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“Rizzoli & Isles” Subtext Recap (6.06): Is that a zeppole, or are you happy to see me?

Previously on Rizzoli & Isles: Senior Criminalist Susie Chang is murdered. They killed Susie. Those bastards.

Maura comes down in to the kitchen and finds Jane trying to run the dishwasher. She is not surprised to find Jane there for a number of reasons. 1) Jane clearly spent the night. 2) Jane basically lives there already. 3) Jane is trying to be nice to her girlfriend by clearing up their dishes from breakfast for a change. OK, that last one was a little surprising. We all know Jane is a “leave it in the sink and hope the dish elves clean it” kind of gal.

Oh, about her using Maura’s dishwasher? Don’t worry, all “gal pals” know how to run and feel comfortable turning on their friends’ dishwashers. Hell, sometimes I just pop over to my BFF’s place for the sole purpose of cleaning her tableware. This is totally normal friendship behavior, folks. Nothing to see here.

In fact the only unusual thing about this interaction is that Prius-driving Maura doesn’t want to run her dishes on the “eco”-air dry mode. But, let’s be honest, that mode is bullshit and we all know it. It just turns into a really expensive drying rack.

Maura has arrived bearing “good news.” She had a call from Mama Rizzoli’s cousin Carlo, who has invited himself over later that night. But what appeared at first to be good news is actually very, very bad news in the Rizzoli Universe. Cousin Carlo is the family’s litigious black sheep. He is a slip-and-fall expert who will no doubt try to bilk Maura out of money.

Couple things about this development. How does a distant relative no one has had any contact with in more than five years know to get to both Jane and Mama Rizzoli through Maura? Is the gay so obvious that it can be sensed even by long-lost family members? Oh, who am I kidding, it’s so obvious it can be seen from space. I’m expecting NASA’s New Horizons to send back clear pictures of the Gayzzoli it filmed on its way past Pluto any day now.

Mama R comes in to Maura’s place shortly after and Jane briefs her on the Cousin Carlo situation. Rubber mats must be bought. Glass vases must be removed. Knives must be hidden. Then Jane and Maura’s phones go off and it’s murder time. So Mama R is left to prepare the Isles Estates for a pending Rizzoli Apocalypse.

Jane and Maura arrive at the scene, which is a massive big-box store sale. There was a stampede when the doors opened and a woman is down. Her and her daughter had camped out there the night before, so possibly she just fell down of embarrassment about the state of modern humanity. But, no, she was stabbed in the back. Et tu, Wal-Mart?

Back at the office Frankie and Nina find a guy on the surveillance video who doesn’t look like he is there to shop. Hey, how are you guys doing? I know it’s hard losing a longtime co-worker. Has grief counseling been offered? Has the department hired a replacement yet? Oh, we’re just not going to bring up Susie at all, even a little? Cool, cool. Denial is the first stage of grief.

Frankie and Jane go to find the uninterested-in-shopping guy at a bus station where he turns into crazy ranting guy. But it’s OK, he’s not actually nuts, he just has a medical condition that makes it impossible for him to remember faces. So, in other words, he is the world’s worst witness.

Jane goes straight to Maura to find out if witness guy’s facial recognition blindness is a real thing or a fake condition like gluten allergies. (Kidding. I know that all three of you with legitimate gluten allergies have it really rough. Namaste.) Maura confirms it’s a real thing (no, not the gluten-free crap)—at least as real as hot dogs.

So Jane gets an idea. And when I say “idea,” I mean Jane notices two big “ideas” under Maura’s lab coat. She stares at those “ideas” for an extended period before asking for Maura’s lab coat as cover. Aw, that’s cute — like when you wear your girlfriend’s favorite sweater so you can smell her on you all day. Maura notices Jane noticing her “ideas” and gets a little uncomfortable. Please, like Jane has never ogled your “ideas,” Maura.

Jane takes Maura’s lab coat to test the Face Forgetter. He fails, so they begrudgingly believe him. Instead Jane and Korsak go to chase down his boss who he claims was chasing him when the woman was stabbed. On the way there, Korsak tells Jane he could never forget her because of her Mane of Righteous Hotness.

Jane does an obligatory shampoo commercial flip of her hair for him, then makes Korsak promise not to tell anyone. It’s hard out there for a long-haired butch.

Blood and murder interrupt their follicle bonding. Turns out Face Forgetter wasn’t being chased by his murderous boss because his boss had already been murdered. Though, in Face Forgetter’s defense, all white guys in suits kind of look alike.

Speaking of white guys in suits, Frankie meets a new female detective in the office and tries to awkwardly flirt. He offers to “answer any questions” she might have about the department. But then, sensing her son might be close to seeing a woman naked, Mama R deploys her super-mom powers of embarrassment: She calls him demanding he do his part to avert the Rizzoli Apocalypse. Also, we’re just going to ignore the Toyota commercial in the middle of this uncomfortable family moment.

Cousin Carlo is at Maura’s place bringing her wine and talking about the trumpet. Honey, don’t give that guy delicate glass stemware. Give him a sippy cup and surround him with pillows. Mama R finally arrives and tries to deny Cousin Carlo access to the downstairs bathroom. But Maura ruins it by having an upstairs bathroom, too. Dammit, how many bathrooms do you have, woman? My guess is four.

Jane and Korsak bring the Face Forgetter to an assisted living facility for old folks. Oh, I see what they’re doing. Put him in with the people who can’t remember anything anyway—perfect camouflage.

When Jane goes to check on him later he recognizes her from her irregular footsteps. He tells her on leg is longer than the other so one heel hits harder than the other. I want to be there when Maura inevitably ends up measuring Jane’s legs to see which one is shorter. You know it’s going to happen.

