RIZZOLI & ISLES: My Own Worst Enemy

This week’s episode of Rizzoli & Isles felt disjointed. Was it just me? Admittedly I was distracted by the appearance of Jonathan Cake (Cole Barker on Chuck!) and trying to figure out who he was to Maura, but the case of the week never engaged me and what was the deal with the foot fungus/ingrown toenail subplot? Throw in Ma Rizzoli’s sudden foray into becoming a certified organization specialist and this one was all over the place.

Let’s get the criminals out of the way first. A father is gunned down in front of his son, who is badly beaten. At first it seems like an unprovoked attack with the son unable to provide an explanation, but a bit of suspicious behavior and a connection to a nail salon eventually lead to a drug distribution ring. The son shipped blankets soaked in liquid heroin in the father’s trucks, delivering them to a nail salon that was a front for a heroin operation. Maura got to perform a necropsy on a rat found in the truck – the animals threw the drug sniffing dogs off the scent – before trying to remove Jane’s ingrown toenail. Gross.

More interesting was the subplot with Maura and Ian. If we’d dropped the “foot” plot, maybe we could have spent more time on this so Maura’s emotional revelation to Jane at the end – that Ian is the love of her life – would have had more impact. This is a huge secret! One she’s kept from her best friend, one she’s kept from everyone from the sound of it. Our Maura of the Casual Relationship has a beloved halfway around the world. She risks prison to give him supplies for the poverty-stricken people he treats in Africa. Not being with him makes her so sad, she can’t talk about him to anyone. Maybe we’ll revisit this in the future, but it felt like a missed opportunity for Sasha Alexander to flex her acting muscles and give us some insight into Maura. We did get that nice moment at the end with Jane offering to drive Maura to the airport, and then to just sit with her until she felt better. That’s more like it.

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