Rizzoli & Isles' Angie Harmon: There's Still a Lot of Tension
Jane and Maura are back to work together on Rizzoli & Isles, but don't expect things to go back to normal.
"If you have a fight with someone you love and care about, [you] don't just reconcile immediately," Angie Harmon tells TVGuide.com. "Things don't just fall back into place. Words are spoken, feelings are hurt and things happen. Fathers that are the head of the Irish mob get shot! That happens all the time! I like the fact that they didn't just make up immediately."
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But they looked awfully close to patching things up at the end of the Season 3 premiere last week. After Jane (Harmon) revealed to Maura (Sasha Alexander) that her mob boss father Paddy (John Doman) had faked her death when she was born so she could secretly be adopted, Maura tearfully told Jane that she wants her job as chief medical examiner back. She had resigned earlier to avoid working with Jane after she shot Paddy. On Tuesday's episode (9/8c, TNT), the two work their first case together since and will put the "fighting" in "crime-fighting."
"It's very snarky and bitchy and childish and very funny," Harmon says. "How could you not be? ... There's still a lot of tension in there. I think the initial incident has calmed down, but now there's just that sort of leftover crap that they have to get through."
The friction gets so bad that their colleagues and family get caught in the crossfire, though not necessarily in a bad way. "I think what I love about Season 3 is watching the other characters blossom and really come to life. You see how they love these two women and want them to be friends and push them back together again," Harmon says. "It's fun to be supported like that."
Their efforts won't be for naught: Jane and Maura will make up slowly but surely, Harmon promises. But neither is budging in her stance yet about whether Jane ought to have shot Paddy after giving her word that she wouldn't. "She was totally right [to shoot him]," Harmon says. "There's a man pointing a gun at her and a federal agent [Dean, played by Billy Burke]. He actually shoots a federal agent who Jane happens to be sleeping with, but that's OK! In real life, that definitely would've happened. I think it just comes down to who gets the shot out first. I think you'll see whether she was right or wrong in the upcoming episode."
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Despite their current differences, Harmon believes that Jane still loves Maura, hence her tracking down the truth about her pal's adoption history. She'll also try to help out as Maura searches for her birth mother Hope (Sharon Lawrence).
"I think one of the things that's so admirable about Jane is that she's loyal," Harmon says. "She's on the good side of the line. She's not a mean girl, she's not a backstabber. She's always gonna say what's on her mind right then and there. Even if Maura's going through a hard time in understanding everything, Jane's still gonna help her, even if it's on the sidelines of what Maura wants. What Maura wants is what Jane wants to get for her. I love that about her. I'd like to think that I would do the same thing for my friends, and they would for me."
And since Jane and Maura are gonna take their sweet time making up, can we expect more flashbacks to the nascent stages of their friendship? You know, when Jane was an undercover hooker.
"I hope so! I want to so bad," Harmon says. "That's my favorite thing — to be as goofy and horrible and as ugly as possible. That's been the funnest thing so far. And the exceptional blue eye shadow — outstanding! I would not get out [of the outfit]. Obviously we had to keep shooting ... but that was a good time, I'm not gonna lie."
Rizzoli & Isles airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on TNT.
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