Mentalist Nothing But Blue Skies Review

Synopsis

Two weeks after confessing their love, Lisbon and Jane decide to hide their liaison from their coworkers. When they’re called for a new case, they have to deal with the new pace in their partnership, a young agent added to their team and a surprise visit from Lisbon’s former fiancé.

Concise Verdict

This episode is pretty enjoyable because, even though the case itself is not as stimulating as it could have been, the focus is on Jane and Lisbon trying to develop their new found relationship while at the same time trying to keep it under wraps, with more or less success… The lightness brought by this new angle in Jane’s life is a nice change from the angst and drama that plagued many moments in his past. All in all, writer Tom Szentgyorgyi probably gave us what constitutes a fitting opening for the more light-hearted new season (8/10)

Detailed AKA Humungous Review (Spoilers galore)

1: Lovebirds chirping on the porch

The episode starts with Jane arriving at Lisbon’s doorstep with fresh coffee (and presumably tea for him). Since the day is beautiful, they decide to drink it on the porch. Many boxes in the back suggest that she’s moving back in her house after cancelling her departure to D.C. Indeed, the title hints that this episode bears the lovely consequences of the finale, as both “Blue Bird” and “Nothing But Blue Skies” are taken from the lyrics of Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘Blue Skies’

(“Blue skies/ Smiling at me/ Nothing but blue skies/ Do I see/ Bluebirds/ Singing a song/ Nothing but bluebirds/ All day long/ Never saw the sun shining so bright/ Never saw things going so right/ Noticing the days hurrying by/ When you’re in love, my how they fly”). They’re very much in love and everything is bright and shiny in that new light.

Yet, the way the scene is played seems to indicate that each of them is still a little bit cautious around the other: when Lisbon offers to get him a key, he hesitates slightly before admitting that “it will make things easier”. It has her making a face for a brief moment. Obviously, even though they’ve taken the step of physical intimacy, she’s afraid of being too pushy and scaring him off.

Reviewbrain: It’s interesting that you say that, Violet as I had an opposite reaction. Lisbon’s tone when she offered Jane a key felt a tad too nonchalant; almost feigned. And Jane’s acceptance of her suggestion, coupled with the low tone *he* uses when he emphasis that it would make things easier, made me read the scene as *him* not wanting to scare *her* away as opposed to the other way around. We know Lisbon is fiercely private and protective of her personal space and I think he was gently acknowledging her desire to share that space with him, in a way that wouldn’t discomfit her; hence her subsequent happy, yet slightly embarrassed smile.

Violet: Their happiness is visible in her giddiness and the low tone he uses to brush off her thanks with a husky “it’s my pleasure” with regards to helping her unpack her things. The bright smiles too leave no doubt about how well they get along and Lisbon sharing memories about her youth and opening up about a model car her grandfather gave her for her graduation shows that they’re eager to be more familiar on an emotional level too. The wavering between that new found trust and the lingering doubts about going too fast and about the other’s thoughts on the matter is hinted at by the setting: the porch was the location of one of their failed attempts at communication during her association with Pike. In ‘Il Tavolo Bianco’, Jane brought her cannoli to create an opportunity to talk to her, but his plans were thwarted by Pike’s presence in Lisbon’s home. He ended up staying on the porch and telling a teary-eyed Teresa that she should do whatever made her happy… Now, they’re trying to overcome that lack of transparency, but it needs work.

The main point of this discussion appears when Abbott –Jane’s personal matchmaker in the previous finale- calls Teresa to a crime scene. When the man asks if she knows where her new lover is, she answers “no idea where he is”. Jane is surprised and assumes she’s “embarrassed”. Even as she denies it, he tries to reassure her by telling her that “it’s okay”. Problem is: what should she be embarrassed about, from his point of view? About sharing intimate details on her workplace (something she had no qualms to do when Pike used to join her in the office)? Or to be with an uncontrollable man with a criminal past and who used to be her subordinate? Lisbon tries to explain that she wants to stay a little while more in their secret bubble: after the debacle with Marcus that everyone was privy to, thanks to her failed transfer, she just wants to keep her private life private, “just for the moment”. Jane’s reaction to her uncertain “is that okay?” is one of reassurance: “yes, sure”, “I understand”. He wants to keep her happy, albeit he might not be very satisfied with keeping the lie in front of his coworkers.

RB: Very true. Jane wouldn’t need to keep the relationship a secret, especially from Abbott. And he might be wary of Lisbon’s wish to do so, for all the possible reason’s you pointed out. I do hope that he understands what I personally feel are her actual reasons: like she said she’s a private person, always has been. And yes, it’s normal to be embarrassed, not from Jane, but of what people will think since she had been planning to move to a different state with Pike (a huge step) but two weeks later she’s in a relationship with her longtime consultant Jane.

Violet: Another aspect that has without any doubt caught many viewers’ attention is the lack of touching, hugging or kissing. Their intimacy is implicit as it is only expressed by meaningful glances and beaming faces. As usual, a great part of their bond stays off screen. This time, it may be because the characters are rather private people who would not want to get all lovey dovey outside of the house. Or more simply, it could be explained by the actors’ friendship and their admitted lack of comfort with love scenes… One way or another, the scenes featuring the couple focus more on the progress they made (and have yet to make) and on the tenderness they feel towards the other than on a newly explored physicality.

RB: This was a very clever move on part of the show, I think. Last season’s ending was perfect enough that you wouldn’t want to ruin the relationship, or what the fans’ expectations are of it, by having it shoved in their faces. It’s not like when Rigsby and Grace were on the show and they served as the canon hot couple (to be fair they ended up being so much more thanks to the clever writing and great acting). But the physical aspect was never what Jane and Lisbon are about. Yes they are both incredibly attractive (ahem *hot*) people. But that’s not *the only*) reason viewers like them. Their relationship is infinitely more profound and captivating; their intimacy goes beyond the physical and I love how the show kept that.

Violet: Anyway, that cloudless happiness doesn’t mask the fragility of the situation: those two are still quite unsure about the other’s commitment as they’re about to get back “in the real world”. They need to talk because that honeymoon stage they’re still on won’t last and they have to decide at some point what path they’ll be waking on together from now on.

RB: You can especially see Jane’s reluctance to get back to the real world. He readily agrees to “talk” but you get the feeling he’s going along with whatever Lisbon wants. It’s touching and somehow heartbreaking as well to see him fearful that this, to borrow Violet’s word, bubble will burst. It’s like he’s in awe of how happy he is.

2: At the crime scene

When they get to the crime scene, separately, Jane gently mocks Lisbon’s request for secrecy by being rather cold to her, in contrast to the exuberant affection he demonstrates towards Cho. The impassive agent –or is it actor Tim Kang?- has trouble hiding a smile when Jane hugs him cheerfully, adding “Hey Cho! Give me some sugar baby! There we are… You’re looking good!” His calm and flat voice when telling “Hey Lisbon” and “you look good too” is in direct opposition to that outburst. It gets even funnier when he almost tries to hand feed Cho some pecan nuts he’s munching on, before turning to his partner with a subdued voice and concluding “Ok, more for me!” when she declines. He’s so outrageously imitating some false indifference that Lisbon is amused. She knows he’s once again teasing her by making fun of her instructions: he’s a professional liar, yet he’s trying to make Cho realize that something is not natural in his attitude towards Lisbon. He keeps his game on when Abbott arrives, bouncing towards his boss and offering him food too. Obviously, Jane is happy and doesn’t want to hide it, even though he knows Teresa doesn’t want the others to guess the reason for his great mood.

RB: This was an incredibly sweet scene. Along with the teasing, I thought it was also Jane being unable to contain his happiness and wanting the others to be happy for him, even if it was subconsciously done. Cho’s smile, I thought, was a recognition of a change in Jane’s status quo. Despite being in denial of the couple in last season’s finale, he knew Jane would be most affected by Lisbon leaving, hence waning Jane that it was going to happen. Whether he knows that they’re a couple now after Abbott clued him in (most likely) or he thinks Jane’s happiness is just a result if Lisbon staying isn’t crystal clear. But the smile shows he’s happy Jane is happy.  I think he even hugged him back (or was it a just a pat on the back?) Cho’s probably happy also glad that Lisbon is staying. We know he likes her.

Violet: If Jane was teasing, however, it is not mean-spirited: when the two male agents leave them alone, the consultant gets closer to her, supposedly to examine the body. He then leaves while asking her what’s in her pocket. She finds out that he’s put an origami swan in it. His thoughtfulness and light joking make her beam at him. The paper animal is a secret love message between them, as well as it obviously reminds of the origami jumping frog he gave her at the end of the pilot as an apology for basically lying to everybody.

RB: It was an ode to a fantastic moment that probably set the stage for the entire relationship. I always felt the way Baker played that pilot scene was quite telling: looking back at Lisbon without her knowledge, smiling at her surprised gasp, then getting serious all of a sudden and leaving, showed that the consultant was developing feelings for her, perhaps despite himself. And for six seasons the writers had such a great time making us guess what exactly those feelings were. So it was nice to see them play back to that moment.

Violet: This swan doesn’t leap at her like the frog did: it swims smoothly and therefore hints at a new beginning, expressed once again by a bird –this time white and not blue. And while in the pilot they didn’t share a glance, now he’s waiting for her to look at him, showing how they’ve come to an understanding.

All in all, this scene let viewers know that Jane is still the unruly consultant, but he’s gotten some peace. He’s happy, eager to let the world know, but respects Lisbon’s wishes enough not to go too far. His way of playing with the rules is now less a disregard for authority than an affectionate inside joke with the woman in his life.

RB: Jane continues to grow as a person. I always said his showman personality stemmed at least partly from his closeted insecurity and need for recognition. Now that he has Lisbon’s full attention I think her reciprocated love for him will reign him in somewhat. The more confidence he has in the relationship the less he’ll need to show off for her. Don’t think it will ever truly disappear, though or he wouldn’t be Jane 🙂 But, like Violet said, his respect and love for Lisbon seems to have tempered his ego somewhat. At least for now. It might end up being the opposite: his growing confidence in the relationship might have him start taking her for granted. We’ll have to wait and see.

Violet: Later, when they get back at the office, Lisbon is again confronted with how thinly-veiled their lie may look when Wylie cheerfully welcomes her back after those few days she took and probably spent with her lover. Indeed, the youthful agent gives her a letter left by Kim Fischer before she transferred to Seattle to get closer to her mother who just had a stroke. The woman was grateful for Lisbon’s friendship and she wrote “Lisbon, you’re the best! Thank you for everything. Good luck with Jane! Kim”. Lisbon comments “oh, that’s sweet”. Is ittoo far stretched to guess that Kim knew what the couple has been up to and that it might be why she didn’t say goodbye in person or by phone, for fear of disturbing with bad news a coming together that she’s suspected from the start?

RB: I love this. I wish that is the case. In fact I wish we saw Jane make such a deduction on screen to explain to Lisbon why Fischer left without saying goodbye in person or even via phone. The explanation for the move, while convincing, felt too short for a character that spent a good deal of time with these two and who the audience had gotten to know. I’m not sure why Emily Swallow is no longer on the show but I resent having to get used to a new character when there is just half a season left on the show. Any time left should not be wasted trying to get us to care about a new character.

Violet: Later we find out the victim’s secret identity: Geist was a FBI agent working undercover. As such, he carries on with the notion of false appearances expressed in the previous season by the string of undercover jobs scattered through the last episodes. Again, is that a hint that Jane and Lisbon are still struggling with truth and lies by trying to keep a low profile?

One way or another, from here the investigation at the bowling alley the victim was infiltrated in goes pretty much as usual. Lisbon is amused by Jane’s antics – asking for advice on the game instead of about anything related to the investigation- and Cho is still impassive, answering “great” to a long speech from a witness about not recognizing the authority of the FBI but accepting to answer to his questions voluntarily… Still, the entertaining atmosphere doesn’t please Ken Spackman, the supervising agent who worked with Geist. Soon, he tells them off, stating “I thought you guys were some innovative team that was capable of thinking outside the box, so what is it with the whining?” Jane’s “ire” gets up, as he explains later to Abbott and he gets pretty protective of Lisbon; he stresses out: “Don’t talk to her like that”. The discussion threatens to turn into a full-blown argument when Kenneth growls “hey, back off”, but Jane replies with much calm “I will back off but you don’t need to talk to her like that”… After years of bullying and tricking his way through antagonistic coworkers and witnesses, Jane now chooses to make his point in a straightforward way. He asks for respect by showing the same attitude. That’s a pretty interesting change in his way of interacting with opponents as for once he shows no resentment or cruelty. He’s angry, but he doesn’t act up on this anger. It’s only afterwards that he goes with acting childish, mocking Kenneth by mimicking his moves and he finally brushes him off to get everyone’s attention and makes a speech about micro-expressions that has their main suspect blowing her cover… before she starts running away.

RB: I think Jane’s straightforward manner here comes from his new relationship with Lisbon. Before when he would “protect” her it was many times without her knowledge (like when he talked to her new boss Hightower). I think it’s because: a) independent Lisbon could never stand him protecting her, and b) he had no justification for doing so. Even his excuse to Hightower “we work together, when she’s unhappy, I’m less happy” (episode Blood money) was quite flimsy. Madeleine at the time saw right through him even when he added “It’s human nature”. But now that he and Lisbon are a couple, he doesn’t have to hide his protectiveness, not from her nor anyone else.

3: In Abbot’s office

Violet: Jane’s blunder causes an emergency meeting at headquarters. Abbot is not very pleased and Kenneth rants about losing the woman, while having still no proof and no means to get her to talk even if they find her. Jane attempts to play the situation down but Kenneth counterattacks by stating: “no, it’s not okay, this is a disaster”. Coincidentally, things being “okay” or not were the words he and Lisbon used to test the waters when talking about the exchange of keys and then about keeping their relationship a secret…

Jane then launches at the opportunity to shift the attention from himself when a young woman comes in and introduces herself to Abbott as the new agent in the team. Michelle Vega (Josie Loren)has already caught Wylie’s interest when she arrived and Jane quickly let her guess that she’s not getting in a completely ordinary team when he casually tells her “oh, you don’t have to call me sir. In fact, don’t call me sir. Save it for him” while pointing in a rather unceremonious way at their common boss – who’s currently on the verge of berating him obviously …

RB: I loved this moment as Abbott’s reaction was very amusing.

Violet: That respite was enough to get the resourceful consultant at the top of his game again. He tells Kenneth “I’m going to make it up to you. When this is over, it’s gonna be your birthday”, adding in an alliterative cheerful tone “candles on the cake and all, Ken”. Admitting that he’s done wrong and willing to make up for it… is it me or is there a drastic change in his attitude? It looks like he has nothing to prove anymore, he’s not being a smart ass, but instead he seems emotionally fulfilled, which in turn leaves him felling less insecure towards others and more willing to be honest.

RB: Exactly, and when he later falls back on his old habits, he is quickly reminded that he had no reason not to be honest with Lisbon. But more on that later…

Violet: In the meantime, there’s no doubt Jane’s very personal approach on hierarchy unsettled the newbie. When she’s introduced to the rest of the team, she starts asking about him: “the guy in Abbot’s office with the… shirt. Is he an agent?” Like her lover did in front of Ken, Lisbon takes his defense almost automatically: “no, but he’s part of the team” Vega persists, asking “he’s err, different. Anything I should know about him?” to which Wylie timidly answers “there are probably a few things…”

RB: Props to Vega for not google-ing Jane’s name or she’d probably find out more than she wanted to know.

Violet: As the subject of their interest starts investigating new leads, he visits Jeremy’s rented room. Near the door, a copy of Van Gogh’s ‘Irises’ can be seen, similar to the one behind Lorelei when she met up with him in ‘There Will Be Blood’. He sits on the mattress lying directly on the floor where Jeremy used to sleep, which reminds painfully of his own mattress under a smiley made of blood in the pilot… This probably makes him understand that there was a terrible and shocking event in the victim’s past that he couldn’t overcome, some secret laced with fear and a bit of guilt he was still punishing himself for. Yet, Jane’s reflex here is not to identify with the guy in a spontaneous attempt at self-pity: instead, he reaches out to someone else whose suffering he could sense.

He calls Vega to get her insight about how to get more information about Jeremy and at the same time interrogates her about her past: unraveling the half-truths she’s spinning to protect herself, he gets to the core of her problem. Vega claimed to have no military past although her father was military, but she actually went at West Point but did not graduate, because her father hat cancer. Like Lisbon, Vega has thus lost her father and because of it had to leave behind part of her life and projects. Plus, while Fisher was wary of Jane’s attempts to pry into her life, Vega is probably in search of a reassuring fatherly figure, hence her confidences to him when he clearly wants to help. Furthermore, her military experience explains why she’s hierarchy oriented (obstinately calling Jane “sir” or “agent”); she maybe also be ashamed of her failure (hence the denial) and ambitious.

RB: Violet, I applaud the depth you have given to analyzing this character. While Vega is nowhere near as annoying as she could have been, I had no interest what so ever in her back story. The upside I see is that they quickly got it out of the way so that we can now hopefully focus on the older characters we already have a vested interest in. But I have to give credit where it is due, Josie Loren does well with her character so I’ll (try) to keep an open mind and ignore the fact that she was probably brought on just to appeal to younger audiences. She seems likable enough and is very cute.

 

Image by @chizuruchibi. Copyright Reviewbrain December, 2014. Not to be used without permission.

Violet: The new character then proceeds to ask about him to Cho while they’re trying to catch their escapee suspect. When she asks is he’s a psychic, the older agent answers like a well-oiled machine the line Jane used to feed them: “there is no such thing”. He explains that Jane’s “as good as he can be” at reading people among other things and how he came to work for law enforcement is “a long story”… This talk reminds of Van Pelt’s first case with the CBI: back then, the redhead rookie couldn’t hide her curiosity either and Jane had no difficulties at reading her like an open book, albeit in a more aggressive manner. Once again, this season premiere feels like a new beginning, filled with allusion to the pilot. There is also little doubt so far that Vega is eager to fit in. After arresting the fugitive, she apologizes to Cho about disobeying his orders. Cho only answers “nice job”.

RB: It was, even if the scene was identical to the one in which Lindsay aka Montana was introduced in in CSI: NY. But I digress. Here, the scene shows that while Vega is eager to follow the rules, she has the ability to make split second decisions. Good for her.

4: Lisbon sneaks out to find Jane

Violet: Armed with a file on the victim that Vega provided for him, Jane takes a break and goes out to sit on a bench and study Jeremy’s psychological profile, which informs him that the man had been witness to a kidnapping that ended in murder when he was a teen. Still, there might be another reason for him to leave the office.

Indeed, some time before, after their little meeting with “Ken” in Abbott’s office, the boss had a little talk with the unruly consultant in front of the elevator. He started by saying “Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Lisbon but…” Jane opted then for a particularly ineffective avoidance tactic, obeying again more or less Lisbon’s wish for secrecy: “nothing’s going on.”

-Really, Jane? After the guy gave you his car keys to chase after her, you feed him the most unconvincing lie ever?-

As expected, Abbott is not fooled and comments that Jane is just uttering the “party line”, indicating even more clearly that he’s convinced that they’re an item and that they just agreed on what to tell others. He then warns him that Marcus Pike is in the building. Instead of telling Lisbon on the spot, Jane shares with her a clandestine glance with the doors of the elevator close. In hindsight, this moment of tacit intimacy contrasts with every other elevator scene when he’s been leaving after arguing with her (in ‘Red Rover, Red Rover’ for instance); yet, as willing to communicate with her as he is, he still kept silent about her ex, a sure sign that he’s not as certain as he would like to admit about her reaction when facing the other man. By leaving the office allegedly to study his file in peace, Jane might want to avoid his rival. Obviously, after stealing Lisbon from him, an encounter with the dumped ex-fiancé would be very uncomfortable, even more since Jane admitted he thought the other was a good man… But isn’t he avoiding Lisbon too? He clearly didn’t tell her that he was leaving.

Abbott understands that she sneaked out to look for him after she told the others that she was “going for a walk” (which is a terrible excuse if she’s really trying not to make everyone suspicious,… wouldn’t it have been far less odd for her to just tell them she was going to find Jane before he wreak havoc, as she’s been doing for years?) His stance towards the lovers is therefore amused but quite protective too. He’s keeping the same approach about this particular inter-office romance that he had in S6: obviously, he wants them to stay together, may it be because he’s a romantic at heart, because he likes them, or just because he’s aware that Jane might get even more out of control without Lisbon’s calming influence… He’s still in dire contrast with Cho.

RB: While Abbott seems to fully support the relationship we get a hint that he might be wary of it as well. He’s less than thrilled that Jane is not in the office the same time Lisbon has gone for a walk. Don’t think he had fun imagining what they were up to. His worries should be put to rest though as Lisbon comes back with information she got from her meeting with Jane. Speaking of the meeting…

Violet: When Lisbon finds her lover, she admits that she’s been looking all over for him, while he pretexts that he just needed some fresh air… In other words, it means that, even though he had been spending until then the first working day of their clandestine romance teasing her, as soon as he heard from Pike, he’s spend as much time as he could outside, either investigating Geist’s apartment or sitting on a bench. It might have been a coincidence if he had used this rare opportunity to talk to her privately and tell her about her ex…

RB: I like that possibility.

Violet: …but Jane sticks to the case and resorts to his old habits of withholding information.

RB: Maybe he got cold feet. I found Jane not telling Lisbon here about Pike to be interesting. Perhaps Lisbon not wanting their relationship out in the open affected him more than he is letting on. He’s not secure enough to let her know the man is around.

Violet: Lisbon picks up on it, even if she doesn’t realize that not opening up about the case may only be the emerging part of the iceberg. She tells him “Jane, you don’t need to wait until I need to know to tell me things, ok? Not anymore”. His lack of transparency over work had always been a sore point for her and Jane understands that and insists on apologizing. He’s willing to make an effort to stay on her good side, underlining again that he’s playing this new tune humming between them by ear.

Another detail might hint that Jane realized that he did make a mistake in the past by assuming that Lisbon would stay by his side no matter what. He brings a hammer in order to “nail” their suspect of selling illegal weapons (the case Geist had been investigating) as well as the actual killer. This tool will be used in setting a fake hiding place for Tish’s guns but it also reminds of two times when Teresa surprised Patrick: in S5 ‘Panama Red’ she smashed to pieces a box Jane playfully hid her keys in and S6 ‘The Golden Hammer’….

RB: Yes! And when he incredulously commented “You keep a hammer in your desk?!” she blithely told him that he only “thinks” he knows everything about her, but he doesn’t.

Violet: She also shook him by telling him that she had a date with Osvaldo…

RB: And he was visibly affected, enough that she quickly reassured him that Ardiles asked to talk, not really a date.

Violet: Later, when they crack the case open by tricking the murderer into revealing himself, a nice shot of Jane’s head further emphasizes that he’s moved on, since he’s shown behind a door when he’s stepping in from the other side. He’s pushed the metaphorical door of his past open and that he’s resolute to make amends. Indeed, he’s made huge progress from the pilot, where he also pretended to focus on other suspects to get Dr Wagner to lower his guard. Here, the team work together, he’s let them in the plan. He’s trying to make it up to them for a mistake he’s acknowledged. And albeit he refused to apologize to the men he got arrested under a false pretext in the pilot, here he even apologized to Tish for using her… before getting her to confess of course, by ironically playing a variation of the same trick he faked in the bar when he set her up. And this time, he doesn’t bring donuts as a back-handed apology to his team like he did in S1, but yells good-naturally to Ken “it’s your birthday!” All in all, angst has been replaced by more sincere smiles and a more relaxed stance.

5: Pike’s question

Once the case is wrapped up, Jane goes back at the office to find an unpleasant surprise as Pike is leaving a note on Lisbon’s desk… The meeting is awkward, to say the least. Jane tries to convey how sorry he is for the guy who’s basically in the situation he was two weeks before after learning that Teresa was planning to leave. The balance between the two men is inversed: Pike is now bearded, he’s doing undercover jobs, just like Jane used to. He’s moody and upset, because Jane was the other man in his romance with the petite agent, whereas now, Jane is the one who’s in a legitimate albeit secretive relationship with her.

RB: And Jane is completely honest with Pike about what’s going on. He feels appropriately bad.

Violet: Marcus’ resentment is thus directed not at Lisbon, since he’s aware that she didn’t mean to hurt him, but at Jane as he asks him directly “so you have a plan?” When Jane is taken aback and says that he doesn’t understand, he explains that he had offered her “a life, a home, a family” and “a future” and asks what the consultant is offering her, “I mean, other than Patrick Jane?”

RB: Ouch.

Violet: It’s a low blow that leaves Jane stunned, because he knows about Jane’s past and can guess that he’s still struggling with his hesitations about moving on. It’s also the truth and the biggest advantage Pike had over his rival in Lisbon’s eyes before she chose Jane over him.

RB: Not only that but it also dredges up all of Jane’s insecurities and further highlights how his flamboyant confidence was all just an act. Patrick Jane, the man who *always* has a plan, at least when it comes to cases has no idea what to do when it comes to his relationship with Lisbon.

Violet: Lisbon comes unknowingly to his rescue by barging in the office. Jane’s evasiveness to Pike about her being “around here someplace” hints that he still hasn’t told her, and further proof is in how she’s quite shocked to see him near her new lover. She asks him: “what are you doing here?”
In the background viewers can recognize the US flag and the FBI motto “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity” that was shown in a previous scene in the entrance of the office. More accurately, the red stripes of the flag and the word “Fidelity” can be seen behind her as she appears. Is it a coincidence that what’s keeping Jane from promising her a future too is a red-tinted past and his fidelity to his family’s memory? He brushes against her shoulder to show her that he’s supportive as he walks out and for a brief moment, they’re symbolically facing different directions… But then, he waits for her until she finishes with Marcus, just as the shot expends to a fuller view of the flag including the hopeful blue that characterizes their budding love story. We can also read the beginning of the word “bravery”. It pretty much hints that he’s in the right direction.

Jane doesn’t wait to prove her his goodwill: as soon as she leaves Pike, while she’s still processing how weird it was, he blurts out Pike’s question.

RB: It’s a very touching moment. Simon Baker here unleashed all of Jane’s vulnerability when he answered Lisbon honestly on what they talked about. Perhaps for the first time in their relationship, he is actively and overtly seeking her reassurance.

Violet: Stammering a little, Jane tries to explain “I think I know, that we know what feels right and that that should be our guide”.

RB: Lisbon is visibly touched at his honesty, and to his relief agrees.

Violet: He then lifts up the mood by showing her the surprise he’s been preparing for her: a vintage 1930 Cadillac, the real car instead of the model she got from her grandfather. Instead of thinking of the future like Pike had been doing while pushing Lisbon to accept to fit in his expectations for his life, Jane is still trying to make peace with the past in order to learn how to move forward step by step. In that perspective, the car holds a similar meaning than the toys from their childhood he’s given his team members in the previous season, or than the birthday pony he gotten Lisbon in the early episodes: he’s trying to bring back memories by lacing them with present joy, because he wants to express that he cares. And that old classy car reminds of many others, like the more recent vintage Cadillac he rented to entice her with in ‘Blue Bird’, his old trusty Citroen, the flashy luxury car he borrowed from Mashburn to take her to dinner or like even Ellery Queen’s distinctive Duesenberg from the same era…

RB: And once again, this car, too, is rented. Unlike the couch Jane bought for Lisbon without her approval. It hints that he might include Lisbon on future choices that he makes.

Violet: Pike’s question can also have a more ambiguous meaning instead of only involving Jane’s plans for the future. Jane’s quest for RJ has established that he has no qualms about using his talent for intricate planning in more personal matters. As it is, we can’t know for sure if Pike is aware of the extent of Jane’s planning when he tried to trick Lisbon into staying without revealing his feelings…

RB: although I don’t think Lisbon would have included Jane’s gross manipulation in her attempt to explain to Pike why she’d rather be with him XD

Violet: He’s been scheming and deceiving her for years. And Marcus is right: he actually tried to convince her to stay by playing on his charming and entertaining persona and letting her see how fun working with him was: he’d basically tried to get her a first row seat in the performance the great “Patrick Jane” was always giving. Pike’s slight gibe at his vanity is spot on: as Reviewbrain pointed out Jane is pretty insecure and his tendency to hide behind the mask of the showman is a way to cover up how much he fears he’s lacking in others aspects…

RB: But the fact is Marcus doesn’t know that. He might think he’s hit Jane where it hurts, which is true in a way but…

Violet: …the fact that Jane’s so unsettled by Marcus’s question indicates that he’s sincere.

