For the first time maybe almost ever, we don't start with an aerial view of Boston! But... but how are we going to know what show we're watching? There's a hockey game going on (ice hockey, although that seems to be the default hockey in America and Canada) and a bunch of super excited people are watching. One woman is pissed, because someone fouled her son. She's yelling at the ref like those really annoying parents do, and is thoroughly in the way of another woman trying to get past. The second woman says excuse me several times in a very polite way, but is ignored. She finally sees a gap and squeezes through it, only to accidentally roll her suitcase over Angry Lady's foot. Ouch! Angry Lady gets even angrier and yells at the second woman for a while before shoving her and punching her nose. It bleeds. Nosebleed Lady looks distressed and hurries away to an underground carpark. Her nose is seriously gushing as she walks through the carpark, and then suddenly someone comes up behind her and slits her throat. She dies.
I'm back, bitches!
An aerial view of Boston moves us between hockey rink and Maura's house. Everyone (by everyone, I mean Maura (Sasha Alexander), Jane (Angie Harmon) and Angela (Lorraine Bracco)) is sitting in Maura's closet/cupboard/walk-in-place-for-storing-clothes and they're trying to help her decide which shoes to throw away. The answer seems to be none of them, which I totally understand. Shoes are awesome. She doesn't want to throw away any dresses, either, not even ones she bought three years ago and has never worn. Now that I don't understand, but I bet my sister does. Jane's ankle is still sprained, which I approve of as a continuation of last episode. Clever! Or maybe the actress just sprained her foot. But that would only make sense if they shoot the episodes in order, and I'm not sure if they do in this show.
The doorbell rings. Who could it be? People rush to open the door. It's Cailin (Emilee Wallace), Maura's half-sister. She's carrying bags. Ok... she says that her mother has gone to Europe for three weeks. Even though Cailin is nineteen, she got left with a babysitter, which pissed her off so much she invited herself to stay at Maura's house. Um. Maura agrees to let Cailin stay, after which Cailin takes a phone call, marches off to find herself a bedroom and then starts playing really loud music. I'm puzzled about why Cailin seemed so mature in the last episode she was in and is now acting as though she's fourteen instead of nineteen. I'm also puzzled about how she set up a stereo so quickly, since she didn't carry one into the bedroom with her. Maura is puzzled about how she's going to deal with Cailin living in her home for the next three weeks. Luckily we don't have time to be puzzled for long, because Jane gets a call about the possible homicide at the hockey game. That was fast. Title credits!
Back in the carpark, Frost (Lee Thompson Young) and Korsak (Bruce McGill) are examining the body. Frankie (Jordan Bridges) shows up to have a look before Jane gets there and has a cheerful conversation with a random uniform police officer. It's not Charlie, which makes me sad. Frost still has trouble looking at dead bodies without throwing up but Frankie does his best to help. They also talk about how hockey parents are notoriously violent. I like how Frost and Frankie are buddies because it's adorable. Meanwhile, Jane has arrived, and she and Korsak go to stop the game of hockey in order to question people. Unfortunately the rude hockey ref refuses to stop the game. It takes a bit of cajoling from Jane to persuade him.
See this police badge? I will shove this police badge down your throat!
The game is stopped, and all the players crowd off the ice. They're pissed that Jane stops the game. She apologises, but explains that they are here to solve a crime (well duh, they're the police). A pushy father asks what kind of crime, but Jane and Korsak won't tell him. They ask all parents to stand next to their children, so that they can match people up. Unfortunately they continuously give the instruction as "pair up", and foolishly assume that each parent only has one child playing and each child only has one parent watching. Oops. One poor boy has no parent. His name is Drew, and he's huge but looks harmless. No one knows where his mother is - oh, but sometimes she goes outside to smoke, according to another parent. Jane and Korsak will go and find his mother, who seems to be called Mary but who I suspect is actually Angry Lady from the beginning of the episode. Once again, someone asks them what's going on and they don't answer. They tell everybody to stay inside.
