TV

“Rizzoli & Isles” Subtext Recap (7.05): How I Re-Met Your Mother

Previously on Rizzoli & Isles: Maura tries fencing. Postal inspectors pack heat. Jane and Maura finally hold hands again. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

Maura is attending to her medical health under the watchful eye of Jane. She has finally called a specialist and scheduled a surgery for her occasional memory lapses. Geez, I sometimes forget where I parked my car and sometimes walk into the wrong house and start watching their TV. Do I need an operation, too? Wait, seriously, do I need an operation, too?

Jane is telling someone who sounds rather concerned on the phone about her pending procedure. And when I say pending, I mean pending. It’s happening this afternoon. But who could she be telling? Well, Jane already knows. Mama Rizzoli has to know because she knows everything. Who is left?

Oh, wait, it’s one of Maura’s many parents, right? We’re not clear which but it’s a “mother” who is “concerned” and wants to visit Maura in the “hospital.” Well, considering we haven’t seen Jacqueline Bisset since the start of Season 3, I have a good guess which “concerned mother” we’re talking about.

Further proving it’s not the concerned mother in question, Mama R waltzes in with a big grin and a bag of bagels. They’re from the new shop with the long line around the corner called, and I’m not even making this up, Bernie Brody’s Bodacious Bagels. Now why didn’t the Bernie people think of that? Free college AND a bagel for everyone!

Maura sadly declines, as she is fasting before her surgery. Did I mention she is having surgery on her big genius brain very soon and everyone is acting very nonchalant about it all? OK, well clearly Jane is concerned because she is sympathy fasting with Maura in solidarity. Talk about getting Good Girlfriend points for days. She even resists taunting with a still warm hole. What? It’s what happened.

Speaking of holes, Maura is a font of information about them. Look, I already made a warm hole joke today, I can’t go to that well again. But, damn, this show is making it hard not to. Jane, meanwhile, acts like she doesn’t like hearing about Maura’s holes. Then she gets distracted when Frankie shows up and it’s clear he has been spending quality time with Nina and her holes.

The Victim of the Week is a dead mother and wife who seems to have taken a slip-and-fall down the stairs and landed on her skull. Earlier we saw the husband and hoodie-wearing daughter standing somewhat bewildered over her very bloody body. If this were really a slip-and-fall, we’d have a lot more time for that Big Gayzzoli Ending. Just saying.

Back at the morgue, Maura is looking over slip-and-fall’s injuries. Jane walks in, and Kent (Ugh, Kent) quite literally pokes his head in to say something no one wants to hear. He says her “dietary restrictions” have Maura “grumpy.” Oh, boy. You did not just call the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts “grumpy,” did you?

Maura snaps back that she isn’t “grumpy,” simply “focused.” Jane, who is far smarter and more entitled to an opinion on Maura’s moods at any given moment remains diplomatic and suggests perhaps she go home for the rest of the day. I have to agree. Also, wouldn’t any case Maura works on during this time period be called into question due to the surgery she is about to have to fix her broken brain? I mean, I didn’t go to law school like the victim did, but this seems like a gimme.

Maura insists she is fine, so Jane moves on. But she doesn’t get much farther what with the sound of smashing fruit interrupting them. Kent (Ugh, Kent) is in the backroom murdering a bunch of melons. So. Many. Jokes. My brain. It hurts. IT HURTS. Also, can we please take note of the fact that Kent (Ugh, Kent) drew goofy smiley lady faces on every single melon. This does not seem like a wise use of time and therefore taxpayer dollars.

Kent (Ugh, Kent) and his dead melons conclude that the slip-and-fall wasn’t just a slip-and-fall. More pressure was used to kill and crack open the victim’s head to expose its juicy center. So that’s that. Also, don’t worry, the symbolism of a straight white male destroying the innocent, smiling lady fruits is not lost on me.

So now it’s surgery time. OK, show, I did not like the too-close-for-comfort juxtaposition of those smashed fruit heads with Maura’s own precious noggin. That better not be foreshadowing. Jane stands over her like a worried girlfriend should stand over the bed of a significant other, all protective and putting on a brave face. She even offers to breathalyze the surgeon. Man, she is just racking up those Good Girlfriend points. I hope she’s saving up for something nice.

Maura laughs it off. But you can tell she is deep-down worried by the way the light shines off her hair and her unadorned face crinkles just so. Sorry, sometimes I get distracted while watching this show. Hey, they hired attractive actors, OK.

Just then Hope walks into the room. Well, we knew Sharon Lawrence would be back once more this season—even if only so the casting department can congratulate itself on finding such a believable looking birthmother for Maura.

Things are awkward because that’s how all of Maura’s familial relationships should be characterized—even after giving someone a kidney. Hope leaves quickly, and Maura says she really didn’t need to come to the hospital. So it was Hope, as we all knew, she was talking with earlier.

Jane reminds her that worrying and being there is what mothers do, or should do. Also, they drive us all a little crazy sometimes—all the time. You know, normal mother-daughter stuff. But Jane and Mama R convince her to try to form new neural pathways in the mom department.

