'Rizzoli & Isles' Say 'Goodbye' to Lee Thompson Young
"Rizzoli & Isles" dealt with the loss of leading star Lee Thompson Young this week on the episode titled "… Goodbye." Young committed suicide last August, leaving writer Jan Nash to figure out how to write his character off the show permanently and with dignity and honor.
"When I realized that they had not actively dealt with it in the Season 4 finale, my own personal instinct was that it needed to be marked in some way," Nash told Slate's June Thomas. "The character needs to be memorialized some way, and if the character is going to die, then on a TV show that deals with crimes, you have two choices. One is to have it be a crime that you investigate. The other is that it is something tragic, that isn't related to the procedural element of the show."
"We had one simple principle," Nash added, "which was to make sure that we were honoring Lee and the character of Barry Frost. If the people who loved Lee chose to see it, they would feel that we were honoring his memory."
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In the special episode, fans learned that Frost had been killed in a car accident and watched as his co-workers struggled to accept his death. Detective Jane Rizzoli (Angie Harmon) had the hardest time, choosing to keep all of her emotions inside until the very end of the episode, when she finally let the tears fall.
"Death may have taken Barry, but it can't take our memories of him … those wonderful and perfect and beautiful memories," Rizzoli said at Frost's memorial service. "Those, thank God, are ours to keep."
Meanwhile, medical examiner Maura Isles (Sasha Alexander) dealt with the pain but also tried to help her friends cope with their own emotions surrounding the death. The episode reduced viewers to tears as well and brought a sense of closure to Young's time on the show.