Back in the carpark, Jane spots blood droplets by the door. Korsak doesn't think that makes sense. They think the woman on the ground is Mary. Oh. So who is Angry Lady then? Maura arrives and says that she left Angela with Cailin. She asks Jane if that is okay. Jane does not think it is okay that her mother is babysitting an adult. Hope is apparently a very clingy mother. My mother stopped getting me babysitters when I was ten. Jane deduces that the dead woman was punched, and wonders if they're looking for two attackers. That seems like a logical assumption to make, since we who are the watchers already know what happened, but wouldn't she assume that someone punched the woman, she ran away, the attacker followed her and slit her throat? Oh well.
Beneath the pool of blood there are skid marks. There aren't any bloody tire tracks, though. Maura is confused about this so Korsak provides some handy exposition for her and us. It means that someone reversed, braked hard by the woman's body and sped off before she bled out. Aha. They haven't found the victim's keys, so Jane wonders if the killer stole her car. Carjacking? Suddenly Frost appears, and says that Frankie has found Mary's minivan. Everyone approaches it with guns. There's someone inside, so Jane tells them to get out and put their hands on their head. They get out and... it's Angry Lady from before! I win. The team realises that Angry Lady is Mary the mother of Drew. She has blood on her shirt, though, so they decide to take her in for questioning.
Grr. Argh.
Now there's a problem, though, because with Angry Mary accounted for they have no idea who the dead woman is. Korsak goes back into the rink and approaches a couple of men, asking them to identify the victim. Um, wait. No one has actually told these guys what sort of a crime it was, and now you're revealing it was a) a crime involving a victim and b) showing them a photo of the victim so they can clearly see she is dead? So why all the cloak and dagger before? Both men have stopwatches so I assume they are the coaches. They recognise the victim as a 'very nice' saleslady who came to one of their practices and gave all the boys No-Drip Helmet Pads. The boys used them while they warmed up and then the lady took them back, saying that she would analyse them and be able to tell who was dehydrated (which apparently excited the boys, although it didn't excite me). I'm calling it here and saying that she's looking for a DNA match with one of the boys because they are either her long-lost kidnapped/missing son, her long-lost kidnapped/missing nephew, her long-lost kidnapped/missing cousin, her swapped-at-birth son, or the love-child of her annoyingly unfaithful husband. Or a very early grandchild. Or a very young uncle. Let's see if I win.
Frost looks up the company the victim apparently worked for and it doesn't exist. Hmm. Back at the precinct now, and the blood found on Angry Mary's shirt matches the victim. Our victim needs a name, because I'm getting bored of writing victim. We'll call her Nosebleed Doe. Korsak wants to know who's going to be interviewing Angry Mary, and Jane pleads out on account of she hates hockey mums because her mum used to be one. It traumatised Frankie. Korsak agrees that she doesn't have to do it so Jane marches down to autopsy. In autopsy, Maura is measuring the wound while Jane takes Nosebleed's fingerprints. The wound was made by a weapon with a curved end, Maura says. Jane immediately jumps to the idea of Captain Hook. What discrimination! Peter Pan was a real pain in the ass, honestly, if I'd been a pirate living in the same place I would have plotted to murder him several times too. Hope is calling Maura again. She wants to know if Cailin has done her homework and wants Maura to make sure that she goes to bed on time. Seconds later she calls back and wants Maura to make sure Cailin takes the drugs for her new kidney. Maura remembers that Cailin had a kidney transplant (with her kidney) and decides that Hope is allowed to worry.
In interrogation, Angry Mary is trying to explain away her priors. She has a charge for assault with a deadly weapon, but don't worry, it was only a hockey stick that she used to break someone's arm. They show her a picture of Nosebleed Doe and she is surprised that the woman is dead. All she did was punch her in the nose, which she says in such a calm tone that it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Frost and Korsak ask a few more questions, and Angry Mary reveals that the woman was not a parent and she had a sales case - which was conspiciously missing from the crime scene. Despite her tough act, when Korsak pulls out the big guns and shows her Nosebleed Doe's gaping throat, Angry Mary throws up all over the table. Lovely. Jane, Korsak, Frost and Frankie bounce some ideas around. All of the cars in the carpark are accounted for, there was no other way Nosebleed could have gotten to the rink, so the killer almost certainly took her car. He also took everything that they could use to identify her, and Jane is just theorising that he intended to take her body when Maura interrupts. Cailin is missing.
