Butch in Progress

[B+K] The Season 2 Finale might have been the series’ gayest episode yet - not because of eyesex (which there was, but not plenty), love declarations between the leading ladies (which were surely missed), or sleep-overs (which, retrospectively seem to have been a season one exclusive thing), but because Rizzoli & Isles dared go, where no TV Show has ever gone before (and where I think only John Waters and ACT UP have ever been): showing its audience the fatal consequences of choosing the sinful lifestyle of heterosexual promiscuity over lesbian monogamy. Yep, that’s right: a TNT crime show took one of cinema’s oldest stereotypes (the person converted to homosexuality becoming the sad/suicidal/murdering villain) and turned it around. Hence, with the right amount of interpretative freedom Monday night’s  “Burning down the House” was not actually, as I was first led to believe, us witnessing the sinking of one of our favorites female friendships on TV, which I could only forgive it the drama was justified with an all-problem solving musical episode next season, but rather part of the joyous Homosexual Agenda. Me gusta.

TNT made sure we got the message about the depravity of straight tendencies by casting the by far most unattractive male to play Jane’s illicit affair - this is especially noteworthy in the alternative Boston-universe of highly-attractive-dudes-under-40-only in which Rizzoli & Isles take place. Observe: which of the following does not look like the others?

^{If you say either “the one with the uniform” or “the one with the dog”, this is the wrong recap for you}

Shortly after a fireman dies in what ostensibly is the actual crime of this episode, the equally criminal second storyline gets introduced via the predatory male specimen of unattractiveness who ambushes Jane, while she is taking Joe out for a walk, and then tries to distract her with what I can only assume is Jane “I hate pink girly stuff” Rizzoli’s personal cryptonite: pink flowers. Jane is appropriately surprised… or maybe it’s pity? Either way: complete gift-induced ecstacy looks different:

Nevertheless, Jane says she’s happy to see him, they hug, he tries to be flirty “in a male kinda of way” (= the “I don’t get it kinda way”). If annoying is what TNT is aiming for, they can count this scene as a complete success.

But fret not: Things start to look brighter again, when Maura dons her black scrubs, impresses Jane by giving simple “Yes/No” to complicated questions, is her usual flirtatious self, and finally suggests a double date… she knows how to keep and eye on her woman.

Jane’s nervous face introdcues the revolutionary part of this episode: if Jane had agreed to go on this double-date with her girlfriend and her mother-in-law, everything would have turned out just fine. Only by deciding to spend the evening in hiding with the shame-ridden male specimen of unattractiveness, who does not dare show himself publicly with Jane, Jane sets off the chain-reaction of doom.

1. Maura’s mother gets run over - if Butch McFabulous had been there on the double-date as suggested, they wouldn’t have left as early (because Maura and Jane would have split their dessert) AND ButchMcFabulous would have released her inner Chuck Norris to stop the car. The case could have been solved calmy and they would have had time to enjoy a cool beer at the Dirty Robber afterwards, where they would have discussed the departure of Dean before leaving together to join their mums at Maura’s kitchen counter. Bliss.
2. After the completely unfancy “I brought you take away”-dinner (again: “male kind of way”?), Jane makes another bad judgement and decides to sleep with male specimen of unattractiveness, while her best friend sits by the bedside of her fatally injured mother. See what heterosexuality does to you? It changes your personality and turns you into an emotionless, egoistical idiot who’s bound to end up deserted and lonely. Don’t go down that path, people, don’t!
3. Jane realizes her mistake rather quickly, when she wakes up the next morning dizzy from regret. Again, one is not like the other:

   

   There’s even a close up to show the audience the outrageous dimension of Jane’s mistake:

   ^{Is that what she sees in him?}

4. Jane tops all that by sharing the secret of Doyle’s connection to Maura with “Gabriel”, while ” Agent Dean” is supposed turn a deaf ear. The regret (and the nauseating sight of male specimen of unattractiveness with exposed chesthair) must still make her feel dazed… because that breach of confidence was as unnecessary as it was stupid (and a rather obviously desparate attempt to create drama… a successful attemptas it turns out.)

After the chain-reaction of doom is set off, there’s really not that much left to do (though the writer’s find the time to slip in another continuity-mistake, as Maura “remembering every fact on this planet” Isles forgets she has seen Doyle’s pictures of her graduation before.) And so Agent Dean, who did not get Jane’s hint about being only her boytoy, not the secret agent, storms into a pretty safe scene, in which Maura gets the arsinist/murderer to confess and daddy Doyle does the dirty work for Jane and Frost. Instead of just staying away and watching the ladies do the work, male specimen of unattractiveness desparately tries to make up for his lack of physical and sexual appeal and lacking ability to buy non-offensive gifts,  take a girl out for dinner, or get a haircut by doing another “a male kind of way” thing: Dean shoots Doyle, who shoots him, which - admittedly - forces Jane to shoot Doyle again. As Maura runs to her dying biological father’s side, Jane finally snaps out of her heterosexual daze and realizes that now might be a good time to finally be there for her LLBFF again. And to generally act like her butch self we fell in love with on the first place.

Too late? Better late than never?

We’ll see next summer, in what I hope will be a musical extravaganza - as this is surely the best way to propagate the homosexual agenda. Harhar!

On the bright side: we can now officially list Doyle to the growing list “of biological and other parents who ship Maura and Jane”.

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On a more serious note: I could have dealt with the rift better, if it would have been only half as contrived… Dean’s presence was forced and unnecessary, Jane’s behavious was completely annoying and unrelated to the person she has been for the last two seasons and the chemistry between Maura and Jane is so superior to anything Jane and Dean were trying to sell us that his untimely death was a relief rather than part of the drama. Hence: Check back for Butch in Progress’s “Biased Advice for Season 3”!