Surprisingly, "Bitch" had nothing to do with Jane.

That’s a little shocking, I know. But with the sexism toned down, there’s a whole lot more to love about this detective, the beef trust and the show in general.

It was nice to see Jane’s father, Desmond, and get insight into him and what he does. I just wish there was more of it because it ended up being a quick shot of the locals and then an immediate robbery.

Which leads me to my biggest gripe about the episode: Detective Rivera. Was her plot thread purposely left dangling or was there no closure to her case on purpose to illustrate a potential parallel to Jane? For the amount of screen time she had - and the numbers of questions and input she received from Jane - I wanted a little more. While I understand the initiative she possessed and how she wanted to learn from the female detective “with a reputation,” it would have been nice to see how all of it panned out.

Moving on to Jane’s case this week, it was a wonderful, tense ride from the first interrogation to the last. Malcolm just oozed creepiness. He was too perfect and the tears over his dead wife were just too over the top to count him out as innocent.

Plus, Jackson Hurst from Drop Dead Diva (no judging please, we’re all TV Fanatics here!) plays too nice of a guy on that show to give me any sort of reassurance he could play a murderer, even if he was supplied loud tools and music.

Seeing Jane work through the gut feeling all of us were having was a lot of fun to watch on screen. I know I’ve heaped praise on Maria Bello every single time I review Prime Suspect - but her performance every week is genuine, moving and inspiring.

Watching her walk through the murder scene with Duffy in the storage unit (that was such a cool crime scene) and her subsequent interrogation with Malcolm gave me chills. The way she was in his face and moving around that room and flipping her good cop/bad cop personality on a dime was such a powerful moment, I’m in awe of her.

Finally, with the beef trust firmly back in 2011, we got to enjoy Jane having a little fun with Luis the Kenyan and Average Auggie. Which is a much, much better way of interacting with your coworkers, especially with such a dark job (and show), there needs to be moments of humor and lightness.

Overall, I’m in love with Prime Suspect and Maria Bello. The roughness from the prior episode has been smoothed out, characters are starting come to the surface, and the cases are a welcome change from the typical run and gun procedural.

Other thoughts:

• This week Jane chewed through four pieces of gum, no coffee, but at least she was drinking.
• NBC’s promos and graphics are much easier on the eyes than the PowerPoint slide title card.
• The scenes set at night in the office are so well done; the lighting is moody and gritty and really plays a fantastic role in the overall theme of the show.
• The scene with Kevin telling Jane not to dismiss her gut feelings was amazing.