Rizzoli and Isles 5x07 Boston Keltic Review

To quote Maura Isles – “this doesn’t happen very often, but right now I’m very confused.”

This episode was confusing right from the beginning – starting with the title. Some places have it written as “Boston Keltic” and some as “Boston Celtic” – even though they’re both pronounced with a “K” sound (unless you’re a Boston NBA team, which apparently doesn’t know the correct pronunciation) – and even the dictionary says for Keltic to “See Celtic”. Maybe they have it as “Boston Keltic” to avoid confusion or conflict over pronunciations, trademarks, copyrights, or anything else that could make this more confusing…okay, sorry. Too late for that.

Forget K’s or C’s. Let’s just call this the “Shake my head” episode. On second thought, I just may call this the “are they really?” episode.

Are they really getting rid of everybody now?

I know Lorraine is part of the new fall tv show, Mulaney, as she’ll play a lesbian couple with Penny Marshall, so that will definitely cut her screen time here. I’m not sure how big of a role it is. But to all of a sudden have Angela give up her boyfriend, quit her job, and make a ‘fresh start’? Seriously? This is a woman who, just a couple seasons ago, had her husband of many years run away with a much younger woman, had to sell her house, move into her daughter’s best friend’s guest house, take a job at the Boston PD café, and has finally gotten her life back together and has her family close at hand…and now she’s got an itch to just give it all up to start over again? Nope. I just don’t buy it. Isn’t that the same thing that Frank did? Sheesh! I did love the scene with Angela doing yoga in Maura’s house. I think Korsak’s even better at it than Angela is. However, it begs the question – why is Angela doing yoga in the living room and not in the yoga room?

J: are you gonna still stay here at Maura’s?

A: who knows.

J: you know my couch doesn’t fold out, right?

Actually, they could just have Angela move into Jane’s condo since Jane is never there anymore anyway. It seems she’s always at Maura’s, and nobody raises an eyebrow. So if Angela moves into Jane’s place, Jane could officially move into the guest house. Then it wouldn’t seem ridiculous that they’re always there together. And speaking of Jane’s place. I had to chuckle when showrunner Jan Nash tweeted last night that the space that they use for Jane’s condo was actually used for the “bookstore” in this episode. See, one more reason to get rid of Jane’s place. Now, we just need a Bass & Jo Friday sighting at Casa Isles and we’re all set.

Are they writing Brian Goodman off the show for good now? I know they don’t have him in the opening credits anymore (and he really didn’t have any extra screen time when he was), but lately he’s only been around as Angela’s boyfriend.

Are they really basically writing Paddy out of the show by shipping him out to California? Come on!! I really, really love the Jane/Paddy and Maura/Paddy interactions. I wish they would have done more with Paddy before they decided to capture him and put him in prison. I love the character. He brought a lot of grit or toughness to the show. I love how Paddy can seem so hard & steely, but he has had a certain respect for Jane – I think mainly now because he knows that Jane is the only one he can trust who can look out for Maura. I think Jane also has a respect for Paddy, first of all, because he takes care of bad guys (even if it may be outside the law), but mainly because (like it or not) he is Maura’s biological father, and (like it or not) Maura does have feelings for him, even if she doesn’t want to.  But now to move him all the way across the country, we won’t even have any of these types of small scenes. I really wish we could have seen the Maura/Paddy interaction at the end. I would have loved the last frame to be a Maura/Paddy hug.

J: your lawyer represents this guy

P: don’t know him

J: Donald Maxwell. He’s involved in the murder of a bookseller named Brendan McHale.

P: they’re killing booksellers now? What’s next, the ice cream man?

J: they broke his fingers one by one until he died of shock. It just seems like something they would do back in the old days.

P: you think I’m involved?

J: I didn’t come here cuz I missed you

P: right. Well I guess you haven’t noticed, I’m in prison.

J: in case you haven’t noticed, you’re still the biggest crime boss in Boston.

P: I had nothing to do with this.

J: okay, but maybe you still know some things. The killer was looking for some things. Who sends this guy to find them?

P: how’s Maura?

J: She’s good. Really good.

P: nobody sends Donald Maxwell to do something difficult. He couldn’t break wind without help.

J: then why is he at my crime scene?

P: I don’t know, but he’s just an errand boy.

J: errand boy. So what, maybe he’s helping out somebody around Boston, somebody who’s not from here?

P: that sounds like Donald’s speed.

J: well, if he’s driving somebody around, maybe he’s gotta get back to him….thank you

P: Jane.

J: yeah.

P: now can you do me a favor?

Have I mentioned that I love scenes with these two? They’re so similar, but each are on different sides of the law.

Did we really need the blink-and-you-miss-them appearances from the professor from “State” and the British cop? Couldn’t we have used that tiny bit of extra time to see more of Jane/Paddy or at least a little bit of Maura/Paddy? Or I’d have liked a bit more with Jane & Ricky. Any of those would have even been much more interesting than any of the Jane/Maura “Jack” talk. Seriously. Do we always need to have the cute Jane/Maura flirty scenes all about guys (aka ‘beards’)? I’m just glad they had to cancel on him (three times!) Out of sight, out of mind, right? I wish!

The Jane/Maura elevator scene was very short, but it’s one of my favorites of the season so far. They didn’t mention his name, but they were definitely talking about Paddy and I'm guessing to Jane shooting him.