RB: It’s actually the best proof. Lisbon knows that which is why she was so touched. Unlike Marcus, she knows Jane. And she’s had so much of Jane’s plan’s that this is probably a refreshing change for her.

Violet: He’s really helpless because he doesn’t know what is the best thing to do anymore, which is probably why he was afraid to let Lisbon talk to her ex-fiancé alone. Pike’s spiteful little barb throws him back to the beginning of the episode and to Lisbon wanting to take the next step into a serious relationship. The faint uncertainty brought by the two questions –about the key and about his plans- might be an allusion to the song used for the title:

“Skies were gray but they’re not gray anymore”,

the difference being that in the song the clouds were left behind… in the budding romance, whereas the storm ended, getting out of the honeymoon phase might bring on some grey areas they’ve yet to define… some maybe in next episode ‘The Greybar Hotel’?

Conclusion

Violet: As a conclusion, I’d say that even though their relation has evolved since the beginning of the show, its romantic aspect is still a work in progress, because for each of them learning to live with to someone who is as secretive as them and with a troubled past too is bound to cause some adjusting. In that perspective, the reference made to Jane Austen in a recent interview (thanks Rose for the information! 😉 ), as well as in ‘Days of Wine and Rose,’ is very interesting. The situation between them has been slowly progressing for years from distrust to indulgence, from manipulating to caring. Like many Austenian characters, step by step, they’ve been overcoming trust issues (born from Jane’s lies) and differences (the opposite morals of a by-the-book cop and a conman) to get to the similarities that lay deep within their hearts. But unlike Miss Austen’s protagonists, they can’t distract themselves anymore with false appearances as they did for a decade: sweet, reasonable if a bit prejudiced Lisbon has chosen at the last moment her edgy Jane over a more eligible gentleman, who had the merit of being better-matched both in his outlook on life and character but who couldn’t win her whole affections… Even if they’ve achieved forgiveness and are reaching respect and understanding, neither is foolish enough to take what they have for granted. They’re careful that the real world and its demands don’t shatter their blue-tinted loving bubble.

RB: That’s beautiful Violet. One last point I have is the fact that Jane is still wearing his wedding ring. Sunny_Girl (@_D_o_r_y_a_n_n) asked why that might be on twitter and I saved my reply for here: Jane is a creature of habit and as much of a romantic as I am I somehow don’t think it is strange. I always thought the ring was symbolic for Jane to represent that he is taken. First, it was by his wife then by his quest for Red John, and now by Lisbon. I wouldn’t be surprised if he remains wearing it for the rest of his life and somehow find it fitting. Nor do I think Lisbon would make that much of a deal over it, rather it seems to be something she gets. And if the two end up getting married he’ll need a ring anyway so why waste one he already has? It might seem a weird point of view to some but that’s just how I see it. It’s part of Jane, like Lisbon’s cross, and I think she understands that.

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Mentalist Themes in Season 6

This is dedicated to the commenters neither Reviewbrain nor I have been able to reply to in the course of the last few months (sorry guys, this summer has been hell!): Lou Ann, Tringo, Rose, Windsparrow, KM, Mosquitoinuk, Phoenixx, Mentalista, OrangeChill, Carla Oliveira, Jean-Noël, Valentine0214, Moliere, Agnes, Little Үүрцайх, Patricia Korth, Kilgore Trout, Sara C, Ezza Belle, Chokulit and Eff in To! A belated but warm welcome to the blog to the newcomers! (I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone!)
(As S7 is aired earlier than expected, I had to wrote this post in a rush, sorry for the mistakes and horrible grammar! ;P)

 

1) FLOWERS

The flowers aren’t overflowing this season, but there are still some intriguing occurrences. The season opened with ‘The Desert Rose’ and the flowers growing among the victim’s bones painted a “kinda beautiful and weird” picture, to quote the goulish Brett Partridge. Interestingly, those creepy flowers were one of the major clues Jane bases his investigation on, plus they were associated with the desert, a location closely related to the Lorelei arc where flowers made their major appearance, as the desert was the setting for the ‘Crimson Hat’. In hindsight, those might have somewhat hinted both at the end of Jane’s crusade against RJ (given how close he came to him when he met his girl) and at getting closer emotionally to Lisbon (they were holding hands in the desert after he’s been rescued from Lorelei). Plus, in the same episode, among other red object in the background, red flowers could be seen behind a window during the second case they’re investigating, suggesting danger. And commenter Taissa remarked that there were a lot of references to gardening too (“the victim’s last name and the flowers, one of the suspect’s last name was Green, the bartender wore a green tank top, the widow’s home had a lot of green decor”), a notion also developed after RJ got his comeuppance.
In ‘Black-Winged Red-Bird’ and in ‘Red Listed’, flowers served not really as a symbol, but rather as prop: as Reviewbrain pointed out in the review for the former , the flower on the bedside table in Lisbon’s hospital room suggested that the team has been visiting her while she had been unconscious, whereas the white and purple bouquet of lilies and hydrangeas that Jane brings to Hightower’s aunt Ruby hinted subtly that he might have been more than a simple coworker to Madeleine, possibly even a lover, which would help him win the lady’s goodwill…Later, in ‘Fire and Brimstone’, Stiles hided in a truck in the middle of some white orchids and red roses, a mortuary reminder of past seasons before the most stimulating and ambiguous of the remaining suspects met his end… And maybe also a hint that Jane is at a crossroad in this episode: either he ends up alive and successful in his quest (the orchids, which were a symbol of hope) or he’s about to be overwhelmed by the red color (the roses). In the second part of the season, in ‘My Blue Heaven’, Reviewbrain also remarked that Lisbon was gazing pensively at a bouquet of white flowers in the corner of her office. Whether or not they were sent by Jane (who admitted seconds before that he would miss her in a flashback from his last phone talk with her after he killed McAllister), that moment obviously hinted at her quiet dissatisfaction with her new life. Later, flowers are again used to draw attention to a situation: in ‘White Lines’, Jane was trying to emphasize his supposed interest in dating Krystal by buying her flowers whose colors happened to match the titles of the previous episodes (red, blue, a green-themed one and white), at the moment when she was shooting someone. And, later again, Kim brought flowers to Grace and Wayne at the hospital in ‘White As The Driven Snow’, a nice way to bit them goodbye from the show… All these cases don’t focus on the flowers themselves, yet they give a clue about a character’s state of mind or their circumstances.
But, while these occurrences are rather anecdotic, flowers make another more instructive appearance in the turning point of Jane’s new FBI career. In ‘Violets’, they represent modesty and faithfulness (a perfect description of Teresa) and tender love from someone who dare not confess (which is what Jane is feeling towards her). Plus, as a painting, those Violets find an echo in another portrait: as Jane hands back the painting the victim made to his widow, he makes peace with his past with Angela, since both loving marriages ended in a violent death. In contrast, the Violets hint at Jane’s feelings for Lisbon and the fact that he’s in danger to lose her to another man, like Monet lost his model… From that perspective, violets are coming close to one possible meaning for the orchids from the Lorelei arc: the underlying hope for being set free from his self-imposed limitations while still feeling unable to leave them behind. Even more since orchids sometimes mean “new beginnings” in the language of flowers.

 

2) TWINS :

Another long running, albeit more recent theme involves twins as a new aspect of duality. It starts a bit oddly in the first case of the premiere since the murdering widower’s portrait is placed just behind Jane and looks like him. It’s underlined when Jane remarks bluntly to the tech looking at him that he doesn’t have “two heads”… Like the widower from the case, he is a prideful man, whose thirst for fame caused his wife’s death… and it’s the same arrogance and recklessness that will drive him to argue later with Lisbon, resulting in RJ getting his clutches on her. Not to mention that the two faces aspect reminds of two interesting parallel pointed out respectively by commenters Rose UK and Alutran. On one hand, they might refer to the two sides of the same coin, an allusion to Jane and RJ being quite alike. On the other, the Roman god Janus, whose name sounds similar to the consultant, has two faces on his head, one looking forward, the other behind, since he’s the god of opening and closure, of thresholds and doors –some major points of Jane’s story.

The whole twin theme has been brought in the previous season by the reference to ‘A Tale Of Two Cities’ by Dickens, that Jane and Cho had been reading. It culminates in ‘Red Listed’ as it’s revealed that Kirkland, a suspect in Jane’s list of possible candidates for RJ, is also in a revenge rampage set off by the murder of his twin brother by the serial killer. This time, Jane and Bob are also entwined in their common quest: “only one will get his revenge” as the agent tells him. As he does with RJ, Jane represents the light, while Bob is his cruelest sadistic darker counterpart.

This continued and nuanced duality forebodes the trick the serial killer uses in ‘Red John’ by making Bertram pose as the villain. It is hinted at by Bertram using the name of ‘Thomas’ as a fake identify in ‘The Red Dragon’, since Thomas The Apostle is called “Didymus”, meaning “twin” (thanks to Shady007 for the reference). This name also happens to be McAllister’s first name –indeed, Bertram is actually posing as a smoke screen for him- and coincidentally, two “Tommy” had managed to get under Lisbon’s skin at some point (her little brother and her own nemesis Volker).

Last, not least, Jane, as an agent of justice fighting the evil “Tyger”, is called a “lamb” by Hightower’s aunt. In Blake’s poetry, this animal is the counterpart of the tiger, as well as in the Bible, it’s an image of the Savior, who will cause the Beast’s demise.

 

3) HUNTING

Tiger and beast also fit in another theme as these animals are predators, just like RJ is. Both he and Jane are chasing each other and in this season it became even more apparent that each planned to kill. Hence the hunting metaphor: both Jane and Red John are simultaneously the other’s hunter and prey, with the latter targeting Lisbon while goading Jane into trying to “catch” him first.

This tension is swimming right under the surface in the talk that Jane has with McAllister, who at this point is only a suspect among others, about hunting in ‘Wedding in Red’. The friendly sheriff asks him if he’s taken hunting as a hobby, like him, and Jane answer that he doesn’t like “the skinning and gutting”, which could be seen as a description of RJ’s gruesome murders. McAllister good-naturally answers that it “takes a certain stomach for that”, accentuating that he doesn’t mind getting his hands bloodied. Same thing happens in ‘Fire and Brimstone’: an innocent deer is targeted by Sheriff McAllister’s shotgun while he’s sitting in his patrol car just like the episode ‘Red Moon’ back in season 3started with a deer standing in the wildlife as Jane and Lisbon were passing by. The detail enlightens McAllister’s creepiness, his lack of scruples both in using his work to practice a pastime of his and in exploiting the unfair advantage being hidden in a car gives him over the defenseless animal…

Meanwhile, Jane is exploiting his knowledge about a potential phobia from the serial killer. He’s following his tracks and it ends with him hounding his running prey in the cemetery where he managed to corner him. And while the squeamishness he admitted about “gutting” seemed in opposition with the talk he had with Lisbon in Season 1 ‘Red Flame’ (“I’m gonna cut him open and watch him die slowly like he did with my wife and child”), it finds an echo in the way he finally killed McAllister. After shooting him, he strangled him to death, while the other had been running away with bloodied hands that frightened bystanders… It alludes to the handshake mentioned by Lorelei (and to McAllister hauling him up from the roof he was falling from in ‘Wedding in Red’), plus this detail is once again reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth and her fixation with the incriminating blood on her hands, in the exact moment Jane’s Hamlet-like quest for revenge comes to an end. Yet, even after things have settled down and Jane started working with the FBI, the guilt hinted at by this reference has not completely disappeared which is why the Bard is again quoted in ‘Silver Wings of Time’ (“the lady doth protest too much” from ‘Hamlet’).

 

4) THE GAME

The hunting theme is closely related to the various games alluded to in the course of the series. Indeed, that’s how RJ sees his relation with Jane, whose brilliant mind poses him as a worthy adversary: “Red John’s Rules” has made it clear and the premiere follows in this direction. He’s playing a deadly game with Jane, baiting him with Lisbon’s phone after he’s attacked her, leaving him a macabre post-it in a horrible mini-treasure hunt to find Sophie Miller’s butchered head in her oven… Even the “tyger tyger” password has a childish play vibe to it.
When the consultant gets closer to the truth, RJ uses a daring bluff by faking his own death and using Bertram (a poker player) to cover his tracks. And, whereas the sheriff stated that “game’s game, right” while talking about hunting in ‘Wedding in Red’, it takes Jane’s willpower in ‘Red John’ to tell the other man that “it’s not a game” when they finally meet face to face without any mask in between.

Yet, the game is still on after Jane’s made his grand escape. The stakes are different, he’s trying to win back a real fulfilling life from the clutches of the dead man who has taken his past, but he’s still playing, in many senses than one: he’s trying to cheat in a game against despair, starring in the ever-present part of the charming unruly consultant, or maybe just tricking his new playmates when he showers them with childish toys.

The impression is subtly deepened by some killers who lost to Jane’s winning hand: in ‘The Golden Hammer’, the murderer stated that it was a game, just like Haibach pretended that there was “no game” on his part, while he was enjoying playing them as fools in ‘White as the Driven Snow’. This may have ended in the season finale when Jane invented a last treasure hunt to convince Lisbon to stay by his side and he was forced to reveal the truth. Is there any use now for the grand game of lies between them?

 

5) BIRDS

This one theme has taken a very particular meaning since the previous season. Indeed, after Lorelei had sung like a bird both for Jane (giving him an hint which started his list of suspects) and for RJ who used her to make his threatening video, references to winged animals have been spiraling from different ideas. First, those allude to hunting, mixing preys and more aggressive ones. There are the pigeons and ducks that the characters feed (Lisbon’s childhood memory is feeding pigeons with her mother as she told in the S5 finale; Jane feeds ducks then pigeons later), plus the partridge and the drone in ‘Black-Winged Redbird’. Then, as the pace picks up and Jane comes to know some of RJ’s particularities, like whistling like a bird, the animals tend to hint at the phobia RJ suffers of. Coincidentally, doves are a symbol of innocence and they’re messengers from God in the Bible, just like angels are… Jane comments in ‘Wedding in Red’ that he has no wings, comparing himself to an angel precisely, not to mention that there’s one on the stained-glass window inside the church. In a biblical perspective, pigeons are thus in direct opposition with the winged ‘Great Red Dragon’ (painted by Blake and briefly alluded to by the Chinese dragon seen in the restaurant where Jane meets Hightower in ‘Red Listed’)

Birds appear again in ‘Silver Wings of Time’ and in ‘Blue Bird’, hinting at Jane’s desire for freedom and living again. In that aspect, this theme slowly takes a similar meaning than the butterfly one, which indicated his hope for putting his past at peace, for metamorphosing his dark thoughts into a sparkling lightness. No wonder then if many serious talks between him and Lisbon take place in flying planes or involve helicopters, like the dressing down in ‘Green Thumb’; Lisbon uncharacteristically refusing to go on a road trip with him in ‘Black Helicopters’; his fake enthusiastic proposition of getting to the crime scene by helicopter to help Lisbon go to her date with Pike in ‘Forest Green’; finally his confession about loving her in ‘Blue Bird’… They are symptoms of his passivity until he decides to take action.

 

6) RELIGION

While religion and faith were hinted at in the previous seasons (“Saint Teresa” and her cross necklace; the medallion given to Jane in S3; the meeting in a church in ‘The Crimson Hat’; RJ’s minions’ faith in him and his tastes in religion-oriented art, like Blake’s poetry and Bach’s music; the talks about good and evil and about afterlife and so on) it has always been quite a background theme compared to others, mostly underlining the cult-like influence of the serial killer and Jane’s craving for redemption. Those two opposite drives went repeatedly through Jane’s psyche, making him go all the way from violence, revenge, wanting to be at the center of the world’s attention, like his nemesis, to a pull towards salvation and wanting to believe that beyond the grave his family may have forgiven him and may wish for him to move on. Nevertheless, this theme is strikingly deepened in season 6, making it one of the most visible features of the final battle between the two enemies.

Indeed, the deadly encounter between the light of Jane’s justice and the darkness provided by RJ is the main event of the first half of the season. Thus, it’s logical that many things foreshadow it to that one way of another. For instance, Bob Kirkland’s twin brother was called Michael and therefore shared his name with God’s Archangel who fought the demon during the Apocalypse. Both Michael and Bob prefigure Jane’s actions then.

Moreover, as commenter Anomaly very accurately and comprehensively noticed, flowers found a parallel in trees: the “woods” were mentioned in various occasions in relation with Jane’s suspects for RJ (McAllister refers to his “neck in the woods” in ‘Black-Winged Redbird’ and in ‘Red Listed’, the investigation concludes that Benjamin Marx, kidnapped by Kirkland, was kept “in the woods”). Three kinds of trees were more precisely referred to: pine (Rosalind described RJ as smelling of “pine and nails and earth”; pine sap and pine needle found in Marx’ body led to Kirkland’s location), oak (in ‘The Red Tattoo’, Kira Tinsley is located at “1065 Oak Terrace” and later a sign reads “Napa Valley Sheriff Blue Oak Substation” on a building McAllister exits from in ‘Fire and Brimstone”) and cedar: Jane has a propriety in 1309 Cedar Street, Malibu. Those trees have probably been chosen carefully, as they are all biblical trees (for instance pines are mentioned in Nehemiah 8:15 ; Isaiah 60:13 and in 41:19 in association with the cedar ; oaks in Genesis 35:4 and 35:8 ; Isaiah 2:13 and 44:14 in association with cedars again, among many other occurrences…) Cedar is rot-proof and as thus the temple of Jerusalem was built using it (2 Samuel 7:1-16;1 Kings 6). The fact that the guest house depending from his Malibu home is located in Cedar Street therefore hints that’s the place where his family was sacrificed in the name of pride is sacred for him, like it shows that he’s standing on the side of divine justice. Moreover, this address where Jane sets his trap echoes 1309 Orchid Lane in ‘There Will Be Blood’. The parallel is intriguing because Jane’s decisive step towards identifying RJ was taken because of Lorelei in that arc. Lastly, Haibach brings down the last consequences of Jane’s ruthless and obsessive investigation on the old team by taking Grace to the woods too (‘White as the Driven Snow”). It becomes therefore obvious that he’s reaching out to the conclusion of his quest, which started years before with that fateful TV show –where coincidentally in a deleted scene he mentioned a citrus tree too in the lawn of the sad little man’s house, opening up a citrus theme that had been running for many seasons.

The allusions to the Bible culminate in the three episodes ending the RJ storyline: « Fire and Brimstone” and “The Great Red Dragon” are direct references to the Book of Revelation, respectively to the wrath of God/the villains’ punishment and to the personification of Evil itself. It’s been building up for the start of the season, with McAllister saving Jane in a church, with the hints at angels and pigeons, with the lambs (Jane and Bertram’s accomplice “Cordero”), the religious/satanistic ceremony at Visualize, the red tattoos appearing as an interpretation of the “mark of the beast”-the “666” in the abandoned house where RJ attacks Partridge and Lisbon in the premiere…

These hints lead viewers to understand that beneath Jane’s quest for revenge, the age old epic battle between Good and Evil is once again in play, tying up both the RJ arc (the Book of Revelation is supposedly written by John, which may or not be an allusion to RJ pulling the strings in the shadows for what he had planned to be his grand escape) and the long standing reference to Blake, whose illustrations for this part of the Bible are very famous. Hence Jane, the improbable angel who defeated the beast, ended up in a “Heaven” afterwards: he avenged his family, gotten some peace of mind, and got rid of the evil… Last, not least, ‘Silver Wings of Time’ later serves as a illustration of Jane’s dilemma in relation to his feelings towards Lisbon and his late wife, because the widower cheated on his spouse and was indirectly responsible for her death: coincidently, in this episode, Jane brought the real murderer to justice and thus saved an innocent named “Cruz” (“cross” in Spanish).

 

7) THE OCEAN

“My Blue Heaven” is precisely linked to another long standing theme: Jane’s pull towards everything ocean-related. Him preparing his goodbye to Lisbon on a cliff facing a sunset in ‘Fire and Brimstone’ -as an echo to his escapade with Lorelei in ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’- ; him sending her seashells and letters about dolphins from his island; the walk on a beach leading to his failed plan to get her to dump Pike in Islamorada and the ‘Conch Republic” airport: all those steps show that he’s been reaching out for her. Indeed, his stay in the island represented his isolation from his everyday world and how he was stuck in neutral, but his attempts at sending her sea-themed signals also echo the first hope he glimpsed in ‘Blood and Sand’.

His hesitation between two impulses is hinted at in the FBI: he’s jumping in the water from Krystal’s yacht while waiting for Lisbon to rescue him and the killer in ‘The Golden Hammer’ ends up trying to escape too by running through a fountain… All in all, as Rose UK pointed out, this travels through the world -and through the contradictory desires of his souls- mimic somehow Odysseus’ s journey on contrary waves, as it’s indirectly hinted at by the mosaic featuring the Medusa in the finale, another mythological character… He’s been waiting and longing on the beaches of the mysterious island owned by Calypso, rescued by his own Nausicaa, the aptly named Fischer, and led to Abbott/Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians-like FBI, who helped him come home. Unsurprisingly, Lisbon has been waiting for him as a very reluctant and grumpy new Penelope, in anticipation of her Odysseus finding a sneaky way to try and get rid of the pushy suitor (coincidentally named “Pike”) who tries to convince her to get into a rushed marriage… The notion of travelling and walking forward on a path is further emphasized by Jane’s shoes –which he only takes off at the very end, when he decided to take action and stop procrastinating- and by the socks she’s given him as a welcome back gift.

 

8) OPENING DOORS

As new possibilities present themselves to Jane, more and more doors are slowly opened. In ‘The Desert Rose’, great emphasis is put on Lisbon opening the door which hided a mortally wounded Partridge and the suddenly opened door at her back distracted her enough for the killer to attack. Later, in ‘The Red Tattoo’, RJ’s fatal mistake was to assault Kira Tinsley in her home: we could see her opening her door to let him enter, before he killed her. ‘Fire and Brimstone’ then begins with Jane making preparations for ambushing his remaining suspects in his property in Malibu and things come full circle as he watches the shadow of a man (presumably RJ or one of the suspects) behind the glass of the door of his guest house; he’s waiting for him, having set things up to get his enemy a nasty surprise, just like RJ did in the pilot by hiding the corpses of his wife and daughter behind a closed bedroom door.

Yet, even after he got rid of the monster, Jane couldn’t really bring himself to trust life enough to open doors and step into new potential fulfilling situations again. He’s just trying to recreate his CBI cocoon in another place, because he cannot manage to open himself to dangerous new promises… Hence him talking to Lisbon through the door of her room at the ‘Blue Bird Inn’, underlining his incapacity to fully open up and tell her the truth at the critical moment when he realized how badly he messed things up. Fortunately, he manages to take the step and runs to the plane she is leaving in, banging on the ultimate door –with a red circular security sign painted on, like a smiley face- and finally opening it: he opens the lid he put on his feels in front of Lisbon, telling her the truth of his heart and accepting to have a new life with her that he wasn’t sure that he deserved so far.
It therefore concludes one of the major aspects of the freedom notion Jane has been struggling with from the start, hinted at with those closed doors, safes, locks and keys, cages, bounds, lifts which doors, as Rose pointed out, often were shown closing on him as he stepped in.

9) PATTERNS reflecting Jane’s state of mind: obsession, painful grieving/punishment, worry and thirst for affection

– LISTS

Lists and notebooks have been scattered through the seasons to show Jane’s obsession with investigating the serial killer and season 6 is no exception: there is the list of suspects he finished in the season 5 finale which plays a major role in unmasking RJ and which is used by Kirkland too. After he gets to kill his nemesis, lists keep appearing, showing the influence his past still has on him: the demands he writes on a napkin –which mean he’s coming back to the more familiar grounds of investigation-, then the fake list of Blake association members he threatens Abbott with…

It’s also interesting that those lists are basically Jane still processing obsessively the dreadful letter RJ had left for him on that fateful bedroom door: hence the many writing made on the show, especially on walls (“666” in the premiere). Here, Jane writes letters to Lisbon after leaving her then tries to get her to stay with a fake letter supposed to have been sent by a serial killer in the making. Again, it looks like that things are coming full circle.

– CUTTING FINGERS OFF

But obsession with his past isn’t the only thing threatening Jane’s calm: severed body parts were already present in the previous season (in ‘Red Handed’ and in the case of LaRoche and the tongue) and here RJ decapitated Sophie Miller, but there’s a curious insistence on trying to cut fingers off. Back in the Lorelei arc, that act showed a level of cold-blooded violence that aimed to punish Jane for misbehaving by refusing RJ’s friendship. Here, it seems to snowball from another of Jane’s grand plans: Kirkland tortures the other suspects on Jane’s list by cutting their thumbs off to get them to reveal who is RJ before killing them. Later, Haibach got his revenge for his lost finger by trying to do the same to Jane again… Violence breeds violence and hurt people tend to act out by hurting others they deem responsible for their suffering, like Jane has been doing for years.

The same kind of brutality pops up in the middle of his more peaceful FBI life, with the victim’s body parts found in ‘Green Thumb’, hinting that Jane’s still under the repercussion of his previous choices and feels helpless to regain a fulfilling life. Like those thumb-less men, he’s also incapacitated to some extent.

– PHONE CALLS (at critical moments)

Another intriguing pattern is the number of phone calls between Jane and Lisbon at meaningful moments. Not that they say anything particularly long or enlightening, actually: it’s mostly the silences and unacknowledged truths between them that make sense.

In the previous seasons, it happened many times, when Lisbon was in danger and calling Jane for help or to reassure him (‘Redwood’, ‘Red All Over’, ‘Strawberry and Cream’ I and II). Here, their miscommunication issues start in the premiere: after arguing with Jane about his controlling ways, Lisbon falls in the trap set by RJ, leading Jane to desperately try to call her, only to hear finally the serial killer answer her phone telling him ironically that she couldn’t answer right now but he could always take a message…

Later, after he left her stranded on the road to set his own trap, Jane says his farewell to her in a rather cold voice… Which contrasts with his breathless, emotional voice telling her in a low tone “I’ll miss you” after killing his nemesis, when he called her to tell her he made it and was safe.

These instances showed his worry for her and how much he cared, yet they don’t stop after his successful return. In ‘White Lines’, he pretended to hang up on Lisbon while on his date with Krystal, while he actually was actually letting her hear what was going on in order for her to send him some help. Cho commented on his poor communications skills then, which didn’t stop the consultant from trying to call her after she left in a fit of rage in ‘Blue Bird’, only to go to voicemail… But more on this later.

– FOOD AND AFFECTION
Like it did in season 2, food seems to have taken a discreet added meaning. The first half of season 6 involves a number of occurrences in which food is left half-eaten: Lisbon leaves her muffin untouched in ‘The Desert Rose’, while Jane feeds his to the ducks in ‘Wedding in Red’ and PI Kira Tinsley can’t eat hers in ‘The Red Tattoo’. Plus the uncharacteristic act of Jane biting into an apple and sending it crashing into a wall might remind viewers of the biblical fruit of knowledge, since he’s about to learn RJ’s secret identity… which might or not have been a reply of the “original sin” he committed by badmouthing RJ years before (and mentioning a tree bearing another kind of fruit in the aforementioned deleted scene from the pilot).

