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“Rizzoli & Isles” Retro Subtext Recap (1.03): The days of wine and dead fridge cheese

Hey, kids, remember when your parents told you skateboarding wasn’t safe? Keep that in mind for later. For now, Jane Rizzoli is trying on dresses with her mother. Yes, dresses. Yes, with her mother. Some of you may be flashing back to the agony of hours spent having to put on frilly things for your own mother’s approval. Let me just say, Jane feels your pain — and then some.

But Mama Rizzoli stands firm: they’re not leaving until they find something they both like. Well in that case they’d better put the dress on one Dr. Maura Isles because I’m pretty sure that’s the only kind Jane really likes. But mama is persistent and hands Jane a little black dress, saying every girl needs an LBD. Jane quips: “Not me, I got vaccinated.” Using humor to deflect a clueless mom about your decidedly un-girly fashion choices? Man, these flashbacks are getting stronger.

Jane looks great in the dress, naturally, because Angie Harmon would look great in even a mud-soaked Snuggie. But she complains that she’ll have no place to wear it, switching to the practicality defense instead. Still her mom jujitsu fails, and Jane relents telling her to buy the dress even though it will only “look fabulous in my closet.” Things that looks fabulous in the closet? Hmmm, give me a second — I’m sure I can think of something else that fits that description.

So it’s Mama: 1, Jane: 0. And, as if insult to butch injury, her mom pulls yet another one of the classic, all-time annoying mother moves — she bursts into Jane’s fitting room while she is getting dressed. Jane squawks, but her mom pshaws saying that it’s nothing she hasn’t seen before. Well, I haven’t seen it before. So thank you for being tactless, Mama Rizzoli.

Jane arrives with Maura at the latest crime scene. The teenager boy we saw skateboarding earlier is dead in an alley. See: dangerous. Just as dangerous is Jane’s loud complaining about Grant (that’s Lt. New Kid on the Homicide Block, to you) who has showed up and is talking to the press. Maura says he’s got “pulp.” Jane corrects her, saying it’s “juice.” Great, now I’m thirsty.

Maura, protecting her headstrong girlfriend as always, scolds Jane saying she had better lower her voice or she will be drinking her pulpy juice out of a sippy cup. Yes, a sippy cup. Someone is channeling her inner Bette Porter and I like it.

The dead boy’s mother tells Jane and Det. Frost that it was the devil (i.e. evil skateboarder kids) who got into her son and now she is cursed. Since they’ve already mentioned devils and curses, I feel it’s my duty to tell you that the deceased’s mom is wearing a head wrap and large hoop earrings. So I fear at any moment the writers will have her scream “Call me now!”

Back in the morgue, Maura tells Jane she can’t pinpoint a cause of death. She also asks her if Grant is sexy “in a male sort of way?” Right, because straight women always ask each other if men are attractive in a “male sort of way.” Maura saves herself though by admitting he isn’t her type. You know, the male sort of type.

Jane calls him a “brass kisser” and says he used to yell “roly-poly Rizzoli eats cannoli” at her. Maura asks sympathetically if Jane was overweight and Jane insists she was just “athletic and strong.” Even Maura with her literal interpretations of everyday idioms knows what “athletic and strong” are code for. Right, Maura?

The boy shows signs of being involved in an exorcism, so they track down his mom’s Cape Verdean church and its ex-con priest. Jane and Maura go there to question him, but really just to stand together and look pretty. I mean, look — pretty.

Also, they throw in a quickie eye sex session because when there’s that much pretty happening sometimes you just can’t help yourself. Then, later outside the car, they have a proper session.

After Jane returns from finding out that the dead kid’s mom and dad were in a bitter custody dispute, Maura finally concludes that his death was not from natural causes. She also colludes with Mama Rizzoli who has brought Jane her LBD to wear to dinner the next night. They bond over the stitching.

Then Jane and Maura bond over lunch. Jane shares the peanut butter and fluff sandwich her mom brought her with Maura. Say it with me, “Awwww.” Of course, Maura at first confuses the fluff with “light, downy particles of cotton” instead of good old marshmallow. But Jane soon sets her straight. Relax, everyone, not that kind of straight.

The writers apparently really have it in for skateboarders because Jane and Frost next follow the “evil skateboarders” theory to see if there is any correlation between the ability to ollie and the ability to kill. They isn’t, but that doesn’t keep Frost from showing off his He-Man side and slamming the ring leader against the cop car. It must be hard on a fella’s pride when his partner is that much hotter and butcher than him.

Jane and Maura are walking to the parking garage together after work. Before they can get to the obvious question (“Your place or mine?”), Jane hears something strange. Her first instinct, of course, is to grab Maura to protect her. And they say chivalry is dead.

