The death of Detective Barry Frost (Lee Thompson Young) will be commemorated in Rizzoli & Isles season 5, episode 2, which airs on June 24. The episode will include a memorial service.
Young died in August 2013, and the show’s producers said they didn’t have time to properly craft a storyline for Frost’s exit from the show in season 4.
The premiere of season 5 showed Korsak explaining that Frost was visiting his mother , but Korsak later received a call from Maura. Frost had been in an accideny on his way home from his mother’s. Jane met Maura at the scene of the accident, and Maura said that Frost was already dead.
Episode 2 will include the team dealing with the loss of Frost.
Jan Nash, the new showrunner, told TVGuide that dealing with the loss of Young/Frost has been tough.
“It was very daunting knowing what was before me and what I had to do,” Nash said.
“From the moment that I was approached about this show and started watching the episodes ... and [after] I met with Angie [Harmon] and Sasha [Alexander], I knew that doing it in a compelling and respectful way was the most important thing to them for the season.”
Part of episode 2, which is titled “Goodbye,” will be a memorial service for Frost at which Jane speaks.
“Angie is fantastic in the scene,” Nash said. “Just incredibly moving and amazing.”
She added that killing off Frost was the only option.
“We had to deal with it in a real and concrete way. We couldn’t just say Barry Frost went on vacation and occasionally talk about how much fun he was having or give him a new job in a new city,” she said.
“That would feel icky. We realized that we had to have the character die so we could deal with that loss the same way the people on the show had dealt with Lee’s loss. What comes with that is we had to make sure we were not being exploitive and we were honoring his memory appropriately ... and I think we all feel as a collective that we, to the best of our abilities, accomplished that.”
