TV

“Rizzoli & Isles” Subtext Recap (3.04): Please do watch him leave

This week on Rizzoli & Isles, lesbians start to ship every other character but Rizzoli and Isles themselves. Like Mama Rizzoli and Lieutenant Cavanaugh. With a line out the door at the Division One Cafe, Lt. Cavanaugh stands up for Mama R when Stanley gets grumpy at his own success. Who has a good shipper name for them? Cavangela? Cavela? Cavazzoli? Whatever. It’s all a distraction because the Rizzoli & Isles we’ve come to know and love to obsessively dissect the subtext of isn’t the Rizzoli & Isles we’re seeing on screen. Instead it’s Rizzoli & Isles & the Beard of the Week. Which, besides being a kinda cumbersome title, is also a kinda boring show.

Luckily, before we all lapse into a coma, Maura jogs up in her running togs. Jane can’t help but look because The Rack of God + Lycra Top = Glory, Glory Hallelujah. Eyes up, Det. Rizzoli.

Maura wants Jane to go “running” with her. Jane uses the “I already showered” excuse. See how when you put things in quotation marks it all seems dirtier? Like, it even works on the word “dirtier.” Speaking of dirty, Maura sniffs Jane to verify her shower claim, because all platonic best friends smell each other in public places. Maura tells Jane she needs endorphins from physical activity because she is depressed. Hey, you know what gives you more endorphins than running? Yeah, you know what.

Jane says she’s not depressed. Maura says she is depressed about Casey. Jane says it’s about a ding in her car door. Maura says she’s lying because her left eyebrow moved. And Maura should know because she has studied that face and it’s magnificent features for hours on end. Traced its lines. Caressed its angles. Memorized its every move. Wait, where was I? Oh year, dumb boy stuff. Blah blah balh. I’m going to pull a Jane and just put my fingers in my ears until it’s all over.

In comes Rondo to brighten the day. Jane is complaining about Mama R making bunny pancakes and he says “things taste better with a little shape.” No quotation marks really needed there, that’s dirty enough on its own. He tells Jane she shouldn’t lose any more weight because he likes his detectives with “a little meat on them.” The look on Maura’s face is all, “Me too!”

Jane gets saved by the buzz again and off they go to a crime scene. This time a bus driver and appalled passengers have happened upon a dead woman made up to look like “some big weird doll.” Maura busts out the French term for sex doll, which makes it sexier but no less creepy. Then Maura says this murder might be more about the fetish of a love between a man and a doll. So it’s Rizzoli & the Real Girl this week.

The victim was hit in the head with something hard (hey, no dirty jokes — this is a serious show you guys) and is dressed in some early ’90s fashion complete with a scrunchy. Jane asks Maura if that means she Bill & Ted-ed her way to the bus stop. Maura shoots her back a, “No, Det. Smartypants.” Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did everyone catch that? So now it’s Dr. and Det. Smartypants? Looks like someone got legally wed in the commonwealth of Massachusetts over the break. But the bigger shock is that they took Maura’s last name. I see who really wears the pants in that family. Well, I sure hope they’re registered somewhere. I can’t wait to buy them a matching set of “Hers & Hers” hand towels.

Korsak shows up on scene with a new cute lab he rescued. I like the idea of a Dog of the Week a lot better than a Beard of the Week. Make it so, Janet Tamaro.

Back in the autopsy room, Jane and Maura are again talking about hard things with smirks on their faces. Come on, ladies. Remember the dildo episode? Lots of other things can be hard, too. Just saying. Frost comes in with a possible suspect (a newly released con with a sex doll girlfriend) and Jane tells him to take Frankie because she’s not up for a pervert today. That joke’s too easy, so I’ll skip it. Then Korsak sneaks in with his doggie and asks Maura to examine him. He’s already named him “Barney Miller.” Korsak is such a lesbian, rescuing strays and naming them and imagining their future nights snuggling on the couch together.

Barney is actually a registered service dog and belongs to the veterans center where Lt. Col. Beard Force works. Maura offers to take him back and runs into, yeah, you guessed it. She realizes he is injured and tells him to tell Jane. He says he came back to get into clinical trials for spinal regeneration, not for Jane. Because he is her beard, not her boyfriend. Why is this so hard for everyone to grasp?

In the station, Frost and Korsak put the perv’s sex doll in Jane’s chair. Jane is not amused. But even Jane’s disgust isn’t cheering up Korsak, who misses Barney and the fake home they had together. Frost gives him a suggestive sex doll eye wink. And then Frankie comes in to return her and gives her a little ass slap. Jane, however, only has eyes for her own astonishingly lifelike animatronic girlfriend who comes into the office spewing tech talk. Jane teases her gently, like you tease your girlfriend about her adorable little idiosyncrasies.

Jane: [Makes robot hands] Beep, I am a robot. Beep, I do not compute human talk.

Maura: I do not use that inflection.

Oh, you two. Stop it. When you act cute for a second it makes me miss you even more. Maura does her best to coax Jane out. A run? A beer at the Dirty Robber? A can of whip cream and handcuffs? Yet Jane and her pouty pants won’t play. Back at the Isles Estate, Mama R is showing her daughter-in-law her new online ordering system for the café. But she’s more worried about Jane and her beard dump blues. Maura makes her swear on a Grey’s Anatomy (so cute!) that she won’t tell Jane, but then confesses she went to see Lt. Col. Beard Force and that he is partially paralyzed. Mama R is worried about grandkids, because she thought he would have made a great sperm donor for her girls. Or, you know, that’s how I interpreted it. Maura says something crazy about her being in love with him. And everyone laughs and laughs. Or, you know, just all the lesbians watching at home.

