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“Rizzoli & Isles” Subtext Recap (7.01): Things that go bump on the head

Previously on Rizzoli & Isles: Special Agent Monica Reyes turned out to be Det. Jane Rizzoli’s life ruiner. I’m assuming this is because she caught Special Agent Dana Scully looking at Jane at a law enforcement convention and got jealous. Hey, seems as good a reason as any.

When last we saw our Boston friends they were celebrating Korsak and Kiki’s wedding and all standing around outside the Dirty Robber like standing shooting targets. Then, the inevitable shots rang out.

There’s screaming, broken glass, blood. Maura slumps against the wall with a head wound. Jane waves her gun into the night sky. Then, because this is a show about women with women in charge, Jane takes off her high heels before running off to find the shooter. Hey, Hollywood, take note: NO WOMAN RUNS IN FUCKING HIGH HEELS.

Of course, because Jane is Jane she runs off before checking on the carnage behind her. On the ground is Nina, with blood pooling around her shoulder. And also down is Maura, who has a nasty looking cut on her forehead. So, she’s a good cop, but a terrible girlfriend/friend.

A barefoot Jane runs into a dark alley. Normally I’d be very appalled at this, because people shouldn’t even wear flip-flops on big city streets—let alone nothing at all. But, hey, it’s clearly a studio set so there’s no chance she’ll step on a stray needle, broken glass or a Pizza Rat.

Frankie joins the search, but they get stymied at a fire escape where they think the shooter has gone up. Jane wants to follow because she is Jane, but Frankie convinces her to stay earthbound. Instead, they set up a search and go back to see who actually, you know, got shot.

Jane sees Nina in the ambulance with Smug and still kilted Kent. As the doors are closing he tells her, “Jane, Maura suffered a…” Dude, don’t bury the lede. When you’re talking to Jane, always tell her what is happening with Maura immediately.

Jane runs into the bar, checks on her mom who tells her to check on Maura instead. Jesus, Jane, I know this is a crisis situation, but your girlfriend instincts are seriously rusty. Like, is that dress restricting valuable oxygen to your brain? That’s the only reason I can think of for this painful lack of appropriate attention.

When she (finally) does focus in on her lady, Jane gets her to confess she has a possible concussion as well as the visible cut. Jane then demands Maura go to the hospital. Trying to make up for her previous inattentiveness with over attentiveness—so like Jane.

Maura tries to break the tension by teaching everyone some deep breathing techniques. So, there’s your answer; they’re into tantra. Which, if you consider the evidence, actually makes sense. The intense way Jane stares at Maura has to be tempered somehow or they both might, um, explode.

Back in the office, everyone is on full alert. They all know Alice Sands (a.k.a. Special Agent Monica Reyes a.k.a. Dr. Anne Sullivan a.k.a. Annabeth Gish) is behind the shooting, but they just need that pesky proof.

Maura comes in grasping at scientific straws in an effort to find said evidence. But then, as she’s talking about sending something away for DNA testing, she stops mid-sentence while explaining and says, “call an ambulance.” Then she hits the floor like an elegant sack of potatoes.

Guess all a gal had to do to finally fully get her girlfriend’s attention is lose consciousness in the middle of the office. As Maura emerges from her check-up at the hospital, Jane spring into action again hectoring the doctor with questions. Maura gives her girlfriend full doctor-patient privilege, because that’s what you do for the person you love.

The doc says Maura needs a CT scan. Jane is like, good, I’ll carry her there. But the appointment isn’t until “later.” Until then the doc says Maura needs rest and “limited physical and mental activity.” So, you guessed it; tantra is out of the question.

Jane takes it all in and says, “OK, I’m taking you home.” Like, I didn’t write that. They did. I just report the facts as I receive them. But Maura says she’d rather go back to the office since tantric fun is off the table anyway. Plus, she says that way Jane can keep a closer eye on her. See, nothing said Jane couldn’t enjoy “physical and mental activity” while watching Maura. Ahem.

