Rizzoli and Isles Battle Armored Knights And Horny Dudes When Maura’s Birth Mom Visits

Adoption has such a bad rap on television. The adopted are always a little sour over their lot in life and focus a great deal on being “abandoned” by their “real parents.” Often when they find their birth parents they sacrifice their relationship with their adoptive parents. Everything–everything is about biology and genetics rather than sociology. The story told on television always seems to be nature trumps nurture.

The Maura adoption storyline has been going on since late season one and it’s done a good deal to buck the trends. Maura is curious about her birth parents, but she also is very secure in her relationship with her adoptive parents. They’re not caregivers to be cast aside when she finds her “real” parents and she makes it clear that biology and upbringing are very very different. She makes the distinction so many shows have difficulty with.

This latest episode followed the revelation from the premiere: Maura’s birth mother is alive and thinks that she is dead. Ouch. Not necessarily the typical adoption narrative and throughout the episode Maura really struggles with it. When she finally meets her birth mother and it turns out many of her little “quirks” are likely inherited from her she’s bowled over by emotion and when Jane rushes up to ask when she’ll reveal herself to Hope, her super scientist mother who is essentially a more talented Bones, she tearfully declares that she won’t.

And Jane doesn’t fight her on it.

Guys. Guys. Guys. This is kind of monumental? I’m so used to friends and families taking choices like this one out of the hands of characters. I’m accustomed to seeing the birth mother find out anyways, whether via accident or a friend who “knows better.” But not here! Maura makes it clear she doesn’t want Hope to know she exists and Jane and her friends and family respect that choice. Honestly after they turned Santana’s coming out into a moment to teach Finn about feelings I was kind of concerned that forever and always television would stop respecting a lady’s choice and just do what the writer’s felt was morally right rather than the characters felt was right.

That didn’t stop the rest of the hour from being all over the place. I think Rizzoli and Isles is going for a blend of workplace drama and murder mystery–kind of a House or Grey’s Anatomy style show where the case of the week can take a back seat to the stylings of the characters and inform it rather then be the bulk of the episode.

I’m down with that.

Yet their cases of the week rarely actually inform the main plot? They’re pedantic diversions. This week I had to go review my notes just to remember what the heck the crime of the week was. It felt disconnected from the main plot and it wasn’t. The bizarre Angela/dude who thinks Jane is a lesbian put on a political campaign plot and the Hope plot both dovetailed niftily into the murder mystery, but it was perfunctory. Sort of as though someone remembered at the last moment that the show is ostensibly a weekly murder mystery show and not a Jane and Maura have sassy life adventures in and out of work show.

Also. There was a nun. I don’t know why she existed. She was filler. Someone to show up randomly so Jane and Frankie could look shocked and we could learn Frost’s first name is Barold. It was…I don’t even know. I kept watching it wondering why these scenes existed. Here Maura is wrestling with the discovery of her birth mother and Angela is fighting off advances from the guy that wants a threesome with her two daughters and there’s a killer who murders women with an armored gauntlet but no, let’s watch Jenny O’Hara (looking more and more like Shirley MacLaine) scold full-grown adults and get involved in murder investigations.

No really, why do you exist?

I–whaaaat?

The worst thing the nun subplot stole from us? More moments of Maura and Jane pretending to be a couple to keep Gionvanni out of their pants. Giovanni is Chekhov’s gun for lesbian subtext people. You do not introduce him into an episode unless you plan to titillate your viewers with some lady touching, heavy petting via eye sex and possibly a stroking of the belly or two. Somewhere Chekhov is crying at all the extraneous and unnecessary subplots.

But at least we got a shot of Maura checking out Jane's rack.

Notes

• Frost collapsing after Maura snipped a finger off a dead woman was the best. As was Jane laughing and pointing at him because she’s a jerk.

Dude just cratered.

• I’m on the good ship Barricisco which is what I now call Frankie and Frost’s friendship.
• Sharon Lawrence was tops as Hope Martin, the mother who never knew she had an awesome daughter. I want a Bones’ like series about how in Europe fighting genocide.
• But for such a smart and stable lady what was up with her being delighted by Maura’s uncontrollable bouts of tears?
• Her “I feel I can tell you things” moment was sweet but oh man it felt like it was out of some fourteen year old’s fanfiction.
• Remember that time Jane watched her BFF cry and just stared. Because it happened.
• Was it just me or were the “playful barbs” being tossed about just kind of cruel? Poor G just wants some lovin’.
• Next Week: Maura may or may not tell Hope she’s her biological goo grown up. Tears will be shed regardless. Also there appears to be some Eyes Wide Shut kink going down. Bring your mask and be prepared to sing “Masquerade” at the top of your lungs.