Lockdown, Lowdown… Ringside Report Looks Back at the TV Show Rizzoli and Isles

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

One is a pernickety doctor whilst the other is a cop with an Italian American family which takes overbearing and interfering into an art form. But it is also a great female double act coming to close to the likes of Cagney and Lacey in terms of what it promised; however, it never made the same impact. What it did do, was to create a female double act with a high degree of femininity.

Based on books by Tess Gerritsen, Rizzoli and Isles had genetic quality. Seven seasons and one hundred and five episodes had us following Chief Medical Examiner, Dr Maura Isles and Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli as they managed to solve crimes and try to be their own women of their dreams in a tough male society. Running from 2010 to 2016, it promised much for female lead characters, but I am not sure it truly delivered.

Isles, played by Sasha Alexander, who had bowed out of a very successful stint on the original series of NCIS to expand her horizons was joined by Rizzoli played by Angie Harmon. Harmon was also a weighty addition as she had done much since making the breakthrough on Baywatch spin off, Baywatch Nights, with a stint on Law and Order as well as some notable film roles. Originally a model, Harmon tried to play against type by playing Rizzoli as a tough all-action cop with a nod to her gender but never accepting that was what she was supposed to be – a little girl – but you could not deny her appeal and looks.

Added to this Warner Bros production were a cast which had plenty of experience in making things work onscreen. In the detective’s family we had the overbearing matriarch Angela Rizzoli played by Lorraine Bracco who would have been known for her stint in The Sopranos as the therapist. Then there was her brother Frankie played by Jordan Bridges who joins the police and works his way towards Jane on the homicide squad. As a counterpoint to Frankie’s positive qualities, we got brother 2, Tommy played by Colin Egglesfield who is the black sheep who comes out of prison and never seems to be too far away from serious trouble. Frank Senior, meanwhile, played by Chazz Palminteri is the plumber father who, at one point, leaves the family home and then returns as his love for Angela endures. All of Jane’s family, in some way, are proud of Jane, but, especially her mother, they would all have preferred a better and safer type of employment and a few bambinos to fuss over from her…

Added to that are the squad room colleagues from the older detective, Vince Korsak, played by Bruce McGill who has a very fatherly view of Jane – especially as he saw her at her most vulnerable when he was her partner. Then alongside her came tech geek and fellow homicide detective, Barry Frost played by Lee Thompson Young who lasted until the beginning of the 5th season. Their relationship is strong, making his demise even more hurtful. Added to that were the lieutenants under which Jane served with former school buddy, Joe Grant played by a pre–Blue Bloods Danny Wahlberg who was then followed by a more fatherly, Sean Cavanaugh, played by Brian Goodman. Both Korsak and Cavanaugh played fatherly roles with Frank Senior not showing the most apposite of fatherly inclinations at times. It caught the mood of the times, but it also cemented our expectations of both sides of the argument, making our expectations a mirror or confirmation of the prejudice – depending upon your point of view.

Guest stars as recurring characters were rather splendid. We had Maura’s adoptive mother played by Jacqueline Bissett and appearances from Brian Dennehy as Detective Kenny Leahy and Chris Vance as the love interest for Jane which never really works out.

The series began by adapting the first novel in her Rizzoli and Isles cannon to introduce Isles – the Apprentice – where they track down the copycat of a serial killer, Charles Hoyt. Hoyt is a dangerous serial killer who Rizzoli had been investigating in the first of Gerritsen’s books of the series. Hoyt’s presence is a recurring part of the first television series as he has more than one apprentice and is fixated on making Rizzoli’s life a living hell.

From there the introduction of more and more backstory is part of the attraction. Added to the tremendously self-destructive Rizzoli family is the narrative of emotionally aloof and highly intelligent Isles, who was adopted early in her life. She discovers who her father is – notorious gangster Paddy Doyle – when working through the DNA of a murder victim who turns out to be her sister. As Doyle is still an active criminal and who knows who she is and watches from afar it adds some great twists and turns to the whole affair.

The one thing it also had was a firm streak of comedy which worked well. It does not always take itself all that seriously as we see from frequent meta references from Gerritsen playing herself in the series to one of her novels being read by Hoyt in prison!

But perhaps one of the strengths of the show, the strong female characters, was undercut by the overbearing feeling that they were being indulged by the men on the show rather than them seeing them as equals. Unsurprisingly a lot of fans thought there was some form of lesbian undertone between the principal characters and that, like the reaction of many of the male characters to both female leads showed that we were still in the infancy of “getting” women as lead characters. The relationship between the two leads is very important but there is always a focus on their love life and never any suggestion of differing sexuality from either character. The friendship was not out of the ordinary for women of the time and, given the focus in things like Sex and the City, fans’ reaction seems at odds with prevailing thinking of the time. The actors who played the leads never found that a barrier, and, with characteristic honesty embraced the idea as interesting but not fact.

You can find the series on HBO Max and on Amazon Prime in the UK, and I would recommend it as a decent way of seeing off what is possible in the format; not necessarily as something radical but that adds to the cannon of strong female characters which should be the norm and not the subject of sexual speculation.

British television is a curious affair. Begun through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) it is funded through the universal license fee. In essence, if you wanted to watch the television, you had to pay the license fee. The BBC got it all and is state run, albeit at arms-length. Then came along commercial television in the form of Independent Television (ITV) in 1955. Designed to bring a bit of competition to the BBC, it was paid for through advertising but still free to air… well they didn’t add another license fee to it. By the time that I was born, 1965, there was BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. And that was it. It was still years before Bruce Springsteen would moan that there were 55 channels and nothing on but here in the UK, we kept this going until, in 1982, we added a fourth channel and in 1997, a fifth. With sparkling imagination, they were called Channel Four and ehm Channel Five… In between came Sky and we understood what Springsteen meant. And so, my childhood and leading up to early adulthood we had three options… But the programs made were exceptionally good. And so, here is some critical nostalgia as the lockdown has brought a plethora of reruns, new formats and platforms and old classics trying to make their way back into our consciousness as broadcasters flood their schedules with classics… or are they classics at all? Let me take you through an armchair critics’ view of what we have to see, to find out… Welcome to the Lockdown Lowdown…

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