I liked a Rizzoli & Isles crime story! What's up with that?

I don't know why. I can't explain it. Last night as I was watching the latest episode of  Rizzoli & Isles I discovered,  much to my horror, that I actually LIKED the CRIME STORYLINE. Ladies and gentlemen that does not happen with this show! Unless it has to do with Maura's mobster father I don't care about the murder nor who did it. What is going on here??

Episode 4x10

I look back at it now and it was not anything overly exciting. Drag racing. I don't get into drag racing. Car blows up. Okay, yeah and? I have been trying to put my finger on why it is suddenly the writers have managed to keep my attention focused on the crime.

If you look at my Rizzoli & Isles rants and reviews in the past I have always been upfront about the fact that the crimes in this show are secondary with me and I really could care less. It wasn't even some wonderful subtext between Jane and Maura. Nice friendship scenes and funny moments but nothing that screams rizzles. So, here I sit - baffled.

Was it just decent writing? Incorporating everything well enough to hold my interest to all of it? I really can't say. This season has been very up and down for me. A gradual build to one of the best episodes of the series (4x05) back down to the, 'yeah just another episode' episodes, and then this.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm just wondering out loud how or why this happened. Why now? Why this episode?

I'd love to hear your thoughts? Write to me here or on Twitter.
@kellyeneal


Posted from sister blog: Thoughts From a TV Geek

Season 4 SPOILERS

Here are some spoilers I've found from around the internet.

• If you ever wondered what it would be like if Maura and Jane switched places, then an upcoming Rizzoli & Isles season four episode is for you. When a suspect with information decides that Jane is not a "nice lady," Maura is the only one he trusts and thus, she will be the one interrogating him. Jane doesn't let Maura just waltz in there unprepared, of course. That's where the fun starts. (EOnline)

• Episode 3x01: Family issues and politics take center stage after a community parade turns deadly. Maura struggles with her own family issues. Casey makes a surprise visit along with some shocking news. (tv.com)

• Bass and Joe Friday are BACK! (Janet Tamaro)

• As for the new season as a whole, Angie Harmon enthuses, “We’ve gone back a bit towards the pilot, as far as going more dramatic. The playful banter is still there, but the cases are a lot more serious — which I’m excited about.” (TVLine)

• Prison Break's Amaury Nolasco will recur as Lt. Det. Rafael Martinez, the newly appointed head of the Boston Police Department's drug unit who has a personal and professional history with Jane. (TVGuide)

• Paddy Doyle (John Doman) is back and standing trail for murder. It's no secret Maura's family storyline is one of my favorites in the show. Here's what we know:

In Episode 4 Paddy stands trial and Jane has to testify against him. Plus we learn that Doyle and Cavanaugh grew up in South Boston together, and Doyle worked as Cavanaugh's confidential informant to help get drugs out of the area. (TVGuide)

On the first day of Paddy’s murder trial, Maura gains insight into her father from Hope (Sharon Lawrence). Korsak opens up about Cavanaugh’s tragic past. And in an unexpected twist, Maura must decide which side she’s on when she and Jane unravel a shocking secret about Paddy and Hope that affects them all. (TNT)

• Maura and Cailin (Maura's half-sister) start to bond so much that the teen ends up staying with Maura. (TVGuide)

• Rondo will be in Episode 5!

• Giovanni is back.

#1 Show We Can't Wait to Watch - Rizzoli & Isles

"Rizzoli & Isles" (TNT, returns June 25)

TNT's hit procedural puts a spin on the usual crime drama by giving us two female leads: hard-nosed cop Jane Rizzoli (Angie Harmon) and fashionable medical examiner Maura Isles (Sasha Alexander). Plus, there's an unspoken sexual tension between the gals that plays well with a certain segment of the viewing public. "Prison Break's" Amaury Nolasco joins the cast this season as a former colleague of Jane's who's now in charge of the police department's drug unit. 

 

 

 

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Sasha Alexander: Criminals never far from her thoughts

To actress Sasha Alexander, confronting criminals is nothing new. After all, she plays the nerdy medical examiner, fighting crime with her tomboy partner, on the TNT drama Rizzoli & Isles — returning tonight. And she appeared as an intrepid investigator during the first two years of NCIS. Alexander also managed a little crime busting in real life.

“When I was 19 years old, I ended up in two very dangerous situations in a month,” she said recently. “I was in a bank robbery, and I was held at gunpoint by some young gangsters.

“When this happened to me, I was incredibly strong and clear. I was almost defiant in the way that I dealt with the situation.“In the bank robbery, there was a woman in front of me as the men came in — who was an elderly woman — and I got so scared because he had a gun trained on her. So I stepped right in front of her, not even thinking.“Even my move could have made him do something. I didn’t think about it. So, after the fact, I went into a paralyzed state of shock.

Read more...

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

Sasha Alexander interview with T.V. Guide

A Day Out With Rizzoli & Isles Star Sasha Alexander

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Sasha Alexander is nothing if not brave. After all, this is the same actress currently starring as medical examiner Maura Isles on Season 3 of TNT's smash procedural Rizzoli & Isles — who walked away from a lead role on NCIS after only two seasons. She married the son of legendary Italian sex symbol Sophia Loren, a gig not for the faint of heart. And today, Alexander, 39, is swinging upside down from a trapeze suspended far above the Santa Monica Pier her suggestion despite admitting that she's spooked by heights. We set out to investigate what fuels her fearlessness.