Jane agrees and then offers to put her girlfriend in handcuffs to make sure she obeys the doctor’s orders. Again, I just report the facts.

Frankie is at Nina’s hospital bed watching over her. OK, so this ship is officially on. Roliday? Hozzoli? Anway, Nina wakes up and despite the gunshot wound in her shoulder seems sore but OK. I breathe a big sigh of relief because, let’s face it, the last thing television needs is to kill off another woman of color. Us endangered TV species need to stick together.

Maura, who is indeed back at the office, is under the watchful eye of Smug Kent, not Jane. Hmm. I mean, I guess Jane’s used to handing her girlfriend off to beards and because Kent literally has a beard she thought that counted. At least he is doing pretty good hovering, And, like a good beard, he knows what to threaten Maura with to get her to behave. It’s Jane. The thing he threatens her with is telling Jane.

Jane and Korsak are stumped on finding Alice. But then Korsak makes the mistake of saying Maura’s profile of her might be wrong. Look, don’t tell a mentally and sexually frustrated Det. Jane Rizzoli the woman she loves could be wrong. That will only make her more aggravated and drive her to do something crazy.

Something crazy like going down to the lobby and talking to the gaggle of press who just happen to be hanging around because that’s what reporters do all they. They hang around with camera crews in police stations in hopes that someone will come downstairs and start antagonizing the primary suspect in an impromptu news conference.

Alice watches this all live on her phone. It’s good to know her secret lair has a strong enough wifi signal for streaming. Or maybe she’s getting a lot of buffering, causing her to make this face. Everyone hates buffering, amirite?

Jane is getting chewed out by Korsak for being a good, but a stubborn cop. She’ll have to go downtown to talk with the chief to answer for her press appearance. Jane says she just wanted to make sure no one else got hurt. See, this is what happens when Maura gets hurt. Jane goes apeshit bananas trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

At the Dirty Robber, Mama Rizzoli and Kiki are singing the blues about being the loved ones of those in blue. Mama R starts feeling particularly bad that her boyfriend Ron’s daughter had to learn about the danger he was in from TV. OK, that’s not great. But, uh, the lady sitting right next to you HAD HER WEDDING INTERRUPTED BY A SNIPER. So, yeah, perspective.

Jane checks in on her honey, who is still wearing those distracting bright pink pants. That’s another way you can tell Jane is making sure Maura takes it easy. Otherwise, you have to believe she would have peeled those puppies off already.

Jane tells her about being called “not camera friendly” or just “not friendly” by the police chief. And Maura counters that she is plenty friendly. Most of the time. Jane’s one of those classic people who will move mountains for her friends, but if she doesn’t know you—well, not friendly is a nice way to put it.

Back on the case, the crew is still stymied. But Maura has discovered something, in that nothing was found on the fire escape. Not even the dust was disturbed, which means Alice Sands probably didn’t go up it. This prompts them to search the alley again. And they realize what doesn’t go up, probably went down.

Jane probably missed it last time on account of being horrified by the thought of stepping on something gross with her bare feet. Jane goes to investigate, but the trail ends, and she comes back smelling, well, not so fresh. See, her girlfriend is out of commission for a couple of days and Jane lets herself go entirely.

Jane goes to check up on Maura, who is sitting quietly in her office. She now has Kent at her beck and bell. Like, really, she has a bell for him. I don’t know why these two didn’t think of this system earlier for their beards. Ring a bell; he comes running. Then once you’re done, dismiss him until the next bell. Genius.

Speaking of genius, our resident genius rings for Kent again when Jane leaves. She asks for some results, but then forgets the name of the machine. A machine she could probably take apart and reassemble with her eyes closed. Oh no. Something’s wrong with Maura. I swear, writers, if it’s something terrible I will crawl through the screen and find you. They live inside the TV, right? That’s how TV works, yes?

The team tracks down some tunnel kids who are probably working with Alice to move her drugs. Wow, she has her own Little Orphan Druggie world down there complete with a rag-tag crew of street urchins. They won’t give anything up, and then one of them walks up to Jane with a note from Alice.

