Rizzoli & Isles 7×06 – There Be Ghosts – Recap

In Rizzoli & Isles 7×06, Jane and Maura grappled with ghosts, investigated a double murder, and met their maker – literally. Read on for our recap of Rizzoli & Isles 7×06, “There Be Ghosts.”

Rizzoli & Isles 7×06 begins with something that’s fairly common in Boston: a thunderstorm. How’d that happen, given the show is filmed in Los Angeles? Per executive producer Jan Nash, it all comes down to the magic of television. Speaking of magic, Maura’s looking fabulous as ever in a chic rain coat and hat, while Jane’s… well, as disgruntled as ever, because her roof is leaking. (Apparently that part was real, according to post-production coordinator Mandi Price). Jane’s mood doesn’t improve when Maura presents her with a little black dress and tells her there’s no way she’s getting out of the mystery writers conference scheduled for the following night. You know how sometimes your significant other says “Honey, we should go to this” and you say “Uh, OK, sure” but hope they forget about it? That’s what happened here.

So as per uzh, there’s a crime to solve, and also as per uzh, “Rizzoli!” and “Isles!” are together when they’re called to the scene. I don’t see why the BPD doesn’t just call one of them and assume the other will be within earshot, but whatever. Anyway, this particular crime scene is… well, bizarre and kind of creepy. Jennifer Tate, a cancer patient being treated at a local hospital, was found dead in a closed-off wing mid-renovations – and by dead, I mean there’s a piece of rebar sticking right through her chest. Could her death have been an accident, or was she murdered?

Maura: “The impalement appears to be the only injury. She may have fallen, but I can’t be sure -”
Frankie, Jane, and Korsak, in unison: “Until you perform the autopsy.”

Oh, also? There’s a white rose next to Jennifer’s body, and nobody seems to know where it came from. Did I mention this is creepy, because it’s creepy.

Writers & roses

Speaking of creepy, Kent wants to go to a concert with Frankie, who’s avoiding him like the plague. As Frankie explains to Jane and Korsak, he worried he’ll walk into a repeat of the time he visited Kent’s house and encountered taxidermied mice wearing kilts. #KentProblems, am I right?

While Frankie’s busy dodging Kent, Jane has her own awkward encounter: A writer who’s in town for the mystery conference shows up at the precinct, claiming a ghost committed the murder. That’s right – legend has it the hospital’s haunted by a ghost named Hateful Hannah. Well, Rizzoli & Isles 7×06 is shaping up to be an interesting episode, and we’re not even 10 minutes in.

So remember that rose? According to Maura, the marks on the victim’s hand indicate someone pressed Jennifer’s fingers around the thorny stem, officially ruling out accidental death. Could author Samantha be onto something? Either way, she invites Maura to dinner and Maura accepts. Ooh, just wait till Jane finds out her lady’s going on a date with another woman…

That won’t be for a little while, though, as Jane and Korsak are over at the hospital debating the existence of ghosts. Jane’s a skeptic – raise your hand if you’re surprised – but Korsak points out that after Detective Frost died, Jane kept thinking she saw him. “I miss him,” Jane admits. “Me too,” Korsak responds. (If you had to pause Rizzoli & Isles 7×06 for a few seconds and maybe wipe away a tear, no shame, yo. Also, R&I fan site AUSXIP’s yearly charity auction will benefit the Lee Thompson Young Foundation this year, so look out for more information on that in August.)

OK, back to the case. The hospital is suuuuper worried about keeping a ghost story from 1905 under wraps to protect its image, but Jane and Korsak aren’t down with that when the legend could be related to a modern-day murder. As Korsak phrases it, “We have to check out every lead, even if it involves a story none of us believes.” Just then, a nurse reports hearing screaming from the same wing where the victim died, so Korsak and Jane head off to investigate. With the storm still howling outside, Jane’s a little jumpy, but it turns out she has a right to be. Korsak discovers another body – that of Jenny’s oncologist this time – and another white rose…

Not very Jane

Back at the precinct, potential motives abound. Is someone with a grudge against the hospital trying to make it look bad? Could the contractor be looking for a loophole in the penalty for late completion of the project? Is mystery writer Samantha trying to kick-start her book sales by involving herself in a real-life whodunnit? Oncologist Dr. Morgan’s autopsy may be able to shed some light, as he was injected with the same experimental cancer drugs he’d been giving his patients.

Maura has a theory about the murders, but she’s not willing to expand upon it until the test results come back – which, needless to say, makes Jane crazy. What makes Jane even crazier is the news that Maura’s heading to dinner with Samantha. “She doesn’t seem very… sane,” Jane protests. What she really means to say is “She doesn’t seem very Jane,” which could alternately be expressed as “Hey, when was the last time you let me take you to dinner?” (The language of Rizzles is complex; just trust me.)

To add insult to injury, Maura meets Samantha at the Robber, which is totally her and Jane’s special place. Samantha wants to pass along Maura’s short story manuscripts to her editor, and a starry-eyed Maura can barely believe her ears. When Maura marvels over the attention to detail in Samantha’s books, Samantha explains that she does thorough research into her subjects, and even went as far as to relocate in the name of adding authenticity to one of her previous books. …And alarm bells aren’t going off in Maura’s head why?