With Maura out, Jane leaves to work on the case—but not before making sure Mama R knows to call her immediately if anything happens. So, fine, that’s acceptable if not perfect girlfriend behavior. Neutral points. She also pumps Mama R on the Frankie/Nina situation. Mama R feigns ignorance but then makes Jane promise to let Frankie tell her in his own time. Yeah, that’ll happen.

Red Herring No. 1 in this case turns out to be the teenage daughter. She snuck out that night to be with her boyfriend at a party, and had a fight with her mom before. See, mothers and daughters—it’s a theme. But then Frankie and Nina uncover some strange information about the husband. Twenty years ago his live-in girlfriend died “accidentally” by a slip-and-fall down the stairs. Cue dun-dun-dunnnnnn music.

Jane congratulates them, a little too much, on their collaborative find. Oh, yeah, they know she knows.

Maura is now out of surgery, walking and talking with Hope. Uh, where are the Rizzolis? Now we’re getting into negative girlfriend points territory. Also, not to interject reality into a show where the chief medical examiner also regularly participates in suspect interviews, but shouldn’t Maura’s head be bandaged? Also shaved probably? Worn up off the base of her neck where they cut into at a bare minimum?

Hope tells Maura that Jane has been calling “every 20 minutes.” OK, so I take back a few of those negative points. Hope is also the reason Mama R isn’t there. She asked Mama R if she could take care of her instead. OK, so the Rizzolis are officially off the hook then.

What follows are awkward silences and sipping of water. Hope addresses the mother-daughter sized elephant in the room. She gets a little teary talking about wanting to take care of her, and that’s that. Bond healed. Time to go on a mother-daughter dress shopping montage like in the movies, yes?

The team turns up the heat on the husband. But he has a pesky lawyer who looks like Dennis Miller and then agrees to take a lie detector test to prove his innocence. He passes. He also claims he and his wife had an open marriage to explain away shots of him going to a hotel with three different women. Pretty convenient thing to say when the other half isn’t there to say, “Hell no, we didn’t have an open marriage.”

Jane and Maura are snuggling on the couch, as it should be. But a different Mama is cooking up some grub in the kitchen—Mama Martin. But Jane knows in her gut the food won’t be as tasty as Mama R’s, and that the husband was lying on the lie detector—no matter what the results said.

Jane also confesses that she was worried about Maura. Maura replies, “I know.” Hmm, this sounds so familiar. Hmm, where have I heard that before?

Hey, Mama M is there—Jane isn’t going to use the “L” word. She’ll barely agree to eye sex. But I saw that quickie, you two. I saw it.

Back on the case, Jane wants to talk to the daughter without the dad. Since, as a field hockey player, she is clearly a budding lesbian, Jane simply saunters over to the school in her Aviators of Sexy Justice and plants herself on a bench. All the bees love her honey.

At the Isles Estate, Mama M continues to try to mother Maura. They talk about Maura’s worry that her surgery might have affected her ability to do her job. Girl, it didn’t even affect your hair—I think you are gonna be fine. Hope says everything will be OK, but even if it isn’t she can always go work with her at her clinics instead. Um, if she is unable to work with the dead, do you really think working with the living is a wise career move?

Hope also assures her she will have a “fulfilling life after your career as an M.E.” Aw, did Maura tell her about her plan to move to Maine with Jane and write mystery novels? I bet she spends all day on Zillow looking at property on the coast.

Back on the case, the team is stymied. Then the daughter calls (Jane and her sexy aviators slipped her a card earlier) to say her father is at some storage unit doing something shady. They chase him down, nearly run over a homeless man and stop the husband red-handed with a bloody field hockey stick.

But in the interrogation room, he blames it on the daughter. Please, if a budding lesbian is going to kill anyone with a hockey stick it’s you, dude. Hello, man-hating lesbian. It’s a thing.

With all the evidence pointing at Baby Dyke (yes, I know she has a boyfriend—lots of us did in high school), Jane and Frankie reluctantly go to arrest her. But then Maura and her super-improved brain catches something in the old girlfriend’s M.E. report. It wasn’t an accident; he hate slammed her head into the stair because he’s a terrible Baby Dyke-blaming monster.

So now the case is solved, misogynistic bad guy arrested and budding lesbian consoled; it’s time for our Big Gayzzoli Ending, right? Finally? But nooooo. Here comes Hope trying to keep getting her mother-daughter on with Maura.

Listen, lady, no one is here to see your new-found maternal instincts. No one wants to hear you peer pressure Maura into volunteering at your clinics. We’re here for the Totally Gratuitous, Totally Gay Touching, eye sex and general adorableness between Jane and Maura. The only mother whose occasional interruptions we will tolerate are Mama R. And that’s that.

At The Dirty Robber, where Maura was headed before she was kidnapped by Hope, Jane has set up the lie detector to “allow” Frankie to tell her himself about Nina, if you will. He confesses without any electrode assistance, but then Jane wants to know what happened to her autographed Bobby Orr hockey puck that disappeared in the seventh grade. Nina tells him to pledge the Fifth and everyone laughs and laughs.

Come on, show; there are only eight episodes left ever. I think Straightzzoli is cute and all that. But we’re all here for the Gayzzoli.

And now for your #gayzzoli tweets of the week. Yes, you all ogled the melons—pervs.

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

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

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button