Animation
Good Times
Netflix takes a classic sitcom, Good Times, and turns it into a vulgar, violent, sexually-charged TV-MA show.
The city of Boston is nearly 400 years old now, and it feels it. For centuries the city has accumulated its secrets like heirlooms, storing them in alleys and neighborhoods and fussy old buildings. Its ways can be impenetrable, its habits inscrutable. It has more than a culture, this harbor town; it has cultures, to which more than one film director has been drawn over the years. Often what we see on the screen suggests that these colliding worlds of color and calamity are as exotic and gritty and dangerous as anything you’d encounter on the hard streets of Moscow or the alleyways of Khartoum.
For seven years, TNT has taken a look at Bean Town’s underbelly, using a brainy pathologist and a smart-mouthed detective as its tour guides. But Rizzoli & Isles, a Boston-based crime procedural, doesn’t really explore the ticklish terrain that lays here. It only pretends to.
The setup is simple enough: Detective Jane Rizzoli is a cop who talks tough and acts tougher. Dr. Maura Isles is a bookish, somewhat chilly forensic pathologist who feels more at home with a Petri dish than she does at … home.
They both see dead people, by the way—loads of dead folks in the streets and on Maura’s autopsy table. Then they chase after the crime lords and union bosses and psychopaths who did the original damage, all manifesting only slightly more depth than you’d see in a Dick and Jane book. (“See Hoyt. See Hoyt kill. Bad Hoyt!”)
This isn’t all bad. Rizzoli & Isles can feel like a throwback to television from the 1980s and ’90s, when episodes were interchangeable and the cops (and coroners) always got their man. But in an era when television storytelling has grown richer (albeit more riddled with content), this long-running show can feel pretty disposable. Rizzoli and Isles are part of a paint-by-numbers crime procedural airing on an, um, quality-impaired cable channel. If I didn’t know that the show was based on a series of fairly popular books by Tess Gerritsen, I would’ve assumed that the writers came up with it during a particularly slow afternoon brainstorming session: “Hey, I’ve got an idea! What would happen if we, like, teamed up “Pepper” Anderson from 1970s Police Woman with Dana Scully from The X-Files! Only with fewer men. And more angst. And jokes! Wouldn’t that be cool?”
But while the show may be mindless, it’s not harmless. It has shamelessly cribbed from a variety of television shows both past and present, but it seems to have a particular fascination with CSI-level gore. And sexuality can also be a problem.
Speaking of sex, there’s a certain lesbian subculture that believes, or at least wants to believe, that Rizzoli and Isles are gay. Fan-fiction based on the show is reportedly rife with their intimate encounters, and the show itself has at times made a winking acknowledgement of the ladies’ longed-for “relationship.”
Series creator Janet Tamaro insists the friendship is strictly platonic. But Dorothy Snarker on the AfterEllen blog turns such claims on their head, writing, “Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles are not gay. They’re outstanding heterosexuals who just happen to flirt, sleep in the same bed, touch each other gratuitously, look deeply into each other’s eyes and have crazy, crazy chemistry while not maintaining any long-standing or significant romances with members of the opposite sex. They’re straight, OK? Straight.”
Rizzoli and Isles investigate what appears to be the suicide of a postal worker. They team up with a feisty postal investigator to uncover a complex, mail-delivered drug operation.
As might be assumed, the alleged suicide was, in reality, a murder victim. Multiple camera shots zoom in and linger on the victim’s bloody corpse. On the autopsy table, Isles pulls back a sheet to reveal the man’s bare chest, which is covered in what appears to be rope burns. There’s talk of another murder, where the victim was strangled from behind. In a shootout, a woman is shot in the leg. Someone punches a malfeasant in the face, knocking her out.
The female postal investigator ogles men in a bar, expressing appreciation for a man’s backside. She refers to Rizzoli as a “fellow hottie.” Rizzoli calls Isles’ fencing uniform a “full-body thong” and speculates sarcastically about where she’d stash her phone. She says that the word “philatelist” (a stamp collector) “sounds dirty.” A man admits to being addicted to Oxycontin and helping to illicitly distribute that prescription painkiller. People drink wine and beer. They say “a–” twice, “d–n” twice, “h—” three times and “b–ch” once. God’s name is also misused once.
While pursuing the suspect in a murder investigation, Frankie (Rizzoli’s younger brother, now also a detective) shoots an apparent subway bystander he says had a gun. But there’s no weapon on the scene, and Rizzoli, Korsak and the rest must investigate the shooting to save Frankie from jail.
