Rizzoli & Isles – Ocean Frank

By: Kelly Kearney

Leave it to Maura to process her grief over her best friend leaving with a virtual trip down memory lane. The finale began with our favorite M.E. and police detective creating a virtual memory book of their favorite cases and fun times over the years. The memories are cut short when that trade mark early morning phone call alerts the ladies to a new homicide case.

The Case

Let’s be honest, nobody was watching the finale for the homicide case, but be that as it may a man named Robert Riley was found dead in a rather compromising sex game gone wrong. Thanks to Jane’s (Angie Harmon) prodding, Maura (Sasha Alexander) speculates Robert died from blunt force trauma that resulted in an orthopedic decapitation. Missing from the crime scene was Robert’s wife, Elaine and all of her clothes. Frankie (Jordan Bridges) questions the neighbors and the mother and son said they witnesses a suspicious black truck creeping around the neighborhood. Through further investigation we learn that Robert and Elaine have only been married six months, so surely they’re still in the honeymoon stages, right?

Leopard Print Luggage and Turtle talk

Angela (Lorraine Bracco) must’ve discovered Amazon shopping because she not only bought Jane a leopard print suitcase for her trip, but she bought Maura one too, only hers resembles a tortoise… or a turtle depending on who you ask. Angela seems to be dealing with Jane’s move the best way she can, by being her delightful and over bearing self. Now that she’s got Tommy (Colin Eggslesfield) and T.J to boss around, it’s been easy for Frankie and Nina (Idara Victor) to keep their engagement a secret, that is until Kent (Adam Sinclair) overhears the couple’s wedding talk while recording a goodbye video for Jane. The younger Rizzoli pleads with Kent to delete the confession, but something tells me Kent’s not tech savvy and will no doubt spill the beans.

Down at the lab, Maura thinks the victim was possibly killed outside of the crime scene and then posed so investigators would assume it was a sex game gone wrong. Besides the spinal decapitation, Robert had a bruise on his hand that Maura assumes was some sort of defensive wound. He either hit someone or something.

Upstairs in the BRIG, Kent is still trying to gather Jane’s friends and family to record their testimonials and goodbyes. Nina gives a heartwarming message and talks of how easily she was welcomed into the B.P.D. after their traumatic loss of Detective Barry Frost (Lee Thompson Young). Kent’s misty eyed and so is Nina, but Jane’s downright depressed when she watches Korsak (Bruce McGill) pack up his desk. Korsak cashed in his vacation days, the ones he was in a badass competition with Jane over, and is retiring early. Jane is shocked as she can’t believe it’s both of their last days on the job. While the soon to be FBI instructor sulks over Korsak, Nina relays some interesting facts about the victim’s wife Elaine. It seems there’s no records of Elaine existing prior to her marriage to Robert. Now they know she does exist because the neighbors both said they saw her from time to time, so what gives?

Nosey Mothers and Strip Clubs

Angela’s at the Dirty Robber with her boyfriend Ron (Gregory Harrison), setting up for a not so surprise going away party for Jane and Maura. While she’s really unhappy this move will affect the headcount at their Rizzoli family Sunday dinners, Ron secretly records her teary confession for the goodbye video. Apparently he also shows Mama R how to work Skype because she hacks into the video monitors at the BRIG to keep a watchful eye on her family. I’m pretty sure hacking into police departments is illegal, but since this is the finale – we’ll let Mama R slide.

Nina, who seems to solve more cases from her computer than Jane and all the detectives combined, discovers that Elaine has two husbands! Did Elaine kill Robert because she had one too many men in her life?

Speaking of being peeved at men in your life, Maura gets irritated by Kent when she realizes he’s rearranged her supplies for his own convenience. He’s filling in at the Medical Examiner’s office while Maura’s in Paris finishing her book so he took it upon himself to make some changes. Maura doesn’t do well with change and with everyone moving on and away, change is the entire theme of this finale.