The sound turns out to be snakes – a lot of them – in Jane’s car. Now it’s Jane’s turn to channel someone and she picks Indiana Jones saying, “I hate snakes.” Once the pesky serpent situation is taken care of, naturally, Jane and Maura go out to dinner. Danger has a way of drawing us closer to the one’s we love — and working up an appetite.

Jane asks Maura to guess (hypothetically, because Maura doesn’t guess) what might have killed the boy. Maura says there are documented cases of people being hexed to death. Not that these so-called hexes kills them, but the fear leads them to have a heart attack. Oh, and by the way as kids Jane was scared of witches and Maura of flesh-eating bacteria. Telling — speaking of telling do you want me to tell you what Maura said about how and through which orifices the bacteria attacks? Nah, didn’t think so.

Instead the ladies go get a little religion. Jane, Maura and Det. Frost (cough, third wheel, cough) show up to the victim’s mother’s church to observe her exorcism ceremony. Jane is all worked up about attending the ritual, while Maura is getting into it and clapping along. We’ll get into the necessary cultural sensitivity lecture later, but for now please enjoy the Totally Gratuitous, Totally Gay Touching that transpires between Jane and Maura.

Sheesh, those two can’t even keep their hands off each other in church. But before things can get too touchy-feely, a Molotov cocktail thrown through the church window kills the mood. Punk skater kid did it as retaliation for the death of his friend or some such twisted logic.

Now Jane is in real trouble, not because she was just fire bombed but because she is later for dinner with her family. She rushes off and arrives in her LBD with a bouquet of flowers. Who does she find waiting for her as the only guest but Grant. She fell victim to another classic mom move: The set-up. This, by the way, is how I imagine Jane looks when she shows up to all her dates with Maura, but without the look of abject horror in her eyes.

Mama Rizzoli at first denies the set-up but you can’t lie to a homicide detective. She admits to wanting to make sure Jane is “taken care of” and then tells her to “go be a girl.” Lady, you really need to start reading those PFLAG pamphlets I keep sending you.

Jane grabs the wine bottle and goes to face her set up. Grant tells her he hasn’t seen her in a dress since Senior Prom. Take a hint, people. Rather than recap their awkward banter, I’m going to let Jane’s face explain what happens. Keep on drinking that wine, honey. It’s the only way to get through this.

Then Jane says the truest thing ever: “No offense, but I don’t need a guy to make me happy.” Nope, she needs a Maura. So she grabs the wine bottle and the flowers and goes off to find her.

In the morgue, Maura pours the wine and chuckles. Jane, still in her little black dress, does that fake insecurity thing where you’re really fishing for a compliment from your girlfriend. Not that that’s something I’ve ever done or anything.

Jane: Why are you laughing? Do I look stupid?

Maura: No, are you kidding? Really, you don’t know? You’re gorgeous, my friend.

Cue bow-chicka-bow-wow music and massive eye sex.

Right, and Maura eats a little cheese from the “dead fridge.” Jane leaves to solve the murder/play hard to get and Maura asks her “night light on or off?” I’m going to assume that means at her place because it’ll be late by the time Jane gets to Maura’s apartment.

At her own apartment, Jane goes over the case file. One of the photos drops and when she picks it up there is blood, which leads to a trail which leads to the dead boy in her kitchen which leads to him sitting up and handing her a purple plant. See, the dead don’t like it when you refuse their cheese.

Jane wakes with a start, only to find her bouquet of flowers and vase have fallen onto the ground in the kitchen. So, naturally, after such a fright she calls Maura to come over and snuggle. Maura arrives as requested in her silky pajamas. Something tells me this scene is a common one at Casa Rizzoli.

Before they spoon each other to sleep, Jane asks Maura to run one more toxicology screen on the boy, this time for purple poisonous plants. And there just so happens to be one indigenous to Boston, monkshood. The next morning, Maura confirms its presence in the boy’s body. Then Jane remembers where she saw the plant before. She then asks Maura if she will lie about plant genetics for her. Maura says no, she doesn’t lie. Jane tests her asking if she’s ever told a guy he was good when he wasn’t (no, duh) and if she likes her shirt with her jacket (no, again). Well, her voice said no, but her eyes say, “Hello, tall, dark and handsome.”

Jane has deduced that it was the father’s new wife who poisoned his son because he wouldn’t have kids with her. So, that stuff I said about the skateboarders before, never mind. Instead, beware evil stepmothers. We also learn that Maura lied; she will lie for Jane. I’d wager she’d do just about anything for Jane — or with Jane for that matter. Ahem.

Back at Jane’s place Grant is waiting on her doorstep in the rain. Sad puppy needs a clue. He has come to tell her about his big new job in D.C./joining the cast of Blue Bloods on another channel. This means he’ll be out of her hair. That sound you heard right about then was the collective sigh of relief of gay ladies around the world.

But then he admits he has liked her for a long time. He goes in for the kiss but denied. Those lips belong to one Dr. Maura Isles, buddy, and don’t you ever forget that.

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