RIZZOLI & ISLES: Brown Eyed Girl

Is it just me or are the cases Rizzoli & Isles are handling this season packing more of an emotional wallop than your average cop show? Yeah, I’m back to recapping the adventures of Jane and Maura after a week off for Comic Con and another week off because my TV died. I’m home again and have a new TV, so it’s been TV marathon time over here and nothing prepared me to be crying at the end (and sometimes the middle) of every episode of the TNT drama.

After a case involving a baby who’s surrogate was murdered two weeks ago, now we have a missing 13-year-old whose father used to be Rizzoli’s partner in the drug unit. The clock is ticking on this abduction which meant the squad was already tense, but add in the distraught and estranged parents and the little brother who saw the abduction and this one had me on the edge of my seat. Jane had a strong emotional connection to the case since it involved people she knew, as did Korsak. Maura and Frost were also taking it personally because of the cop connection. Even Ma Rizzoli was in on it since the mom and son camped out in the cafe where she works. I’m telling you, this one was a tearjerker.

The search for young Mandy turned up another girl, killed just hours before they found her. Maura was able to deduce that she’d died while protecting someone, and although she was a few years older than Mandy, Jane saw enough similarities between the girls to find a pattern. The older girl, Sophie, had been held captive for several years, repeatedly sexually assaulted, starved, and confined to a dark space. In case we weren’t getting the picture, Jane namechecked Jaycee Duggar and Elizabeth Smart for us, ratcheting up the horror of the situation.

Clues led to suspects and a near resolution was botched by a patrol officer, but in the end the squad rescued Mandy. What struck me at the end of the episode, as I wiped my eyes, was how little we were told about the kidnappers. We met the woman, briefly, and understood that she’d been brainwashed into believing that the man was a prophet of some kind. The man, well, we saw him as he ran toward Rizzoli, Korsak and Frost wielding an axe, only to be felled by multiple gunshot wounds. No confession. No attempt to excuse his terrible actions. Just eight or nine rounds to the chest. Cathartic? Maybe. I didn’t want to hear him try to rationalize his behavior and more than I want to hear Jaycee or Elizabeth’s abductors do so. And the criminals weren’t the focus here, the victims were, including Rizzoli.

Jane was more emotional than I remember seeing any other cop on TV, yet I never doubted that she was going to solve the case. That’s the beauty of this show: the women are allowed to be women, to have a female perspective and to show emotion, but it doesn’t undermine their positions of strength or authority.

Rizzoli & Isles airs Mondays at 10/9c on TNT.