‘Rizzoli & Isles’ season 6 premiere review: Did Frankie shoot an unarmed man?

There were a variety of different directions that “Rizzoli & Isles” could have chosen to go in for their season 6 premiere on Tuesday night, but having a story that was largely about Frankie? That was something that we did not see coming at all.

Still, we understand why after having watched the episode, since this did touch on relevant issues, including whether or not he was responsible for shooting an unarmed man. This case brought in Internal Affairs, and forced Jane at times into a precarious position. These are stories that are hard to pull off, mostly because IA is represented often as the bad guys on cop shows, even though they are really just trying to do their job.

Eventually, Frankie was cleared, but at the same time still suffered from quite a bit of guilt over what happened. In the end, we suppose that this is why the man is still human, and he should be relieved by that … even if he is still suffering in other ways.

This story was not entirely serious, as there were many fun Jane and Maura moments throughout. The arrival of Maura’s new assistant, coupled with Jane’s reaction to him, should provide us with some endless entertainment all season long if she keeps up that attitude.

While we expect some more traditional cases ahead, tonight’s premiere started the season off with a nice reminder that this is an ensemble show, and one that does try to tell a variety of different stories rather than just generic mysteries for our leading ladies to solve. They’ll get a chance to tackle some extremely cool stuff soon. Grade: B+.

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