They have to conduct the investigation under the nose of Internal Affairs (which would, naturally, forbid Rizzoli from taking part), misleading officials and exploiting various procedural “loopholes.” The shooting victim lies on a subway platform with an obvious wound to the chest. A young woman is found dead in a dumpster (we see the pale body) and later autopsied (we see the stitches). Guns are fired. Rizzoli bounces off a car during a foot chase, and she stomps on a piece of computer equipment. There’s talk of sabotage causing a subway train crash.
Rizzoli gives a female co-worker a joking kiss in gratitude. Characters drink an alcoholic beverage called “the last word,” and Korsak quips that he cleaned out Frankie’s liquor cabinet. Frankie gives Isles a bottle of wine as a gift. We hear “a–” and “h—” twice each, and “p—” once.
“If You Can’t Stand the Heat”
A strangling victim is found in a bathtub during a sweltering Boston heat wave … and the nearly boiled-looking body’s shown several times. An autopsy reveals (to us) a scooped-out liver, among other things. A bad guy is knocked down and roughly handcuffed.
An aphrodisiac hidden in tea causes Rizzoli’s mother to flirt shamelessly and wear a tight dress. A dog that also consumed the tea stimulates itself on a detective’s leg. Blouses reveal cleavage, and Isles mentions that she sleeps in the nude. There’s a convoluted sequence designed to make somebody think Rizzoli and Isles are lesbian lovers.
Somebody blurts out an s-word (unbleeped on iTunes), and we also hear “h—” and “p—ed” once or twice each. Rizzoli drinks a beer while Isles gulps wine. We hear references to being drunk and the drug trade.
“Cold as Ice”
At a game, a woman gets punched in the face by a hockey mom—a blow that breaks her nose and sends blood flying. Shortly thereafter, that same woman has her throat slashed. (We see the cut and the grotesque spurt of blood in the darkened garage, then watch as she bleeds out.)
When detectives find her, the camera zooms in on the gory wound on her neck as they crack jokes. Two of them bump fists when one manages to keep his lunch down. (The hockey mom isn’t so steely stomached when she gets the news.) An autopsy is performed, with Isles again poking at the jagged wound. Pictures of the mutilated corpse show up too. And we hear about other assaults and murders.
Cailin, Isles’ 19-year-old half-sister, moves in with her for a few weeks. She jokes about marijuana-laced brownies and buying six-packs of beer. People drink wine. They say the s-word once (unbleeped in our iTunes version of the episode), along with “b‑‑ch,” “d‑‑n” and “h‑‑‑.” God’s name is misused a half-dozen or more times.
“Money Maker”
A man’s dead, and Rizzoli and Isles must infiltrate a well-to-do sex club to track down the killer. The murder victim was killed through a compound injected into his penis, which prompts closer inspections of and conversations/jokes about the state/size of his sexual organ. We see the murderer, dressed in lingerie that showcases her cleavage, buttocks and midsection, injecting the substance. (Critical body parts are obscured.)
We see a ripped-off ear, another gruesome head wound and a body floating facedown in a blood-tinged pool. Isles holds a human heart. We hear about drive-by shootings.
A nun chastises a criminally suspect rapper (whose music video features scantily clad dancers), “Children are dying because of you.” His retort? “Shaking booty never killed nobody.” Someone has an affair with a prostitute. People talk about venereal diseases, urination, same-sex attraction and “coffee porn.” They drink wine and champagne. They say the s-word once, “h‑‑‑” three or four times, “d‑‑n” and “a‑‑” twice each, and misuse God’s name.
Oh, did I mention yet that and in her spare time, Isles contemplates secretly donating her kidney to her dying sister?
“Gone Daddy Gone”
Rizzoli and Isles investigate the murder of a woman who, in turn, was investigating the critical injury of her own father while working on the docks. We see the woman attacked through a broken car window. And we see Rizzoli and Isles examine her blood-covered car. Later, they discover her body tied to a pier post—her throat cut (the horrific wound gets screen time) and an ice pick puncturing her chest. A man is also found dead with a pick to his chest. And he apparently had two of his fingers broken before dying. Another man is shot through the shoulder, the bloody entrance and exit wounds both visible.
Some intentionally misdirected dialogue seems to be referring to sex. Rizzoli tells Isles to “not sleep with my brother.” Longshoremen make crude come-ons to Rizzoli, even grabbing their crotches and touching her behind. (Rizzoli nearly breaks one guy’s arm and takes him in for questioning.) Somebody says the s-word once, and it’s unbleeped. Piling on are “d‑‑n,” “h‑‑‑,” “t-ts,” “b‑‑tard,” “a‑‑” and a crude word for testicles. God’s name is abused.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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