Ladykillers

I hate crime procedurals.

That's as good a place to start off as any.

As much as I wanted to give TNT's new pilot Rizzoli & Isles a fair and impartial review, the show was unlucky enough to be the violent, predictable straw that broke the crime procedural's back. It's no secret that I've always had issues with procedurals in general (what can I say? I find A-plots that don't matter next week to be kind of waste-of-timey) and that only a scant few manage to grace my regular rotation, but I always gave them a shot as I would any other show. Oftentimes, the ones that miraculously made my list were the ones that at least attempted to break the mold a bit. Castle is unabashedly light-hearted and fun (and, well, has Cap'n Mal), Life hollowed out its own space in the genre with the bizarre, the surreal, and the Damian Lewis, and Criminal Minds (which I only just started watching and am enjoying considerably more than I expected to) takes a specifically psychological approach to an old routine. The point is, it's rare that this genre really strikes a chord with me and I think it's about time I really evaluate why that's the case. It's not really Rizzolo & Isles' (hereon out referred to as RI, because there's no way in hell I'm typing that title again and again) fault that it was the show that tipped me over the edge, so take my critique for it with a grain of salt. I simply couldn't help myself... After only a few minutes in, I just couldn't shake the thought, "Good lord, exactly how many different ways are these shows going to come up with to kill women?!" That notion colored the rest of my perceptions of the show and got me seriously reevaluating my estimation of TV and humanity at large.

We'll start with the show itself, then veer off into god knows where...

RI is pretty much your standard crime procedural, although with a Cagney and Lacey bent to it this time around (especially in the Providence area (and yes, I realize that wasn't funny and probably didn't even make sense, but I'm running with it). It follows rough and tumble Detective Jane Rizzoli (played by Angie Harmon) and ultra-feminine, Carrie Bradshawesque medical examiner Maura Isles (played by Sasha Alexander) as they team up to use their unique skills to solve the unsolvable blah, blah, blah. We all know the routine. The writers tried to shake things up by having two women at the helm and by having this particular pairing of professions, but at the end of the day, they didn't seem to know what to do with two female leads (and didn't use these characters to the fullest) and ultimately couldn't conjure a whole lot of compelling reasons why a detective and an ME (medical examiner) would spend all that much time together professionally. I found their personal relationship a lot more interesting than their professional partnership, quite frankly, which for a procedural, is a bit off-kilter. Don't get me wrong, the MEs on Castle and CSI and delightful and pivotal and all, but the 2 1/2 minutes they see of each episode is a timeframe that makes sense--not like what we have here where the ME is basically half the investigation. I'm not totally sure how they're going to pretend that makes much sense, but I'm guessing they'll just gloss over the illogical aspects (much like the thrilling conclusion of the pilot).

Honestly, the episode itself was fine. It met all the genre conventions and at least tried to dip its toe into something new, but ultimately fell a bit flat for me. The pilot centers around a series of murders committed by a Hannibal Lector-y murderer and his apprentice (because that's what all serial killers seem to do these days, train a protege). These murders hit home with Rizzoli in particular because she was very nearly killed by this guy some years earlier. Although the murders involve the deaths of married couples, the basis of the investigation is focused on the women. Ain't it always. The show really could have set itself apart in the genre by looking at the psychological dynamic of women investigating the deaths of women (and to a timid extent, I think the writers were leaning in that direction), but they ultimately begged off and opted for a more standard approach. As my frustration with women being the victims on these shows 90% of the time started to boil over, the "standard approach" started driving me crazier and crazier, and this was one of the few times when men were included as victims! Again, and to the show's credit (I suppose?), most of my issues with this show can be applied to the entire genre. Hell, this is the kind of program that has been CBS' bread and butter (or should I say, luminol and mass spectrometry) for the past decade, but that only makes it more and more frustrating.