But once the RJ case is closed, food is eaten onscreen when affection is most needed: Jane fights loneliness in his sea-side haven by having dinner with a stranger, while Lisbon denies her regrets in front of her dinner guests Grace and Wayne. Both end the evening drinking, making even more transparent their sadness at being separated. When Pikes makes his grand entrance, he starts his seduction by flirting over the phone, offering her the comfort of “pancakes”, when she’s been left “hungry” by a sleeping Jane in an empty house –a symbol of her relation with the man: she’s yearning for more, but he doesn’t give her what she’s craving. Yet her later dates with the dark-haired agent are nice but hardly emotionally fulfilling obviously, since she cannot get over Jane, just like the food Pikes offers her: popcorn, a granola bar… Same thing when Jane slowly starts his seductive counter-attack: he has dinner with her at ‘Il Tavolo Bianco’ on Abbott’s insistence and he brings her cannoli before getting cold feet… And his last devious scheme involved a meal in a romantic restaurant he never got to share with her.

In season 2, those allusions hinted at (a lack of) communication; here, those are answers to new expectations: Jane wants to fit in with his new team and brings Cho and Kim lunch in ‘Black Helicopters’, whereas Lisbon feels a deep new need for affection she’s decided to fill. Pike is hell bent in taking care of it, thus the idea of him offering her food, and Jane fails to do it twice, before realizing that what she really wants is not the same fake appearances and lies he’s been feeding her so far but only truth and love.

– THE DATING GAME

But those struggles don’t stop the characters from playing a game of manipulations, half-lies and prodding by dating other people: ever since Abbott started referring to Jane and Lisbon as “boyfriend” and “girlfriend”, both have been seeking attention by flooding their conquests. In the island, Jane chooses Kim as a closest substitute for Teresa: he obviously isn’t eager to let Lisbon know about this detail, but he’s willing to rub his date with the gorgeous Krystal to her face… Lisbon does the same by mentioning her ill-fated dinner with Osvaldo to him, then by trying to goad him into reacting to her relationship with Pike… A relationship that doesn’t deter her from accepting two work-related yet date-like outings with her consultant in ‘Il Tavolo Bianco’ and in Islamorada (“it’s a date”).

Of course, what makes this little game deeper is the underlying idea that both want to move on and recreate a home, but they’re unsure of the other’s wishes… Hence the notion of guilt brought by spouses who acted badly towards their companion–particularly in ‘Silver Wings of Time’, but also in ‘Green Thumb’ and in ‘Blue Bird’ for instance. It resumes a long-standing pattern developed in season 1, but here, it focuses more on new possibilities. In retrospect, guilt becomes a normal step of moving on, a step Jane manages to take to move forward. It gets obvious in the decisive ‘White as The Driven Snow’: fighting the ghastly worry of not being able to protect his family guilt (something Haibach’s sister had been blaming herself for, leading her to land him an hand in his criminal career), Rigsby managed out of pure will-power to save his baby and wife. This feat undoubtedly led Jane to come to terms with his own failure as he helped the man in trying to find the lost member of his makeshift family.

 

10) TRUST , PARTNERSHIP AND TRUTH
As Reviewbrain pointed out very early on, there always has been a tension between Jane and Lisbon regarding trust and their tendency to want control over the other. The shadow over their growing affecting has been declined in many shades like Jane telling the truth or lying; their status as coworkers varying from being boss/subaltern to getting to rely on the other as a partner… More often than not, the quarrel is centered on Jane not letting Lisbon in on when he’s setting his most daring schemes…

It comes as pretty harsh in the season premiere: she’s rebelling against Jane giving her orders and acting as her boss and a two years absence hasn’t quelled that fear since she’s still telling him off for it in the plane in ‘Green Thumb’ and alluding to this penchant of his in the fish bowl scene at the beginning of ‘The Golden Hammer’. Jane’s clumsy communication skills regarding everything Lisbon keeps him from reassuring her, since his attempts at getting her to see him as her partner often end up in her playing the magician’s assistant (‘Forrest Green’), or the mad surgeon’s nurse (‘Black Heart’), ultimately forcing Lisbon to lie for him in front of Abbott… Even their usual bantering at the end of ‘White as the Driven Snow’ (which returns after Jane somehow redeems himself by rescuing their old team) involves her pretending to sulk about his lack of transparency during the ordeal.

In addition to the failed phone calls, the miscommunication hits a dead end when Jane tells her to be happy and she doesn’t tell him that she’s leaving. An interesting detail places communication at the heart of the matter: she’s started really flirting with Marcus on the phone and it’s over a phone talk too that she accepts his proposal on a whim. Indeed, while Lisbon and Jane refuse to tell the whole truth, Pike is rather fine with only hinting at the threat that is Jane in his love life; this is probably why he shows Casablanca to his unsure girlfriend, particularly his final scene with the female lead choosing her stable husband over her adventurous lover and telling him goodbye before taking off on a plane… which ironically foreshadows Jane running off after her plane a few episodes later.

Truth is “The Daughter of Time” –title of the murder mystery Fischer was reading when she met Jane- and it is really at the heart of this new chapter of his life. The continuous undercover jobs the new team is taking suggest his reluctance to yield to Lisbon’s yearning for honesty: Kim playing a tourist in ‘My Blue Heaven’; Jane and his fake dates in ‘White Lines’ or being asked to play a psychic in ‘Green Thumb’; Lisbon disguising as a cliché spy in ‘The Golden Hammer’; Jane going to the citizen farm in ‘Black Helicopter’ along with the disguised victim and the murderer hiding under a false name, or him again sporting a chauffeur hat in ‘White as the Driven Snow’ ; the whole team setting a undercover sting in ‘Violets’… Every episode shows how creative Jane is to cover up his feelings. The interest in lawyers has probably a similar meaning (‘Silver Wings of Time’, the Haibach arc): Jane is trying to defend his con, he’s stuck in his make-believe comforting world of a consultant and desperately tries to get Lisbon to accept it as true. Objectively, it’s the main difference between Pike and him: viewers are told repeatedly that Marcus is honest, which means that Lisbon can put her trust in him, the same trust that Jane has trampled time and over. It’s Abbott, who comments to Fischer how this job makes people start losing trust in ‘Green Thumb’, who places Jane in front of his failure: he’s started to believe his own con and it’s only by freeing himself from this façade (of an half-life, of only being friends with Lisbon because he’s too afraid to claim more from her) and by finally telling her the truth that he can achieve that loving one hundred percent trust from her that he’s been aiming for over the seasons.

 

11) COLORS
Colors are not really a theme, but the drastic dropping of everything red in the titles is still worth dwelling on for a bit, as commenter Ioana remarked, if only to raise a few questions.

Firstly, there are relatively few colors after the end of the all-red era. No bright colors (like orange or yellow) nor many nuances, just plain simple colors mostly: black, blue, white, but no turquoise or beige… even the “Forest Green” is more used as a word play here than a really different shade. Yet, some patterns are slightly discernible such as blond women replacing the trademark redheads as murderers, victims or witnesses.

Given the rather limited choice of colors used, some are repeated, which might help draw some parallels. The most obvious relates to the ‘Blue’ episodes –namely ‘My Blue Heaven’ and ‘Blue Bird’, involving Jane getting a new start and opening up. It’s taken as a calm and marine-oriented opposite to the burning red and shows Jane’s hope for freedom, peace and happiness.

Green is also used twice: in ‘Green Thumb’ and ‘Forrest Green’, Jane’s inability to convey what he feels to Lisbon involve him giving her some space that she clearly doesn’t want (after the plane talk, then when he asks in a falsely cheerful tone for an helicopter to get her in time to her date with another man).

Three occurrences so far for the color ‘White’: ‘White Lines’, ‘White as the Driven Snow’ and a variation in Italian with ‘Il Tavolo Bianco’ and three episodes when Jane tries to get closer by using dates, either by taunting her with him dating Krystal or by having dinner with Teresa on Abbott’s demand… Still, he only succeeds to really get on her good side and to win back some of their old banter after saving the team in the third occurrence. Those are somewhat in opposition with ‘Black Helicopter’ and ‘Black Hearts’ where she distances herself physically from him, by refusing to get on a road trip with him in the Silver Bucket and by accepting Marcus’s offer to move with him to D.C.

Among the one-episode-only colors, ‘Violets’ (a shade that is basically made by mixing blue and red) is a pivotal episode, rushing Jane’s progresses by introducing a rival to his love interest. ‘The Golden Hammer’ and ‘Silver Wings of Time’ force him to consider that he’s getting serious competition for winning Teresa’s favors: the former shakes him with the unexpected revelation that Lisbon can start dating, the second makes Pike’s threat more dangerous for his own relation with the petite agent. And it’s amusing that the “Silver Bucket” makes its appearance just after the ‘Golden’ episode too. Everything that shines might distract Lisbon enough to make her drift apart…

Of course, given how few episodes there have been since RJ’s demise, those are very probably only coincidences, but it gives something more to look forward in the new season! 🙂

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Mentalist Black Hearts Review

Synopsis

After Cho (Kang) and Abbott (Rockmond Dunbar) find the corpses of three victims whose organs have been harvested, during their investigation on a human traffic ring, Jane (Baker) and Fischer (Emily Swallow) are called to the disturbing crime scene. Meanwhile, Lisbon (Tunney) is still struggling to make a decision concerning following her boyfriend to DC.

Concise Verdict

With ‘Black Hearts’, star writers Ken Woodruff and David Applebaum close the case of missing girls started in ‘Brown-Eyed Girls’, the second arc in TM 2.0 after the case involving Haibach’s revenge on former CBI members. And, like then, Jane also reaches a new -and this time depressing- stage in his murky emotional situation. Indeed, while the maddening man still couldn’t bring himself to actually do something regarding Lisbon’s possible departure, both she and her boyfriend take the initiative of making decisions. Jane keeps being passive regarding Lisbon, whereas Pike comes across as more straightforward than ever and tries again to rush his relationship in the most frustrating way. On the other hand, the case is pretty predicable, but rather carefully crafted and made deeper by a rather intriguing symbolism and some obvious efforts to give their villain more substance. The pleasure of the two leading characters pulling an amusing con together and the team members getting to fill smoothly their designated roles (boss, supportive coworkers and eager rookie) come together to make this episode, which could have been the last one before the ultimate conclusion of Jane’s story, a rather coherent yet odd combo.

Detailed AKA Humungous Review (spoilers galore)

VIS #1: the opening scene

Right away, the title ‘Back Hearts’ is explained both by the harvested organs of the poor girls and the cruelty of what’s been done to them –both points being emphasised by the black little heart drawn on Daniela’s hand, which served to mark her as a unwilling donor too…

Jane’s attitude is respectful and affected by that turn of events. He even mentions a “cup of tea” in passing, which reveals that he needs comforting in front of the horrifying sight. Plus, the bodies were actually discovered at the end of ‘Il Tavolo Bianco’, meaning that the episode starts during the same night. In other words, Jane is still under the defeated influence of his failed attempt at talking to Lisbon while eating cannoli together. Indeed, Lisbon is not here, just like she was late at the crime scene when she started dating Marcus: it again hints at the growing importance of her personal life. Plus, he’s showing vulnerability while glancing at the young woman’s face, like he did when he witnessed the other one dying in ‘Brown-Eyed Girls’: like then, his deep empathy also reflects his powerlessness and his feeling of abandonment in front of Lisbon’s new life (she had accused him of interrupting her date back then).

Either because Abbott remarked Jane’s subdued behaviour and worries about it or because he thought Jane might have a hunch, he starts asking the consultant about the case. Jane gloomily answers that he thinks there are many more dead girls. It’s interesting that, true to his name, Abbott is once again willing to play the part of Jane’s confessor. He tries to get Jane to talk about the case, just like he approached him about Lisbon’s decision to leave Austin –telling him then that conmen’s downfall often involved them starting to believe their own cons- and about the date-like dinner he set up in the previous episode. May it be about Lisbon or about the gruesome case, he’s the one who helps Jane into shedding a bit more light on his feelings to viewers…

VIS #2: Lisbon on a job interview

Back in the office, Lisbon is brought to attend to a webcam job interview with a potential new boss in DC. Abbott is present as her current leader and Pike is here too. Marcus is actually the contact who hunted the job for her, yet his presence in Abbott’s office makes him look omnipresent in her life. She spends her time off with him, he’s taking her to lunch or to late take-out dinner while she works and now he finds a way to get into her job itself too, even when he’s not directly needed on a case…

Moreover, his proposition seems even more pressing since the silver-winged flying time is again alluded to by the hourglass on Abbott’s desk (filmed under different angles during the whole interview)… Lisbon’s answer to the enthusiastic job offer echoes that notion: “that sounds great. I just need some time to think about it”.

Abbott gives her his professional opinion when the meeting has ended: he remarks that it’s a great deal, but obviously he’s far from happy to have one of his agents leave the team –the dark look he discreetly sends to Marcus during the interview is pretty eloquent. In the most recent episodes, he tried to confront both her and Jane about the situation they’re getting themselves in: he asked her if Jane knew that she might leave when she informed him of her possible departure and he kept pushing Jane to get her to stay. Dennis seems to like Jane as a person, given how well they get along in their many undercover gigs, but he’s also probably fully aware that Jane’s efficiency in the field might suffer from her absence. Jane is an investment of sorts: he too made a great deal with the FBI. Abbott, the man who coldly and calmly closed down the CBI before hunting Jane through South America, might want to keep his “golden boy” as happy and useful as possible. Eons ago Jane remarked to Hightower who had the same kind of logic, that if Lisbon was unhappy, he was less happy: the same goes here, because if his moral compass/anchor fails him, he may very well let his life go downhill. After all, when she wasn’t here to tell him to shred off his homeless vibe, he ended up basically a beach bum…

Unfortunately but as expected, Pike is not as understanding. He bluntly tells her « I’ve been patient » as soon as they exited the office. There’s obviously a shifting in his behavior, since until now he’s been putting off the appearance of the supportive boyfriend who would wait for her to decide whether or not she wanted to follow him, all the while attempting to subtly influence her. Now, he’s trying to pressure her more openly, even though he still wants to make himself look good: as always, only his qualities are brought on, may them be his honestly and inability to lie, his willingness to be here for her, or now his supposed patience. He plays on every aspect of her life: he’s half-forced her to perceive their fresh relationship as something serious, before making her watch movies involving love triangles. On the professional aspect, he’s been finding her a job. He’s methodically trying to eliminate every counter-argument she might have against moving to DC with him. Implicitly, he’s controlling her, telling her “it’s a great decision, but it’s a decision you need to make”, a phrasing that hints that he’s already chosen for her, she only needs to say the words.

That’s the moment Jane chooses to intrude on them and the shifting is also perceptible on his part: while he seemed half-apologetic before when he interrupted them (going even as far as asking her to text “Jane says hi” to the other man), he now curtly announces his presence with a rather cold greeting « Hello Lisbon. Pike». The awkward moment sums up the situation perfectly: a hesitant Lisbon is caught up between her pushy boyfriend and Jane who’s always lurking in the background of their relationship. Is this coldness an indication that Jane has decided to take matters into his own hands after his failed attempt at bringing her dessert late at night? Anyway, every member of their little tangled trio is now openly aware of the antagonism between the two males, as Jane has showed his hand by coming to her house –even if he ended up telling her that he wanted her to be happy.

Afterwards, while Lisbon and Jane investigate their prime suspect Ridley –whom viewers already know to be the ringleader since the end of ‘Brown-Eyed Girls’- Jane’s inner tension is still palpable. He keeps poking the suspect, remarking on the soberness of his office and wondering about every answer the other man gives them “What’s so boring about details,” indeed?

VIS #3: Lisbon asks Cho for advice

Confronted to such a lack of answers from her pushy lover and her slippery friend, Lisbon turns to the most immutable person in her life, her blunt former second-in-command Cho. The stoic agent recalls how he almost quitted in the first day in her team… because of Rigsby. But then he saw the way she worked and that convinced him to stay. While the memories are obviously fond ones –made even funnier since Wayne actually become his inseparable buddy- the fact remains that he stayed for her. Just like Jane, actually, who came back for her and, before, who tried to make it up to her after wanting to quit when Bosco took over the case in S2. It shows the influence she had on the people around her, both as a team leader and as a person. Plus, the allusion to Rigsby hints that she should not make an hasty decision either: it reminds the viewer that Cho’s already lost a close friend to work with and therefore would be pretty unwilling to let her go too, even if he points out that it’s a great job offer. Plus, it implicitly indicates that she’s leaving because of Jane –like Cho almost did because of Wayne-, or rather his inability to make a move, while he should be her reason to stay –since Cho’s partnership with the taller agent actually became one of the highlights of working for the CBI. On the other hand, Cho’s respect also reminds viewers that Lisbon used to be his boss: Jane’s revenge cost her a most promising career. Even now that she’s working for the FBI, she’s only a subordinate. Marcus is offering an opportunity to remedy to that loss.

Talking about Wayne, it’s interesting that Lisbon asks advice from Cho, since Rigsby was eager to give advice to Jane about getting together with Lisbon… As he did at the bar in ‘White As The Driven Snow’, Cho is more reserved. He obviously takes sides with Lisbon as the whole team used to do in the most recent years. He concludes: “whatever decision you make, it’s been an honor” before hugging her. While Lisbon is happy that he holds her in such high regard, she obviously never realized the impact she had on her team members… like she probably doesn’t know how deep Jane’s affection for her runs.

Later, it’s Kim’s turn to chime in. She simply asks where Jane is to Lisbon, adding that they always work together. Lisbon’s reply is a dry “not always”. Like when Abbott tried to poke into her complicated relation with the blond consultant, she closes off… Obviously, this choice of topic is painful for her.

VIS #4: Jane and the ringleader

Interestingly, most of Jane’s investigation quickly revolves around Ridley. He tries to create with the man a friendlier bond. That starts by meeting him again in his house. There’s a startling contrast between the very functional office and the carefully decorated luxury house, which already hints that the man has a double life.

Soon, the team locates a witness: the foul Dr Lark, whom they suspect actually killed the girls and removed their organs. After Cho and Kim saved him from the bomb Ridley ordered his henchman Tremmel to put on his car, he starts singing like the bird he’s named after… He admits to killing the women painlessly because he needed the money and Ridley paid well. When asked about the moral aspect of his actions, he just says that it bothered him to kill, but after a while stopped thinking about it. Still, this amorality is somewhat compensated by the fact that he commits suicide in his cell once Tremmel threatened his daughter.

Indeed, Lark was not strong enough to fight the evil association he was working for. Many details subtly fleshed up its threatening presence through the episode: the words “hunter of the rocky seashore” and “predatory” visible in the background when Cho and Kim went interrogating a suspect at a museum; the reference to Caesar brought in by Tremmel’s tattoo (the famous “veni, vidi, vici”, “I came, I saw, I conquered” that the imperator used to describe one of his military victory. The very brief line puts emphasis on the rapidity of the action, which might be a way to hint again at the flying time theme). This reference to the Roman general is further enlightened by the horses used in decoration, both in Ridley’s house (on a lamp visible when he’s talking on the phone with Tremmel) and on ambassador Moreno’s desk when Cho interrogates him over the phone too (a book end shaped like a horse head). Along with the panther sculpture visible in the same scene, those details reinforce the idea that this new association is very well organized, powerful and predatory. They’re a force to be reckoned with and Lark as a inoffensive bird was bound to die by getting close to them: they only preyed on his weaknesses.

When Jane corners Ridley alone in a parking lot, both men have a very intriguing talk. Ridley remarks that “it’s just business”, adding coldly “personally, I didn’t kill anyone”. He goes as far as explaining to Jane -whom he seems to consider as a kindred spirit- that his traffic serves to “save important leaders”. Jane grudgingly admits “I understand your perspective, very well”. Ridley replies: “come on, it’s just us. If anyone could understand our perspective, it’s you.” Without the shadow of a doubt, the shady businessman is alluding to Jane’s past: he’s aware of Jane’s ambiguity, his determination to achieve his goal no matter what the cost or how many people get hurt or killed in the process… Plus, his assessment sadly echoes Jane’s less than glorious moments, for instance his dismissing of Haibach when Kirkland kidnapped and tortured him because he thought the man’s life wasn’t precious enough. Lisbon disagreed then because she’s a better person than he is: quite disturbingly, Ridley is applying the same careless logic to his criminal activities than Jane has been to his quest for justice and revenge… Still, that was before Jane came to a more peaceful state of mind, because his sympathy in this case lies with the victims; he’s not as cold as he was back then.

Therefore, the whole talk has shades of RJ’s attempts to gain Jane’s attention and friendship: indeed both the serial killer and Ridley are cold-blooded criminals who think they’re superior and that they have the right to choose who is worth living. They’ve been targeting harmless women and Ridley, like McAllister, has been threatening a daughter for her father’s faults. Even the marks they put on their respective victims are quite similar in their innocuous appearance: a smiley face, made gruesome by the fact that it was drawn in blood vs. a little heart-shaped drawing with a horrid meaning… But Jane is no longer like them: he admitted to RJ that he’s “nobody”. He’s gained a humility that the two others lack. That doesn’t stop Jane from replying courteously to Ridley’s wish for him to have a lovely afternoon with a rather pensive “sure, you too”.

Jane and Lisbon (don’t) talk it out

Meanwhile, Jane finds another kind of opponent when the investigation provides Lisbon with a new opportunity to try to clear things out between them, but to not avail. Actually, there are three decisive moments in this silent gentle battle of wills he’s having with his beloved partners.

1) Firstly, when Jane is back in the office, it’s her turn to corner him. She enters the bullpen with a mug of coffee and a cup of tea –Jane is usually the one to bring her her favourite beverage- and her resolve wavers when she realizes that he’s seemingly asleep on the couch. But she calls for him and sits with him. She tries to put him at ease by telling “I always liked this couch”: that brings a touch of familiarity in her action. Also, it might be a coincidence, but that was pretty much what Jane said when he came to the CBI bullpen with his bimbo to bid them goodbye in ‘Fugue in Red’ (something along the lines of “I always wanted a couch like that”). Both times, that old couch has been the symbol of the work they’ve been doing together and the comfort he took in it and both times, reminding of them through it was a way to prepare themselves to depart. But for now, the line only makes Jane smiles, which Lisbon takes as her cue to start interrogating him. He begins hesitantly “Jane… Jane…” when her phone rings. The announcement that Lark committed suicide interrupts their talk.

Obviously, still, Lisbon’s attempt is her answer to Jane’s recent visit at her doorstep. As he couldn’t bring himself to open up to his real feelings, which made her cry, she’s taking upon herself to unlock that dreaded door he wasn’t able to open.

2) The second, more dramatic moment between them happens while the kidnapped girls, along with Daniela’s sister, are shipped to Columbia. That further stresses how time is the issue.

Jane comes up with a plan and tells Lisbon about it over the phone. His description is less than thrilling as it involves breaking “a few laws”… Lisbon is wary and when he presses her, she hopelessly answers “I’m thinking, Jane”. Seriously, what’s with the men in Lisbon’s life asking her to make huge decisions in a snap of a finger?

Of course, Jane plans to use the “understanding” he set up with Ridley. As he fakes a friendly visit in his house, he drugs the other man’s glass and takes him in a dark and worrying secluded place, probably the same Lark used to work on the poor girls’ bodies. While Ridley is still groggy, Jane feeds him a chilling little speech, explaining that so far the man has “been a step ahead” of him -Riddley managed to warn his Nigerian client to fly away before the cops could catch him- but that he finally got him now. Again, the “one step ahead” notion is linked with RJ’s little mind games with Jane, a detail meaning to accredit the thesis of Jane going once more all vigilante on the leader of a criminal organization.

Ridley tries again to justify his choices by the same reasoning: “some lives are more valuable than others” but, whereas Jane “couldn’t agree more”, it becomes obvious that it’s Riddley’s life and his accomplice’s that he finds unworthy. Indeed, he and Lisbon as wearing scrubs as if they were about to perform surgery. The woman protests that she’s not convinced that Jane’s doing the right thing, but she nonetheless goes along with his actions. Again, she’s playing the assistant to Jane’s magic show: they turn their back to Riddley and start presumably removing Tremmel’s organs while he’s still alive and kicking –and the tattoo on his arm makes Riddley sure that it’s his henchman lying there. Yet their concentrated albeit grimacing faces contrast funnily with the dramatics they’re pulling off for Riddley’s benefit. Lisbon reluctantly following Jane’s silent request to splatter more of that fake blood she’s so obviously disgusted with on his scrubs makes it all the more amusing. Riddley is not aware that he’s played and he starts panicking once he realized that he’s the next target… even more since he’s just witnessed them murdering someone… His only hope is Lisbon’s scruples: “you’re a cop. You cannot do that. This is wrong.” But her answer is even more distressing than Jane’s ‘crazy scientist’ act: “not after what you’ve done. This is poetic justice”. Again, the “justice” killing is a reminder of RJ’s fate, which makes the whole ordeal even more convincing to Riddley. The only difference is that Lisbon is supposed to be Jane’s willing and active accomplice this time…

3) That fact isn’t without consequences. After a terrified Riddley gives them all the information they want, they bring him back to more lawful grounds. When he’s in the bullpen, he starts accusing Jane and Lisbon of murder and they defend themselves by showing that Tremmel is actually in a cell. He wasn’t killed (it was Wiley playing his part with a fake tattoo on his arm. The undercover job of the week…).

Still, even though Riddley has been neatly trapped, his accusations don’t settle well with Abbott. Even more since Jane’s reply to Riddley’s lawyer that he’s been using psychological torture on him is “your client is a monster”. He’s not pleased either that Lisbon takes Jane’s side, just like she did in front of the jury when she pleaded the fifth to protect him… Abbott convokes them in his office and scolds them, adding that those are serious claims against them both. They keep denying that they did anything Riddley affirms they did to him. After dismissing Jane, Abbott focuses on Lisbon: “Jane is a liar… but you’re an honest, good person with a long career ahead of you”. The moment eerily reminds of his assumption when they met at the CBI: back then, he told her that she had been a good cop… before getting under Jane’s spell.

That doesn’t deter Lisbon who keeps standing for her partner: she lies through her teeth to her boss, stating firmly that “everything Jane said was true”. If it does come to it, between a career opportunity and her loyalty to Jane, she’s made a choice. On a professional level, she thus knows where she stands and her determination to have Jane’s back contrasts with her overall recent wavering… Too bad that doesn’t help with the personal problem at hand, right?

VIS #5: Pike’s proposal

Paralleling the touching reunion between Daniela and her sister saved in extremis from her captors, Lisbon meets with much relief her ever-present boyfriend. She’s happy and relieved to see him as the day as been emotionally draining, between the revolting case, Jane’s dreadful plan and Abbott’s threats. Yet, Pike uses her vulnerability to once again pressure her into making a decision, arguing as the devoted boyfriend he pretends to be that “it’s your life and like to be part of it”. Still, the care he displays tips the balance on his side: he’s here for her and he values her. With Jane, she’s come to the realisation that, in spite of their shared affection and connivance, he ought to always demand that she always protect him. He’ll always decide to take justice into his own hands when the law won’t reach the monsters they’re chasing. Her career will always take a backseat to their partnership, whereas he’s still unable to take a step in her direction on a personal level. Hence the decision she suddenly makes: she accepts Pike’s offer.

Unfortunately, Marcus considers this as an opening to push his luck further. He knows that it’s not “romantic, but the hell with that”: he asks out of the blue “will you marry me” to a flabbergasted Lisbon. Poor Lisbon who’s already made a huge effort to fight her doubts sees her commitment issues rattled again. Distraught, she only manages to answer “it’s a big decision. It’s huge”… Pushy Marcus generously gives her a “no pressure”, even though he cannot be unaware that he’s kept pressuring her. He’s been pushing her along with every decision he makes for them, starting by labelling their liaison as serious, to finding her a new job, until that overkill proposal. Just like she accused Jane of, Pike is making decisions for her and he subtly blames her when she’s unsure of them by making her feel guilty when compared with his qualities as the self-proclaimed man of her dreams. That’s how he went from a heartfelt « I’ll be here » to an edgy« I’ve been patient » in a matter of hours, after all…

His admitted lack of romantic skills is also pretty telling. Since he started dating Teresa, he’s shown a rather unsettling interest in labels more than in the essence of things between Lisbon and him: that what the granola bar “breakfast” hinted at. All the while, he’s been imposing his tastes and decisions, choosing movies with a hidden meaning, planning life decisions way ahead of her. It’s becoming more and more visible that there’s a discreetly controlling and manipulative streak in his apparently harmless and open personality. Why would he have asked her to marry him when she was showing vulnerability, otherwise? A marriage would bind her to him more effectively… In a sense, he’s looking forward to make Lisbon a trophy wife of sorts, gently controlling her life in a rather perverse fashion…

Pike gives her the coup de grâce by asking her “have you told Jane?”, adding “he’ll understand…” The man wants to push his advantage to the bitter end.