When in doubt, bake brownies.
Back at Maura's house, it turns out everything is a complete overreaction - but we expected that. It's only 11:30 PM and Maura hasn't heard from Cailin in four hours, which Angela points out is not unusual for a teenager/young woman. I beg to differ. There's no way someone in that generation could go four hours without using a phone, and if she's on the phone anyway then why not just text her sister and avoid panic? Fail. No, wait, they address the issue. Cailin turned her phone off because she was studying in the library. Slightly implausible but okay, I can roll with it. I have been known to forget to switch my phone on for several days. People start calling the home phone and being offended that I haven't texted them (and by people, I mean my sister, so maybe Cailin's situation is more normal than I thought). An argument ensues in which Maura calls Cailin an irresponsible, selfish teenager. Rude! Especially because I'm pretty sure the character is supposed to be nearly twenty. Angela tries to smooth things over with brownies. Mmm, brownies. Cailin jokes about marijuana. Maura is not amused. Angela suggests Cailin goes and takes a bath and she'll bring her a cup of tea. OMG I wish I had people to bring me tea in the bath!
Cue the next morning, when Cailin has invited friends over to make breakfast and apparently they're up early because they never went to sleep. Who doesn't sleep? Freaks. Maura is in some sort of a mysterious dressing gown robe thing. She wants to know if she's embarrassing Cailin, thus proving that she's old enough to be one of those parents, who think being intentionally embarrassing is some kind of huge joke against the world. Cailin's friends are obnoxious and rude and say that Maura is old and should be wearing make-up (although they're slightly more subtle). I take offence, but I'll do my best to quash it and not rant angrily. Oh, look, Angela found a boy sleeping outside. I was wondering why there wasn't a boy involved yet. He's from Santa Cruz (I don't know where that is or what it has to do with sleeping outside) and he misses sleeping under the stars. "Your brick walkway's not very comfortable, though," he deadpans to Maura. I would like him if he wasn't so douchey. Cailin made breakfast for everyone. Later on, Maura and Angela have to clean the kitchen. Maura is frustrated. Angela tries to explain. She tells Maura to set boundaries, but Maura hasn't mastered the 'you get back here and clean that up right now, young lady' voice. It's a scary, horrifying voice that makes people want to do things. You all know what I'm talking about.
See this face? This face means I am angry that there's no new information. ANGRY.
Yep, that's right, back at the precinct now and no one knows anything new. No, wait! New information filters through Maura's... phone, or something she's holding. I can't see. They found a gummy substance in the wound, and Maura rattles through the material it's made of. OH OH I GOT IT I GOT IT she was killed with the edge of a skate, right? Ice skates have always terrified me. I used to imagine that if I fell over on the ice someone would skate over my fingers and cut them all off. Frost and Frankie mention that several of the materials Maura mentioned are used on skate laces. Maura says that the killer wasn't killed with a shoelace, but Jane suddenly says that she might have been killed with a lace hook! Oh. Damn. I didn't even know lace hooks existed. They have the right kind of curved edge, apparently, but I'm still not convinced. I mean really, have you seen ice skates? Those things look even more weapon-like than stiletto heels! Maura also thinks it's the lace hook. Ugh. Fine. I concede.
Korsak wanders into the breakroom and finds Angela taking hundreds of bottles out of the garbage bin. Um, gross, they don't have recycling in America? Not cool. He asks her what she's doing and she claims she's doing the recycling (there should still be a seperate bin for it, okay, guys?) but Korsak doesn't believe her. Finally Angela explains, but only after she makes Korsak to promise not to tell her kids. Mr Rizzoli (wasn't he called Frank or something? I forget because he sucks) didn't pay his taxes and now Angela is 27 thousand dollars in debt. Yikes. She's working several jobs to try and get the money. Korsak offers to give her a loan. She's grateful, but she can't take his money. Bad Mr Rizzoli. Dads are dicks. (Sorry if you're a father or you actually like your father. I'll rephrase that. SOME dads are dicks.)
