Rizzoli & Isles – Dead Weight

By: Kelly Kearney

Episode 7 of “Rizzoli & Isles” has Jane (Angie Harmon) headed to Quantico to give a lecture to cadets at the FBI while Maura (Sasha Alexander) and the team investigate the burning death of a bicyclist. It’s just another day for the Boston PD, but without Jane running the show Frankie, (Jordan Bridges) Nina (Idara Victor) and Korsak (Bruce McGill) have their work cut out for them.

Burning Man on a Bike?

The episode begins with a young man weaving through traffic on his bike, nearly missing a woman and her back seat driving companion and instantly bursting into flames. While the mystery man was proving his bike skills were indeed “fire,” Maura and Jane are at Jane’s new townhome talking about Maura’s work with the living. That’s right, Maura has been helping her mother Hope (Sharon Lawrence) with her medical clinic and the M.E. even helped with a caesarian section. Jane is quite shocked considering Maura chose forensic pathology because she works better with the dead. Her brainiac word vomits tend to be too awkward for the living, but it seems like she’s remedying that issue. After a brief conversation about Maura’s new Red Sox custom saber guard she purchased so Jane could easily pick her out during a fencing match, the two head off to solve the case of the burning biker. Two, meaning Frankie and Maura, because Jane is off to Virginia to give a lecture to trainees at the FBI. Jane seems less than thrilled, but Maura assures her she will do great.

The body is charred beyond recognition and police at the scene found no bomb or any other suspects. Frankie questions if it’s possible this could be spontaneous combustion, but Maura shoots that idea down. Every case of possible spontaneous combustion has always had some kind of ignition source. Frankie is not convinced and tells Jane via the phone that from the evidence this might be the first time Maura is wrong. Jane is seriously bummed that not only is she missing a possible freak accident, but that her Google-mouthed BFF might actually be wrong.

Moving On

At the Dirty Robber, Frankie finds Angela (Lorraine Bracco) searching the paper for an apartment. Now that she’s got her GED, she has some perspective on her life and doesn’t want to be crashing at her daughter’s best friend’s house…even if it’s in her posh guest house. She asks the younger Rizzoli to keep quiet until she finds a place. She doesn’t want Maura to persuade her into staying.

Back at the lab, Kent (Adam Sinclair) has some interesting results on the DNA from the victim. There’s five different DNA strands in one sample, which is bizarre considering Maura took the sample herself and everybody knows the M.E. is beyond thorough. Nina runs all five samples through the data base hoping to find a match. Maura tells Nina that the explosion started below the body and Nina wonders if the water bottle strapped to the bike had a bomb in it. Either way they’re looking at this as a murder which means they have a case.

3D Faces and Misogynists

While the two are waiting on the DNA results, Maura and Kent recreate the victim’s face with a special 3D scanner. Jane interrupts with a Skype call and wants all the juice on the gruesome case. The brunette detective is looking for a distraction from her lecture and especially the handsome Agent Cameron Davies (Mark Deklin). Maura gives her the usual pep talk and Jane feels ready to tackle her lecture. Too bad it seems the strong female cop is lecturing a raging misogynist. This guy must not know who he’s dealing with.

After the 3D scan puts a face to the victim, Frankie and Korsak head to his apartment and find a meth lab. It looks like the biker was a “Breaking Bad,” style entrepreneur. If the victim was killed for drugs or money, then why was all the drugs still at his apartment? With the DNA evidence matching at least one person, a drug dealer named “Big Yao,” Korsak and Frankie head out to talk to the suspect.

Jane’s nervously muddles through her lectures at the FBI, but gains confidence when she proves to the class she’s an excellent detective by showing off her interrogation skills. One cadet isn’t so impressed or maybe he’s just not impressed with her gender. He’s not too keen on strong, female law enforcement and lets her know by calling her cute, but in a threatening manner.

Fat Bombs and Creepy Trainees

The lab results come back and there were traces of highly explosive chemicals in the water bottle attached to the bike of the victim. Nina’s going through surveillance footage of Big Yao, looking for any clues to the relationship between him and the victim. All she seems to have come up with is that Big Yao had some serious liposuction in the last few months, going from Big Yao to Little Yao. That’s when the case starts to come together. Glycerin was one of the explosive components found on the victim. To avoid tracing the chemical back to the killer, they made it on their own… with big Yao’s disposable liposuction fat! Kent proves that the “fat bomb” is legit when he tests it and it indeed explodes. So death by exploding cellulite? It appears so, but who is the culprit that planted this fat bomb? Maura discovered that Big Yao’s doctor has been illegally dumping medical waste to cut costs. Korsak and Frankie bust her dumping human fat in a public dumpster. Later, Nina finds surveillance footage from the dump site and sees a blue Subaru pull up minutes after the doctor dumped the fat.

Back at the lab, Maura is distracting Jane from her handsome FBI agent and her creepy, woman hating trainee with the fat bomb case. Jane’s gut is telling her not to trust this trainee and after some digging they found a suspicious death linked to him. Jane’s got 12 more hours at Quantico and needs to gather enough evidence to prove this guy isn’t the right fit for the title of Federal Agent.

Chemists Caught and Cases Closed

Angela comes to Maura’s office bearing gifts of delicious food and the announcement that she’s moving out. Maura already knew she was considering it from the circled apartments in their shared newspaper, but convinces Angela to stay once they agree to a deal. Maura will act as Angela’s landlord and Mama Rizzoli will pay rent like the independent woman she wants to be. The case of Angela moving out is closed, but what about the fat bomb killer and Jane’s trainee problems?

The Blue Subaru was owned by a chemist who was fired from the liposuction clinic for testing positive for drugs. The woman was ordered to go to drug counseling where she met the victim. The two decided to turn their drug problems into a drug business until the woman decided she no longer needed her partner in crime. She used her chemistry knowledge to make the fat bomb and kill the biker. The team, along with Maura watching from an IPad, kicks in the chemist door expecting to find her and a meth lab but their suspect is out for a jog and Maura spots her. The M.E. takes off on foot after the suspect, corners her in a neighboring yard and fights her off with a PVC pipe and her fencing skills. Korsak finds them and arrests the killer for the murder of the charred biker.

Over at the FBI, Jane catches her misogynist when she secretly records him admitting he’s a woman hater. Agent Davies has her back and immediately expels the trainee for breaking morality clauses that all the FBI agents must follow. Davies has no problems with strong women and offers to buy Jane a drink before she heads back to Boston. The episode ends with Jane at home and having drinks with Maura at the townhouse. The detective tells her best friend she bought her a gift at the FBI, but when Maura opens it she knows her friend is full of it. The shirt might say FBI on the front, but on the back FBI stands for Female Boob Inspector. Yes, Jane went all the way to Virginia and bought her best friend a knock off shirt form the airport. Fake FBI shirt or not, these two will always be there for each other no matter if Maura is delivering babies and Jane is in Virginia, nothing can break these two’s bond.