Lisbon obediently goes to meet Jane in the bullpen, only a few steps from where Pike’s unromantic romancing took place. Here, the lack of communication culminates in a painful moment as Jane seems peacefully engrossed in a book, sitting alone on his couch in a deserted bullpen, just like he was at the end of ‘Violets’ after Pike took Lisbon on their first date and afterwards in ‘Silver Wings of Time’… Plus it echoes Lisbon’s tentative talk earlier. Before Lisbon could explain the new situation to him, he interjects “we make a good team sometimes”. It’s an affectionate and wilful thing to say, yet ironically it’s exactly this conception of their partnership that pushed her into Marcus’ waiting arms. Lisbon cannot bring herself to tell him what she planned to. She simply says “I’ll see you tomorrow” –a loaded sentence, since she plans on leaving soon… He replies calmly “I’ll be here. Goodnight.”

Has Jane heard what they were saying? Did he avoid the painful talk just like he feigned ignorance when she first came to talk to him? Is he blissfully unaware of what happened or is he protecting himself by evading the truth? Or is he keeping things close to his vest because he’s looking for a way to finally fight for his happiness? So many questions, so little time left…

This review was written in a hurry, so feel free to comment on any pet peeves you may have on the episode. Also could someone make out the title of the white book Jane’s reading in the finale scene? I’ve been asked about it but I couldn’t see it clearly… And, of course, thanks for reading! 🙂

The Mentalist Red John’s Rules Review

First of all, sorry for the wait: the marvelous Reviewbrain and I were planning to write a review together to spice things up a bit and try to do justice to the last of the episodes of this tumultuous season, but real life got in the way… So, here is the review, as complete as I could: feel free to comment and don’t forget to grade it! 🙂 Many thanks for our faithful and awesome readers and/or commenters for sticking with us for those exciting months; we hope to read you very soon! (Also, for those who are interested, I’m planning to do a recap of the principal themes running trough the five seasons of the show, but be patient, it takes A LOT of time… 😉 )

Synopsis

After spending one week working alone on his list of suspects for RJ, consultant Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) is joined by his partner agent Lisbon (Robin Tunney). While he refuses to tell her the names he came up with, both are soon facing another problem: a new victim has been added to the serial killer very own list, one that obligates Jane to take a painful trip down memory lane.

Concise Verdict

Unexpected, well-written, yet unsatisfactory and slightly frustrating, these are some of the many adjectives that may very well be applied to this episode. As a whole, it gives an eerie impression of being a bit slow and unnerving and doesn’t match the show’s usual atmosphere. Still, at the same time, it is extremely well connected to the storyline and the previous episodes and the more one digs in its writing, the more it becomes apparent that there are many subtleties hidden in its shadows… To put it simply, waiting for the next season after such a finale will be especially hard, no doubt about it! 9.3/10

Detailed AKA Humongous Review (spoilers galore)

VIS # 1: the opening

The very first moments of the episode are almost deceptively normal: Lisbon goes to get Jane in the attic to join the team. Still, there is a pretty big difference since this is apparently their first encounter after the one week of voluntary confinement then he asked of her in ‘Red and Itchy’: we get a timeline and, more importantly we viewers are as eager as Lisbon to learn what the clever consultant has come up with when he reveals he has managed to narrow his infamous list to a few names.

Interestingly, we are also reminded right away of the previous season ending: Jane is burning his board about RJ on the rooftop, just outside of his attic, like he did with his copy of the RJ file in ‘Red Rover, Red Rover’. Beside, while following Lisbon in the bullpen, he tells her that he’s tired because he hasn’t slept in a week: it reminds how lonely and unkempt Jane was in Vegas. Indeed, both ends of seasons are linked by the fact that Jane has crafted another clever trap to catch his nemesis. And his reluctance to share said plan with Lisbon alludes also to his six months silence. Yet, this time, he told her about his what he’s doing, he just doesn’t want to share the specifics… Those two have make progress in the trust/ reliance department and it shows when Lisbon comes to wake him up to inform him that RJ has stroke again: his sleepiness and disheveled appearance hints to his fragility, while Lisbon’s softness indicates that she fears how he will react to the news.

VIS # 2: Bret Partridge at the crime scene

Again, the crime scene alludes a bit to Jane’s escapade to Vegas as it takes place in a motel room: a woman has been killed in her bed, under the usual bloody smiley. Hard not to think that RJ’s message to Jane in ‘The Crimson Hat’ was sending him Lorelei, who ended up in bed with him… and whose corpse has been found naked under a sheet not so long ago. Again, RJ is trying to tell Jane something, the only difference is that this time Jane will take some time to decipher his terrible message…

One of the most interesting points is that, again, Partridge is the forensic tech in charge of the crime scene. His attitude is pretty similar than in his previous appearances: the man enjoys explaining his theories and his audience is a new tech working with him. It’s visible that Partridge fancies himself an expert on RJ as he discards almost immediately the new case as a genuine murder from the serial killer. He even affirms that RJ hasn’t killed in a while, since Lorelei’s death was a particular case (she worked with him, she was not a normal victim): the new guy doesn’t know it, but it also reminds us viewers that RJ had indeed stopped for a while, hence it hints that this case is particularly important and unexpected.

But Brett becomes far less secure when Jane enters the room. His wariness of Jane and his relative deference towards him are ambiguous: is he simply afraid of the man because of their latest confrontation in ‘Red Lacquer Polish’? Or is he playing the part of the inoffensive and rather incompetent tech who can’t be clever enough to be RJ? Either way, the regular viewers may remember that his name was on the list in ‘Black Cherry’ and Jane’s attitude towards him is even colder than before, which is an indication that Jane has really come to see him in a more sinister light than the infuriating ghoul he’s been dealing with since the pilot… It’s interesting that Jane tells Lisbon that he can feel that it’s a RJ crime scene: it foreshadows the psychic theme that will be running through the episode and gives to the moment an ominous vibe. The victim is still unidentified, she’s a “Jane Doe” whose baby has been taken. That makes her symbolically the second “Jane” woman who has fallen victim of RJ with her child, after Angela Jane, also killed in a bedroom….

Also, another reminder of a previous finale shows up when Jane notices a phone number written on the wall near the phone, which helps them identify the victim. In ‘Strawberry and Cream’, an address had been scribbled on the bathroom wall, leading Lisbon to a building where she’d been strapped to a bomb.

VIS # 3: a new insight in Jane’s past

After identifying the victim, Jane discovers that she was married to someone he knew years ago: it’s visible he’s unsettled by the news, still he accompanies Lisbon to what he defines as his hometown, the Stoney Ridge trailer park where he and his father had spent the winters when they weren’t travelling with their psychic show during his childhood. Here, he meets Sam and Pete, the friends he introduced to Lisbon in ‘Cackle-Bladder Blood’. Step by step, like in a Greek tragedy, Jane is realizing that the case is hitting very close to home, so to speak, and what began has a strange feeling becomes a nagging doubt, before morphing into fear.

An intriguing detail is that there is a yellow orchid-looking flower in a vase on the table while Jane and Lisbon are talking to Sam and Pete: it closes the arc involving Lorelei, since the first orchid appeared in ‘Devil’s Cherry’ when Jane was desperate after losing his precious lead to the serial killer. Here, his efforts have come to fruition and Jane is about to make a serious break thanks to her. Yet, at the same time, back then the flower was associated to the butterfly, a symbol of hope in the show: while hallucinating, Jane was starting to realize that he wanted something more than revenge. He wanted to start a new life, presumably with Lisbon… which leads us to expect another step too in regard to his relationship with his partner.

That also means we are given a few interesting details about Jane’s background. As it has been ironically foreshadowed in the carnie elements in the crime scene of Lorelei’s murder (‘There Will Be Blood’), ‘Red John is deliberately bringing (him) home” to face his childhood memories, like places he lived in (the town he considered like home) and people he was close to (his friends Sam and Pete, Lily…). The position of the Jane family in the carnie world is also clarified: in season 3, Jane told Lisbon that his father had a show with the carnies, but remained a bit vague about his status, while he insisted that Angela’s family had been carnie royalties… Here, he spontaneously admits that his family had been part of the carnie folks for a long time: to convince him to share information, he asks Pete “how long the Janes and the Turners have been travelling together?” Pete answers: “one hundred years now probably”. Jane has been willing to let Lisbon know this tidbit of personal information and he didn’t try to leave her out of the conversation with his old friends like he did back then when he distracted her with the elephant, which alone hints that they have entered news territories in the personal department.

VIS # 4: Jane and Lisbon in the car

Trust is once again under the spotlight in those two’s relationship. Even though this time around Jane has been letting his partner in from the start on his infamous list, he refuses to tell her who the very last names are. But his reasons for not telling her seem more genuine than they might have ever been. He isn’t trying to keep RJ to himself; he only fears that she would inadvertently sell them out. Because, in insight, there has been a precedent: she was responsible for the failure of Jane’s plan in ‘The Crimson Hat’. If she had put a better front when Luther tried to talk her in taking Jane back, Darcy wouldn’t have barged in the middle of their secret operation… Lisbon’s lack of dishonesty was the flaw in Jane’s plan and that may explain his willingness to play poker with her in ‘Red in Tooth and Claws’, as a mean to further evaluate her poker face and to help her get better at lying…

On the other hand, that lack of confidence in her ability to lie seems to really bother Lisbon, to the point that she asks him several times to come clean about his plans. Still, one may wonder to what extent she has proven to Jane that honesty she demands of him: given what Lisbon discovered in the previous episode about LaRoche, wouldn’t Jane’s reaction to her mentioning J.J. as a potential suspect be stronger if he knew what his friend did in the past? Maybe Lisbon has been keeping some things to herself too for good reasons… There has always been a very peculiar strand of trust between them.

It shows further when Jane threatens to tell her three of her secrets as proof that she can’t tell a lie. At first she accepts, then she thinks better of it and tells him that she refuses to play his mind games. He comments “wise call” … He’s been turning things into a game indeed, bantering with her and trying to distract her from the serious question he’s been left unanswered. But one can wonder what he was about to reveal about her: was it another tidbit of personal information like when he revealed her he knew she hadn’t told the truth about her holidays plans back in the early seasons? Or was it something more intimate, like the fetish talk he initiated in ‘Red Velvet Cupcakes’?  Interestingly, the following scene features Rigsby telling Cho one of his secrets (his relationship with Van Pelt), while the stoic man already interjects that he already knows they’re having sex… Is that a way to hint that one of those Lisbon secrets that Jane knew about concerns her feelings?

VIS # 5: Lisbon and Jane meet Sean Barlow

After finally convincing Pete to give them a lead, Jane is once again confronted by his past: this time it’s Sean Barlow, a former friend/associate of his father. Even before meeting him, he’s introduced as an ambiguous and shady character by his association with Alex Jane, whom viewers know as a cold-hearted conman (‘Throwing Fire’). Another step in taken both in the investigation and in the realization of the bigger picture RJ has been painting for him: Jane and Lisbon drive to Venice Beach in Los Angeles to meet the psychic. Jane seems more and more unsettled; while he let Lisbon interrogate Pete and Sam with him, he asked her to let him talk to Pete alone when they returned and, now, he asks her to wait outside, which she refuses.

The dialog with the sinister man showed Bruno Heller’s mastery at broaching a character in a few deep lines. Indeed, the older man seems pretty eager to plant the seeds of doubt in their minds, particularly Lisbon’s.

1) First, he showers Lisbon with details about her secretive partner: under the pretext of talking about the rather safe topic of Patrick’s “wicked” great-grandfather who he “loved”, Barlow tries to prepare Lisbon for his little speech about the man himself. Because wickedness and being lovable are two characteristics her Jane owns in spade too… When Lisbon swallows the bait and asks about the “wicked” part, Barlow introduces a less safe topic: the fact that the Janes (including Patrick) are no-believers (which he gets Teresa to agree is “a sad thing”) who use the faith others have to steal from them… It’s pretty interesting that he uses present tense to describe the Janes’ cons since, given that he’s “been following (Jane’s) doings”, he must know that he stopped his psychic act a decade ago… Are there out there other members of the Jane family ? Or is he implying that Patrick, who is presented as intrinsically a conman, is also trying to manipulate Teresa’s faith and affection to get something out of her?

2) That smiling albeit less than friendly little introduction helps him pose as the real psychic, who would give them valuable advice. His second step is to get in the open the very sensitive question of Lisbon’s feelings: to prove to her that him not having an alibi for his niece’s murder isn’t really significant, he swiftly turns the tables by reading where herself was that night: “Laying in bed, think of Patrick”… What was presented as a psychic reading can be explained: he may have deduced it from their obvious closeness. After all, Patrick trusts her enough to accept to let her accompany him here, and if Paddy’s behavior in ‘Fugue in Red’ is any indication of his ways before meeting Angela, Barlow couldn’t think of any reason either for a cop to stick up with him other than wanting to sleep with him… That would make it an educated guess. The last possibility would be that Lisbon has been watched that night, which may have interesting and pretty dark implications about the older man… Those three possibilities match the usual tricks of a fake psychic: observation, educated guesses and inside information via an accomplice. Either way, that line about Lisbon laying in bed thinking of her partner and being “a little bit in love with him” is embarrassingly ambiguous for Lisbon: of course she would be thinking about Jane, who was keeping to himself RJ’s possible identity. Yet the mention of the bed adds a rather suggestive note that hints that Barlow is really able to read her most intimate thoughts.

3) At the same time, Barlow’s remark about Jane being “secretive and controlling” is also a way to make her feel the strain of their relationship: it reminds of Brett Stiles’ words that Jane has been taking over her team and her life. Even more since both men might have implied that their unbalanced relationship was affecting her work, Brett by mentioning her team, Barlow by comparing her nightly thoughts to his alibi (suggesting that somehow that kind of thoughts is kind of prohibited).

4) Since Jane stays impassive and tries to bring up again the crime, Barlow then broaches another subject to destabilize him: RJ is a psychic, that’s why he is always a step ahead of him. That seems the main point he’s been trying to make all along. Following his logic Barlow himself is a real psychic, so he’s able to detect another as RJ., Plus, Jane is not to be trusted: he’s from a family of lying thieves and his judgment is not sound because his all-knowing nemesis has already mastered his mind… That theory is admittedly a way to tell Jane that his niece hasn’t been a victim of the serial killer (it’s probable that he wants to indirectly incriminate Roddy Turner, whom he hates), yet his insistence may hint that the mysterious man has another goal in mind when trying to spook and manipulate Jane and Lisbon…

VIS # 6: Jane and Lisbon in the car after talking with Barlow

Sometime after leaving the older man, Jane and Lisbon are again talking in the car. Instead of calmly addressing the huge elephant in the room (Lisbon’s feelings), they both start talking at the same time. Jane lets her start and when she begins to utter something he might not like (“I can’t work like this”), he interrupts her. He tells her what he wanted to let her know: that Barlow was right, that he’s “secretive and controlling”. That’s a way to apologize to her for what he asks her to do and the things he’s been hiding from her: that’s probably his most sincere apology to her ever, far deeper than the blanket “I’m sorry” he gave her after the Vegas/Lorelei debacle in ‘The Crimson Ticket’… Still, he focuses on the part of Sean’s talk that concerned him: in doing so, he carefully avoids the part that was about her and her love for him…

In a way, that talk which turned in a non-talk echoes the scene where Lisbon asked Jane what he meant when he told her he loved her before shooting at her (‘The Crimson Hat’): he answer was to deflect her question, just like here he puts emphasis in his fault to avoid asking her about her feelings.

Which leads us to another point: what was Lisbon about to tell him? That she couldn’t keep avoiding the matter of their mutual feelings anymore? That she couldn’t keep accepting that he only told her part of the truth at best, like he was doing with his list? Or that she was tired of working with him when it’s becoming apparent that there was not enough trust and too many feelings between them? Like those mysterious secrets Jane threatened to reveal about her earlier, this question will remain unanswered as well. Anyway, it seems that those meaningful talks both  of them keep having in cars since the beginning are shifting towards dangerous territory: before, they concerned quite serious matters, like revenge or RJ (‘Red Moon’) ; about Lorelei in ‘The Crimson Ticket’), still, they’re turning more and more personal. In a way, it reminds of the tension-filled moments in the car when listening to the radio talk-show in ‘Red Velvet Cupcakes’.

But purposely and insistently not telling anything about something is also a form of acknowledgement. Jane used the pretext of not remembering what he said, even though he kept using afterwards every occasion to prove her how well his memory palace worked. Lisbon let alone Lorelei’s remark that he was in love with her, yet she yelled that she was not “his girlfriend’. In the same manner, Jane not asking her about her own feelings towards him is an indirect way of letting her know that he knows about them, that Barlow was right about them too, yet he chooses to ignore the pending matter in favour of preserving their status quo… at least for now.

VIS # 7: the ending

1) inside information: Jane doesn’t remember telling anyone about this particular memory, yet he could have let it slip when he had his breakdown after the murders. It’s pretty probable that Sophie Miller has asked him about his past and/or other relatives during therapy. Even if he didn’t specifically told her about the scene with the little Lily, he might have mentioned her at some moment… Given RJ’s interest in Jane, there is a pretty good possibility that he has read her files and/or asked someone from her staff.

2) observation: someone may have known Jane at the time and recalled that he might have been even a bit moved by the little girl. Someone like Barlow himself: a sinister man who only considered his niece as a property and who may fits the profile of RJ’s cold and sociopathic accomplices.

3) educated guess: the Barlows were close friends of his family. Given that Jane had a difficult father who probably wasn’t prone to affection, and that he’s been presented in ‘Throwing Fire’ as a sensitive kid, it would be rather logical that he would identify and focus on Lily’s happy relation with her father, who died shortly afterwards, a relation that he probably didn’t have with his own and that his younger self might have been craving.

The thing in those three possible explanations is that RJ didn’t need to know *that* specific memory: when Jane would recognize the young Lily, he would necessarily have some memories of her, crystallised and idealized by the time that had passed. It was almost automatic that her death would hit very close to home for Jane. And he would hence be more susceptible to believe the second part of RJ’s prediction: that he knew beforehand the seven names on the list… which he could have known either by 1) making more than one video with Lorelei (Kirkland’s stealing information would then confirm which version was to be used) for example, 2) by writing down the names of the men who couldn’t be eliminated as suspects (it would be faster for him, since he’s been keeping tabs on the consultant and since he already knew what characteristics were bound to be more suspicious). Or 3) he knew which men were most suspicious because every one of them is hiding something… like that they are all working for him (see Bertram and Kirkland working closely together).

Anyway, what is certain is that RJ can’t be a real psychic: first because the show hasn’t given any hints that it might favor the supernatural route. Then because what RJ did to Kristina in S3 indicates irony towards her line of work: that he would share it would be a bit illogical; but mostly because he admitted in the video that he knew about the list because “Lorelei told” him. And his way to lead Jane to his minion ensured that Jane found her: even if it was an easy guess given Jane’s cleverness with cases, the red-headed middle-aged woman matched Lennon’s status somehow as a social worker/shelter employee.

That leads us to the song at the ending. It’s “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart” by Gene Pitney:

“Something`s gotten hold of my heart

Keeping my soul and my senses apart

Something`s gotten into my life

Cutting its way through my dreams like a knife

Turning me up, turning me down

Making me smile and making me frown”.

Those lyrics obviously match what Jane must feel towards the looming threat that represents the video he’s watching while Lisbon is returning the baby girl to her father. Yet, it may also hold other meanings: it was featured in 1967, which corresponds more or less to Jane’s birth, meaning that the song is a way to allude to his childhood too. Moreover, it’s a love song and Lisbon is visible when the lyrics begin playing: she’s also in Jane’s thoughts at the moment. It’s even more convincing when we read the rest of the lyrics which aren’t heard in the show:

“Yeah something has invaded my nights

Painting my sleep with a colour so bright

Changing the grey, changing the blue

Scarlet for me and scarlet for you”…

Jane may be afraid that RJ’s threats may be directed towards Lisbon at some point: there may be some “scarlet” for both of them in the future; they’re both in danger.

Last, the word “knife” (RJ’s favorite MO) is sang when the camera focuses on Barlow brooding alone: is that a way to hint that Barlow has played a sinister part in RJ’s plan, since afterwards the last word sung, “frown” resonates with Jane’s pensive and worried face on screen?

2) Seven usual (or less usual) suspects:

In sync with Lorelei enouncing the seven names predicted by RJ in Jane’s list, Lisbon puts down the seven pictures matching those names, a bit like one would their cards when winning a poker game, enlightening once more the notions of strategy and bluff  simmering in this season. And now, the two partners are facing:

1- Bret Stiles: the leader of Visualize is a bit old for having been at the farm to paint the first smiley in ‘The Red Barn’, yet his past is pretty dark; it’s been alluded to in ‘His Thoughts Were Red Thoughts’ that he might have something to do with the death of the former cult leader. Bret has showed since the beginning a marked interest for Jane; he’s been watching him and his team and has been taunting him with the fact that he has inside information (about Kristina in the beginning of season 3). He’s also known for recruiting law enforcement officers and has even tried to convert Grace when she was still feeling down about Craig’s death/betrayal… Actually, Stiles is probably the more plausible candidate for a charismatic Moriarty Mentalist-like –actor Malcom McDowell even commented about having been thinking that his character was RJ when viewers were convinced that Carter was the serial killer, if I recall correctly.

Beside, him being RJ would put Jane’s character under a very interesting light, since he befriended him to some extent… It would give intriguing shades of an unexpected moral dilemma, reminiscent of the Hitchcockian atmosphere of ‘Red Sails in The Sunset’: what would be more ironic than Jane secretly meeting his nemesis to ask his help in breaking their common mistress out of jail (in order to catch the man himself, no less)? That would be a very interesting situation… It’s also quite remarkable that Stiles gave him pretty much the same advice as Carter: when Jane asked him the favor of getting Lorelei out of jail, he told the younger man: “let this be my favor to you: let it go. The whole idea. It’s just not worth it.” Carter’s advice when he was posing as RJ was to build himself a new life: ““Forget about me. I’m not worth ruining your life over”… is it a coincidence that RJ had indeed stopped killing except for answering to Jane’s manoeuvres (the morgue guy in Rosalind Harker’s closet, Panzer, Lorelei), like Partridge pointed out, and that his announced new set of killings is a response to him changing “the rules”?

Also, Brett commented in ‘Red Sails in The Sunset’ that “any task can be accomplished as long as it’s broken down into manageable pieces”,  foreshadowing Jane’s huge work in reducing the numbers of the people he met in a decade to an handful of possible suspects…

2- Gale Bertram: the director of the CBI has been a prime suspect ever since he quoted Blake in season 3 and his behavior has been increasingly suspicious since the poker game in ‘Red in Tooth And Claws’. Again, if he turned out to be RJ, it would be interesting that Jane helped him in getting better at bluffing and masking his strategy in a poker game… the irony! The man also is a pragmatist who doesn’t bother much with feelings: he tried to let Jane rot in jail after Carter’s murder (which means his goal and RJ’s were the same at the time: to get rid of Jane); he tried to separate him from his best ally, Lisbon, by replacing her by Haffner, a man working for Visualize… And, of course, he collaborates pretty closely with Kirkland. So far, he is the man who has the more connections with the other suspects: Kirkland, Haffner, Reede Smith (who works for Alexa Schultz, which whom Bertram stroke a deal), Partridge (who is a CBI employee)… A fairly intriguing point given that his name may be a reference to Christie’s “At Bertram’s Hotel”, a novel featuring a secret criminal organisation hidden in a seemingly benign environment…

 3- Bob Kirkland is another character who has been suspected for a long time: he’s been watching Jane since he got a job as a consultant for the CBI and he spied on his list of candidates for RJ. And Lisbon herself, who liked the man at first, considers him odd now and is aware that he doesn’t tell anything useful…  It’s becoming pretty obvious that the man is investigating for personal purposes, even though the question of his goal remains unknown: is he trying to get RJ for himself, or is he trying to cover the serial killer tracks?  The murder of Lennon after asking him if he recognized him as well as his weird collaboration with Bertram seem to point to a dark interpretation. Still, things aren’t clear enough: neither he nor Bertram showed any sign of being subordinated to the other; they knew each other enough to make personal commentaries, but so far it’s rather hard to infer a lot of their interaction… Either way, the fact that Kirkland knew about Jane’s board might give an explanation to RJ’s eerie accuracy in guessing which names were on the list.

Still, there is an important flaw in that theory: like it’s been noted many times before, Stiles would be a bit obvious as RJ and Bertram would not seem clever enough to compete with Jane… and the same could be applied to Kirkland. If we are to believe RJ is brilliant enough to stay two steps ahead of Jane, is that plausible that he’d turn out to be someone like Bob, who managed in a few episodes to attract Lisbon’s distrust and to tip his hand to Jane (who was suspicious after Lennon’s sudden death and who is aware that his attic has been visited)?

4- The same applies to Raymond Haffner, who couldn’t even hide his connection to Visualize from Lisbon. His embarrassment when she asked him about having stayed at the farm when he was a “kid” makes him at the same time pretty suspicious and a bit too obvious as a possible RJ… In fact it’s even worse with him, since he has the two flaws described above: he’s too obvious and not clever enough. So, except if he’s very good at hiding his true colors, he would be more credible as a handyman than as a criminal genius. But who knows?

5- Reede Smith, the FBI agent working with Mancini for Alexa Schultz is another example of the writers’ taste for dramatic turns of events… and twisted sense of humor: indeed, the writing team spent last year hiatus leaking spoilers in order to build up some expectations about the new FBI agents introduced –briefly- in the season premiere. Still, the attention was purposely focused on Mancini, who antagonised Jane and showed a (slight) interest in Teresa. But who really paid attention to the more discreet Smith? What do we know about him after all? Only that he woks for Alexa, who in turn works for Kirkland or at least is not opposed to giving him information… It’s possible that RJ had hidden behind the appearance of a subaltern, while actually leading the game. It’s also plausible that he would have tipped Jane off about having a mole in the FBI in order to hide the fact that himself belonged here in fact…

And his first name might be a word play on Red/ Reede, since the sonorities are quite close. Moreover, I may very well be reading too much into this, but “Mr Smith” was the name of the serial killer in Steeman’s masterpiece, the classic murder mystery “The Murderer Lives At Number 21” (the novel, not the movie, whose storyline has been a bit changed): in the book, the elusive murderer manages to escape the police for a long time… because there are actually three of them working as a team and providing the others with alibis when the need arises…

6- Thomas McAllister was another almost forgotten character. He appeared in the second episode of the first season as a sheriff during a case. Like Partridge, he’s been introduced very early in the storyline, in opposition to Kirkland and Smith who are recent characters. That might do for a fairly ironic revelation too: imagine the reaction if viewers were to realize that RJ has been briefly introduced when they were not even familiar with the protagonist himself?

