Welcome back! Who wants some turkey bacon? Not the dead guy who keeled over while eating a low-fat breakfast meat substitute at the Division One Café. One word Yelp review: Killer.
Scene: Morning at the Isles Estates. Boston Police homicide detective Jane Rizzoli slowly sips coffee in the kitchen in her pajamas. Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Maura Isles emerges from the bedroom in a silky nightgown and matching robe. They are both rumpled and tired from spending the night together. I’m not even making that up. That is what happens in the opening scene between Jane and Maura. They’re together. In pajamas. After spending the night together. I think I have to stop writing these Subtext Recaps because this isn’t subtext anymore.
Jane hands Maura a cup of coffee, which she promptly spits out. Instant coffee, what is this communist Russia? Then Maura asks about the baby. So instead of being exhausted because they spent a night of mad, passionate, aerobic lovemaking together, they’re exhausted because they spent the night watching a baby together. How is that any less gay? Tommy returns with said baby, complaining about its inability to sleep and then getting swabbed for his paternity test. Jane grabs up the little bundle and Tommy says “it’s weird, how she’s so good with babies.” Maura chimes in how wonderful it was to tag-team the feedings with her all night. And then remarks how baby elephants are raised by the female relatives in the herd. Baby Rizzoli has two aunties! Jane then coos that she wishes they were elephants and could keep him. Again, I am not even making this stuff up.
The phone interrupts the maternal instinct lovefest and Jane and Maura rush to the café to see what the homicide is all about. Turkey bacon did it. Case closed. On to the eyesex. Speaking of sex, Jane tells Maura they’ll change in the car, which we all know is code for a quickie because, really, who changes in the car when they are standing in a perfectly good house with walls and doors? Jane assures her it’ll only take two minutes. That fast? Wow, she’s good. At the café the dead guy is still dead. Stanley gets chest pains when Jane asks for the food he was served, which has mysteriously disappeared. But even more trouble is afoot back at the Isles Estate where Tommy has called Frankie to help with the baby. There’s a knock at the door and it’s baby mama Lydia and her mama. They take back the baby and for their continued health it is a good thing Jane isn’t there. That angry mama elephant would have stampeded anyone trying to take that baby away from her and Maura.
But maybe it’s Maura the baby snatchers should worry about instead. Back in her lab she’s devising creative child rearing solutions with Jane that involve killing the host family’s children and replacing them with your own. Yeah, don’t mess with Mother Maura. She’ll kill your babies. Next Jane and Maura do what only Jane and Maura can do: they flirt over barely digested stomach contents. Maura asks Jane to guess what something is and Jane says she’ll only do it if she gets a prize. You get to sleep over at Maura’s whenever you want, honey. Prize already granted.
While Maura is thinking of portmanteaus (you ladies already have one — Rizzles, duh), senior criminalist Susie Chang walks in. I wonder if she ever stops feeling awkward walking into shameless flirting like that. But back to the real drama, how to get Jane and Maura’s baby back. Jane confirms they have no legal action, because technically Lydia dropped him off with family. But Jane is undeterred. She wants to raise him with Maura and finally attend the pride parades in the “Families” contingent like she’s always secretly dreamed of.
Then Jane notices Maura noticing something. A morgue tech wheels in another body and Maura stares at them. She has moved the bookshelves to see all the dead bodies coming in, presumably. More like to make her girlfriend jealous by pretending to ogle the dead body delivery guy. But after a conversation where he identifies the designer Maura is wearing by its intricate appliqués and stitching, the ladies decide he’s family and all pretense is dropped. A cute guy who likes sewing, knitting, cross-stitching and beading? Girlfriend, please. Before Jane and Maura can fully appreciate what they consider their superior gaydar, Maura notices some peculiar markings on the dead woman’s skin and goes into full code red. Like she hits a red button and everything.