The quirky doctor isn’t the only grump at the moment, Jane’s also down in the dumps about her and Korsak’s last day so she takes it out on Kent by throwing shade and avoiding his video camera. Kent has sort of become a punching bag of insults for Jane. Yes, he’s awkward and weird, but so is her bestie Maura and she likes her just fine. Poor Kent, all he wants to do is make something nice for Jane and he continues to get the brunt of her sarcasm. I had hoped these two can find common ground in their admiration of Maura.

After ducking Kent and his video, Jane and Korsak head to a local strip club to talk to the owner about a check for five thousand dollars that Robert wrote to him. The owner tells the detectives the check was for arranging a wife for Robert. It seems Elaine is an undocumented immigrant that was basically sold to Robert for a citizenship. Jane calls the owner a pimp and threatens to turn him in for brining undocumented women into the country. The owner did give Jane and Korsak one clue, Elaine is actually Wai Chen – she changed her name. Jane wonders if Wai ran because she killed her husband and didn’t want to be deported. After talking to Wai’s aunt, they discover the case isn’t so cut and dry. Robert was abusive to Wai and there’s hospital records to prove it. She admits that Wai killed Robert by accident and fled. Just then, Frankie and Jane spot Wai in a SUV trying to get away. They take off after her and haul her in for questioning.

Love Traingle Gone Wrong

After a lot of debates on how a small woman like Wai could kill and move a man weighing over two hundred pounds on her own, Jane pushes the woman into telling the truth. In comes Steve (Max Adler), that neighbor who saw the black truck creeping around the neighborhood. Jane uses him to force Wai into telling the truth as Steve knew about Robert beating Wai. He tried getting help for her and in the process the two fell in love and planned on running away together. Robert walked in on them packing and took off after Steve. The victim wound up slipping and died from hitting his head on a car bumper. It wasn’t a murder after all, it was an accident!

While Maura’s upstairs struggling through her declarations of love and friendship for Kent’s video, Jane’s downstairs passing the baton to Frankie… well not a baton so much as Frost’s action figure. The toy has been sitting on his desk, watching over the department, since he died. Frankie gets emotional, but when Jane places a Frank Rizzoli plaque on Korsak’s now empty desk he goes from sad to ecstatic. In his video to Jane, he promised to make her proud of him and Detective Frank Rizzoli is well on his way to doing so.

Tearful Goodbyes

With the case solved, and the end of the day approaching, Korsak and Jane have a very tearful goodbye. Throughout the scene I wasn’t sure if Korsak and Jane were saying goodbye to each other, to their jobs as police officers or the actors were saying goodbye to the characters they loved for seven years. Jane hands Vince his department issued walkie-talkie and he signs off one final time with Victor 981 Ocean Frank. The voice on the other end thanks him for his service and both Jane and Korsak are seconds from breaking down so the retired lieutenant walks off and heads to the goodbye party. Before Jane can escape to the party herself, Kent forces her to record her testimonial for the video.

At the Dirty Robber everyone is celebrating over a delicious penis cake. Wait, say what? That’s right. Angela mistakenly checked off bachelorette party and not bon voyage party at the cake decorators. She tried to fix it with a little frosting and some molding skills, but it still looks obscene and everyone has a good laugh – not before Kent does exactly what I predicted he would do. Kent sets up the testimonial video to share at the party and forgot to edit out Frankie and Nina’s wedding talk. The cat is out of the bag and the Rizzoli family and friends are thrilled for the happy couple.

With the party over, the series ends how it started with Maura and Jane bickering in Maura’s bed. Maura is packing for Paris and Jane surprises her with the news that she’s delaying the FBI job for eight weeks so she can join Maura on her trip! Jane, like the good friend she is, cashed in Maura’s frequent flier miles and bought herself a first class ticket to Paris with her BFF. Maura is beyond thrilled since she wasn’t prepared to say goodbye just yet. The two sit on the doctors bed bickering about Jane’s fashion choices in Paris when Maura says she couldn’t have imagined her new chapter in life starting this way.

In the end, Jane was right when she said “change is inevitable,” but not all change is bad. Jane’s life changed the minute that awkward medical examiner offered to pay for her coffee. That unconditional love and friendship created a ripple effect that brought joy to not only the rest of the show’s characters, but “Rizzoli & Isles” loyal viewers, too.