At the time, the guy seemed creepy enough to pass as the killer for Rigsby, who attacked him when he approached Grace (who was used as a bait for the murderer). McAllister taunted Jane when they met, calling him on his supposed “psychic powers”. Jane answered with his own brand of provocation, by winning several rounds of rock paper scissors, effectively proving his observational skills and ridiculing the sheriff at the same time. So, Jane has been playing another kind of game with the man, and has managed to twist the rules as well. Another interesting point is that that episode, ‘Red Hair And Silver Tape’ featured a married couple of killers going after young red-haired women… and that same sort of killers has been represented by Carter and his wife. Moreover, the minion in ‘Red John’s Rules’ has red hair too. Those little details might be overlooked, but since the three episodes have been written by Bruno Heller, it could very well make sense too…

7- Brett Partridge is the last name in the list and the only suspect featured in the episode. Jane despises him because he’s a ghoul and he often comes up with morbid fantasies as theories for the murder cases they are investigating. Still, the change of attitude that the consultant showed at the beginning of the episode indicated that he’s very aware that his inept behavior may be a façade. As the character has been discussed at length before, I’ll only remind that he showed a suspicious interest in RJ, an equally suspicious antagonism to Jane and that his name “Partridge” might be an allusion to Blake’s painting “A Brace Of Partridges”, which may explain the bird theme visible through the season.

As a conclusion, several details tend to hint that there might be an organisation of many men behind the name of “RJ”. On one hand the shadow of sect Visualize looming around at least two suspects –Haffner and Stiles- and the fact that some of them are effectively working together, and, in the other hand, the names of Bertram and Smith, might indicate that there could be more than one RJ in the list. After all, Renfrew wrote on the wall “He is man…” and a possible interpretation is that he wanted to tell Jane there were “many” men under the mask of the elusive killer. That may explain how RJ had come up with his own list: what if there were all RJ, assuming in turn the role of the master to seduce a new minion into submission so that they only knew one of them at the time? The concept isn’t new and it has been used in many classic murder mysteries, from Steeman to Agatha Christie’s “Crime of  the Orient-Express”. And, yes, the idea is fun to toy with, even though it may be proven wrong in a few months…

Food for Thought:

This episode was a peak in Jane’s quest for finding RJ and it was enhanced by street names such as “Stoney Ridge” and “Ashley Ridge Road”.

It also contained many, many reminders of previous episodes interlaced with the main plot.  For instance, ‘Strawberry and Cream’ was indirectly alluded to with the detail of the phone number leading to the minion scribbled on the wall. Back then, Gupta had written an address on the wall too; the contrast is that Jane managed to get in his way, only he did not this time. Miriam Gottlieb, the social worked who was friends with RJ has a similar status than Lennon, the shelter employee in ‘There Will Be Blood’, which consequences are showing in this episode. And Lisbon and Jane waiting for her in her house remind of Jane meeting Lorelei then Lisbon on Orchid Lane… Both in ‘The Crimson Hat’ and now, Lorelei has been delivering to Jane a message from her master.

At the same time, Heller tried to gather the recurring themes that coursed through this season, giving it coherence:

1) the fisherman and fish theme which represents the struggle between Jane an his nemesis is alluded to (the fish tank Jane used to catch Miriam Gottlieb as well as Barlow having a workshop at Venice Beach).

2) There is a yellow orchid-looking flower on the table when Jane and Lisbon are talking to Sam and Pete (see above in VIS#3).

3) The complex family theme is represented by Patrick contacting people from his childhood, talking about the Janes (there were various examples of people meeting again long lost relatives in the recent episodes and every one ended in tragedy). Moreover, the notion of leaving an abusive blood-related family in favor of a more accepting surrogate is illustrated by Eileen, who chose love over the Barlows… like Jane did with Angela when he left the carnies.

4) Last, not least, many kind of spectacles has been present recently (musicals, magic shows, and so on). It may prepare us viewers for the idea that RJ is too putting a clever show for Jane: the whole psychic thing is a smoke screen.

Indeed, the episode seems to woven together the threads coursing through the season, as well as it opens possibilities for the new one: again, the question is left unanswered about who is the fish and who is the fisherman. Who will get the other first, Jane or RJ? The rules have changed and a new bloody and pressing game is beginning… Meanwhile, the orchid reminds of the possibility of a new love for Jane, tainted by the shadow of his nemesis looming over them… Yet, again, there is the surrogate family that is the team offering comfort and help for the duo: even if they choose not to confide in them, the three younger agents have proved they are more than eager to protect their friends… while they’re all faced with another darker “family” of minions helping out their enemy.

Honorable Mentions: again, the cast was as fabulous as ever, particularly Simon Baker and Robin Tunney whose complicity onscreen add much to the characters. Special mention too to Michael Hogan who impersonated the mysterious Sean Barlow with the right amount of unsettling friendliness and creepiness. Also, Blake Neeley’s melodies added much to the atmosphere of the episode, like director Chris Long’s powerful filming (the scene where time speeds up while Jane is sleeping) and Bruno Heller’s very subtle writing… Ok, is there someone on this team I won’t be tempted to mention? Like I said, they were all pretty great…

Pet Peeve… or not?

To be fair, I got the feeling when I first watched the episode that there was something artificial in the way the different themes and new elements were woven together, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what … Upon watching it again, it dawned on me that Jane was unusually passive, towards his past (she lets Lisbon have a good look at his childhood, a thing he was more than reticent to share until then. He even talks about his father), but also in relation to Lisbon’s feelings (by simply not talking about them, he calmly lets her/us guess that he was already aware of them), and towards the new crime. He doesn’t really react to the slow realisation that he’s been lead on and even seems to weight the possibility that RJ has powers at some point, when he uncertainly accepts Lisbon’s assertions that what happens must be a coincidence… Like I said, it reminds of a Greek tragedy where the protagonist slowly discovers that he’s up against something much greater than him (fate/gods/…). Still, Jane is the kind of man who fights his fate, not a passive hero who struggles against destiny like a fish in a net: that passiveness is pretty unsettling. I really hope he will get back his pugnacity in the future: he will undoubtedly need it since if RJ keeps up his new game, I think “blood and tears” would be an accurate name for next season…

Reviewbrain: Or not…

Image by Chizuruchibi. Copyright Reviewbrain, May 2013. Not to be used without permission.

I’ll be holding out for a happy ending 🙂 Thank you to Mentalist cast/crew for making our favorite show. And thank you readers for being such awesome fans and a member of this fantastic community. Please don’t forget to reward Violet’s lovely efforts by rating her review. And please visit my artist @chizuruchibi on twitter. These two are the best partners a blogger can ever have. Love you both 🙂

 *All material posted in this blog is the intellectual property of reviewbrain (unless otherwise stated). Readers are free to make use of the information provided they cite the source (this blog) either by name (reviewbrain’s blog) or by linking to it. Please extend the same courtesy to the authors of the comments as well (by mentioning their names) to ensure that credit is given where credit is due.

The Mentalist Red Letter Day Review

Synopsis

CBI Agent Cho (Kang) comes fetch consultant Patrick Jane (Baker) from his attic as they were called for a new case: Hollis Percy, the owner of the town named after a Wild West town for tourists has been murdered. Before following his stoic coworker, Jane sets a little trap for possible intruders. Meanwhile, Lisbon (Tunney) meets Bob Kirkland (Kevin Corrigan) for coffee and a friendly chat.

Concise Verdict

The episode was a good surprise: not only did it deal with the events of ‘Behind the Red Curtain’ -or rather with their consequences-, but it also laced the dramatic moments with funnier ones and gave some well-used screen time to everyone on the team. Writer Michael Weiss managed to produce an intriguing combination between an old-school TM episode and a new step leading to the impatiently awaited season finale: a tragic love story as the murder case, a hint of mischievousness and a good deal of serious matters, those are the ingredients used for this well-written addition to a startling season. 10/10.

Detailed AKA Humongous Review (spoilers galore)

Kirkland/Jane: the attic mystery battle

VIS #1: Jane in the attic

Jane is scribbling away in his little notebook when Cho comes to get him. From the get go, the consultant appears hyper aware of his surroundings: he recognizes Cho before hearing his voice and is defiant enough not to let him enter his inner sanctum. The attic seems off-limits for everyone except Lisbon and he is getting a step further in transforming it in a safe place: until recently we didn’t see him bother trying to lock the door; then he put a padlock. Now, he adds a way to verify if his privacy has been violated and he does so when no one is watching: he sticks a toothpick between the door and its frame to be able to tell if someone enters …

This opening featuring someone calling Jane in his attic to go to a crime scene is by no way unusual, but the setting puts further emphasis on the fact that the episode has a deeper meaning. More details add to this sentiment. Jane later refuses to shake the medical examiner’s hand because there is blood on her glove. It recalls the raison d’être for Jane’s secrecy: he knows he has shaken RJ’s hand, a hand covered with his family’s blood… And when the consultant states that the victim knew his killer and argued with them, the woman asks him details and Jane elaborates the usual reasons for arguing:  “money, power, love, jealousy…” and she adds “revenge”, the very motivation for Jane’s quest.

VIS #2: Lisbon and Kirkland at the rooftop café

Meanwhile, ffollowing what had been suggested since their very first meeting and in spite (or rather because) of Lorelei’s demise, Lisbon and Kirkland meet up for coffee. The scene shows them settled at a table. Lisbon makes some small talk about her youth, giving some details about herself. It’s particularly intriguing since Lisbon is known not to share willingly any part of her past and the team (read: Jane) had to lure systematically any titbit of information from her. Whereas, Lisbon soon comes to realise that her companion is not as open about himself since when she asks him specifics, he eludes a direct response and avoids telling her where he comes from or what kind of family raised him; he mentions a father and a mother, but doesn’t even mention what kind of job they did: no names, no location, no social status… He concludes by “I like to say I grew up in America” to cover up for his lack of information about his origin.

It’s even weirder since their meeting is pretty date-like: they aren’t here to talk business like they were with Haffner in ‘The Red Barn’. Their meeting up is informal and they’re supposed to share something about them given that they are in a first name basis and they compliment the other (« this is nice, you’re really easy to talk to, Teresa »). Kirkland’s reluctance doesn’t make much sense if he is really here to get to know Lisbon as a woman: instead, it takes a worrying significance if we assume he is following a plan like he was when he killed Lennon in the previous episode. Indeed, Kirkland gives the impression to feign normalcy: he listens, talks, compliments, still everything seems off, as if he was hiding his true colors under a “normal” appearance. It reminds of the nurse’s comment about him wearing a mask in ‘Behind the Red Curtain’. And his real goal is revealed when they part ways: he interrogates her about Jane’s opinion about RJ and asks her to keep him on the loop. Meaning that he wants to confirm how much Jane knows and certainly also if her consultant suspects what really happened in the hospital room. It seems that every guy asking her out this season is more interested in Jane than in her: first Haffner scouting her for a company owned by Visualize, then Bob testing the waters through her…

Anyway, Lisbon is no fool and she realized right away that something is amiss. She doesn’t hesitate to ask him things about himself when he doesn’t tell anything spontaneously, then she cuts things short under the pretence of having a case when her men have already returned from the crime scene.  Another hint is that she is cold when he comes back to the bullpen and even comments on it; even if the guys confirm that it is indeed cold, her dismissive “so I’m not crazy” might indicate that her encountering with Bob had a chilling effect…

Later, she makes a report of the meeting to Jane and states that « everything about Bob Kirkland is odd ». Her bluntness and her refusal to defend Kirkland’s investigation and authority like she did in ‘Behind the Red Curtain’ show that she is aware that something is wrong. Jane must have talked to her about Lennon and Bob’s presence at the hospital: anyway, the Homeland Security agent is no more her “new best friend”, instead it’s Jane who has assumed again his role as a confident. In insight, the coffee break the two of them shared reminds a bit of the dinner Darcy and Jane never had but planned to eat in ‘Cheap Burgundy’: both times, the characters had a hidden agenda and tried to lure the other in a false sense of security before getting information out of them; and both times, they failed.

VIS #3: The Attic is Broken Into

Bob’s true goal is further enlightened when two men pass the CBI building security and secretly break into the attic. The first thing that comes to mind is that they must have been observing him or at least have inside information of some sort since they know where to search, given that they didn’t bother searching Jane’s almost unused desk in the bullpen for instance. They also seem to also know what they would find. They carefully take photos of every note, list and picture on Jane’s suspects board before leaving the place like they found it… well, almost, since Jane’s simple trick worked and they didn’t see the little white stick falling down on the floor.

Later, back at the Homeland Security headquarter, they give the loot to their boss, none other that the mysterious Kirkland who decides to “take it from here”, to his employees’ surprise. So in other words, he uses the resources provided by his position, but doesn’t want to let his men learn more than needed about what he’s looking for. Jane’s research board was too huge and complex to understand without a bit of time to analyse it -the synthetically briefer list is on his notebook-, so there is little that they can gather from it without spending some time to understand the connections Jane made. Kirkland’s reluctance points towards a personal motivation, as indicated by his rapt interest when he looks at the pictures taken in the attic. After his odd question to Lennon about recognizing him, that furthers the impression that he must be personally involved with Jane’s quest.

This manoeuvre enlightens even more the ambiguity of the character: he uses a somewhat official investigation for a personal initiative, like he probably did before when Jane first arrived at the CBI in ‘Red Dawn’. He’s definitely sneaky: listening in on Lisbon’s conversation with Bertram in ‘There Will Be Blood’, killing Jason Lennon in the previous episode before he had a chance to speak to Jane, trying to discreetly obtain insight on Jane’s ideas through Lisbon and know stealing information from him. Bob’s interest is focused on Jane and his investigation and, every time, he’s taking a more active part in wanting to know what he discovered.

VIS #4: Kirkland studies Jane’s notes

To add even more mystery to the man, he’s seen studying his prize late at night. He’s alone in a rather big room containing things like a printer, a desk and a couch: he’s either at home or in a pretty comfy office, but either way the place seems quite private. He’s reconstituting the puzzle of Jane’s clues board and his deep concentration, the loneliness and the dark atmosphere gives a rather spooky vibe.

Besides, the man is drinking a Bloody Mary: this is the cocktail Jane drank at the anniversary of his family’s death in ‘Red Rover, Red Rover’ and the red color reminds of the RJ arc. Both details allude to the fact that Kirkland makes a very plausible accomplice for RJ (or even RJ himself, although it’s quite unlikely since they only met after Lorelei was sent to jail) and that he may be trying to decipher how close Jane is getting… On the other hand, the moment is still ambiguous since his fascination with the investigation and the fact that it was Jane’s drink might indicate that he’s hunting down the serial killer too. His dedication, his solitude and the haven provided by a large office-looking room with a huge widow reminds of Jane’s own obsessive musings in the attic at night. Still, a question remains: if Kirkland is a better guy than he seems and if he is chasing after RJ too, how come the serial killer didn’t try to get into the attic himself, given that he must know that there is a possibility that Lorelei had revealed something about him?

VIS #5: the ending

After closing the case, Jane comes back to his attic and finds the stick on the floor. His reaction: a smile and a contented look around when he enters the place… His smile is the only indication that he must have been planning the outcome all along; he had the same (albeit even more gleeful) reaction after his night with Lorelei and back then it also revealed that he in the middle of a scheme. He was tricking Kirkland in showing his true intentions, thus set the trap and waited for a reaction. He was waiting for him to tip his hand; that’s why he didn’t come back to the attic during the whole investigation, he lounged on the couch in the bullpen or stayed at the tourist town: he knew that he was offering a golden opportunity for Kirkland to sneak in. The gloomy look he flowed the man with at the end of last episode showed that he was suspecting him of having a hand in Lennon’s death, and we can guess that he deduced that his antagonist would be willing to evaluate the situation by trying to know what he thinks.  Is it therefore too far-stretched to assume that Jane also kept with him the true conclusions he came to about RJ? After all, he didn’t leave his notepad behind and didn’t seem bothered that someone had a look at his place and had probably taken some pictures given the complex presentation of his work… He may as well have planted false information on the board or, at the very least, he knows that the information it provided is useless and/or incomplete.

The moment is echoed by the very last scene where we see that Kirkland has finished reconstituting Jane’s board on the floor of his office. He looks at it, satisfied; it is night time and the light coming from outside projects shadows of the paper sheets: his big and dark figure is looming over them in a threatening way and the blinds on the window imitate some bars and add to the hostile atmosphere.

That ending emphasis the importance of the event. It’s a pivotal episode, a true ‘Red Letter Day’: a moment which is noted as having a very particular significance. The title may also allude at Jane’s trick to get the murderer to confess with his envelopes (a envelope contains a letter), but above all it underlines that it is the day when Kirkland reveals himself to Jane as being more than simply interested in the official part of the RJ investigation.

Rigsby and Van Pelt: orchids and drama…

The second arc of the episode features the drama-loving and eternally indecisive couple formed by Rigsby and Van Pelt. Indeed, the evolution of their relationship is synthesised in four moments which amusingly reflect the steps they took in the past.

1) Rigsby holds a torch for Grace: he has offered her an orchid that stands proudly on her desk when Lisbon comes back from her coffee-break with Bob. The choice of gift shows that Wayne knows Grace well, since there was a white orchid on her desk in ‘My Bloody Valentine’ (she put Craig’s necklace on it after making peace with his death) and we can see in a later scene that she has another potted flower behind the orchid. He knows what she likes and tries to be rather unobtrusive with his gift, since it can be constructed as a welcome back gift while still having subtly romantic undertones. And, like they did in season 1 and 2, everyone knows who has given the flower, seeing that Lisbon and later Jane immediately assume it’s from him: everyone is aware that he’s still interested.

2) Rigsby needs to take a decision: in the break room, Cho finds Rigsby mooning over a box full of donuts. The man can’t make his mind over which one he should eat. His blunt friend tells him he needs to “make a choice”. He’s talking about the food, of course, but also about Van Pelt. Cho is telling him that he has to stop being a coward and face the situation, like he already stated in ‘Red In Tooth And Claw’. That reminds of the times when he and Jane advised the younger agent when he was longing for his redhead coworker in the beginning of the show.

3) Meanwhile, Grace is also reminded of her past when she interrogated the victim’s wife. The woman was explaining the problems he had with faithfulness and that he was “terrified of change”, before asking Grace if she is married. The agent answers that she is not and adds ironically that married life “sounds like fun”, secretly commenting on her own disastrous engagement with Craig O’Laughlin. It seems that Wayne is not the only one who has been thinking about the past and who is about to make an important step forward on their personal life…

4) Rigsby confronts Grace in front of the elevator when the case is closed. He starts dancing around the matter stating that the week was good and that he’s been “moving with the wind”, before suddenly telling that they need to talk. Van Pelt is understandably surprised so he gets more precise: “about you and me”. She starts saying that there is something she needs to tell him… and, as if on cue, Duncan, Van Pelt’s new boyfriend, barges in. We’re back on the old drama that seems to define their relation: one has regrets/the other has already moved on with someone else. It looks like Van Pelt is decided to write a new page of her life: a few weeks in another city, a new professional experience, a new man on her life; still things might not be as straightforward as they seem, since she already knew what he meant when her former lover asked for a discussion about them and she felt like she ought to tell him about Duncan, meaning that she isn’t oblivious of his feelings. And later, when he awkwardly excused himself, she cast a look at his crestfallen retreating figure instead of focusing of the newcomer. Argh! those two definitely have some overly complicated love lives…

Icings on the Cake

It’s rather rare that we get in a serious episode some glimpses of Jane’s usual mischievous and playful personality. Jane’s funny cowardice, his glee when the cowboys were fighting in the saloon and the scenes with the not very gifted magician added a nice lightness to the plot. In fact, his relative politeness when asking the magician for “a couple of minutes of [his] stage time” in exchange of his help with the tricks was indicative of a progress: even if Jane was awfully offending and patronizing, he didn’t just con him out of stage like he would have usually done (like with the kid in ‘Something Rotten In Redmund’). Is Jane (very) slowly starting to acquire a bit of respect for others? And calling him a “magician and mental mystic” was the cherry on top…

Pet Peeve

Is that really believable that Kirkland’s men didn’t see the stick between the door and the frame? It’s a pretty basic trick and I guess men careful enough to put everything in place afterwards should have noticed it right away…

Conclusion:

The whole episode is filled with reminders of the recurrent themes woven through the entire season. Many elements are concentrated in here and it conveys the impression that things are speeding up for the season finale in subtler ways than meets the eye…

1) As if in an answer to our discussion on whether flowers on this show have significance, the orchid theme makes yet another appearance and is even commented upon by Jane with the rather ironic in insight “well-chosen, Rigsby”. It’s a not so discreet follow up of the other orchids this season, from the ones in ‘Devil’s Cherry’ to the meeting with Lorelei in Orchid Lane: this time, it doesn’t appear directly in associated with the RJ plot, but it seen right after Lisbon’s meeting with the mysterious and murderous Kirkland who is linked to that story-line. Beside, Lisbon connected it playfully to something more sinister when she commented that she knew Rigsby offered the flower because she’s « a homicide detective »… Also, I don’t know if it’s a mere coincidence, but the orchid is related to Wayne’s hope for a love which is meant to encounter obstacles, like it was for Jane in ‘Devil’s Cherry’ when he was talking to “Charlotte”.

2) The fish: as it has been stated in the wonderful comments for ‘Behind the Red Curtain’, the marine theme has been quite present in season 4. There is a big fish as a decorative trophy near the surveillance camera the waitress pointed out at the saloon. That element reminds the viewers that Lorelei, the deadly tempting siren who liked to skin-dip in the sea, may be dead, but the consequences of her revelation have not disappeared with her: Jane is hot on RJ’s trail… And the sea theme might have also a deeper double meaning in this episode: Kirkland has been “fishing” for information and Jane has “baited” him with the attic… Who is the fish and who is the fisherman?

3) The family theme is declined in different aspects:

– the already well-illustrated theme that “family” –blood-related or chosen- is something that can turn into a danger or a threat: the recent episode have showed many killers being part of the victim’s “family” (‘Red Lacquer Nail Polish’), or team-members (‘Red, White and Blue’, ‘Red in Tooth and Claw’, …). Here, the father hurt his wife by being unfaithful and his son by not revealing he had a sister; the woman the son fell in love with. As a consequence the son killed the father. This tragedy tangled more inextricably the family relations as both Ian’s chosen family (his lover) and natural one were the same since he was unknowingly in an incestuous relationship. Beside, Ian confides to Jane after confessing that killing his father felt good for one second because “the old bastard finally understood. When he was dying, he finally understood what he’d done to all of us”… a guilt-laden father whose lies and past mistakes caused great grief to his child, no way that would remind us of Jane, of course…

– Still, this aspect of a family’s negative influence is somehow tempered by the recurrence of people bonding with estranged family members. First, Lorelei found her sister, after the girl was sold by their mother; in the previous episode, a mother and the daughter she left met again, here it’s a brother meeting and falling for his unknown sister. In those three cases, the characters feel a very deep love for the long lost family member and have a meaningful relation with them, but things go south and everything ends in disaster… Does this suggest that, after meeting again his daughter in his belladonna induced hallucinations and bonding with her, Jane’s inability to let go is bound to have terrible consequences?

– The incest is an interesting part of the storyline. Many interpretations are possible for the bigger picture it draws: first, the love between siblings might be a teasing for shippers, a wink and a way to acknowledge how the closeness between Jane and Lisbon has evolved. It was labelled as a form of complicity between brother and sister by the writers during the first seasons, while now both characters have shown that what they feel is deeper and more complicated. Second possible meaning, if Ian killed to protect a forbidden relationship, that might be compared to Jane’s unstated but logical new motivation for finding RJ: his closeness to Lisbon has started to become a danger for her. Lorelei asked for her head and many suspicious characters are beginning to approach her for dark reasons (Haffner, Kirkland). Thus, killing RJ is a way to ensure her safety and to protect their bond, which he is seemingly not allowed to discuss in the meantime (forbidden relationship). Last but certainly not least, the lovely Windsparrow had a very intriguing idea: she remarked that this is the second case that involved incest as a plot device, the first one being Renfrew’s liaison in season 1 ‘Red John’s Friends’. It’s interesting that in both episodes RJ’s presence is looming over them: Renfrew was about to spill the beans about the serial killer but he was killed before, whereas in this episode, Jane seems to gain control of the situation by (probably) playing Kirkland and keeping his notebook to himself… It’s almost as if the incest emphasised the contrast between the moment when Jane realized for the first time what force he was up against and the episode where he might be slowly gaining the upper hand.

 4) Spectacles have been pretty present recently, first with the show-conference Jane provided the student with in ‘Red in Tooth and Claw’, and more importantly with the musical in ‘Behind the Red Curtain’. Both in the latter and in this episode, the show is a metaphor for a bigger secret hidden behind inoffensive appearances: in the previous episode the killer chose to play a parting real-life in order to hide that the musical had no investor, while here the tourist town faces serious difficulties and the owner hided the secret daughter he had with a former lover. Both secretive men pulled strings around them and that enlightens how the characters are surrounded by false appearances (Kirkland’s secret true goal; RJ hiding behind the mask of a acquaintance), but those appearances are about to crumble down, like both shows were, due to Jane’s progress towards the truth…

5) There is no allusion to poker in this plot, but there are cards in the context of a magic trick and it might be meaningful that Jane takes possession of them. It is a reminder of the poker play with Bertram again in ‘Red in Tooth and Claw’, before he was revealed as an ally of Bob… and it suggests the power play between Kirkland and Jane with the usual artifices used in poker, like hiding one’s hand and bluffing.

Reviewbrain: Violet didn’t  have time to add any best scenes or best lines, and I had an hour or two free so I added some of mine. As always, thank you for hard work! Readers, please also feel free to share in the comments your favorites moments in the episodes and best quotes ^_^

Best Scenes

The end

Having Jane return to his attic, seeing that his bait had been taken, then having the scene cleverly transition into Kirkland in his apartment was fantastic. Blake Neely’s powerful tunes helped express the urgency and suspense of the fact that Jane might *gasp*  be making some real progress in the Red John case. Read Violet’s analysis of VIS #5 above for more reasons.

Jane Catches the Killer

A similar sense of urgency prevailed when Jane hooked Ian in his trap and forced him to confess to killing his father. Jane threatens the secret to be revealed to his “assistant” Lily was very effective. Jane’s sympathetic demeanor even as he is threatening Ian to reveal his motive to the unsuspecting girl was quite revealing. It hinted to viewers that unlike the selfish motives we’ve been getting from unrepentant psychos we’ve been getting most of this season, this crime was more tragic than it twas senseless. Jane leaving an empty envelope in her hand was might seem like a cruel act but the deception was actually a kindness.The later scene revealing the sordid and terrible situation of the brother and sister was a great reveal.

Kirkland Examine’s Jane’s Evidence

This choice shouldn’t come as a surprise; Violet already explained how wonderfully riveting it was to see Kirkland in his natural habitat as he went over Jane’s evidence. I’m also sure I wasn’t the only one who went into hysterics when I saw him drinking a Bloody Mary. Who the heck is this guy ?!

Honorable Mentions

Writing : This was truly a classically engaging, perfectly written and balanced episode. Thank you Michael Weiss.

Music : Blake Neely’s music is as perfect as ever. Whimsical, then powerful where necessary.

Production by all (quite a few of the writing staff, I’m happy to see) and the direction by Guy Ferland was flawless. As was the editing.

Hair/Make Up: The men are as strapping as ever but the women have never looked more naturally beautiful.

Acting: There were quite a few talented guest actors and actresses: The Percy family members, Lily, Francisco, Kevin (the Wild West show actors), the Sherriff: they all fit their roles perfectly. Are regulars were also in top form.

Best Quotes

“We’re gonna hold here. They’ve got this covered. ” Jane, to the coroner after shots were fired. Continuity on coward Jane = love.

“Very thoughtful, Wayne “. –Lisbon, to Rigsby on Grace’s gift.

“How’d you know it was me ?” Rigsby in answer to the above.

“I’m a homicide detective. ” Lisbon’s reply.

*I loved this entire exchange. Any hint of the sibling-like relationship between Lisbon and Rigsby makes me ridiculously happy. Here, her tone when she called him out on giving Grace the gift, his guilty expression like a caught child, and her knowing reply…sigh. I had hearts in my eyes the entire time.

“Bro! That thing is real!” Kevin, the magician to Jane. LOL !! This kid was an awesome actor. Loved his tone and expression here, dropping his western act after Jane took his gold nugget.

“You’re still in love with her but instead of telling her you bought her a plant.”- Cho to Wayne.

“But that’s pretty zen though, right?” Wayne, in response to the above.