It’s all fun and games until the guys in the Hazmat suits arrive. Actually, it’s still pretty fun because now Jane is forced to play a game called “Hide the Goodies.” Because the victim could have died from something terrible — Ebola, SARS, Anthrax — they are all forced to strip down and take a decontamination shower. Right there. Out in the open. In front of each other. Fun and games for everyone!
Now, of course, our gals are very used to showering together. It’s as natural to them as changing in front of each other in the car. So the prospect of disrobing and getting, um, wet together does not bother Jane. Rather it is the prospect of disrobing and getting wet in front of a bunch of men that has Jane throwing a fit. Like use a hazardous waste trash bin as a shower curtain kind of fit. Oh, man, there should be more code reds. This is more fun than the time Jane played hide-and-go seek behind Maura’s chair. Jane is, however, a little insulted that the morgue tech didn’t once bather to check out her smoking hot bod. In fact he even yawns. Come on, gay or not, now that’s just rude. Maura says he is obviously not into women, because who could resist looking at that talk cool glass of Rizzoli? Suddenly Susie comes running up all concerned about her morgue tech boyfriend, Alex. Wait. He isn’t gay. Just attached and into needlework. No that there’s anything wrong with that.
Susie says they were keeping their relationship secret, but didn’t think it was a problem because there is no written policy on co-workers dating. Jane assures them there isn’t — because she’s been dating Maura forever and everyone is cool with it. Though Frost and Frankie seem slightly less cool with seeing Jane so out there and naked. Also, so it turns out, Suzie and her boyfriend are into nudism. No, I am not kidding. No, really, still not kidding. They met at a nudist retreat and she invites Jane and Maura to go with them. Like a double date. At a nudist resort. With nude hiking. Yeah. Let’s all think about that visual for a couple of minutes. Remember what Jane looked like in that tiny towel? Maura sure does. Things are happening with the actual case. So, in the interest of thoroughness we should discuss them. The rat poison was in the victim’s fancy coffee drink. The victim told Korsak’s ex he had blood on his hands. The code red was a false alarm because it was bacterial meningitis. And the barista at the coffee place is ridiculously good at remembering people’s drink orders.
At the Isles Estate, the whole Rizzoli clan is there because, well, aren’t they always? Tommy tells them he got the paternity test results back and he is indeed the baby daddy. Jane immediately schemes ways she and Maura can become the Cool Aunts. Back on the case, Frankie helps by reading lips on the surveillance video of the coffee shop. He cracks the case wide open when he discovers the victim said, “I didn’t realize men in tights would kill people.” No, wait, it’s “Mennonites” killing people. That makes much more sense.
The team finds the woman the victim was arguing with, but it’s too late for her too. Damn those Mennonites. The lab tech comes in with another body, and seems excited that Jane and Maura will join him and Susie camping. Jane says she can’t because her skin burns so easily, but Maura blows her cover. She’s familiar with every inch of that olive Italian skin and it doesn’t burn that easily at all.
But it seems Frankie wasn’t saying Mennonites at all. It was meningitis, which the new body brought into the morgue also had. They uncover a big plot to infect people with meningitis and then sue the pharmaceutical company when they get sick. A lawyer the two murder victims met in AA set the whole thing up, and did the killing. Case closed. Whew, glad that’s out of the way. The entire Rizzoli clan has gathered — again — at the Isles Estate to welcome Lydia, her mom and Tommy Jr. It’s one big happy family. At Maura’s house, because she is also family. As they all sit down to dinner, Jane walks over to Maura all excited about the fun they’ll have being cool aunts to TJ.
Jane says he will be a Red Sox fan. And Maura wants to teach him how to fence. To which Jane answers, “If you do I’m going to teach him how to sew and knit and bead.” Then Maura gets all excited and says she’ll take the classes with her. And Jane says the thing gay couples have been saying to each other during awkward family dinners since the beginning of time: “Can we please just get through this meal.” Oh, these two. And now onto your #gayzzoli tweets of the week. It’s like we were never even gone.