More to point, the writers seemed to really waste an opportunity here to offer viewers a different dynamic. The relationship between R and I is presented as a close and protective friendship/partnership, but when the mere hint of attraction could be surmised by the viewer, the writers swiftly point out that these women are straight, very straight, and to prove that they're straight, they have both of these strong, confident women idiotically and coquettishly pursuing some random FBI guy (Billy Burke). At one point, Harmon even hangs a lantern on the possibility by dismissively and uncomfortably asking Isles, "Does this mean you're attracted to me?" Her tone was off-putting, but to be expected given the creative approach. Heaven forbid they leave their sexuality ambiguous, open-ended, or above all, gay. The thing that bothered me the most about this was the fact that them being lovers would have made the show so much more interesting. As is, you have your standard buddy cop drama, but, you know, with chicks! So it's totally new and different! Yeah, not so much. I think having some sexual tension between these two women, especially in a genre that focuses almost entirely on men's sexual violence against women, would be compelling. In the show's defense, I suppose there's still room for it to go there, but they seemed pretty hell-bent on closing that possibility as soon as possible (wouldn't want to offend middle America, you know). Ugh. The writers just didn't seem to know what to do with these two women and ended up falling into the exact same conventions that are so often the genre's pitfalls. The thing that really kills me is that as near as I can tell, the head writers are women themselves. Such a disappointment. And before you cry foul, I'm not in any way saying, female cops=lesbians. That's not it at all. R and I just have an obvious butch/femme dynamic going and I think the show would have a lot more to work with if they left the possibility out there for these two to be lovers. Quite frankly, I'd be saying the same thing about any pair of people who share this dynamic. When people work together in a stressful environment, it lends itself to a romantic attraction whether the pairing be man/woman, woman/woman, man/man, man/car (I think we all know there was something special going on between Michael and Kitt), or whatever. The possibility of attraction is what makes these shows more interesting and keeps viewers coming back for more (particularly someone like me, who is more interested in over-arching storylines than throw-away A-plots), and I don't think that should be relegated to strictly male/female pairings. It's obvious that chemistry between the two leads is what makes shows like Castle, Bones, and going old-school, Moonlighting so successful and I think that dynamic could be applied across the board, regardless of gender. I'm one of those people who keeps hoping House and Wilson will finally hook up and is pretty sure Butch and Sundance were lovers. There's just a certain level of intimacy and trust that comes with a partnership that lends itself to a romantic pairing. On RI, they just seemed so determined to make it clear that there's no funny business going on, we swear it! that I couldn't help but sense some unwarranted homophobia going on, especially given that this is a situation that needed a more intriguing relationship at the center. At least that would have given it a more original spin.

It's hardly worth going into the details of the pilot because I promise you, you've seen it all before, and the bulk of the drama was created by tossing around the idiot ball, which never receives a charitable review from yours truly. In the plus column, the pilot was more suspenseful than most of this style because the writers put Rizzoli right at the center of the murder plot. This made for a much more gripping pilot in some ways, and yet didn't do the series any favors in others. I don't know what it says about the genre, the show, or society, but this pilot seemed entirely focused on showcasing women as the vulnerable element. The show actually does shine a light on the difference between men and women when it comes to crime, but then doesn't know where to go with that. I think maybe if this had been a season finale instead of a series premiere, it would have worked. As is, what little I know of these characters, I can't really process. They threw way too much backstory at the viewer and yet somehow managed to tell us basically nothing about who they really are as people. When Rizzoli is locking up her apartment, her brother insists on staying with her, but she declines saying, "If I were a man, this wouldn't even be an issue." To which her brother responds, "Yeah, but you're not a man." At this point in the show, I didn't know what to do with this conversation. I don't know Rizzoli (or any of these people) well enough to know if she's being unreasonable or he's being ridiculous. I think the show was trying to make a point that Rizzoli is strong enough to take care of herself, but not actually knowing this character myself, I just didn't know if that was true or not. But then I had to ask myself, why should it matter? Why should a woman staying alone be any different than a man staying alone? I think safety in numbers is a good idea whether you're male or female and am usually annoyed by the "I don't need to be babysat" whinging of characters who are in genuine peril, whether it's a 90 lb. woman or a burly man. Apparently they don't watch TV themselves or they'd know that that's the quickest way to get yourself killed. As this was only the first episode, it's hard to nail down creative intent, but I'm hoping the writers were making a commentary on the fact that women are targets and that that gives most women at least a back-burner of fear in their everyday lives. When Rizzoli laments, "I'm just sick of being afraid," I believe it. We're living in a world where walking to your car in a grocery store parking lot makes people nervous. It's a very sad commentary on reality, but very true. Granted, Rizzoli's fear is much more intense and founded, but I think the general sentiment applies across the board.

I think the difference between men and women when it comes to this genre (and in society, sadly) is the way in which each is treated as a victim. While I'm not speaking of sex crimes exclusively when it comes to these differences, this is where the crux of the issue is found. According to an incredibly reliable source (okay, it was an episode of CSI), over 90% of sex crimes are committed by men against women. While I don't have the real source on that, I think it's supported by anecdotal and empirical evidence. Everyone knows women who have been molested, otherwise assaulted, or raped. So why are shows that portray these kinds of horrible events so damn popular? Why the hell do people (and I include myself in this group, to an extent) find it so fascinating to see how many horrible and perverse ways there are to torture and kill someone? What is wrong with us? As I mentioned, I recently began watching Criminal Minds. I think one of the reasons I'm enjoying it more than I expected to is that they base their plotlines on actual criminal profiles. At one point, one of the characters explained to the sister of a victim that the sick and twisted bastards of the world are usually cowardly men and they almost always prey on the most vulnerable people in society, i.e. women and children. I appreciated the fact that they acknowledged this fact rather than simply having some perverse murder scene to gawk at. Why then, do these writers keep coming up with more and more obscene scenarios for women to be defiled and disposed of? Why do audiences love it?