The detectives have finally cracked the victim’s Blackberry. She was sexting with her “family values” boss. But he’s just a red herring they threw out there to take a little poke at the hypocrisy of so many of the conservative traditional values set. But then another body shows up. It’s also made up like some weird big doll and wearing the same early ’90s attire complete with matching scrunchy. Jane says she’s either another time traveler or works for Hillary Clinton. And now a poke at the liberal set. We’ve got your fair and balanced right here.

Back at the café, Mama R is complaining to Frost about how her Interwebs ordering isn’t working. He tells her to start a blog, because clearly down that road leads fame and fortune. Wait, sorry, hold on — I need to take a minute from all the hysterical laughter happening in my head. She takes his advice and starts blogging about what she overhears on the case Jane is working. So, naturally, Rondo and his friends take it to heart and become “Angela’s Guardians” to keep the buses safe for your women. Where a bunch of homeless guys get the money to create matching screen-printed T-shirts is another mystery.

But back to the main mystery, Maura has some news. She had found blood on a wood sliver, because it wouldn’t be precise to call is a splinter. Jane notices Maura has on her, “I’ve got a secret face.” Because, she, too, has studied her girlfriend’s faced. Memorized its topography. Noted any subtle changes in landscape.

Maura says there are three blood types on the sliver. And the third sample is 20 years old. Jane asks if Maura has been drinking to which she responds, “Yes. Water. Two liters a day as recommended by the Mayo Clinic.” Stop it, too adorable, cuteness overload. Less cute is Maura’s other revelation that the sliver of wood was white ash, like the police used to use in their night sticks back in the day. So, because that has clearly been its only application in the last 20 years, they start looking into older cops as suspects.

But, hey, who cares about improbable plot points when Jane and Maura are running in their jogging clothes together? Unfortunately they’re talking about Casey Casey Casey so I’m just going to mute it and enjoy the bouncing.

All that running must have jarred something loose because Jane has a revelation about the case. Could they also be looking for a 20 year old case? Yes, duh. But all that will have to wait because Maura hasn’t gotten her endorphin hit yet so you two will need to take care of that in the locker room or car or someplace you can get appropriately hot and sweaty. People have needs, OK?

After their afternoon delight and a quick shower, Jane is back to share her theory. But Cavanaugh is more worried about Angela’s blog and Rondo’s guardians. Her site already has 12,104 followers. So, fine, she’s not The Huffington Post quite yet. The Lieutenant goes down to speak with Angela and our girls sneak behind the decaying Pinto to spy on them.

But instead of firing her, he walks off with pastries and a smile. Yep, Cavangela/Cavela/Cavazzoli is definitely on. Dr. and Det. Smartypants go to confront Mama R about her blogging. Parents today, they just don’t understand the dangers of the interwebs. So Jane takes away her laptop. Also she’s grounded for a week. And no cellphone either, young lady. Mama R doesn’t take it too well and tells Maura they need to help her with her anger. Maura says they should butt out. But Mama R is not gonna take her grounding without a little plan of her own.

Turns out the grumpy traffic cop’s ex-wife used to own a dollhouse store and then disappeared 20 years ago. He had a history of violence with her, and her mother never believed she would run away and leave her son behind. Speaking of that son, he’s been locked away in a mental ward for the past 20 years as well. Gee, where could this be going?

Back at the lab Jane is pacing impatiently waiting for Maura to finish the DNA results. Maura tells her she is breathing on her. Jane is all, well you don’t seem to mind me breathing on you when you need an endorphin hit.

Then, Lt. Col. Beard Force turns into Lt. Col. Cockblock and texts saying he wants to meet Jane at the Dirty Robber. Luckily, for the time being, Jane only wants Maura and rushes off to follow a lead that ties the traffic cop to all three murders. I mean she even says, “Come on, I need you.”

The lead leads them to, big surprise, the cop’s mentally ill son. And then we have a little showdown. The cop shoots his son. His son knew the cop killed his mother. Jane promises the son she’ll tell what his father did. Then they find her 20-year-old body buried behind the fireplace. And Jane gets angry. Please, feel free to bask in the righteous sexiness of her anger.

Less sexy is Jane’s weird fidgety schoolgirlness when she goes to meet Beard Force at the bar. She tells him she’d like to take it slow. Go running or rollerblading together. He gets insulted, thinking she is taunting him. He says he was a fool to have believed her note. Which she didn’t write, but which said she knows and doesn’t care. Mama R is so grounded for two weeks now. They talk it out. He says he needs time. I say no amount of time will change how gay she really is for Maura. And then he asks her not to watch him leave. She does. And cries a single tear. And then Maura walks in.

Because, when all the beards and boyfriends and bogus things that keep them apart are gone, who will be there to wipe away the tears? Maura. Who will be there to make Jane smile? Maura? Who will be there to shut the front door and live happily ever after together? Maura. Well, at least in the show I’m watching in my head she is. Always.

And now, on to another week of disgruntled #gayzzoli tweets. Seriously, we ask for so little. A little eye sex and a loving TGTGT tap and we’re happy. Sigh.

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

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button