M: what are you going to tell him (Ricky)?

J: the truth

M: you mean that sometimes people we love do horrible things, but it doesn’t have anything to do about how they feel about us?

J: something like that, yeah.           

The final scene where Maura was walking down the hallway to see Paddy, I couldn't help but remember the last time we saw Maura walking down a prison hall - she was the one in the orange jump suit this time. I love how Maura kept her head high as she walked. And, of course, Jane's expression as Maura made her way down to Paddy was so sweet!

Back to the bit part for Gillian (the British cop) – did we really need to hear all of Frankie’s drooling over the woman? By his own admission, he wasn’t even really listening to her, he was just stuck in la-la land over her accent. It kind of reminds me of the way Jane looks every time that Maura does her google-speak. We see Jane get this tiny smile on her lips and her eyes get soft. *ahem* anyhow, I guess the Frankie/Gillian paring won’t be quite as awkward as Frankie/Maura. Is it just me, or does anyone else still get squeamish every time Maura & Frankie have a scene together – even if it’s quite innocent. I don’t even want to remember that awkward storyline. They spend all of last season building up the concept that “Maura is family” and then they go that route? Ewwww!!

Let me get back to Gillian for a minute. I did like the Jane/Maura/Gillian scene, where Jane gave Maura the credit for cracking the case:

G: how did you figure it out? Are you some sort of bibliophile?

J: no, it wasn’t me, it was our resident ‘everything-o-phile’, Dr Maura Isles.

M: I don’t know everything.

J: (to Maura) what’s the capital of Chile? (to Gillian) she knows.

But really, Google-mouth is much easier on the tongue than Everything-o-phile.

I actually liked the character of Ricky – the assistant at the book shop. He was so abrupt at the crime scene (“nope.” – “nope.” – “nope.”). I love how he opened up when he talked with Jane at the entrance of PD. He talked about his 14-year old sister in the car and he was taking her to her soccer game. (J: tell your sister I said good luck R: she doesn’t need it. She’s fierce!) It would have been cool for Jane to have met her.

That scene reminded me of the episode with Rondo’s Rejects. Are we ever going to see any of those kids again? Heck, I’d just love to see RONDO again! Since everyone else seems to be leaving, it would be nice to have that familiar face back again- and for more than just a quick “Vanilla!” scene.

I had to chuckle at Vince’s “sometimes it pays to be the slowest guy in the room” after both Frankie and the uni were thrown by the perp.

One thing I just noticed as I was re-watching the episode: At the beginning where Maura is giving Jane a sour look because of her clothes – Jane says “I am not playing ‘what not to wear’ at (looks at her watch) 8:30 in the morning.”  So, is this a non-work day? Because in 4x06 “Somebody’s Watching Me” (when Jane is accused of throwing coffee at the lady) Cavanaugh tells Jane that the BPD won’t cover the legal stuff because it was 7:59am and she was one minute away from officially being at work at 8am. So, in this episode, she should already be a half hour late for work, right?

And on the subject of Jane's clothes - has she been relegated to just wearing T-shirts? What happened to her button-down shirts?

The Rizzles was kind of cute – but would have been much cuter without the Jack mentions

M: I want you to look as good for him as you do for me…which is really good, by the way.

J: so you want me to wear my Alexander Wang dress?
M: you have an Alexander Wang dress?

J: NO! besides, I’d worry less about what I’m wearing and worry about yourself.

M: what are you talking about?
J: your earrings.

M: they’re Chanel

J: one of them is.

M: what? (checks her ears, then walks to the fridge to check her reflection) oh God. What else am I missing?

J: hopefully it’s not something that rhymes with the word…”manties”

And of course, following up from last week’s episode where Maura was at her conference (and having a party in her room), Jane is feeling left out.

J: BPD’s still got a safe-guy, right?

K: Tobin. He’ll be here tomorrow.

J: that’s not exactly the kind of urgency I was hoping for

K: he’s at a conference in Las Vegas.

J: why does everybody get to go to conferences except us

K: what would we talk about at a conference?

J: baseball & how screwed up Senior Management is

K: you want to travel across the country for that?
J: if there’s an open  bar.

Yep. She’s still bummed over Maura having her party last week! I don’t think she would want the Autopsy Jeopardy, though. I like how Jane gets annoyed with ‘lover boy’ Tobin at the crime scene

J: hey lover boy, can I borrow your crow bar?

T: It’s Tobin. You want me to do that for you?

J: you want me to hit you in the nuts with it?

See what happens when you decide to have fun at a conference instead of being there to help Jane solve a crime? You put her in a mood. I think it’s time for the boxing dummy to reappear.

M: he even made us reservations at a wonderful French restaurant

J: do they have toast?

M: French Toast!

J: I set you up for that one!

M: it was right in my strike zone and I knocked it through the uprights.

J: I’ve never been more proud to call you my friend.

Oh, Maura. You’ve still got a ways to go – unless someone has invented a game that involves both baseball & football.

The whole dog/doodle talk throughout had me kind of confused as well, as it seemed so out of place. The jokes from this episode would have been better suited for an episode that at least had a Jo Friday appearance (or Elsie), or any kind of dog. But in this episode it seemed weird. I remember that the 4x12 episode “partners in crime” involved a Labradoodle, Merten.

I’ve seen Billy Smith, the guy who played Father Cowens, on NCIS and NCIS:LA.