OK, so maybe Jane’s suspicions (read: jealousy) got the best of her, because it turns out Samantha has an alibi. She was on a train to Boston from New York at the time of Jenny’s attack, but whether she’s guilty of trying to steal Maura away from Jane remains to be seen.

Just plain Frank

So remember Maura’s theory? She’s finally ready to share with the class, and it’s not good news. The drugs that killed Dr. Morgan came from Jenny’s IV bag, and the amount left unaccounted for is enough to kill three more people. The killer’s identity may be a mystery, but one thing’s for sure – he or she knows the century-old ghost story inside and out, which means the hospital’s archives could hold a clue. Maura asks if she can bring Samantha along to investigate, and Jane’s mouth says yes but her eyes say nooooo.

Speaking of awkward duos, Frankie’s still avoiding Kent and it’s getting a little ridiculous. After all, he doesn’t even know what type of concert it is – although, as he tells his mother, it’s “probably bagpipes and harps; the guy’s weird.” Angela admonishes him for not being nicer to the “new kid,” and reminds him of his own shyness as a child.

Later, in a pseudo-parental tag team move, Korsak reassures Frankie that he’s “a good man and a fine detective” who is nothing like his disappointment of a father, and goes on to suggest that maybe it’s time to stop being “Frankie Jr.” and just start being “Frank.” I don’t think that’ll ever catch on with Jane or Angela, but it’s not a bad idea – and it’s a touching scene in Rizzoli & Isles 7×06, at that. Now, how can Frankie possibly keep shunning Kent after all that character-building? Well played, writers.

Jane told her so

After Maura catches Samantha trying to cut a page out of an old autopsy book in the hospital archives, she slinks back to her office with her tail between her legs to tell Jane she was right all along. To her credit, Jane bites back an “I told you so,” and even comforts her girlfriend to boot.

Maura: “She said all those nice things about my writing just so I’d trust her.”
Jane: “No, come on, that can’t be true.”
Maura: “It’s so obvious. I caught her trying to remove files. She just used me to get access to the archives. … I just feel so foolish. I allowed the flattery to cloud my reason.”
Jane: “Oh, so you’re human like the rest of us.”

Then Maura smiles and it looks like sunshine.

Aside from exposing Samantha’s true colors, Maura’s trip to the archives also revealed something else: There actually was a patient named Hannah Rose who died of typhoid fever in 1905. Her doctor killed himself after several of his patients died, and the crop of deaths likely gave rise to the Hateful Hannah ghost story. Whoever left the roses at the crime scene must have had access to information about Hannah’s full name, so the question now becomes: How?

“Through the press” is the obvious answer, but whoever cut out articles from 100-year-old copies of the Boston Dispatch at the library isn’t making it easy to find him or her. When Nina runs a list of names, she hits on one belonging to a man who checked into the library the previous month despite having died two years earlier. Turns out the dead man’s dead caregiver’s step-son James (did you get all that?) works at the hospital, which can’t be a coincidence.

Sure enough, his mother was rejected from Dr. Morgan’s trial because her cancer was too advanced, and after she died, James went on a mission to take out the doctor and sully the hospital’s name under the guise of Hateful Hannah. Korsak and Jane get to the abandoned wing just as James is about to add a hospital executive to his list of victims, but Jane shoots him before he can do any more damage.

Introducing Jane and Maura

With the killer neutralized and Rizzoli & Isles 7×06 entering its final minutes, it’s time for the mystery writers conference. Samantha quickly finds Maura, apologizes for abusing her trust, and offers to introduce her to some people who might be able to help get her on the road to writing professionally. Where’s Jane, you ask? Samantha’s wondering the same thing, and as Maura explains that Jane’s running late on account of having to shoot someone, Jane appears out of nowhere to reassure Samantha that she only shoots people in the line of duty – mostly. Protective Jane is one of my favorite Janes, and her little black dress doesn’t hurt either.

Samantha isn’t all bad, though – she calls over fellow mystery writer Tess Gerritsen, who just so happens to have written the Rizzoli & Isles books that served as the inspiration for the series. Cut to Tess having the surreal experience of being introduced to her own characters, which she called “hilariously meta” in a recent anecdote-filled Facebook post.

After the conference, Jane and Maura end up at the Robber, where an excited Maura tries to get a hilariously disengaged Jane enthused about the idea of going on a writers’ retreat.

Maura: “All vegan, no TV, no internet…”
Jane: “No, thank you.”

“We should both do it!” Maura exclaims, and while Jane definitely wants them both to do it, I don’t think attending a writers’ retreat is quite the “it” she had in mind.

Oh, and what about the concert subplot that Rizzoli & Isles 7×06 spent far too much time on? The band was Kiss; the attendees were Kent, Frankie, and Angela; and although Kent didn’t show up in a kilt, he did wear this:

I’m not really sure anything could follow that – and apparently neither were the writers, because the episode ended there. I’ll be back next week to recap the 99th episode of Rizzoli & Isles, but in the meantime, pay special attention to the cast and crew’s social media accounts, as the show’s final season wraps this week.