TV Guide Magazine: When you quit the plum part as NCIS Agent Caitlin Todd in 2005, did everyone think you were nuts?
Alexander: Yeah. People don't realize that on a network show, you make 24 episodes a year — that's 10½ months a year, 17 hours a day. It's hard core. Plus, people really loved the character, and the way they did it was really shocking...it was a bullet to the head, you know?

TV Guide Magazine: Any regrets?
Alexander: I really firmly believe in my heart that I would not be where I am today happily married, with two kids, doing things creatively that I want if I had stayed. I didn't want to wake up and be in my forties and go, "Oh, my gosh!" But people don't understand.

TV Guide Magazine: Let's travel even further back on your résumé — to a little place called Dawson's Creek. You played James Van Der Beek's older love interest! Do tell...
Alexander: I was so fascinated by how these very young people — James and Josh [Jackson] and Katie [Holmes] and Michelle [Williams] were dealing with being teenagers and going through all that. Fangirls were really jealous of me, like, "What's he like to kiss?" And I'm like, "Good?" What do you say?

TV Guide Magazine: So how'd the role in Rizzoli & Isles come to be?
Alexander: After NCIS, I wanted to be really diligent about picking characters I want to play every week and that show all sides of me. They brought me in to read with Angie [Harmon] — we'd never met, but we immediately clicked.

TV Guide Magazine: The show hinges on the chemistry between you as best friends a bond that was tested earlier this season. How would you describe the dynamic?
Alexander: There's a friction, a fieriness, that I think is good. I feel like, this season, we've really hit an amazing stride together...there's a looseness, a real synergy. Jane and Maura rebuilding their trust [after Jane shot Maura's biological gangster father] has made things much stronger.

TV Guide Magazine: Who's your real-life Rizzoli?
Alexander: She's an actress Jessica Capshaw from Grey's Anatomy. We met 12, 13 years ago because people would always say, "You remind me of my friend Jessica," and it was the same for her about me. So many people said it mutually that finally we saw each other at an audition and she said, "Hey, do you mind waiting for me? Let's go have a coffee." And that was it. She's the godmother to my daughter, I'm the godmother to her son. She's hilarious.

TV Guide Magazine: How did you and writer-director Edoardo Ponti get together?
Alexander: We met at film school at USC. He was always lovely he had a smile that gave me enormous comfort, even though I didn't know him. Eight years later, I'd worked an all-nighter on NCIS and I was sitting in a restaurant eating breakfast with a hat on, and he walked up to my table and said, "Sasha, do you remember me?"

TV Guide Magazine: What's it like having a bombshell for a mother-in-law?
Alexander: The first time we met, it was intimidating. This was six months in. But the minute I walked in, she gave me a hug and a kiss. She's an extremely warm person. She's phenomenal; she's stunning. She loves to eat and sleep and live. When we go out, we have Prosecco, chocolate and everything in between. It's funny: I took her to the airport yesterday, and she was like, "What is this book everyone's talking about?" I bought her Fifty Shades of Grey and told her she needs to read it.

People.com ignores Sasha Alexander

Angie and Sasha on People.com.

This is a little rant of mine that I posted on Tumblr and decided to also post here.

I don’t do a lot of ranting, but with this video [Pictured on the left] I simply have to. It’s not about the video itself. It’s actually very cute. It’s the fact that the video is about Rizzoli AND Isles and has BOTH Angie AND Sasha in it, yet People.com titled it “Angie Harmon: Even the Dead Should Get Pedicures.”


Was Sasha not in the video? Are they not promoting Rizzoli and Isles TOGETHER?

Now I understand that Angie is the one who talked about the dead getting pedicures, but it’s the title of a video that they’re both in. They’ve completely ignored the other half of the “team.” Even the subtitle mentioned Timothy Hutton’s appearance in it but NOT Sasha! That upset me.

Now I know you’re probably thinking, “Hey, relax. It’s not really a big deal.” Normally I would agree with you, however I know there are a lot of fans out there who have felt, as I do, that Sasha’s been given almost a secondary role in the media. Combine that with the fact that this is the second television series that I’ve loved with two female leads that has had the media make one actress take a back seat over the one that they deem the “star.” The other was Renee O’Connor on Xena. At least that show was named for only one of the characters. Rizzoli and Isles are the two leads!

Angie has been on how many daytime talk shows in the last two years and it wasn’t until the series third season that Sasha gets on The Talk and Racheal Ray. This isn’t Angie’s fault. Please don’t think I’m blaming her, because I’m not. Not at all. This is the media and television studios, and it really upsets me.

Maybe Sasha doesn’t mind. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t, and If that’s the case then I completely respect that. It’s just that when I saw that there was an “Angie” video, and then realized it was both of them, It really bugged me that Sasha’s name was missing.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

Lee Thompson Young on watching Sasha Alexander & Angie Harmon work.

“This is really a treat for me as an actor, to watch Rizzoli and Isles playing off of each other, and I’ve developed this analogy in my mind that it’s like watching Charlie Parker and Miles Davis having a little improv session, because their styles are so different.”

“They’re almost like polar opposites,” he adds. “And yet they find this rhythm together so they can play back and forth, and it’s like a master class. I feel like INSIDE THE ACTOR’S STUDIO every day. I’m like,’ “Wow, how did she get there?’ It’s really a pleasure to watch the chemistry between the two [Harmon and Alexander].”

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