Jane takes it, but then promptly rips up the note after reading. Um, shouldn’t you keep that for evidence or something? No, just going to leave it in shreds on the ground. OK, sure. That plan sounds fine, too. (I told you she gets cranky when Maura is on mental and physical activity rest.)

Meanwhile, Maura arranged an earlier CT scan appointment at the hospital. It helps when you’re on the hospital’s advisory committee. Jane goes to find her while she is there, but finds only Kent. When Kent can’t tell her where Maura is, Jane goes all, “Bad beard! No cookie!” on him.

Since this episode is about everyone’s relationship issues—Jane and Maura, Frankie and Nina, Korsak and Kiki—Mama R gets her turn. After she is visited by Ron’s distraught adult daughter, she decides to break up with him. Never mind that this makes literally zero sense. It happened, and now I guess Mama R has more time to plan Jane and Maura’s eventual wedding.

At the office, Jane commiserates with Nina about getting shot. Take it from the good detective; she has been shot multiple times on this show. Heck, once she even shot herself. Maura, now back, rings for Kent. He comes running like a well-trained lapdog. He even offers to fetch. See, guess Jane’s newspaper rap on the nose worked.

But now, all of a sudden, he starts gushing about Maura’s empathy and making weird soft eyes at her. Beard, know thy place. Again, I say, they killed Senior Criminalist Susie Chang for this guy? Maura offers him a raise and more responsibility, probably so he’d stop low-key flirting with her.

So now, it’s time for them to finally go find Little Orphan Druggie and the tunnel gang. Maura comes in with some info to help plan, and Jane pointedly asks where she has been. Maura promises to “tell you about it later.” This is followed by some serious, I-don’t-care-all-our-co-workers-are-watching eye sex.

So now it’s time for Jane to once again don her bulletproof tank top and go find Alice in the less than wonderland of the sewer tunnels. Even though they’ve brought an entire SWAT team, somehow Jane ends up all on her own at some point. Has no one on this show ever heard of the buddy system?

She, of course, finds Alice and her rag-tag crew. Shots are exchanged. Insults are exchanged. Then Jane and Alice finally face off, between a human shield of tunnel urchins.

More insults are exchanged. And then Alice instructs the head tunnel urchin to shoot the others and runs off. For all the hell she has rained down on Jane, this is the best she can do in the evil mastermind department? I am not impressed. I mean, she wasn’t even stroking a bald cat.

Jane ends a frustrating day by having Maura come back to her place. Yes, we get our first glimpse of Jane’s new place. It’s…something. Actually, it’s not her at all except for the one photo. And, yep, you guessed it—that one photo is of her and Maura together. I mean, I don’t even have to say anything else. That says it all.

Jane offers Maura a beer. Seems they’re still favoring Peroni Nastro Azzurro. But Maura can’t because of the head injury and all. Jane, who does not miss a thing when it comes to Maura, asks her where she was that afternoon. Maura admits she was getting her CT scan.

Jane then asks what she found out. Maura pretends there was nothing to find out. But, like I said, Jane doesn’t miss a thing when it comes to Maura. She says she knows because, “Because when you have something important to say you always exhale a lot louder than when you don’t.” Yes, one woman just told another woman she knows the intimate nature of her breathing patterns. Again, I just report what happens.

Maura finally admits that the fall caused some internal bleeding on her brain, which in turn has caused some “cognitive impairment.” In other words, she is forgetting some words. But, don’t worry, she now remembers “mass spectrometer” because she used a “memory palace” technique which she then details in full to Jane’s adoring bemusement.

Maura says she won’t worry about it and will let her friends help her and that they’ll get through it. Jane nods in agreement, but behind her soft eyes is hard steel. Because when next we see her she is walking into a church and straight to the confessional. And there she tells the priest it’s not what she has done, but what she is going to do that she needs to confess. Wow, is the Catholic Church really still that uptight about gay sex?

And now, your #gayzzoli tweets of the week for the final season premiere.

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

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