More theorising is going on in the precinct. They've run every person who was in the hockey rink at the time and only Angry Mary had a record. No one thinks it was her. Korsak and Jane finally (finally!) wonder what was going on with the sweat pads and bring up DNA. I said that twenty minutes ago, and several days ago according to the episode timeline. Keep up, guys. The harbour is near the ice rink, so they think maybe the killer dumped the car in the water. Korsak narrows it down to one spot, because there's road work blocking almost everywhere else (tell me about it. I swear there are more road works than actual roads near me at the moment) so he gets divers to go and look for a car in the water down there. Now they just need to find someone to do sixty-five interviews, most of which will be pointless. Frankie wanders in at the wrong moment and foolishly agrees to help them. Poor man. Jane tells Frankie to print out sixty-five photos. Why? Because she wants to try something cunning. Cue a montage of Frankie handing photos to people (including pushy father from before. He's suspicious) and getting them to hold it. Aha, it's a fingerprint sting. Jane ends up feeling bad and helping Frankie, and then Korsak gets a call about the car.
Retrieving submerged cars is Frost's favourite thing! He's like the car version of a duck-hunting dog!
At this point we see a brief scene with a car getting pulled from the water, and there's really surprisingly cheerful music in the background. Seems like an odd choice, but okay then. Back at the precinct cafe, Angela is selling cakes and things. Jane and Maura wonder what's going on, and Jane tries to talk to her mother but Angela's lips are sealed. Jane knows it's money problems though. Speaking of problems, she asks Maura how it's going with Cailin (and calls her Caitlin for the second time. Um, what's up with that?). Maura starts saying something that I wasn't listening to and then Frost calls Jane. It's definitely the victim's car that they've found, and it had a purse etc inside. Nosebleed Doe finally has a name! It's Carla Dalton and she's an MD who works at a pharmaceutical company that investigates neurological diseases, according to Maura.
Frost and Jane go to speak to her employer. He IDs her from the photo and then gives some information. Jane asks if Carla was married and the employer says no. He also volunteers the information that she has no children, which could be suspicious or completely innocent. We'll see. She was a very dedicated researcher and her passion was Huntingdon's disease. The employer doesn't know if Carla had Huntingdon's, but her sister does (so it's fairly likely she did too). When she died she was conducting drug trials in an attempt to find a cure. They ask him about the No-Drip Helmet Pads and he doesn't know anything. He does say that you can only find Huntingdon's through a blood test and that Carla's research group consisted exclusively of adolescent boys aged 12 to 14. Weird. Jane thinks so too. Korsak calls - he and Frankie are at Carla's house and they've found a lot of helmet pads. Like a lot. From a lot of different cities (all by the sea). Hm. Also someone stole her computer.
Back at the precinct, Jane draws a Venn diagram to illustrate her point. Carla was interested in three things; 12 - 14 year old boys, Huntingdon's, coastal cities. So they're looking for whatever those three things have in common - or whoever they have in common. Maura comes up and says that Carla did not have Huntingdon's. She also explains that the subjects for the Huntingdon's drug trial were anonymous, but that Carla was running their DNA against the ones from the helmet pads - and also against her own. Hm. Korsak finds a date engraved on a necklace and when they check her phone records they find that she's called the same Rhode Island number on that date for the past three years. Jane calls the number, and it belongs to a retired homicide detective who knew Carla and wants to talk to them.
The plot thickens.
The retired detective delivers some exposition. Twelve years ago, Carla's sister, the sister's husband and their two-year-old son all died in a boating accident. Only the sister's body was found. Carla was always convinced that the husband had murdered the sister to take the son, but she never had any proof. I totally think it's pushy father. Everyone remember him? Yeah. Things move pretty fast after that; they get the prints from the retired detective, match the prints with someone Frankie interviewed (I don't know if it was pushy father or not) and find that his son is missing from school. They search for his boat and go to find him. Dun dun dun! They find him, brief confrontation, he confesses, he gets arrested. His son and new wife (OMG does he really need more than one? That's so greedy!) are upset.
Back at Maura's place, everyone is drinking wine. Well, Jane and Maura are drinking wine. Cailin strolls in and asks if she can have some wine, but Maura says no. I am confused (because she's NINETEEN) until I remember that in America you can't drink until you're twenty-one. Got it. A mostly nice scene of sort-of sisterly bonding ensues and the episode ends! That's me done for the day. Catch you later.