Lee Thompson Young Receives ‘Rizzoli & Isles’ Tribute

Actor Lee Thompson Young was given a proper farewell, and last night that special memorial episode aired on the TNT show Rizzoli & Isles. Dealing with a suicide in the work force, especially when it’s the entertainment industry is a tricky situation. If Rizzoli & Isles’ writing team inserted the actor’s suicide into the role it would be seen as insensitive and crossing an extremely thin line. If death is completely ignored the production runs into the risk of not paying their respects.

In season 4, Rizzoli & Isles quickly rewrote the finale to explain the 29-year-old Young’s absence. With not a lot of time to spare they wrote in a random vacation for Detective Ben Frost to go on. It was like putting on a quick band aid to protect a slow gaping wound, but they had time to figure out what to do about the death of Young.

Running on top of that is the fact that right after Young committed suicide, Rizzoli & Isles’ showrunner stepped down and Jan Nash was pulled in and had the difficult task of paying tribute to a beloved co-worker and character.

Fortunately the tribute to Lee Thompson Young and his character Detective Ben Frost was laid to rest in a respectable way. In an episode prior to that all of the characters were told that Frost had been involved in a fatal car crash, which left this week’s second episode of Rizzoli’ & Isles’ new season to celebrate the life of Lee Thompson Young and the character he played.

Before the actor’s death he had been dealing with depression and diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In an interview with Slate’s June Thomas, show runner Jan Nash was clear that there weren’t any thoughts on including suicide into the conversation in the TNT show.

“We wanted to be very careful that it didn’t feel exploitive. That might have been a case where real life would have been too close and would have made us uncomfortable, because it would have felt like we were exploiting this tragedy for dramatic purposes.”

Nash continued to express the importance behind acknowledging the actor’s death on the TNT series.

“The character needs to be memorialized some way. It was very clear to all of us that we didn’t want there to be a blurry line between Detective Barry Frost’s death and whatever way we were going to treat that death. That leads you to him dying in a tragic accident.”

Lee Thompson Young got his start in acting on Disney’s hit television show The Famous Jett Jackson. He later transitioned into more adult roles in the film Friday Night Lights and in short lived series’ such as FlashForward and The Event.