Are rizzoli & isles gay

Though Tamaro called Rizzoli and Isles a “power couple,” she maintained the characters were “straight women who don’t fear the interest in or the speculation about their relationship.” And Tamaro said the same-sex speculation was a result of “two gorgeous actresses [having] great, natural chemistry.”

But the show seemed to be pandering to slash shippers.

In a review of the pilot episode, The Washington Post critic Hank Stuever noted “faintly lesbian undertones” between the two lead characters. "There's nothing gay about them," she says. ‘Oh, I will, Jane. As long as we're not being accused of being homophobic, which is not in any way true and completely infuriating, I'm OK with it."

Subtle.

Writer Janet Tamaro previously told TV Guide:

The lesbian theory endlessly amuses me, and it amuses the cast.

I most definitely will.'”

The show may be over, but the impact of Rizzoli and Isles’ connection lives on.

Do you think Rizzoli and Isles’ relationship was just platonic or romantic? That Jane has a raspy voice?" Still. I mean, look at the dress Jane is wearing at the end… it’s clearly all for Maura.”

And though the Rizzoli & Isles’ writers never made a “Rizzles” romance anything more than subtext, countless fans have in creative works inspired by the show.

Based on mystery novels by Tess Gerritsen, the TNT drama starred Angie Harmon as Jane Rizzoli, a Boston detective, and Sasha Alexander as Maura Isles, the medical examiner with whom she teams up to catch the city’s most notorious criminals.

By television standards, though, Rizzoli and Isles were atypical partners-in-crime-solving.

The Ambiguously Lez Duo: The Drinking Game.” In that game, viewers would throw one back whenever Rizzoli and Isles shared lingering stares, complained to one another about their romantic woes, tagged along with one another for no justifiable reason, slept side by side, or participated in “adorable bickering which generally relates to sexual tension.”

In 2012, The Advocate called Rizzoli & Isles a “lesbian buddy cop show that just doesn’t know it yet.” The following year, BuzzFeed deemed the TNT drama “the gayest non-gay show on television.”

Ahead of the Season 2 premiere, the Los Angeles Times got answers straight from the source: Rizzoli & Isles creator Janet Tamaro.

“We knew it was there in the first [episode], and it was absolutely no surprise to me.”

Amid all the buzz, fans proposed theories for why we were seeing a lot of chemistry but no sex between the characters. "Sometimes we'll do a take for that demo," Harmon admits. One theory posted to TV Tropes’s forums speculated that Isles is bisexual while Rizzoli is heterosexual and homoromantic.

But remember, they’re just friends. That story — spoiler alert — ends with Rizzoli agreeing to attend a family dinner with Isles on the condition that Isles makes worth her while later that night. They don’t mind if he starts off dating Jane or if he starts off dating Maura, as long as they all end up together.”

In a Reddit post about fans’ hopes that Rizzoli and Isles would end up together, one fan wrote, “I like to think that when Jane decided to go to Paris with [Maura] at the end, it was the writers’ way of getting them together without saying it.

From the jump, viewers suspected that the relationship between the lead characters wasn’t just professional.

She is completely put out when Isles decides she wants to get frisky with a guy Rizzoli deems a poor choice. (In other words, Rizzoli only wants romance with Isles, nothing R-rated.)

“So, they are out on dates and the like, trying to find one or two men (Maura has also chosen to limit herself to men in order to not make Jane jealous over any potential relationship) who would be okay with a close friendship with one or both of them, with added committed sexual relations,” that theory suggests.