“Not yet. Sounds like fun.” Grace’s deadpan to victim’s wife after she asked if she was married. Lol. Snarky Grace is cool.

“Candy-ass pickpocket trying to bust my chops. Nobody handles me.” Kevin grumbling out loud after he quits. Really loved this guy’s reading of all his line. Hilarious.

“That you two were in love ? That was easy.” -Jane, to Ian, on how he knew about his secret relationship with Lily Soto. It could be wishful thinking but might the writers be reassuring (teasing ?) us to trust the (obvious ?) hints that Jane and Lisbon are in love?

“Sometimes it’s best just to be relaxed about this stuff. ” Lisbon to Rigsby about not knowing what Jane’s performance is about.

Image by Chixuruchibi. Copyright Reviewbrain 2013. Not to be used without permission.

 

Now, Suzjazz suggested a poll to see what percentage of fans want J/L to live happily ever after as a couple. I’m feeling indulgent (i.e. have some time one my hands) so here it is

Note:  Tunney fans head over to affiliate website Robin’s Green Shades to see what the fantastic actress did. Congratulations to webmistress Novella and everyone else. You deserve it!

*All material posted in this blog is the intellectual property of reviewbrain (unless otherwise stated). Readers are free to make use of the information provided they cite the source (this blog) either by name (reviewbrain’s blog) or by linking to it. Please extend the same courtesy to the authors of the comments as well (by mentioning their names) to ensure that credit is given where credit is due.

 

Mentalist Behind the Red Curtain (mini) Review

Note: I wanted to give my lovely, lovely partner Violet a break but as I’m swamped I could only churn out this mini-review from memory. Warning: unedited! Thank god for all you fantastic readers, I’ve no doubt you’ll let me know if anything is *too* off base 😉

Synopsis

When a young actress falls to her death in Sacramento, CBI Agent Teresa Lisbon (Tunney) calls in her consultant Patrick Jane (Baker). Unhappy with being dragged from the hospital where he is waiting for Lennon(Christopher Cousins) a vital witness in the Red John case, to wake up from his coma, Jane charms a nurse to call him as soon as Lennon wakes up, hoping to question him before Homeland security’s Agent Kirkland (Kevin Corrigan).

Concise Verdict

Star power doesn’t make an episode. But when coupled with the humor of writer Erica Green Swafford and poignancy of Eoghan Mahoney scripts, it’s a sure recipe for a winner. Well played. Hope no legs were broken in this one.

Detailed (not so humungous) Review

Some points to ponder…

Jane/Lisbon

“You’re creeping around Lennon getting into Kirkland’s business. Of course I’m glum.”

-Loaded statement right there. I like the continuity of Lisbon’s trust for Kirkland. Might this subtext be the reason for Jane’s later statement?

When Jane tells her he needs to talk to Lennon, Lisbon replies that he needs to follow the rules for a while, adding: “If you must break the rules break them on your own time.”

Jane then replies: “When am I not on my own time?”

-Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch. The reason the little jab hurts is it’s kinda actually true. Jane is a consultant. I don’t know if he gets paid by the case or by the hour but freelancers aren’t usually subject to the same stringent rules as regular employees. Also, somehow the way Baker read the line also felt like a veiled threat: stop bugging me or I’ll quit. Not that he’d ever do so, of course…

Rispelt

Image by Chizuruchibi. Copyright Reviewbrain April, 2013. Not to be used without permission.

The fact that Rigsby didn’t hug Van Pelt when she returned to work after her trip is a real tip off on his (back in full force ) crush; he’s trying to hide it (not so successfully) by keeping a professional distance. Heck, even Lisbon hugged her! Which , by the way, was lovely continuity to how close they have become.

Kirkland is RJ?

When Lennon wakes up from his coma, the first question Kirkland asks him is:

“You recognize me? You ever seen me before?”

Lennon replies: “No.”

Does this mean that, while Lennon worked for RJ, he never had actual contact with him? If that’s the case then why did Lorelie have to shoot him? I’m inclined to think that she thought that she was protecting Jane; by going after RJ herself.

But then why would Kirkland need to ask Lennon if he recognizes him? Was he worried that Lorelie might have revealed RJ’s identity to Lennon before she shot him? Maybe, as she was interrogating him to find out if RJ did in fact order her sister’s death?

Kirkland then tells him that he’s doing him a favor by killing him “I just hope that if I am ever in your shoes I have a friend close enough to do the same for me.”

-I doubt  (RJ?) is being serious here, but if he is Jane might want to reconsider killing him when he catches him. Having him rot in jail would probably be an infinitely worse punishment.

When Jane shows up, Lennon is already dying and he looks at Kirkland suspiciously. I wonder if this doubt is new or if was always there? Could that be the reason behind his (biting?) tone after Lisbon told him to leave Kirkland to his job? Or, if he just resented Lisbon’s friendship with Kirkland (i.e. tone when he said “you’re new best friend” in Red Sails in the Sunset”) and the suspicion is new, how will it affect his friendship with Lisbon?

I think Kirkland is to Lisbon as Lorelie was to Jane. But with one major difference. While Lorelie was a known criminal that Lisbon resented Jane’s interaction with for so many justifiable reasons, Jane doesn’t have more than his gut when it comes to any suspicion he might have of Kirkland. Jane didn’t believe Lisbon’s suspicions that Lorelie was playing him. She turned out to be right. Would Lisbon believe Jane if he warns her about Kirkland? We saw her reaction when she defended the FBI in this year’s premiere. She told Jane she wanted to believe in something without always being suspicious. Does that desire still exist? Does she have another reason to want to believe Kirkland? An attraction to him maybe?

I remember one commenter (who are you?!) stated that maybe RJ wants to get back at Jane for turning Lorelie by getting close to Lisbon. If Kirkland is in fact RJ, then you were really on to something!

Can’t wait to read your comments! In the meantime, here’s the rest of the review:

Icings on the Cake

Ron got a line! Ron got a line!!!

Donna Murphy. Beautiful, beautiful, talented Donna Murphy.

Co-written episode. A combo of fantastic writers.

La Roche! This was my reaction when I saw him/figured out Jane would ask for his help: HEEE!!!!!!!!

Best Quotes

“That’s my arm you have two of your own.” –Jane, to security/homeland security guy kicking him out of the hostpital.

“I don’t know how anyone lives there.” Grace, to Rigsby on LA. Bet the actors got a kick out of that line.

“I know you’re only talking to me to get information out of me but its been nice. You make me smile.”-Aww!

“She would if you told her the truth.” –Jane, on Lisbon. Nice continuity; shows Jane knows Lisbon enough to know that she more likely to understand/support him if he shares information with her. Took him long enough to figure out…

“What is it that every foster child is looking for?” –Jane. So sad but true. Kids want their parents.

“Trust me you’ll have fun. Was there ever a more suspicious phrase?” LaRoche, to Jane.

“J.J. You have to live a little. You spend your days chasing paper clip fees. When do you ever get the chance to nail a killer.” –Jane, to LaRoche.

“Would an accent help?” LaRoche, to Jane, practicing his role.

“Excuse me, your coat is playing the 5^th symphony.” –LaRoche to perp.

 

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The Mentalist Red, White and Blue Review

Synopsis

Lisbon (Tunney) and Jane (Baker) are called at a crime scene where the body of a young woman from the army has been found near a military basis. After a brief struggle with the soldiers to determine who will investigate the case, the CBI takes charge and Jane and Lisbon are informed that the victim worked with soldiers with PTSD, such as memory impairment.

Concise Verdict

After the tension filled encounter with Lorelei in last episode, ‘Red, White and Blue’ worked as a much needed stress reliever. There has been some time since we had a themed episode such as this one, centered on the army, and the situation is used to infuse lots of humor into the characters’ investigation. All in all a nice and hopeful little episode.

Detailed AKA Humungous Review (spoilers galore)

VIS#1: Lisbon is singing

Soon after Lisbon and Jane’s arrival, Lieutenant Lewis argues that the case should belong to the army since Lucy Greene was an army medic. The local cop who called the CBI doesn’t seem impressed either by the duo formed the team leader and her consultant, to the extent that Lisbon has to tell him drily that “our staff is on its way” to confirm that they are more than only the two of them… Fortunately (or not), Jane decides to step in and prove that quality is better than quantity in his own peculiar way. To show off his attention to details and his superior detective skills, he asks Lisbon to examine the tattoo around the body’s ankle: “Huh, Lisbon, you used to play clarinet, is that right? Can you read that tune?” Lisbon, dutiful as ever, tells him it’s the song “Kansas City” and, seeing Jane’s lack of recognition helpfully begins humming the melody, then, encouraged by Jane’s glee, she sings the lyrics… and stops abruptly when she notices the incredulous look on the soldier and the cop’s faces. Ouch, talk about credibility… Finally, her facetious consultant effectively manages to convince them that they’re more professional than they look by deducing that the victim was at a bar before being murdered, which ends up winning them the case.

This scene is really funny and Lisbon is particularly cute when she’s lead on by Jane. It’s also quite intriguing that neither actually cared to label Jane to the other men: Lisbon simply introduced him by his name to the cop (without adding “my associate” this time, or even “our consultant” for that matter), while Jane answers Lewis’ inquiry with a very precise “Me? I’m with her”…

The moment has various purposes. First, plot wise, the scene obviously presents the victim and her working environment (the army). The brief struggle between the military authorities and the CBI also aspires to explain why the team is in charge of a case when it normally would belong to the soldiers. A number of viewers would immediately associate NCIS with the violent death of an army medic: that scene at least acknowledges a bit the question, even if the given explanation remains quite unsatisfactory…

Second point, it illustrates Jane’s usual modus operandi in crime solving. First step, to poke at any authority figure at hand who isn’t Lisbon; then, when he has undermined them by ridiculing and/or insulting them, he baffles everybody with his abilities. He likes to play his public. As an example, he did it in ‘Red Gold’ too when he hugged the sheriff out of the blue and admired the landscape enthusiastically before analysing the victim’s car. But here, his mocking of the rules involves Lisbon: he makes her lose credibility, while he stays relatively normal in front of the others. She passes for the oddest while he just shows his mastery both in gently manipulating her and in investigating.
But this also adds some interesting layers of subtext concerning his relation with Lisbon. Indeed, things are almost back to normal: teasing, smiling, joking… The “clarinet” references the episode ‘Rose Colored Glasses’, where Jane asked her to dance at that high school reunion. Back then, he discovered that she used to play an instrument and kept trying to guess which one. He mentioned the clarinet and she denied it: so, either he is teasing her here by talking about an instrument he well knows she didn’t play, or they had a talk offscreen where he realized that she had been lying and that she really used to play it. Either way, this allusion reminds us viewers of a sweet moment in the early times of their partnership and gives some perspective: they share a past. That fact adds a deeper meaning to their complicity during the song and to Jane’s teasing, along with his willingness to keep the case. It hints that things have been mostly mended both professionally and personally since the previous episode. Even Lisbon’s “stop that” afterwards when he begins imitating her by singing gives some measure of normalcy.

Plus, the song itself might be telling: “… Kansas City, Kansas City here I come/ They got a crazy way of loving there/ And I’m gonna get me some…” Really, Lisbon? You’re singing to Jane, your slightly insane consultant, that you’re gonna get some of that “crazy way of loving”? No, they’re totally not teasing the shippers with this one… And if we read the rest of the lyrics, things get really intriguing at the end of the song (which Lisbon doesn’t get to): “Nobody will know where I’ve gone/ Cause if I stay in town/ I know I’m gonna die./ Gotta find a friendly city/ And that’s the reason why/ I’m going to Kansas City/ , Kansas City here I come/ They got a crazy way of loving there/ and I’m gonna get me some.” Basically, two choices are offered to the character in the song: to die if he stays where he is or to leave secretly to a “friendly city” with the hope of love. Those symbolise pretty accurately the choices offered to Jane in ‘There Will Be Blood’: to keep going on his vengeful path towards revenge (which is getting even more dangerous with Lorelei’s death), or to move on and to choose a new life full of redemption and affection (represented by Lisbon). This might be again a discreet hint that Jane is beginning to seriously question his quest, a theme started after him killing Carter and enhanced by his meeting with “Charlotte”. Back ‘The Devil’s Cherry’ he showed only lassitude due to his lack of progress in the RJ case; now he might also feel a renewed sense of danger born from Lorelei’s fate…. The thread is even more pressing.

Last, amusingly, there seem to be two little reminders of the two arcs carrying hope: “Alice in Wonderland” from ‘Devil’s Cherry’ (Lt Lewis/ Lewis Carroll) and “The Wizard of Oz” from S4 ‘Ruby Slippers’ (the song Kansas City/ “You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy” was what Minelli told Jane long ago). Those are very probably only coincidences but the detail is rather entertaining.

VIS#2: Jane and Lisbon at the hospital

Later, both investigate Lucy’s workplace and interrogate the doctor who worked with her. This time, it’s Jane who is put in an uncomfortable situation when he mentions in passing that the doctor recently divorced. The man is surprised and asks how he knows that. Instead of backing her partner up, Lisbon turns to him and acts the same way he did at the crime scene: she only shows incomprehension and it forces Jane to elaborate further, explaining that he uses way too much cologne… Lisbon slightly nods at that. Dr Bowman seems ok with the remark, yet he ironically adds that “it’s been a little over one year and (he’s) doing quite fine actually, thanks for asking”. Since neither asked about how he was doing, they both answer with an uneasy smile and an awkward “great”. They seem quite in sync both in the timing of their line and in the uneasy feeling the situation provoked.

That funny scene (Jane even clears the air with his hand after the smelling doctor has left) shows again their complicity and humor, two aspects lacking in ‘There Will Be Blood’: the air has been cleared between them as well, or so it seems.

VIS#3: Lisbon and Jane interrogate Pete

While at the hospital, they discover that someone witnessed the murder and called the police before abruptly leaving the crime scene. The interrogation reveals that Pete, their only witness, suffers from memory impairment due to his traumatic past as a soldier. All his friends in the army have been killed in an attack and the shock has affected his short term memory… meaning that he doesn’t remember anything from the night of the murder. He even forgot about the crime right when he was talking to the police on the phone that night, which is why he simply walked away in the middle on the conversation. His impairment is further showed by a detail: at some time, someone walked in on the interrogation by mistake and the distraction erased every memory of the talk they were having from Pete’s mind, forcing Lisbon to tell him again that Lucy had been murdered and making him sad and shocked by the news all over. The poor guy just suffers from a never ending memory loss that makes him live over and again every terrible event he may encounter.

This unusual situation gives some background to the character and makes him very pitiful and sympathetic as he’s moved both by the death of his friends and by Lucy’s. It’s pretty poignant and it explains Jane’s empathy and his later bonding with Pete. It may have also helped that Jane himself had his memory damaged in ‘Fugue In Red’ and may then understand how impotent and frustrated with himself Pete must feel.

VIS#4: Jane triggers Pete’s memory

After telling Lisbon that he wants a taco, Jane takes off again to the crime scene. Here, he peacefully enjoys a gardenia’s delicate scent before lounging on a bench for a nap. Such a serene moment, who would have though the man was actively investigating?

Image by Chizurubchibi. Copyright Reviewbrain March, 2013. Not to be used without permission.

Indeed, it appears that he was doing a field reconnaissance for an experiment of his. When Lisbon and Pete later join him, he buys a taco for their witness, makes him smell the gardenia, all the while explaining his plan: he wants to boost his memory by using his senses since the best tools are smell, hearing and taste. He recreates that way with external reminders the exact conditions Pete encountered before walking in the murderer seeing as he was eating a taco then and passing by the flowers. The trick works when the last element, the church bells, is added.

Of course, that clever scheme worked because his memory loss was due to more to traumatism than to a head injury, but what’s interesting here is that Jane took the time to explain what he was doing to Pete. He describes the theory for trigging his memory while he was using it; he didn’t manipulate Pete, he made sure he understood what was about to happen. That way the guy could comprehend and work with him. The moment is comparable to the lecture Jane has given at the university about his memory palace and his mnemotechnic method in ‘Red in Teeth And Claws’, but this time he doesn’t use parlor tricks to impress his public. More, those scenes almost complete each other: he told Dr Hill that “it’s easy to remember when you never forget” and he demonstrated how he could “remember” an extended list with his extraordinary memory; now he works with a young man who could only “forget” and he shows him how not to. Those scenes set Jane as a specialist in memory: he doesn’t just show off his skills, he can theorize about it and use his knowledge to help people, not just as entertainment or for an investigation.

Explaining in detail what he’s doing to Pete also sets the ground for a form of trust between the two men. That part is deepened and twisted later when Jane puts Pete in a slight trance to help him sleep. He has used his skills before to help people in order to gain their trust (like with that dying mafia boss he gave advice to help him sleep in ‘Bloody Valentine’) or out of kindness (those two times he planted a suggestion in people’s mind to make them stop smoking in ‘Blood for Blood’ and in ‘Something Rotten in Redmunds’). But those instances were just fleeting moments: here Jane goes out of his way to help Pete, he seems to care. Even if he uses this to plant a false memory in the notes Pete has been writing to try to remember things, he really tried to create a peculiar kind of trust with the young soldier. In a way, by explaining his method and helping him overcome his problems (memory impairment and insomnia), Jane almost acts as a therapist. Even the detail of Pete lying on a couch while Jane hypnotises him belongs to iconic scenes for psychologists.

VIS#5: Jane apologies to Pete

Jane apologizes (*gasp!*) for using him that way at the end. The scene echoes the other: this time it’s Jane who is napping on his couch and Pete awakes him. The soldier thanks him for finding Lucy’s killer; he understands that Jane only abused his trust for a noble reason and both show respect for the other. This moment between the two men also enhances their similarities: before, during his interrogation, Pete said that he couldn’t sleep and was “angry and sad and no idea why” due to his lack of memories and the loss of his friends while Jane is admittedly an insomniac (napping on his couch during the day), who is also often angry and sad because of grief. And, although he does know why he feels that way, the incertitude in his case lies more on his real motives for going on, as his imaginary daughter pointed out.

Jane then proceeds to help him overcome his memory impairment at least partially. By writing his fake note, he has indeed enlightened the limits of Pete’s usual system of writing down everything he can to supply information in lieu of his lost memories. This routine of relying on notes might also refer to one of Jane’s own habit: his list of possible suspects for RJ. Jane has been racking his brain and writing down their name like Pete was obsessively taking notes about what was happening around him (he did so at the crime scene after Jane’s experiment). For Jane too, his scribbling is the only way left to unearth the truth after he lost the lead provided by Lorelei since Jason is out of reach at the moment.

This scene shows once more Jane as an expert: he teaches the memory palace technique to the younger man to help him fix his memory. Pete chooses his late army friends as his own palace: by associating systematically everyday little things to one of his lost friends, Jane plays again the part of a therapist for Pete since he is helping him overcome his impairment and the traumatic event that caused it. Thus, with Jane’s help, Pete can be able to heal and grieve at the same time, he has been given a tool that can fix progressively his short term memory problem and deal with its root as well in the long term. Given the parallels between them, one can wonder is there is a hope for Jane too to start accepting his traumatic past and to overcome it, to start grieving his family instead of staying fixated on his loss. Lorelei’s demise might have been a catalyst and might have given Jane perspective on the path he can choose and on what he is willing to risk (aka Lisbon, and the question is not anymore just about protecting her either physically or by not telling her the whole truth, but about losing her affection beyond repair).

Also, it may be a bit far stretched but one might wonder if the memory theme that has been developed lately isn’t a circumvallated way to allude to Jane’s greatest memory loss so far: his confession to Lisbon in the heat of the moment before he shot her in last season finale. Since feelings have been addressed this season, first by Lorelei’s comment in ‘The Crimson Ticket’, then recently with Lisbon’s anger and hurt, can viewers start hoping that this odd “memory loss” will be fixed as well?…

Conclusion

In spite of being openly funny and quite heart warming, this episode unobtrusively deals with the aftermath of the dark events of the dramatic ‘There Will Be Blood’. Indeed, various hints have been given all along and it may prove useful to recapitulate them:

1) Rigsby is fine: contrary to Cho’s accident last season, there have been no apparent consequences of his brutal encounter with the fierce former minion. He only seems to have been assigned to desk duty for the most part of the episode, except when they’ve been tricking the murderer. Which may be why Cho was in charge of the sexual harassment aspect of their investigation.

2) Jane and Lisbon seem to be on good terms again but if we squint hard enough, we can see that there are some elements that indicate that things may not be as smooth as they first appear. First, Jane is particularly eager, both in the investigation and in enjoying little things: he’s drinking (tea?) in a paper cup at the hospital; he tells Lisbon he wants a taco, passes the time until the moment he can set his plan in action by lying on a bench and is enthusiastic about that fragrant gardenia. Is he just showing resignation and making the best of it while bidding his time until he manages to make a breakthrough in the RJ case? Or is he relieved to some extend that Lorelei is out of the picture, hence the almost cheerful vibe? Either way, his jovial behavior contrasts with his depressed attitude after he lost tracks on the woman, in ‘Devil’s Cherry’. Of course, his relief may concern Lisbon and the fact that he fixed his relation with her, since he seems to go out of his way to mend things completely… Still, the guy is overdoing it a bit, like when he thanked profusely the therapy group (“thank you. All of you. Very much.”), although the group members keep just staring at him with a blank expression… On the other hand, Lisbon’s attitude is quite contradictory: she goes along with him and takes part in the funniest moments, still her good disposition seems sometimes a little strained. When Jane asks her to follow him at the hospital, she doesn’t move and asks drily “Why? Where?” When she takes his call, she greets him with a rather cold “what is it, Jane?” And she gets impatient when he asks her if she has a padlock and tries to joke about it. She’s just a bit harsher than usual and she accepts less easily that he may not tell her everything. Is that a reaction to his previous statement that he only tells her 30% of what he does?

3) There is a pretty classic transposition of the RJ plot into the current situation. Indeed, many bright red objects in the background allude to him: the fireman truck when Hawkins is accused of harassment, the fire extinguisher Bowman grabs to try and break the padlock, the red car behind Jane at the crime scene, the whole red alert thing… But the characters themselves also offer some intriguing similarities:

– Jane and Pete: the common past, the contrast between the states of their memory… One of them forgets, the other remembers, still both seem to spend their time getting back at the start after every failure: until they met, they seemed condemned to be frozen in time in a never ending quest, starting again at the beginning every time. But the promise of recovery from one of them gives hope for the other. Still, it’s interesting that Pete was the only witness of the murder, just like Jane seems to be the only real threat remaining toward RJ. Which leads us to…

– … Dr Bowman reminds of RJ by some aspects. He’s a cold-blooded murderer who just divorced – like RJ has interrupted his relationship with Lorelei. And Lucy too might be an allusion to the late siren since she was killed with a blade when she was about to threaten her killer: she too was the one who knew too much and she was helping Pete like Lorelei had almost been an ally for Jane. Both women were killed to preserve the lifestyle of their killer.

– Those parallels make one wonder where Lisbon stands in this connection between the episode and the main plot. Is she the one alluded to by the victim instead of Lorelei? They share a taste for music (she sings the song Lucy loved to the point of having its melody tattooed on her body), they are both OCD about the rules (at least that what Jane accuses Lisbon of) and are overall helpful and well intentioned women. Lisbon cares about Jane, Lucy helped Pete. Since Lucy was killed because she was trying to do the right thing, the possibility that Lisbon might be targeted too only adds to the still vague shadow that seems to grow over her.

Best Scenes
The winner: Jane tricking Lisbon into singing in front of soldiers and a cop (and a corpse). So much for professionalism. It was so cute and, at least, Jane managed to make one woman “sing like a bird”…

First Runner Up: Pretty much every interaction between Jane and Pete. The young soldier brought the best out of him.

Second Runner Up: Jane and Lisbon tricking and arresting the murderer. Classic Jane technique for solving a case and funny moment.

Icings on the Cake: Cho saluting after Sgt Hawkins has been arrested. A nice reminder of his military past. Also, Pete was a convincing, pretty moving and likeable character.

Pet Peeves
– The CBI taking charge in an army related case seems a bit odd. See VIS#1 above.

– The army uniform seemed a bit… off. A little too baggy and the soldiers’ general attitude lacked of rigor.

– Is that me, or isn’t it a bit strange that Pete was able to recognize his own voice immediately and without any hesitation? I mean, one doesn’t often actually hear it: for a lot of people, hearing their voice feels a little strange, it doesn’t sound exactly like they think it would be. It might have been more natural if someone else recognized it first or if he showed a little more hesitation. Or I’m just being awfully picky…

Mentalist Days of Wine and Roses Review

Synopsis

CBI consultant Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) works on solving the murder of Charlotte “Charlie” Coates (Michelle LaRue), a model who had been staying at a celebrity rehab facility. Meanwhile, Agent Teresa Lisbon (Tunney) convinces judge Patricia Davis (Amy Aquino) to reopen the case of Amanda Shaw’s (Rhea Bailey ) death which was previously ruled as suicide. Convinced that Amanda’s boss Tommy Volker (Henry Ian Cusick) had her killed to keep her from testifying against him in another case, Lisbon subpoena’s the powerful billionaire’s financial records to find out who he hired as his hit man; incurring the man’s wrath.

Concise Verdict

Rebecca Perry Cutter’s second submission to the show is just as enjoyable as her first and even more solid. Lots of good dialogue and delicate handling of Lisbon’s story arc (which could have easily become melodramatic in less capable hands). But another chapter in the saga of the show’s newest all-powerful and ruthless antagonist Tommy Volker is not all this episode has to offer. The case of the week is just as interesting and the writer deftly balances both the A and B plot as well as showing how differently our heroes work their respective cases: Jane’s unique abilities versus Lisbon’s old fashioned police work. The presence of several talented and familiar guest stars help keep the perpetrator a mystery and the interest high. Finally, Baker and Tunney were never better at portraying their character’s camaraderie; inarguably one of this shows greatest assets. Another is its humor which we got plenty of here via fun interactions and the actors’ perfect comedic timing. Flawless direction, continuity, and foreshadowing also serve to make this one a winner. 9/10

Detailed AKA Humongous Review (spoilers galore)

I think what I liked most about this episode is how we got to see efficient Lisbon in action. It’s been a while.  We also got to see Jane at his best with a classic Jane trick so old I’d almost forgotten (and hence didn’t mind) he’d used it before; using the victim’s scent, seeing how a group of people responded to it, to discover which of her fellow addicts was her lover.

Finally, I may be suffering some humor withdrawal from this show and am hence desperate for the slightest bit of amusement but I literally laughed out loud several times during this episode. Seriously, was practically rolling on the floor with laughter so you’ll see a lot of “ROFL’s” and “XD” in this review.

VIS #1: Lisbon gets permission to look into Volker

Lisbon visits judge Davies asking for a warrant for Volker’s personal and financial records. The judge tells her that she has already ruled on that.

-This tells us that Lisbon has already been working on the case but that her previous attempts to open it failed.

Lisbon then recaps for the judge that she has new evidence; that a second autopsy report on Volker’s secretary ruled out the death as suicide. Lisbon contends that Vokler had Amanda, his secretary, killed because she was going to testify that he had a reporter killed to keep her from writing a story about his company’s involvement in a massacre of a South American village (If It Bleeds, It Leads). When the judge expresses surprise that Bertram agreed to a second autopsy Lisbon admits that she paid for it herself.

-Love the mention of Bertram (as I’m sure others will) as well as the continuity of him being a pragmatist who likes to avoid headaches (which the Volker case undoubtedly is).

The Judge asks Lisbon why she’s so hell bend on catching Volker. Lisbon tells her that she failed Amanda since she’d promised to protect her and instead got her killed.

-Also love how the judge’s question helped set up Lisbon’s stirring (and helpfully expository) speech; she feels responsible for Amanda’s death.

Teresa then reiterates the legitimacy of the evidence. The judge reminds her of the man’s status as the governor’s supporter and good friend to which Lisbon replies “that’s why I came to you because I know that you won’t be threatened by a man’s status or connections.”

