YMMV / Rizzoli & Isles

• Adaptation Displacement: To the point where Gerritsen's latest books have "Rizzoli and Isles: Book title here" instead of just the title itself. Also, note that there is no separate section for tropes in the main page that belong solely to the novels, unlike the page for Dexter.
• Complete Monster: Charles Hoyt, Jane Rizzoli's Arch-Enemy, was a Serial Killer known as the Surgeon. Preferring to target couples and loving to terrify in his victims, Hoyt would rape his female victims, forcing the male to watch, then kill them both. Hoyt managed to kill three couples as well as a family. Forming an obsession with Jane, Hoyt murdered Alexander Ghent and kidnapped his wife to lure Jane into a trap to kill them both. He used his scalpels to leave permanent scars on Jane's hands. Though captured, Hoyt continued to be a menace through his apprentices. Hoyt would go on to temporarily break out of jail and murder one couple with his first apprentice, John Stark; threaten to rape Maura Isles when she interviewed him while he was in custody; murdered the husband of Emily "Lola" Stern, his second apprentice; had Lola take Jane's brother, Frankie, hostage; and used his third apprentice Rod Mason to kill an inmate to lure Jane to him so he could have one last attempt at killing her before he died of pancreatic cancer. Just before his final attempt on Jane's life, he began to slit Maura's throat just so Jane could watch her best friend die before killing her.
• Crosses the Line Twice: In the second episode, an old lady insults the aged detective who comes by to ask about her son, due to their history together. Then she calls Rizzoli a "greaseball dyke cop". Then she uses a sardonic tone when addressing the black Frost as one of those "Affirmative-Action cops. Which island did you come from? Do you speak English?" This all happens in the space of about two minutes. Oh, and she's clearly Irish.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Based on the amount of fanfiction that has quickly accumulated, we have the femslash couple Rizzles.
  • Die for Our Ship: To the point where any man put in the way is ruthlessly run over. Rizolli's on-again, off-again boyfriend Casey is a prime target of this while almost none of Maura's potential flames make it past Guy of the Week status and of the two who did, the first one turned out to be a Serial Killer and died while trying to turn her into his latest victim in his second and final appearance.
• Fridge Brilliance: Jane realizes that the prosecutor in "Burden of Proof" is being framed because of the sheer amount of evidence that turns up against him. Of course. He's a prosecutor who knows precisely what the cops would look for. There's no way he'd be so stupid as to leave so much evidence behind.
• Genius Bonus: Whenever the Boston skyline is depicted, the weather beacon on top of the Old Hancock Building will match whatever weather might be shown in the following scenes. (It'll blink or shine steadily in either red or blue; the color patterns and their meanings are well known to Boston residents.)
• Harsher in Hindsight: Season 1 episode "Born to Run" has Jane and Maura competing in the Boston Marathon and getting caught up in a case where two runners are shot dead in the middle of the race. This was two years before brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev set off a bomb at the Marathon in April of 2013.
• Hollywood Homely: Jane might be in the books. Her partner Thomas Moore notes that she isn't necessarily bad-looking and that her appearance suffers more from the fact that she refuses to play up what attractiveness she might have—she doesn't wear makeup and she wears pantsuits that are unflattering to her petite frame—even the Serial Killer they're tracking notes that she might look prettier if she fixed herself up more.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some fans of Rizzoli & Isles may be attracted to the show because they are fans of the shows on which Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander were. Based on the ratings, it became a case of Come for the X, Stay for the Y (in this case, come for Harmon and Alexander, stay for the Ho Yay, Les Yay, and crazy little subplots).
• Les Yay: Consciously played up to eleven by the producers (who are very aware of their lesbian fanbase) and the actors, even though Word of God is that Maura's and Jane's relationship is and will remain platonic.
  • The series has its own Ho Yay page.
  • There is a series of "Subtext Recaps" on afterellen.com where each episode is analyzed under the assumption that Jane and Maura are closeted lovers, and that their various male love affairs are just attempts to keep up appearances. Not surprisingly, the recaps spend about twice as much time on the Les Yay than on the actual murder cases.
• Moral Event Horizon: A variation. Paddy Doyle was a ruthless mobster who had standards (no women or children on his hitlist). However, as "Dance with the Devil" reveals, he was personally responsible for the death of Cavanaugh's wife and kid, effectively breaking his personal code of conduct.
• Narm: The ending to the season 2 finale. The use of Sound Track Dissonance is reminiscent of a certain Meme.
• Pac Man Fever: Just listening to Frost describe "the point of this game" to Korsak in "Virtual Love" is painful. Even experienced gamers would reply "To win WHAT?"
• Retroactive Recognition: Tessa Thompson in "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" as Frost’s ex-fianceé Anna.
• The Scrappy: Casey is easily the most hated character in the fandom. Interestingly, many fans don't cite the fact that he comes between Jane and Maura, or even the lack of chemistry or build-up with Jane, as their primary reason for hating him, and even admit to liking him when he first appeared. That is, before he developed the nasty habits of walking in and out of Jane's life with very little notice twice a season, each time leaving her in a state that, because of viewers' disinterest in any of his plots, borders on Wangst, and of managing to become the main focus of every episode he appears in. No amount of Character Shilling has been able to save him, and most fans were over the moon when Jane decided not to marry him.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Josh is this. While being a product of his mother’s selfishness is meant to encourage sympathy, he comes across as Too Dumb to Live as he seems to do everything possible to make his situation worse. Refuses to say what happened when he is a suspect in a cop's murder, as well as choosing a public defender over the lawyer Korshak could get him. The final nail in the coffin was not giving up his friend, who sold him out within seconds. It's hard to see how Josh survived for 5 years with this level of stupidity.
  • When Angela is told off, we are meant to feel sorry for her. However, despite being repeatedly told to stop, she constantly meddles in the affairs of not only her children but random people — even meddling in police matters, which would get her arrested in real life. Due to the sheer number of times she does this (once an episode, it seems) she comes across less sympathetic and loving and more annoying, especially since it causes a lot of unintentional insult moments.
  • Her relationship with Korsak started after he wasn’t willing to take it to the next step because he was still grieving over his wife and son. Instead of talking it out with him, she manipulated him by making him jealous.
  • Lydia sleeps with Tommy only to get engaged with his father soon enough that the paternity of her child was in question. When Frank found out, he dumped her only for her to start mooching off of Angela. The fact she was first seen living in her car and later was forced to move back in with her abusive mother is meant to invoke sympathy, yet she just comes across as manipulative and self-centered.
  • Jane in the books, the first one at least. The reader is presumably meant to empathize with her feelings of inadequacy regarding her plain looks and struggling for recognition at work and in her own family, but she comes across as so unlikable that it's difficult. Her dislike and resentment of Catherine Cordell—a woman who was drugged, raped, and nearly disemboweled by a psychopath and is now being stalked by a copycat—for no reason other than that Catherine is beautiful and her warped belief that Catherine stole her partner's affections from her don't do her any favors either. It's also hard to sympathize with her jealousy of beautiful women when she practically refuses to put any effort into fixing herself up—the Serial Killer that she's tracking is among the people who note that she'd look prettier if she wore makeup and more flattering clothes.

---