during the course of this episode. The bad news, seems the clinic was actually running a scam where it would have one couple pay for surrogacy services and another for adoption services. But someone whacked the doctor/conman, so I guess karma really is a bitch.

The surrogate family goes to see the baby, and Jane finds her mom faux breastfeeding him as a “kangaroo” caregiver. It’s a little weird, but I’ve never been a pregnant lesbian, so what do I know. Then the other couple who claims to have adopted the baby shows up. See, this is why they should just give the baby to the nice lesbian couple and be done with it.

As the team try to untangle this tangled parental web, Frost and Frankie do their own bickering about the action figure. Frankie claims it wasn’t for sale. Frost says he bought it fair and square. Kiss and make up, boys. Seriously, I’m starting to ship these two. Plus, it’d give our friends over at AfterElton.com something to fawn over on the show, too. I’m all about equal-opportunity subtext.

The team heads back to the abandoned fertility clinic where Jane laments how much work and hormones it takes to harvest the eggs from women. Ah-ha! Seems someone has been looking into her pregnancy options after all. There they discover over-eager/bad-gaydar nurse was giving herself the five-finger discount when it came to some of the client’s, um, product.

Nurse Randy (really, they named the nurse who stole sperm “Randy?”), faked being pregnant, implanted her egg in Tracy and was planning to take the baby all along. OK, Maura is baby crazy. But Randy is just crazy, baby. Jane calls Maura, who is basking in the glow of her own turn at marsupial mama duties, and tells her to stay near the baby.

And then we see nutbag Nurse Randy is also there. Oh no, Maura is in trouble. Time for Jane to pull her best Lassie impersonation again and come to the rescue. And, as if on cue, there she is at the window. Maura hands Jane the baby to hold and in that instant a million fanfics were started about this beautiful, happy family.

But then Jane spots the nurse’s God-awful purples Crocs. Randy pulls a scalpel and in a welcome moment of role reversal, Maura steps in to protect Jane and the baby. She is filled with fierce Mama Lion bravery. And her hair, it’s so shiny and pretty even in times of crisis.

Jane hands the baby back to Maura and gets the drop on Nurse Baby Crazy. Angry Angie is a thing of frightening beauty. And, I won’t lie, I was just a tad jealous of the nurse. She got to have Jane Rizzoli slam her up against a counter. What? You know you’d like it, too.

Case solved, our ladies are back at the clay baths to finish what they started. They tease each other about their maternal instincts. And Maura throws mud at Jane like you used to pull the pigtail of the girl you liked in grade school.

Hey, any episode that begins and ends with Maura and Jane naked and dirty together is a pretty good episode in my book.

Here is a sampling of your continually hilarious #gayzzoli tweets.

Join us again next Monday when Maura talks about how she loves long metacarpals. Because there’s nothing gay about a woman noticing finger length.

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button