-I wonder if Lisbon was serious here or if she’s using a trick from Jane and being subtly manipulative of the judge. I’m inclined to think she was just being direct and straightforward, as she employs the same method later.

VIS #2: Jane, Lisbon, and Dr. Ruben

Jane and Lisbon’s interview with Dr. Ruben, director of Oasis Ranch Rehab Facility made for both a humorous and informative scene.

1. When Ruben (Dennis Boutsikaris)  tells Jane he has a degree in psychiatry, Jane replies “Excellent” since it’s nearly always the psychiatrist that’s guilty.

-Great reference to the pilot and one of my favorite perps Dr. Linus Wagner. But the best is yet to come…

2. Ruben replies to Jane “Had a bad experience with therapy, huh.”

First of all, the (supremely talented) Boutsikaris’s reading of this line was perfect; a matter-of-fact tone and a quick rise of his eyebrows. Then there was Baker’s reaction to it. I laughed so hard at his stunned face and how he slowly turned to look at Lisbon. It was the funniest moment of the episode.

3. The doctor also says: “In fact we have so many high profile patients we are far more worried about keeping paparazzi and reporters out.” Truly excellent writing; the line seamlessly sets up a later scene when the undercover reporter is revealed.

4. When Jane assumes that the victim was in a relationship, Ruben replies: “We liken early sobriety to a whack-a-mole game. You push down one addiction and another one pops up.” Again, this paves the way for another plot thread. In this case, it helps to later explain the perp’s motive. But it also subtly alludes to one of this show’s themes…(to be discussed in further detail later).

5. Ruben continues to say: “Newly sober people tend to act out…sexually.”

We finally have it in canon, people. Jane needs to get rid of his RJ obsession to get back into dating game :p

VIS #3: Lisbon versus Volker

After Lisbon subpoenas Volker’s financials Grace finds out he’s paid a Charles Milk $25,000 on an irregular basis. Realizing they found his hit man Lisbon tells Grace to file a warrant to search Milk’s house. Before she gets it though, Volker visits her office. He tells her that if she wanted his financials all she had to do was ask; as he runs his business on transparency before asking her if she found anything. Lisbon replies:

“Why? Is there something you’re worried about?”

-Teresa rocks. Her melodic almost sing song voice in the face of Volker’s thinly veiled intimidation and his increasingly closing in on her personal space was beautiful.

Volker then tells her that she looks good.

-Lisbon’s face is carefully expressionless but the change of topic (and Vokler’s sudden appraisal) must have confused her.

The man quickly reveals the point behind his statement when he adds: “You’ve been working out.” Lisbon then orders him to get out of her office. When he leaves, Lisbon lowers her guard and appears very agitated.

-Translation: the sicko’s either been watching her or has one of his henchmen spying on her. His telling her that she looks good and that she’s been working out is him threatening her that he’s got his eyes on her.

VIS #4 Jane is Worried about Lisbon

Jane tells Lisbon he has an idea and asks her if she wants to go with him to the rehab facility. Lisbon tells him she’s waiting for a warrant on Charles Milk, Volker’s accomplice. The two then have the following conversation:

Jane: Bravo.

Lisbon: There is no way this guy is as smart and careful and Volker. I can turn him.

Jane: Excellent police work, Lisbon. I admire your pluck.

Lisbon: I hear a but.

Jane: No ‘but’ I’m just a little worried that he’s inside your head and believe me that’s not a good road to go down. Bad neighborhood.

Lisbon: I think you can understand I don’t really have a choice.

Jane: Well yeah, I can certainly understand that I just…I want you to be careful.

-Pretty straightforward. Also, divine. Simply divine display of deference. I love their obvious respect and regard here.

Lisbon assures Jane that Volker is not in her head, to which he replies that he hopes not. Jane also tells her to let him know if she needs his help. Lisbon replies: “No thanks, this one is mine”. Jane seems a bit out of sorts when he responds “Yeah, you got this”.

-Jane is obviously worried about Lisbon (aw!) here. But he also seems flummoxed at being sidelined in her quest to bring Volker down. It’s ironic, especially considering how she’s been practically forcing him to work on cases with her and how he’s been telling her she needs to learn how to work without him. But it’s not long before she confides in him…

Jane is present when Grace tells Lisbon that judge Davies denied their request for a warrant. Later, Lisbon again declines joining Jane at the rehab center, apologizing and telling him she’ll catch up later, avoiding his gaze. Jane surmises that since it’s a Thursday night that Lisbon is going to her regular poker game to try to get one of the judges who attend to sign the warrant for Milk’s place. Lisbon replies “It’s worth a shot,” before admitting she doesn’t know what she’ll do if the plan doesn’t work.

-I love how Lisbon didn’t want to reveal her plan, almost like she was ashamed of her last resort. Then there’s how pouty she seemed; petulant Lisbon how I love thee. But I think the best part was Jane telling her that they’ll think of something. I know a few fans felt that he was less than supportive the last time she had a run –in with Volker (to be fair, he was just absent). Seeing them working in tandem here must therefore be reassuring. It certainly is beautiful.

VIS #5: Lisbon and Judge Manchester

Once again we get to see Lisbon in action. She straight out asks a judge for a warrant. Manchester’s already heard about her dilemma from Davies who cited her nerve. When Lisbon says that she was upset Manchester tells her that she doesn’t need to apologize to him. Lisbon retorts that she’s not and that judge Davies was wrong; that somebody has to bring in Volker, even if it’s not her. Manchester tells her: “Sometimes you are childishly naïve, Teresa.” Lisbon retorts that it’s better than defeated cynicism. His “ouch” reveals that she’d hit him where it hurts and follows up by imploring him to sign the warrant; that the only reason not to is fear.

-So we’ve finally gotten some continuity on Lisbon’s poker nights with the high-profiled officials Mancini introduced her to. I wonder if this new edge Lisbon has was the only point to that plot thread. Does that mean we won’t see Mancini again?

VIS #6: Johanna’s Confession

The victim’s therapist, Johanna (Amy Pietz) explains how her alcohol addiction (which she’d previously mentioned to Jane) was replaced with Blackjack.  She tells Rigsby that she paid her massive debts by borrowing money from “bad people” who were going to hurt her if she didn’t pay them back. Her patient Charlie confided that she’d stolen the necklace from her parents and wanted to give it back to them. But Johanna then stole it from Charlie and killed her in a neighborhood where drugs were scored, knowing people would think she’d gotten killed for her addiction. At Rigsby’s outrage of the bad legacy Johanna left for her patient, she says: “I’m powerless. It’s a disease.”

-Once again, we come across a perp who denies the accountability of their actions (Blood and Sand is the first my memory recalls). But unlike in Blood and Sand where the perp went so far as to live in a an island, on an all male ranch in an attempt to quell his predatory sexual urges, Johanna here is nowhere near as sympathetic. I wonder if there’s a reason for showing us the perpetrators in what seems to be an attempt at humanizing them (i.e. Lorelei). I had a few theories (mentalizing us for something godawful Jane would do) but am now at a loss on if all the instances are intentional or not. Where does one draw the line? Johanna here was a therapist. She could have gotten help from someone else. She could have told the police that her life was in danger instead of killing Charlie for the money her parent’s necklace would have provided. All I can say is I’m ever-more interested in hearing what RJ’s story would be…

Best Lines

“Saying it does not make it so.” Judge Davies to Lisbon. Glad someone’s finally stated that on this show. Although I don’t think anyone will try explaining that to Jane; lost cause.

“Lisbon you’re distracted and you have an eager gleam in our eye. Either you have a breakthrough in the Volker case, or you’re in love. Which is it?” Jane, I love you. Also, shut up. You’re torturing the shippers XD.

“I was hoping it was love. You deserve happiness but I’m glad for you anyway.” –Jane, to Lisbon after she tells him Davis signed the warrant. Yes she does, Jane. Also, all the shippers are now wondering if you’re making a tacit offer.

“She was shy. And sensitive. Like the volume was turned up too high in her head.” Victim’s mother, to Jane and Lisbon. Great description.

“Stella! Sweetheart, you look like an angry stick insect. Think of Brazil. Or whatever country you’re from.” Clarkson the photographer to a model.

“Uruguay!” – the indignant Stella in response to the above.

“Uruguay! Work it! Yeah you’re a dirty little Cossack!” ROFL!!! XD This dialogue was completely stereotypical, but hilariously so.

“Had a bad experience with therapy, huh.” Again, Jane’s expression at the doctor’s line here was so priceless.

“We liken early sobriety to a whack a mole game. You push down one addiction and another one pops up.” Solid gold writing right here.

 “I know I can’t make someone stop before they are ready.” – Johanna to Jane, on addiction. Don’t we (and Lisbon) know it. This almost felt like the writer’s were talking to us about our favorite Mentalist.

“I don’t need a chaperone.” Jane, to Lisbon. Her subsequent scoff followed by his escape was great.

“Hey Cho, you’re freaking out the guests. Just relax with the cop-ness.” Jane, to robo-cop Cho.

“I’m relaxed.” – Cho rocks.

“I was just kidding, he wasn’t actually sleeping with her- CHO! Cho!” Jane, trying (and failing) to break up a fight he started before calling Cho to the rescue.

“Jane as in Austen or Mansfield?” undercover journalist, to Jane on how his name is spelled.

“Austen.” Jane’s expression, almost insulted when he replies is interesting and amusing. The prim reaction certainly fits more with Austen.

“Mansfield. Please!” Jane’s indignation is expressed even more clearly when reveals Suzie’s real identity; scoffing at how she could doubt the spelling of his name to be that of Jayne Mansfield’s. Again, probably because he has more in common with Austen :p

“What self-respecting speed freak drinks herbal tea?” Jane, to Margaret, in response to how he found out she wasn’t a the addict she claims she is.

“So mysterious. Let me see, Thursday night you’re going to play poker. Ah get one of those mucks to sign to sign your warrant.” –Jane, reading Lisbon.

“You and your fancy diagnosis. People want stuff, they take it. It’s as simple as that.” Jane, to Dr. Ruben. Could this be the start of a beautiful relationship? God knows Jane could use a therapist.

“It’s not your fault. There is nothing to be ashamed of.” Johanna, to Jane on his (fake) kleptomania.

Best Scenes

This was so, so difficult to choose. The entire episode was fabulous but here are my favorites:

Second Runner up: Cho and Rigsby arrest the photographer Clarkson.

I loved the wonderfully stereotypical discussion between the photographer Clarkson (Hal Ozsan) and his model Stella (see above quotes). Then there’s how he later immediately tells Cho and Rigsby “It’s hers!” about the drugs he was carrying even before they were found; which Rigsby points out to him before he finds them. Cho’s subsequent “You’re under arrest” was awesome.

First Runner Up: Jane admits to being a kleptomaniac

This scene was hilarious. Jane getting caught in the act of stealing leads to Johanna and Dr. Ruben sitting down with him and trying to get into his head. Ruben asks how it started and Jane tells him his father taught him how to pick pockets. Ruben then tells him that “subconsciously” he’s still trying to please his father. Jane feigns an epiphany, agrees, then asks Ruben “how do you do that, that is uncanny”. A sympathetic Lisbon then goes “Jane…” before she is interrupted by a phone call. She hangs up and tells Jane that they just found a ruby necklace in his car and asks if he wants to explain that. A shamefaced Jane replies “Not really.” Ruben then tells Jane that he should definitely continue therapy and gives him two thumbs up. Jane thanks him and says “I feel better already,” closing his hands into fists.

-ROFL! Now we’ve seen Jane fake epiphanies before but this time is nevertheless priceless.  Simply brilliant! Flawless acting by all involved. I don’t know how they kept a straight face through it all; I would have died laughing XD.

The Winner: Jane tells Lisbon to be careful.Cause sweet, caring Jane is a balm to my soul. Also, see VIS #4 above.

Image by Chizurubi-chibi. Copyright Reviewbrain January, 2013. Not to be used without permission.

Icings on the Cake

 Detective Jane: Really loved seeing how Jane’s mind worked to solve the case this time. His miss’s were just as revealing as his hits. First noticing the expensive single malt whisky; which made him realize the victim’s wallet was stolen. Wrongly assuming Joanna smoked, which led him to conclude she spent time in a smoky room (casino). Wrongly assuming the herbal tea belonged to Charlie the model, when her roommate corrected him that it was hers, helping his conclusion that she’s an undercover reporter. Then there was him discussing the case with Lisbon, telling her that the real motive for the crime was the ruby necklace. I’m going to have to re-watch a few episodes to be sure (readers feel free to correct me) but it seems like it’s been so long (like since season one and two) that we’ve actually seen Jane discuss the case on-screen with Lisbon. It is always nice to be privy to these break-downs rather than imagine what they looked like.

Bashful Jane avoids the grateful parents. Love this continuity.

Honorable Mentions

Kudos to Rebecca Perry Cutter on a very well written episode.

Eric Laneuville’s direction is as wonderful as always. Especially the scene with Lisbon and Volker in her office. Just the right notes of creepy.

The acting was truly was superior from all involved:

Hal Ozsan’s was comedy gold. Dennis Boutsikaris was as well but in a more restrained understated manner, as required by his character.

Amy Pietz (whom I’ve been a fan of ever since she told Brass in CSI “I don’t like you”) was honestly the least person I suspected of being the perp. Her performance was so cleverly unobtrusive.

Mary Lynn Rajskub was as effective as her fans know her to be.

Henry Ian Cusick is very convincing as the intimidating Tommy Volker A good thing too or viewers may not have been able to take the character seriously as an antagonist.

Kang and Yeoman’s scenes keep getting better and better. “Chigsby” will always be a fan-favorite pairing.

Finally, Baker and Tunney were both pure joy to watch. You can just tell that they had fun acting in this episode.

Conclusion

Lisbon tells Jane she finally got the warrant to search Milk’s home. He congratulates her once more on having police work prevail. Her joy is short-lived, however. On route to the man’s home she gets a call from a smug Volker, telling her that she won’t find anything. Lisbon then gets a call from Grace who states that they’re too late. Lisbon arrives at a crime scene to find Milk shot along with a married couple. An officer tells her that it seems like a random gang hit. But Lisbon knows better. Jane joins her with a concerned “Lisbon?” the agent then tells him that she needs his help.

-I wonder what type of “help” Lisbon is looking for from Jane. Hopefully it’s just (legal?) mentalism to catch the billionaire. But I wouldn’t count on it. More than anything else, the purpose of this episode seemed to be tacitly setting up Volker as a super evil genius too smart to be caught. Sigh. At least the writers did their homework by having Lisbon (seemingly) exhaust all legal options. I hope this continues to be the case. Just because Milk is dead doesn’t mean CBI can’t use the warrant they got to search his house. They might find something useful there. Although, the title of this episode isn’t very encouraging. It’s a reference to Lemmon’s film with an identical name. I haven’t seen this particular movie but here’s its synopsis from IMDB:

An alcoholic falls in love with and gets married to a young woman, whom he systematically addicts to booze so they can share his “passion” together.

There goes my ulcer ;_;

I’ve been saying it since season three. Jane wants Lisbon to come around to his views the better to be able to relate/get along with him. But how far is he willing to have her go? My one glimmer of hope is his concern about Lisbon in this episode when he told her: I’m just a little worried that he’s inside your head and believe me that’s not a good road to go down. Bad neighborhood.

Could Jane, who all this time seemed to be wanting Lisbon to be more like him, actually save her from that very fate?

My Cynic is laughing at me. I’ll be banging my head against my laptop hoping for the best and intermittently praying that Lisbon’s character doesn’t get ruined for me. That is, when I’m not hanging over the toilet.

Note: In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m prone to hyperbole. Next episode’s Little Red Corvette trailer looks pretty awesome. Can’t wait for next Sunday to (hopefully) put me out of my misery. Also, congratulations to Amanda Righetti on her new baby boy!!

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Mentalist Blood Feud Review

Synopsis

When CBI Agent Wayne Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) is arrested, he has to explain himself to Professional Standard’s head Special Agent J.J. LaRoche (Pruitt Taylor Vince) to prove he is innocent of a crime viewers gradually become privy to through flashbacks. It all starts when Rigsby’s convicted dad, Steven Rigsby (William Forsythe) was found injured at a crime scene in Carson springs, where a young man with ties to the town’s major drug family was killed.

Concise Verdict

Pruitt Taylor Vince is back! PTV is back!!! CREEPY BUT FLUFFY LAROCHE IS BACK!!! Woohoo! My undying love for the character (and the actor) has been well documented, (time and time again) so I know viewers will forgive my flailing here. This was a fabulous episode made even more so by bringing back a couple of this show’s fabulous guest stars. By the way, I think it’s safe to say that writer Jordan Harper has become the new Ashley Gable of this show. He tends to focus on Lisbon and Rigsby. He knows them inside out. He puts them in challenging situations. And he enjoys making viewers cry. Also, continuity, people! Continuity and foreshadowing! Top it off with great acting, beautiful music, and a clever script, and you’ve got a winner. 10/10.

Detailed AKA Humungous Review (Spoilers Galore)

Before I get into the review, I’d like to recap some very important observations Violet made about Rigsby Sr. in her guest review of “Like a Red-Headed Stepchild”:

Is that me or Steve also reminds a little of Jane himself? A few hints seem to draw an analogy between them: in VIS #1, he affirms he can get the killer in ten minutes (that’s so Jane-ish!) and he’s sprawled on a couch. He’s a cold manipulative jerk. He slyly plays on Rigsby’s feelings, calling him “son”, never by his given name, even when he insults or threatens him. And what is more revealing, Wayne’s attitude towards them is comparable: he never tried to set the record with Jane’s sometimes mean tricks, nor does he with his father. He lied for them and let them get away with it even when he knows that he’s been had. And that’s where we can see Grace’s influence, because he decides to react after this last manipulation.

Fans will remember that Rigsby’s reaction was to finally face his father. The two come to blows, and Rigsby took his father down, but never delivered the final punch. The fight allowed the two to part on better terms then they had met. Steven’s parting words, “See you around, son” were perhaps the one time he used the familial term without an ulterior motive; he used the term sincerely. Genuinely.

Now in this review, I’ll be elaborating on Violet’s insightful comparison of Jane to Steven, as well as her contrasting of Rigsby to both his father, and to Jane. This will be done where relevant and as the topic presents itself.

VIS #1 Teaser

I knew I would love this episode before the opening credits. The set-up was brilliant. First we see, for the first time, Rigsby’s baby (who incidentally, looks very much like his dad). The baby sitter tells Rigsby that his son is “a good boy, like his father.”

-This statement alludes to themes addressed in previous episodes (Bloodsport, Like a Red-Headed Stepchild). Mainly, it recalls Rigsby’s fear that criminal behavior is hereditary and therefore hints that once again he’ll face his criminal father.

Two agents come to arrest Rigsby from his apartment, practically in front of his son. And just in case that wasn’t enough to keep viewers interested, the next scene which takes place at the CBI has J.J. LaRoche in it, greeting a sober Lisbon and Jane, before going in to question Rigsby. J.J. tells Rigsby that “If I don’t like what you have to say, you could walk out of this room charged with murder.” Rigsby then begins his tale, starting with how he got called to a crime scene in Carson sprints, and how his father was found there.

– Talk about a powerful hook! No way anyone changed the channel after that.

VIS #2 Wayne and Lisbon visit Steven in the Hospital

As LaRoche questions Rigsby on the last time he saw his father, we see a montage of Steven being rushed into surgery at a hospital, with Rigsby running alongside of him and sitting down to wait with Lisbon.

-When the team found Steven, his son’s first statement to him was “What did you do, dad?” establishing that he knows his father enough to recognize his propensity to make trouble. But Rigsby’s main concern is still his father’s health. This was nice to see and very in character for the sensitive agent.

Lisbon stands by Rigsby and joins him in asking the doctor about Rigsby senior’s health, before asking if she can ask him some questions. Rigsby then adds “both of us”.

-Lisbon’s support here was lovely to see and builds on the sibling-like relationship her and the younger agent share. But her double take at Wayne when he said “both of us” shows that she doesn’t approve of him being further involved with the case, as becomes clear in a later scene.

Rigsby expresses how worried he is about his father. Steven brushes his son’s concern and questions on what happened with his own inquiry: “So tell me, boy or girl?” Rigsby is surprised that his dad knows he has a child. Senior informs him that his cousin told him Rigsby was expecting a child. Wayne then informs him he has a son named Ben. Steven asks:  “Is this little Ben’s momma over here? She purty,” about Lisbon.

-Now if Steven is any sort of criminal, then he knows Lisbon is a cop. Because, apparently, criminals have a sixth sense which helps them identify officers, as stated by this procedural (and other dramas) on numerous occasions. Therefore, despite how gorgeous Lisbon (Tunney) truly is, Steven here was just distracting Rigsby from asking questions. This is supported by his continued flirting.

Steven tells Lisbon “I gotta tell you, I could not work for a beautiful woman like you. It’s way too distracting. You dating anyone honey?” Lisbon, always the professional recognizes the compliments for what they are, a diversion, and continues questioning Steven over who shot him and the victim. Steven proceeds to take the flirtation to a lewd level before Rigsby steps in, trying to make him realize the seriousness of the situation. Steven replies “I don’t need you or any other government bitch fixing my problems.”

-So not only do we get a bunch of Lisbon love, but it’s done in a way that makes sense character-wise. Fans might recall Steven’s hot girlfriend, Rocket from his last episode. So it’s nice to see what he can be like when he decides to make his move via his flirting with Lisbon. It’s even more intriguing to see how that charm can quickly turn ugly, perhaps displaying Steven’s true colors when he calls both Rigsby and Lisbon government bitches. In this respect, like Violet pointed out, he was very reminiscent of Jane Think the team’s seafood dinner in the pilot: first Jane charms Grace and impresses her with his “magic” trick, then when she annoys him, he turns nasty and insults her by telling her to sleep with Rigsby. More on their similarities later…

Lisbon and Rigsby leave the hospital room. Rigsby is ready to continue working the case but Lisbon refuses. When he says he has to do something she starts to tell him that he can stay at the hospital but gets interrupts by Rigsby who tells her he won’t. Lisbon then tells him “I didn’t give you a choice,” before softening her tone and adding “It’s okay. Go home. See your kid.”

-I do love me some Rigsbon. These two are so awesome together and Harper writes them beautifully.  The last time I remember their brother/sister relationship being alluded to was, again, in Like a Red Headed Stepchild when Rigsby confessed that his father was a person of interest in a case the team was working. But while in that episode Lisbon kept him on the case (provided another team member accompanied him) she refuses to do so here. It makes sense, since this time Steven’s involvement is much more serious. It was awesome seeing Lisbon wear both the boss and friend hats so effectively, even when Rigsby didn’t want her to watch out for him. Her protectiveness will be revisited before the end of the episode, and more in this review as I suspect it will be a major topic this season…

VIS # 3 Jane and Lisbon question Samantha, the victim’s partner

Samantha (Daisy Eagan) tells Lisbon that she and Andy managed to avoid the allure of the gangs growing up, and that as that put them in the minority, they became friends and hence naturally went into business together.

-I may be overreaching here but the fact that the victim and his friend bonded over their plight reminded me of how Lisbon and Rigsby were both abused children and how it’s a possible explanation for the strength of their bond. Not that I imagine they ever talked about it…

Jane asks why Samantha isn’t surprised that the victim was with a criminal (Steven) at the time of his death. She states “family troubles”, and reveals the fact that the victims biological father was an Overton; a member of the gang family that controls half of Carson valley.  She adds that Andy’s mom left his father as soon as she realized what kind of man he was and raised her son completely on her own.

– Because of the many parallels drawn between the victim and Rigsby (good guys with criminal dad’s), I’m guessing this is pretty much how the situation was for Rigsby as well. We know his mother raised him, his dad told him that he gets his law-abiding ways from her.

– Because of the many parallels drawn between the victim and Rigsby (good guys with criminal dad’s), I’m guessing this is pretty much how the situation was for Rigsby as well. We know his mother raised him, his dad told him that he gets his law-abiding ways from her.

When Samantha states that Andy wasn’t close to the Overtones, Jane offers “But he couldn’t escape them either.” Samantha responds “Its family. You know how that is.”

– Yes, yes we do. We’ve seen Lisbon having Jane and her teammates’ backs because she considers them family. And we had Rigsby lying to provide an alibi for his abusive dad in episode Blood Sport. Then there’s Jane. I found his use of the word “escape” very interesting. His family has been dead about a decade and he still hasn’t been able to sever the bond he had with them. This conversation gives more support that the theme of family bonds, and what they cost, will be a major theme. Again, it will be revisited before the episode (and review) is over.

VIS # 4 Rigsby Defends the Team

LaRoche assumes that Lisbon invited Rigsby back on the case after Cho and Jane discovered that he’d disappeared from the hospital. Here, Rigsby adamantly says: “No, she didn’t invite me. She was reluctant, but I was insistent and she warned me to be very careful. I want that clear.” When LaRoche asks why Cho didn’t accompany Rigsby to the bar where his father was meeting his girlfriend, Wayne starts to say “We,” but quickly amends his statement to “I thought it was more likely that he would come quietly if I was alone.”

-Love how worried Rigsby was that his friends would get in trouble over his actions. Very in character. Also, I have to say that when the episode switched back to this scene in particular, I had been so into the plot that I completely forgot about Rigsby being arrested. That’s a good thing because, when not done well, viewers tend to zone out waiting for flashbacks to end. Not the case here.

VIS #5 Rigsby Meets his Dad

The episode switches back in time, to Rigsby going to the diner where his father was meeting his girlfriend. Senior refuses to go back to the hospital and tells Wayne he’s not leaving without a fight, to which Rigsby replies that he’s not fighting his father anymore and sits down to have a beer with his dad.

-We got another allusion to the last time the two men met. Also, Rigsby seems to have learned a few tricks from Jane. Him sitting down with his dad was a method to bide his time until he could get Steven to talk. This was illustrated by having this scene switching to Jane and Lisbon at this point, before switching back to the Rigsby’s, allowing for passage of time.

After drinking together for a while Rigsby calls out Steven on how he doesn’t know who shot him, because if he did he’d be hunting him down, as per his “code”. Steven then admits that he didn’t see anything; that he was at the scene to help the victim who told him someone threatened to burn his barber shop if he didn’t show up. Rigsby thanks his dad who then asks to see pictures of his grandson. He laughs at the baby pics and asks who the mom is. Rigsby tells him “We’re split up. Team was working a case, I faked my own death, she got mad, it’s complicated.”

-Am I the only one heartbroken at the news that Rigsby and cute and feisty Sarah have broken up? Worse, I’m now worried that this was done, to get Rigsby and Grace back together, only to have one of them killed leaving the other in agony over the death. It’s not total paranoia when you consider the hint the previous episode gave us that a team member will get killed. Or is it?

Steven tells Rigsby to not go too easy on his son, to which Rigsby replies: “No parenting advice, thanks.” His father tells him “What do you got to complain about. I did my job. You’re still here. You’re a man of respect. You walk around all over the place with a legit weapon. You got a handsome son. I did a good job.”  When Rigsby concedes the point his dad tells him, “Damn right,” reaching out to his hand, before adding “I could’ve drowned you at birth.”

-I’m hoping Steven here was just joking to offset his sudden burst of tenderness, rather than a revelation that the thought had actually crossed his mind to kill Wayne when he was born. Most likely, he was tacitly trying to show Rigsby that, despite how bad a father he was, he wasn’t that bad. I think Rigsby got the point. He’s forgiven his dad to the extent of allowing him to see his son, albeit reluctantly. Which makes the fact that he died before he was able to do so only more tragic.  Although, Steven’s statement saying that he goes when he decides to go, along with the song lyrics “I’d rather be dead,” hint that Steven simply wasn’t interested in the quiet living that would have kept him alive.

VIS # 5 Rigsby Kills his Dad’s Killer

I want to preface this section by pointing out how keyed up Rigsby was after his dad’s death, and his brief encounter with Jane and Cho at the elevator. Cho had told Rigsby “I know what you wanna do. You can’t do it. You didn’t like growing up with a dad in jail, Ben wouldn’t like it either.” Jane, by just seeing the two men’s stance knows exactly what they are talking about. Was his statement to Rigsby “Better let us handle this,” a genuine reiteration of Cho’s wise advice? Apparently not.