Some plot stuff happens, something about money laundering and an organized crime situation. But I’m still stuck on this one leg is longer Jane situation, and so is she. Jane clomps outside Maura’s office door to see if her girlfriend notices. But Maura doesn’t stop typing. So Jane clomps again.Maura finally takes notice, and asks Jane what she’s doing. Jane is worried about her clomping, but Maura is more worried about why her LLBFF is acting so weird. Then she’s worried about Jane developing future back problems because of her one stumpy leg. Yep, thinking about Jane’s long term like a good girlfriend.

Maura advises Jane get her stump leg lengthened. And then this transpires:

Jane: I don’t need to be taller, Maura. Men are already afraid of me enough as it is.

Maura: [squints] And you think it’s because you’re tall.

Jane: [laughs heartily] That was a good one.

And then they laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed together because—duh—men are afraid of Jane because she’s a big scary lesbian. Joking! She is just a big lesbian—only occasionally scary.

Later that night back at Maura’s place Mama R is apologizing for bringing the Rizzoli Apocalypse upon her with gifts of pistachio gelato. But they’ve seemingly survived the lawsuit scourge and came out unscathed. But then there’s a knock at the door. Don’t answer it! Zombie Rizzoli is sure to be on the other side.

And, as predicted, Cousin Carlo has come to blow more hot air at Maura. But now Mama R is starting to believe his tune, too. Jane arrives as reinforcement, and remains unconvinced by his horn playing. But then Carlo breaks out the big guns, fresh-made zeppole. Come on, we’d all cave in the face of deep-fried, powdered-sugar doughy goodness.

As they enjoy their fresh from the fryer sweets, the Adorable Bickersons do what they do best by arguing about who has the right to say, “I told you so.” It’s almost like we got our Big Gayzzoli Ending early. But then, whoops, Cousin Carlo falls down on some spilled “oil” and goes boom. Well, at least they still have the zeppole.

The next day a smug Jane goes to rub it in/pretend to get evidence results form Maura. They zero in on a drug kingpin who likes to do his own hits as the suspect. But now the Face Forgetter has fled in fear because he figured out who was after him, too.

They go searching for him at the bus station, because besides being forgetful he is also unoriginal in his escape plans. Jane finds him cowering behind a trashcan. He’s not sure Jane can handle a crime boss. But Jane reassures him that she scares men.

As they leave the Face Forgetter smells the hitman who promptly jumps out of the bushes at Jane. They grapple. Luckily the Face Forgetter is also quick on his feet because he screams out “Police!” and stuns the bad guy long enough for Jane to sock him in the jaw. So that’s taken care of, let’s get to the good stuff.

But first, we’ve got a Cousin Carlo situation to handle. The scam artist comes limping into the Dirty Robber with a neck brace and sob story. But Jane is having none of it. She tells him to knock it off. But he insists she should cut him some slack because they’re family.

I swear to the Lesbian TV Gods, I might as well type the rest of this episode up verbatim.

Jane: Maura is family. And when her father started causing problems I shot him.

Yeah, and remember when Hoyt tried to hurt Maura? Yeah, stabbed that guy with a scalpel straight through the heart. Bottom line, don’t mess with Jane’s woman.

But, never fear, because Dr. Maura Isles is no damsel in distress waiting to be rescued—not even by her Jane. She saunters into the Dirty Robber ready to defend herself. And, you know what they say, the best defense is a strong offense and/or surveillance cameras.

Maura shows Cousin Carlo his fake kitchen spill and the jig is up. Jane beams with pride at her girlfriend. But you can also see just the tiniest hint of worry. How long has Maura had those hidden cameras in the house? Were they there the other morning when, um, things transpired between them on the kitchen counter? Or the living room rug? Or the dinner table? What? Mama R is dating someone now and away more, remember?

So now, now this is why we watch this show. After the crime is done. After the last bad guy is caught. After the obligatory wacky familial subplot is wrapped up. This, this is our reward. What follows enters the pantheon of the show’s biggest Big Gayzzoli Endings. Better than when Jane and Maura snuggled under the same blanket. Close to Jane stared unapologetically at Maura’s Rack of God. Up there with the time Jane and Maura called each other LLBFFs.

First, Jane teases Maura about admitting she was right. She does this by giving her the total flirt eyes. Like, they could probably get arrested and charged with indecent exposure for having this much eye sex in public. Think of the children!

Then, Maura reaches over and pulls out a zeppole from her purse and proceeds to tease Jane by noshing on it in front of her. She sure knows exactly how to drive her lady wild. Just parade sweet, sticky pastries in front of her. Jane immediately demands her own purse zeppole. Maura obliges, but then they Adorable Bickerson their way through a discussion of who really deserves the rest of the delectable Italian doughnut holes more.

Jane gives Maura the full fuck-me eyes, like she did with the lab coat. This is not lost on Maura who asks, “Why are you staring at me like that again?” And then — for a second — I swear once again to the Lesbian TV Gods, I thought they were going to kiss. As they get into an intense eye sex staring contest, their heads inch closer and closer and closer together. I wanted to jump off the couch and try to smoosh their faces together while screaming, “NOW KISS!”

Maura swipes Jane’s zeppole. Jane swipes Maura’s remaining bag of zeppole. And the two of them swipe us off our damn feet again with their irresistibly delicious chemistry.

And now, to you giddy #gayzzoli tweets of the week.

Find more from Dorothy Snarker visit dorothysurrenders.com or @dorothysnarker.

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