It seems to me that the treatment of women as victims is so normal that writers in this genre feel they have to find new and disturbing ways to one-up their predecessors in order to keep the genre interesting. I tend to find it more infuriating than tantalizing myself, but based on the viewership for this kind of programming, I'm in the minority, and it mostly boils down to how standard it is for women to be the victims. Men are predatory, and when it comes to prey, it's a lot easier to take down someone who's half your size and provides some sort of twisted sexual gratification. I can hardly decide if the writers are simply channeling the grim reality of things or if that's quite simply what audiences are comfortable with. I remember seeing the first few minutes of an episode of Law & Order:SVU where an entire dinner party had been slaughtered. As one character casually and off-handedly noted that the women had been brutally raped, one of the forensic guys made the horrifying realization that the men had been raped as well, a fact which made the investigators physically uncomfortable and a little unnerved. The fact that it's a simple matter of fact that this is how women are treated but that it's a disturbing and shocking surprise that the men were treated the same way is truly unsettling. Shouldn't the horror be equal? Is the rape of a man somehow more horrible than that rape of a woman? For the crime procedural genre, having a woman tortured, raped, immolated, defiled, dismembered, and eviscerated is essentially par for the course, and that is an unbelievably grim indictment of the genre and of society. It's basically saying that women are supposed to be victims, men aren't. At least not in the same way. Plenty of men get killed in horrific ways, but the treatment of these victims by the genre is quite different. As far as I'm concerned no one should be victimized, but I also acknowledge the social mores that have led to this TV genre and this genre's relative comfort with killing women. As grim and twisted as it is, I have to acknowledge some morbid interest in this kind of show as well, albeit to a lesser extent than most.

Whenever I get into an argument with a guy (usually Ammon) about how the world is a scary, awful place, I'm often met with something along the lines of, "The world really isn't that bad. The news programs and TV shows you see are only a skewed, minuscule proportion of what really happens." On the one hand, to a certain extent, he's right. On the other hand, and to a much more terrifying extent, he has no idea what it's like to go through life as a target for no other reason than basic physiology. A woman can take every conceivable precaution in the world to avoid dangerous situations and it won't change the basic fact that she's female, and therefore, a target. Maybe that's a concern that these shows are tapping into. Women are not only the usual victims of violence, but they're subjected to a more horrifying and enduring kind of violence and nagging fear. Even if what I hear on the news really is a small sample, the very fact that it happens at all is cause for unease. It has gotten to the point where I actually find myself sympathizing more with a murderer who targets men. I can hardly help but think he's not as bad a guy as someone who targets women. How twisted is that?! That I could give anyone a pass based on the demographics of their victims? I don't know if it's hearing about woman after woman get raped and murdered, but when it comes to a killer who goes after men, I almost feel a certain respect for him. At least he was willing to take on someone his own size (and odds are it didn't include a prolonged, traumatic sexual assault prior to death). That one kind of murderer is preferable to another should be ridiculous, but that's the sensation I have when the victim is male. At least it wasn't some poor woman who was tortured to death. You see what you've led me to, crime genre? It's seriously screwed up, but I'm just so sick of hearing about women being the victim... I've gotten to the point where it's actually kind of a nice change of pace to have a man at the center of the murder investigation. God, that's sad.

What does all this have to do with Rizzoli & Isles? Ultimately, not a whole lot. It was honestly a decent pilot, well-paced, and suspenseful, even if the writing was pretty lazy (and cheesy) when finding ways to drive the plot. Geez, the pilot for this show was one of the few instances where men were victims as well, so I should be giving them more credit than less.. Oh, don't get me wrong, the murders involved forcing the husbands to watch as their wives were raped and murdered, then the women's bodies were posed in the forest like some sadistic trophy, lest you think male and female victims were afforded equal treatment for once. Again, I think it says a lot more about society than anything else that this is the norm. I can't help but to think that this kind of exposure on TV doesn't exactly help the situation though. The more normal it is for violence to be exacted against women (and everyone else, for that matter) and the more accustomed people are to that notion, the more blase and complacent people will become. At the same time, people have always been fascinated with the macabre, myself among them, so where do we really draw the line? I can't quite understand why people find this kind of show so engaging, but for me? They'll never be at the top of my list.

Poor R & I. I'm not sure I was in a state of mind where I could give it a fair shake, really, but after about 700 shows exactly like this, I was at a tipping point. I'm sure this was a likable dramedy with adequate performances and decent characters, but I'm just so sick of this same routine that I'm having a hard time committing to this. Maybe it's that I watched The Glades right before this one (in which a woman is murdered and fed to crocodiles), or maybe it's that R & I genuinely wasn't great, but I had really had enough. If I had to choose a new crime procedural of the two, The Glades would win, but that's only if I had to. At this point, even the awesomest crime procedural to ever grace the television landscape would probably be a total turn off.

Pilot Grade: C
Society Grade: D-