Rizzoli & Isles 4×02 “In Over Your Head” Review & Recap

Serena Hope Hohenstein ‘17 / Emertainment Monthly Writer

This week’s episode of Rizzoli & Isles began with a chilling scene; a young woman asks a man, whose face is obscured by a hooded sweatshirt, to talk. We then see the man in a warehouse forcing her head into a tub of water over and over until ultimately she drowns.

Meanwhile, in the precinct, Frankie (Jordan Bridges) is getting ready for a new assignment as a detective in the drug unit. He’s wearing the complete biker ensemble, for which his sister, Jane (Angie Harmon), berates him. Then, we are introduced to the new head of Boston PD’s drug unit, Rafael Martinez (Amaury Nolasco). It is immediately clear that he and Jane have a past. Oh, and in these scenes, there are more hints of a potential Maura (Sasha Alexander)/Frankie romance. I’m not sure how I feel about this yet…

Throughout the episode, Maura and Jane quarrel over the fact that Jane spilled coffee inside Maura’s car. She also gets frustrated when she steps in something at the crime scene that gets all over her five-hundred and fifty dollar shoes. Hold onto that. It will come into play later!

So, the body is found in the ocean washing upon the shore, so the state police are at the scene ready to take over. None of the members of the Boston Homicide Division want them to have jurisdiction, so Jane, Frost (Lee Thompson Young), and Korsak (Bruce McGill) pull of a hilarious distraction regarding horseshoe crabs, meanwhile dragging the body further back into the water. And off they go!

Back at the morgue, Maura tells the team that the body was definitely dumped in the harbor and that she found a sticky abrasion on the girl’s neck. Other than that, they don’t have an I.D. or any other info about the victim. Once the boys leave, Jane and Maura are left alone to discuss Jane’s reaction to Rafael, as Maura likes to call him. After denying any sort of relationship, Jane finally tells Maura what happened between the two of them; in the Drug Unit eight years ago Jane and Martinez had to play a couple when they went undercover. One night, they got their CI killed and subsequently had a falling out. They hadn’t spoken a word to each other since.

Suddenly, someone comes into the room to tell Maura that her sister is upstairs. Neither Maura nor Jane knows what she would want, and Maura drags Jane up with her. Calin (Emilee Wallace) is obviously nervous as she is biting her nails and her body language is closed off. She tells the pair that scary men arrived at Maura and Calin’s mother, Hope’s (Sharon Lawrence) house the night before. Calin explains that her mother told her to go in her room and lock the door. She says she heard them talking about MEND, Hope’s charity. Maura and Jane tell Calin that they will talk to Hope and see what’s going on. Calin is extremely grateful for her sister’s help.

At MEND, Hope refuses to reveal truthful information regarding what happened at her home, stating that teenagers often blow things way out of proportion and there was nothing to worry about. Jane and Maura know this isn’t the truth, but have to accept that Hope will not talk any longer and leave the facility. While in the car, Jane gets a call from Frost and Korsak. They found the girl. She was a student at BCU. Jane tells them she’s going to drop Maura off, and then come to the precinct. The audience realized this is a possible cover, because while talking to Korsak, Jane notices a car following them.

Jane didn’t go to the precinct. Instead, she went to the jail to visit Maura’s biological father, Paddy Doyle (John Doman). She told him to have his men lay off of Hope and Maura, but soon realizes that it’s not his men by Paddy’s reactions. It’s the Feds. It is clear Paddy knows something about the reason why they’re investigating MEND, Hope, and Maura, but will not speak. He seems to be like his former wife in that way. Hmm…

Inside the girls’ room at BCU, Korsak and Frost discover cocaine. The label on the package says BCU Gold. All of her roommates say she would have never done drugs, and neither would they. They explain that her brother had died from an overdose. The girls give the detectives some useful information by telling them she was studying investigative journalism. Korsak and Frost then find a paper of hers graded by a teacher with the initials of TF. According to the girls, the victim responded to him as “Touchy” Feeny because he hugged her often and showed her special affection. The boys bring him in, but it’s obvious he’s not a suspect.

Maura gets the results of the test done on the water and it resulted in rain water and a certain type of rust that can only be found in old warehouses, and there are only a few left on the harbor. The team enters one of the warehouses and finds a tub with blood and hair lining it. And above it is a leaky roof. The rainwater. The team searches the area further and finds recording equipment. The sticky substance on the victim’s neck was from a mic. She had been wired for an ambush interview when she was killed. Frost is able to break into the victim’s computer and find sound files on her Cloud. Of course, those are protected, too, but one opens: it contains a recording of the girl being drowned, and then silence.

Back at the precinct, Jane is fiddling with the victim’s BCU stuffed mascot when she notices that there’s something stuffed inside it. It’s Martinez’s card and it has the word “cricket” written on the back. Jane rushes into the office of Martinez and scolds him for letting his CI die again. His distress word is “cricket”, which is how Jane knew. She’s almost in tears as she exits his office.

At a local bar, Jane and Maura discuss what happened with the CI and Martinez eight years ago. Jane tells Maura that it wasn’t Ramirez’s fault that Yolanda got killed, it was hers. She recounts the event as the audience sees a flashback. Jane feels as though she didn’t act quickly enough and that if she had, she could have saved her. She’s carried that guilt around all these years.

Going back to the case of Maura’s family, Maura leads Jane down into the evidence locker, where she breaks in, and leads Jane to a particular section. Paddy’s files. Maura tells Jane that the building on her necklace wasn’t even built until 1993, so Hope couldn’t have received it on her eighteenth birthday, but she did get it from Paddy. That year, Paddy and Hope met in Sarajevo where Paddy, as a fugitive gave Hope the money for MEND. Once again, the pair go to see Hope and convince her to do something.

Together, the three go to see Paddy. He tells them he never wanted his ex-wife and daughter to get pulled into everything. That’s why he told Hope that Maura had died as a baby. So, the women tell him to plead guilty. If he pleads guilty, they won’t go down with him. Paddy explains that he would kill for his two girls (in fact, he already has), but he won’t plead guilty. That’s something he will never do. Thus ends the Paddy storyline for this episode.

Randomly, Maura figures out that transmission fluid is what she had stepped in at the beach, and what she had stepped in again at the warehouse. The fluid belonged to a State Trooper vehicle. The team went back to the pictures to see if they could uncover who specifically the car belonged to. And when they did, there was an audible gasp.

Jane goes to Martinez to see who was following up on the drug leads. Much to Jane’s dismay, the detective was Frankie. The homicide division, along with Martinez race to a parking garage where Frankie is talking with the head of the State Troopers. When the police come rushing in, he takes Frankie hostage, holding a gun to his head. In a dire situation, Frankie proves himself by making eye contact with Jane and then turning on the murderer, and throwing him to the ground. The episode ends with a brief exchange between Jane and Martinez.

I don’t know about you, but I do not really like the J
ane/Martinez relationship. If they turn out to be friends and are capable of working with each other with maybe a little tension here and there, I think it will work, but I think putting them together as a couple right now (especially so soon after Casey) may not be the smartest plan. But I’d like to hear from you! How do you feel about this new character?

Rizzoli & Isles airs Tuesdays at 9PM EST on TNT.