What I found very interesting was Rigsby’s motive for going after his father’s killer. He’d said to Cho:  “If I got shot, he would’ve found the man who pulled the trigger and taken care of it.”

This explains why by the book Rigsby is doing something as out of character as taking the law into his own hands. It might also indicate that Rigsby is not thinking clearly, after all, he is not his father. But grieving people aren’t exactly known for their sound judgment.

Now the way the scene was written, thankfully, needed for Moss to be put down. Rigsby’s use of lethal force was, as LaRoche says later, completely justified. What’s less clear is his presence at the scene in the first place.

VIS #6 Jane, Lisbon, and LaRoche’s Revelation

Jane sits as Lisbon’s desk as she writes up the paperwork on their case, telling her “You’re going to regret this someday,” meaning all the paperwork adding “It’s like cooking a beautiful meal, and then putting it straight in the refrigerator. Forever.”

-A few points here. First, Jane is back to trying to get Lisbon to rebel against the system. Could it be paperwork annoys him cause the more diligent Lisbon is the harder it’ll be to slip stuff through the cracks? Second, Jane’s statement recalls both his own questioning of the reason he’s at his current job, as well as a possibility of Lisbon feeling burned out (as hinted at in the last season). Third, Jane has evolved from keeping Lisbon company while lying on her couch to him being completely in her personal space, sitting on her desk. Not that Lisbon is complaining. I can still hear the J/L shipper’s squealing :). Finally, Jane’s use of the word “regret” reminded me of how Lisbon once called him one of her big regrets (see review for Every Rose Has its Thorn). Alone, this probably means nothing. But together with the theme of family heavily alluded to in this episode, it might be foreshadowing of a possible plot line in which Lisbon starts regretting ever bringing Jane into the fold of those she considers family. Should the writers choose to go there, it’s been very cleverly set up in this scene. How? Read on…

La Roche enters Lisbon’s office. She asks him what his report on Rigsby will say. I’m going to analyze the rest of the scene line by line as the dialogue was very crucial was it. Also, absolutely, utterly, devastatingly, perfect:

LaRoche: It will say that agent Rigsby acted appropriately and with sound judgment when he used lethal force against moss. (to Jane). Good work. You got away with it.

Jane: Me?

LaRoche: Well I can’t make a case, but you chose a remote location for the meeting, you set up a situation where Moss had to flee. And there, by chance, was Rigsby.

Jane: Well, I’m flattered. You flatter me. But I can’t take credit for that.

I love how Jane’s response to LaRoche’s accusations is always being bashfully flattered (Jolly Red Elf). But while it worked the last time, LaRoche has gotten to know him much better now, even if Lisbon (apparently) still hasn’t…

Lisbon: Moss didn’t have to run. I would’ve brought him in.

Lisbon has a point, but LaRoche’s rebuttal was much more effective:

LaRoche: The plan did require moss to put his own head in the noose. Small gamble, Jane had to make to keep everyone’s hands clean.

Poor Lisbon still refuses to acknowledge Jane’s evil genius:

Lisbon: Moss fired his gun.

It’s true that Moss didn’t have to fire his gun and escape, but it was natural considering that he had the heads of two separate mobs threatening him.

LaRoche: So you all say, course, Moss can’t tell his version. And now, Rigsby has taken perfectly legal revenge against the man who killed his father. Do you think it will affect him?

Now, up until this point Jane had deniability on his side. But LaRoche is smarter than your average bear. His question on whether Jane thinks Rigsby will be affected by revenge finally gets a response. But before we get into it, I just want to mention that by this point, Lisbon is gazing intently with a very hard to read expression at Jane. It seems like she’s either she’s trying to warn him from saying anything, or she’s trying to read his reaction, to see the effect LaRoche’s words are having on him; if his face reveals that they are true. If she had been in the dark about Jane’s actions, then Jane’s answer to LaRoche probably brought her to light:

Jane: Well I think it’s better to regret something you did than something you didn’t do.

I found Jane’s response to LaRoche to be very revealing, not only as a tacit admission of guilt. Jane, for all his mentalist abilities constantly forgets that not all people are like him. For example, I concede that he probably did what he did out of a genuine interest to help Rigsby out. But he’s forgetting that he and Rigsby are practically opposites, despite the fact that they were both raised by bad fathers. While revenge might work for Jane it might not necessarily work for Rigsby. Jane’s presumptuous interference, applying his motto, his religion to those around him without considering if it’s a right fit is one of the traits that annoys me the most about him. It’s a clear result of his ego, his belief that he knows best.  But what I’d love to see is for his “help” to backfire one day. Not just because I’m evil, but because the potential for character growth and introspection there is enough to make me drool. Hopefully, LaRoche’s words here are enough to get Jane thinking on his own without another tragedy forcing him to…

LaRoche: Perhaps. I suppose Rigsby will never know.

I love how J.J. here called Jane on his manipulating the situation. The subtext includes Jane’s manipulation of Rigsby’s pain to get the younger Rigsby to do something that he might have not done if he were in a calm state.

LaRoche: Agent Lisbon my report will reflect you made a mistake in calling agent Rigsby to the scene. An error in judgment.

Lisbon: Yes sir, it was.

As her MO, Lisbon is all too happy to take responsibility for Jane’s actions. And just in case I dropped the ball and didn’t realize that Jane was the one who called Rigsby…

Jane: Lisbon didn’t call Rigsby, I did.

…Jane helpfully tells us, following his MO of trying to protect Lisbon.

Lisbon: Jane!

LaRoche: Of course you did.

LaRoche is no dummy. He probably knew perfectly well that Jane called Rigsby and Lisbon is just protecting him by claiming she did. I see his refusal to acknowledge this truth is his way of succumbing to her wishes to protect her team. I’m just not sure why. Perhaps, like Hightower before him, he hopes Jane will behave better if he realizes that Lisbon will be held responsible for his actions.

Unless…unless…it really was *Lisbon* who called Rigsby? She’d told him that she’d let him know if they got a break in the case, so maybe she did? But even if that were true, no way she would have told Rigsby where the meeting was going to be. Jane probably did that, which is why he was so ready to take the blame.

LaRoche: Agent Lisbon, your instincts to protect your team are admirable, and your biggest flaw.

We have it in canon that this guy loves Lisbon (who doesn’t?). He got upset when she insulted him (Bloodstream) and he gave her a hug (Scarlett Ribbons). His statement her truly seemed like he was trying to look after her, protect her from herself. I find his behavior admirable, and not just because it annoyed Jane…

Jane: Yes, well we all have our flaws. Don’t we agent LaRoche?

Jane’s statement here is a not so subtle reminder to LaRoche that he knows a horrible secret LaRoche has (Strawberries and Cream) and his way of telling LaRoche his advice is not wanted. Jane does not want anyone influencing Lisbon and/or his relationship with her. It makes me wonder how he’d react if she ever gets a boyfriend.

Best Scenes

This was so hard to decide. Readers, please let me know what were your fav’s. There were so many good ones!

The winner: Jane, Lisbon, and LaRoche’s Revelation

First runner up: Rigsby and Ben, end scene.

Second Runner up: Rigsby, Steven and Lisbon at the hospital

Best Lines

“I’ll be back here”. Love self preservationist Jane. Always takes off when there’s danger (*cough*, unless Lisbon is involved, *cough*)

“Is this little Ben’s momma over here? She, purty.” What can I say, the guy’s got taste 🙂

“I gotta tell you, I could not work for a beautiful woman like you. It’s way too distracting. You dating anyone honey?” Seriously, I think my heart blew up at all the Lisbon love XD

“I didn’t give you a choice. It’s okay, go home. See your kid.” –Lisbon rocks.

“Yeah, well I ain’t fighting you anymore.”

Icings on the Cake

Jane trying to give Beltran a slap, the man refusing, and Lisbon’s “what the hell are you doing” face. By the way, the moment wasn’t in the script. Writer Jordan Harper on twitter said it was created by Simon Baker .

“Damn, you can never trust a woman.”-Steven, to Rigsby, about Rocket revealing his location.

“Not off to the greatest of starts”-Jane to the rivaling gang leaders, when they pull their guns on each other.

The entire end scene.

Honorable Mentions

Composer Blake Neely. There were many great tunes in this one but my favorite was the one which sneaked into LaRoche’s scene with Jane and Lisbon at the end. It provided a lot of subtext to the scene…

Owain Yeoman was truly wonderful in this episode. From the little hitch in his voice when he introduced Lisbon to his dad, to revealing how worried he was about him, then slyly getting him to reveal what happened; he pulled off all the facets of Rigsby’s character effortlessly. Finally, that heartbreaking scene at the end: crying as he held his son, taking comfort from the baby as he told him it was beautifully sad.

Pruitt Taylor Vince. The man is a rock star who rocks all his rocking character’s rocking scenes especially the ones where he’s rocking the truth about Jane in front of Lisbon.

Writer Jordan Harper. The case was very clever, the character interaction great, and the dialogue had many many layers. Truly excellent writing.

Director Anton Cropper did a great job keeping the story coherent. The hospital montage at the beginning and the chase were especially well done.

Pet Peeves

We never did find out how Steven knew the victim. Since Huff was a barber, I assume he was Steven’s barber. But it would’ve been nice if Rigsby’s dad had said something like: “Kid was my barber, asked me to help him out,” just to clarify Steven’s involvement further.

I feel terrible saying this, but Forsythe (whom I have great respect for as an actor) really grates on me as Steven’s dad. I don’t know what it is about his performance but there were a few instances that just made me cringe.

Conclusion

Like LaRoche, I question whether Rigsby will be unaffected by the fact that he killed a person. His “It’s okay” at the end of the episode to his son could have been said to reassure himself that he’ll get over his dad’s death. He could also been telling himself that he’ll be fine after he killed a man. Now Moss was a heartless criminal who killed an innocent man to start a mob war. And Rigsby killed him in pure self-defense. He is (almost) entirely blameless. But Wayne is undoubtedly the most tender-hearted of all the CBI team. The only reason he wanted revenge is because it’s what his dad would have done for him (based on what Rigsby told Cho). But Rigsby is very different from both his father and Jane. If Rigsby only killed Moss because he felt obliged to do so (for his father), as opposed to wanting to, then he might have a harder time dealing with the aftermath. We saw Grace’s PTSD last season after she killed Craig in self-defense. Will this season be about Rigsby getting over his own shoot out?

I don’t know. But if Jane’s actions do cause ramifications for Rigsby, then that raises a heck of a lot of possibilities. Violet elaborated how Rigsby managed to finally face his father when he fought him in Like a Red-Headed Stepchild. If Rigsby ever find out about how far Jane went to set the stage for his revenge, would he be thankful or resentful? Would he have a face-off with him too? I can only see that happening if Jane’s actions got one of the other team members (Grace?) hurt.

A more probable possibility comes to mind. This is where my theory of a possible plot in which Lisbon might regret bringing Jane into her CBI family comes into play. The victim in this episode couldn’t escape from his family any more than Rigsby could his dad. But there’s the family that we choose as opposed to the one we’re born with. The CBI is a family by choice. They look out for each other because they want to, not because they have to. La Roche tells Lisbon that her biggest flaw is protecting her team. I say, so far, the choices she’s had to make were arguably easy: Mother Teresa will always protect her children from outside influences. But until this point, she’d never had to protect them from each other; from Jane. Lisbon’s replies to LaRoche, denying Jane’s manipulation make it seem to me that she might not have known Jane was going to call Rigsby. One could argue it wouldn’t matter to her if he did, so ingrained is her instinct to defend him. But what about now, after LaRoche raised the possible emotional harm Jane’s interference might have on Rigsby?

I had hoped that LaRoche’s statements might serve to give Jane cause for thought. I’m going to hope they affect Lisbon too; that she take the rest of her team in consideration the next time Jane plots one of his schemes.

Realistically, though, I suspect she’ll continue with her “hand’s off” MO until Jane’s actions have real, far-reaching negative consequences. This is why the prospect that Jane might have inadvertently harmed Rigsby, Lisbon’s surrogate baby brother, is one that I find especially delicious. And now that I’ve probably depressed readers, here’s something to cheer you guys up…

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Mentalist Red Rover, Red Rover Review

Synopsis

CBI Agents are called to an abandoned light bulb factory, in Sacramento’s Industrial District. A body was discovered in an enclosed box, with scratches on the cover suggesting the victim was buried alive. Meanwhile, it has been nine years since consultant Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) lost his family. Their murderer Red John commemorates the event by leaving a “Happy Anniversary” card for Jane to find on his car before he goes to work. When Jane visits his families graves, he finds another message for him from Red John, given via a little girl “Do you give up yet?”

Concise Verdict: Wow. Seriously wow. I could rave on and on about what an awesome episode this was. But as words fail me I’m going to leave that up to commenters this time and focus mainly on the analysis. 10/10 ‘Nuff said.

Detailed AKA Humungous Review (spoilers galore)

So, yeah. That was quite an episode. It raised a lot of questions but I’ll mainly be focusing on trying to answer the following one: Were Jane’s actions here part of a long con or a result of the events within? Or were they both?

There were a lot of great details here and I tried to be as inclusive as possible.

Note: I purposely skipped on analyzing the title cause it might be deemed spoiler-ish for the next episode. Will talk about it then, I promise.

Teaser-Graveyard Scene: Jane, Lisbon, and Luther

Lisbon (Robin Tunney) starts the episode impatiently wanting Jane to hurry and join her at the crime scene. RJ’s card derails him and he goes to the cemetery instead where he encounters the child Haley who gives him RJ’s message. Lisbon then arrives at the scene (obviously Jane called her) where CBI head Luther Wainwright (Micheal Rady) says that it’s the anniversary of Jane’s family’s death. Lisbon tells him “I know, nine years”.

-Lisbon obviously was the one to call Wainwright, as I doubt Jane would bother. His arrival before her is probably due to him being closer to the location (Lisbon was at a crime scene elsewhere). Now I think Lisbon’s knowledge coupled with her impatience for Jane to join her hints that she already knew about the anniversary and had been worried about Jane. It’s nice to think of her wanting to look out for him by distracting him via a case.

Unfortunately we don’t get to see Jane and CBI Head Luther Wainwright’s interaction when the latter first arrives at the scene. That would have been interesting and I suspect a revealing scene; probably why it was omitted.

Luther tells Lisbon“Apparently Red John, or someone pretending him lured the girl from a class field trip.”

-I found the fact that Luther is leaving room for the possibility that RJ wasn’t the perp here very interesting. I wonder if he truly believes that or if he’s just being open for all interpretations. And what may those other interpretations be? That there is an RJ copycat, RJ is dead (like Jane insisted)? Or that RJ is alive, but he’d sent one of his lackeys? Does Wainwright believe Jane, that RJ is dead, or does he believe FBI Agent Darcy( Cheap Burgundy), that he’s not. A later scene explains this more. But for now…

Lisbon and Luther find out that Jane brainwashed Haley (the little girl who saw RJ) into forgetting her encounter with the man. Wainwright asks Jane why he’d do that when the girl can identify the serial killer. Jane recites the description he got from the girl: “he’s white, he wore a baseball cap, he had an odd voice.”

-Unfortunately, there’s nothing new here. We already know all of this.

Luther then points out that she might remember more if she were questioned properly, that Jane cost them an important witness. Jane defends “People who can identify Red John end up dead.”

-One can only applaud Jane for fearing for the little girl’s life. I do think, however, that if RJ wanted to harm her he would have already. He could have just killed her then left her body with a note attached for Jane to find. Also, Jane truly wasted a precious opportunity here. He should have hypnotized the girl (with her mom’s permission, of course) to get more information out of her, in the presence of a sketch artist. But it seems like, for once, Jane has decided to err on the side of safety, something I’ve been wishing for since the start of the show, so I’d be a hypocrite if I complained now. Grr..

Luther starts saying that he understands why Jane would be protective, but Jane interrupts to threaten that he’ll hurt Luther badly if he questions Haley or even tries to talk to her. Luther asks Lisbon in disbelief if Jane really just threatens him. She doesn’t answer and takes off after the consultant.

-Jane’s reaction here makes his pain and terror obvious. He fears that an innocent little girl might be harmed by RJ. Again, I don’t think he needed to go to the extreme of hypnotizing her, but, again, I totally understand where he’s coming from. As to Luther, come on man, can’t you recognize an empty threat made out of anger when you see one? Jeez…

At least Lisbon does. She follows Jane and tries to talk him down. She tells him he doesn’t need to apologize to Luther (bless her, she knows a lost cause when she sees one) but adds that Wainwright is right, that they should interview the girl properly. She then tells Jane that RJ is messing with his head and warns “Don’t let him.” She then asks Jane if he’s all right. Jane tells her “I appreciate your concern,” adding “Your phone is ringing,” and takes off while she’s distracted the better to avoid her concern.

-Jane’s little avoidance tactic here is repeated throughout the entire episode. If only he’d taken one of Lisbon’s attempts then the blow up at the end probably wouldn’t have happened But more on that later…

Dazed Jane at CBI/goes to victim’s workplace with Lisbon

At CBI, Jane drinks his tea in a daze, not really listening to Lisbon and the team as they discuss the case. She notices this, and brings him out of his reverie to go talk to the victim’s boss and co-workers. There, Jane makes a mistake regarding the dynamics of the victim’s acquaintances.

-Jane’s face here when it turned out he was wrong was full of confusion (which he didn’t quite succeed in hiding). Seeing the normally confident Jane miss one so badly was quite sad and disturbing.

Lisbon feels so too as she asks Jane what’s going on when they leave. Jane says “nothing” before admitting to being a little “out of sorts” but that it’s nothing serious. Lisbon then asks if he wants something to eat. Jane declines, and says he’s taking the rest of the day off.

-Oh bittersweet irony. I never thought I’d see the day when Lisbon is the one asking about food and Jane is the one who turns it down.

Lisbon is disappointed that she didn’t get Jane to have lunch with her (where I don’t doubt she would have attempted to draw him into a healthy conversation). She gazes at his departing figure worry written all over her face.

Jane/Alone in the Restaurant

Patrick goes to a restaurant where he is greeted by name and told that his order will be up shortly. A waiter comes over to his table and serves Jane what appear to be a type of vegetable (carrot?) juice. He does this consecutively until Jane has had a little from three separate glasses.

-The waitress knowing Jane, the fact that Patrick didn’t need to place his order, and that it was brought to him almost immediately hints that his presence was expected. It might be that Jane’s visit to this place was a ritual he’d practiced for years now, possibly every year on the anniversary of his family’s death. Hear that sound? It’s not glass, but my old heart breaking.

As to the drinks, one can only guess at Jane’s choice. Personally, I think the juice was a poor substitute for Jane sharing a meal with his family. And as I doubt he can put away three meals, three drinks it is. Or he might have had three orders, but only ate some of each like how he didn’t finish the three juices.

Jane Burns his RJ Files

The next scene has him back at the CBI at night. He goes up to his perch in the CBI attic with what seems to be a bottle of whiskey and matches. Jane pulls out a box from under his makeshift bed full of files on Red John.

-In the previous review I stated that Jane hasn’t been investigating RJ based on the fact that we don’t ever see him in his attic anymore, and on the fact that it seems he is unaware of CBI official files on RJ had been handed over to the FBI Agent Susan Darcy. The fact that Jane has his own copies explains why he may be unaware that the RJ files are no longer at CBI; he doesn’t need to study them as he has his own. It also raises the possibility that Jane might have been, in fact, still investigating RJ, only off-screen.

Jane pulls a file out from the box, with the label of James Panzer. Inside the file, there is a line which states “Subject is a victim of Red John serial killer.”

-So Panzer’s death has been officially attributed to Red John. I’m assuming after Jane admitted to Darcy that RJ is alive (Cheap Burgundy) she wrapped up her investigation (into Panzer’s murder) and forwarded the results to the CBI, putting the fact that RJ is still alive on the record. This explains Luther’s lack of surprise by RJ being back at the beginning of the episode. But RJ’s known existence also has  deeper implications for Jane…

Jane burns his files on RJ, hastening the process with the whiskey he brought with him, but drinking up most of it.

-….I think the sight of the little girl with a smiley on her hand pushed Jane to finally, ultimately, give up on RJ, not wanting to lose any more victims to the man. Jane says just as much in the next scene…

Lisbon’s office: Jane/Lisbon/Luther:

The next scene (the next day) shows Jane sleeping on the couch in Lisbon’s office. Wainwright and Lisbon stand outside her office where the boss tells her that security says Jane’s fire could have burned the building down.

– Could it be that the fire spread to the rest of the attic and that’s why Jane spent the night in his couch in Lisbon’s office instead of in his perch? I don’t thinks so. There would have been soot on Jane’s clothes (there isn’t any) and Luther would have probably made a bigger fuss. Most likely, the fire set off the building’s fire alarm system and had security come running. As to Jane being on Lisbon’s couch, it hints at two things: a.) he really is over RJ, otherwise he probably would have slept in the attic. b.) Jane feels safe in Lisbon’s office, or he probably would have slept in his comfy brown couch in the bullpen. It was either privacy he wanted, or being in his best friend’s comfort zone that motivated this decision.

Say it with me: aw!

Luther tells Lisbon he could suspend Jane, but that he thinks his actions are a cry for help. He just needs to know what the issue is.

-You mean, other than the 9^th anniversary of his family’s death and the note RJ left him? Honestly, Luther…To be fair, Lisbon concurs, saying “me too”, meaning she’s also confused on what’s happening with him. This is where I had to remind myself that Lisbon’s probably been around Jane on more than one sad anniversary, and that he’s also been teased by RJ before, so she probably thinks that he would have gotten used to it by now. Also, that Luther and Lisbon are just tv characters, so they can’t read my reviews, otherwise, they’d know that Jane has probably long since decided to give up on RJ (Blood and Sand) and is now coming to terms with doing so officially.

Lisbon asks Wainwright to let her do the talking. They both enter her office and she wakes Jane up, asking him what’s going on, why he burnt his RJ files.

Jane tells her that he’s hung over, but at her prodding says that RJ is right, it’s time to give up. “Nothing’s working. Nothing. It’s just a game and he keeps winning. The only way to stop him is if I stop playing.”

-Jane’s conclusion here is remarkably reasonable…which makes me doubt if he’s being sincere XD. Another reason is that right before Jane talks, he glances at Wainwright. He is aware of the younger man’s presence and watchful gaze. So it could be that Jane’s words were being said for Wainwright’s benefit. But who knows why. He could have done so to save himself from getting a lecture from Luther on safety, or because he thinks Luther is an RJ agent and wants him to deliver the message that he’d given up to his boss. I think both are legit possibilities.

-Personally though, I think Jane was being completely sincere, here. He just seemed very downtrodden. He seemed to barely be able to get his words out, perhaps because of Luther’s presence; he didn’t want to admit that he’s given up, moving on because he can’t win in front of his boss. I think that’s the most likely case, especially when you factor in the little swallow, bile, Jane has to trample down right before he says that he’s moved on.

-But there’s simply no way to know for sure. Seriously, Baker was phenomenal here. You can just see the despair wafting from him. If Jane was acting, he deserves an Oscar for his performance. This reminds me of the scene where Jane kisses Erica in her hotel room, and the absolutely traumatized look he had on afterwards. Act or sincere emotions? I doubt we’ll ever find out…

Lisbon seemed to believe him anyway…

She tells him “That it’s a big change, Jane,” to which he responds “Well change is good, isn’t it?”

-Teresa’s concerned reaction at the bomb Jane dropped is very realistic. It’s also foreshadowing. The man had been practically living for revenge all these years. It doesn’t seem like he’ll be able to give that up easily…that much becomes apparent by the end of this episode…

Lisbon then demands to know if it means that Jane is leaving the CBI. Jane quickly replies “No, of course not. What will I do for amusement?”

-I love this. Lisbon is so used to Jane’s presence that she immediately needs to know if he plans on leaving. I’m willing to bet that she was freaking out internally. Just like I’m willing to bet that Jane knows she was, which is why he immediately reassured her that he’s staying put.

Jane Questions Marcy, the Victim’s Fiancée

I felt this scene to be very important because, one again, a comparison seemed to be made between the victim and Jane. See the following quotes:

“He was a great soul. He was wise and kind.” “He had a strong sense of morality. He believed in right and wrong and would tell you which was which. I loved him for that, but not everyone did.”

-Sound like anyone we know?

Jane tells Lisbon that he’s feeling woozy and so he’ll move things along. He verbally attacks Marcy, asking: “What are you guilty about? The tears, all the talk of how great he is, he’s been gone a year, and you’ve been behaving like he disappeared this morning. That’s guilt.”

– Says the man who’s still grieving for his family nine years after their deaths. Although, I guess he could be speaking from personal experience here. Jane’s guilt for his family’s death is no doubt part of the reason for his grief. His next statement reveals more…

“Were you cheating on him? Not while he was alive, but now, yes. That’s it. You’ve been sleeping around on the sainted dead fiancée.”

-Again, I suspect this might reflect Jane’s own situation. His vocabulary, the word “cheating” suggests that he equates starting a new relationship, moving on from his dead wife, as cheating on her. But then he contradicts himself…

When Marcy says, “It’s complicated.” Jane tells her “It’s simple. You’ve moved on. It happens. You just don’t want to admit it because you think it looks bad.”

-More projection? Mind you, I don’t think Jane cares much about what others think, but I do think he doesn’t want to look bad to himself; fail his own standards, as it is. The fact that he’s remained single all these years hints that he feels compelled to remain grieving until he finds his family’s killer. But if that were true, then his giving up now has serious implications. To show RJ that he’s truly moved on, Jane needs to be willing to enter in a new relationship.

Jane Loses it

Just in case Marcy’s description of her fiancée wasn’t enough to depict how similar he is to Jane, the scene where Jane catches the Marx, the perp, is.

Jane tell him that he is: “Viscous and heartless. You gave Castro the most terrifying death possible. You’re evil.”

Jane then goes on to hit the man on the head with a shovel, and keep him locked in a coffin in a graveyard, until he confesses to his crime. He keeps him overnight and next morning calls Lisbon to where he’s at and tells her what he’d done. Lisbon is understandably shocked at his actions and begs him to tell him where Marx is buried. Jane only does so after the killer confesses his crime, through the baby monitor Jane kept with him in the coffin.

When Wainwright finds out, he blows a mild gasket, telling Jane that he tortured the man and that the case will never hold up in court because the confession was obtained via torture. Jane’s answer is a bland “let the lawyers sort it out”. Lisbon tries to diffuse the situation telling Wainwright that  accountants found financial evidence that Marx stole the firm’s money and that the DA will charge him with theft and security fraud, and that Lisbon will try to build a murder case from that as well to show his motive for killing the victim.

Luther doesn’t care. He tells Jane SAC PD wants to arrest him, elaborating: “You tortured the guy, for Christ sakes. Jane, you tortured him. Do you have any notion how that makes the CBI looks?”

Jane answers: “I gave an evil psychopath justice.”

Good old verbose Grace stands up for Jane but politically correct Cho and Rigsby keep their mouths shut.

Lisbon tries to get Jane to understand that what he did was wrong, no doubt, again, in an attempt to diffuse the situation. But Jane won’t have any of it: “Yes, of course I did, I crossed the line. I had to, to get Marx. It was the only way to get Marx.” He brushes off Lisbon’s comment that he’s been under a lot of stress and continues to unapologetically defend his actions. When Lisbon finally tells him that maybe he needs a break, Luther pounces on the idea and suspends Jane. He tells him he’ll have a hearing in 30 days to review whether he’ll remain at CBI. Luther goes further to tell Jane that he’ll personally ask that Jane’s services be no longer retained, adding “I understand that you are under some distress, Jane, but you shamed us today. And I’m not gonna let that happen again.”

-Boom! Remember when I said that I don’t think Jane cares much about what other people think? This is an example of an instant where he obviously does care. You can just see Luther’s words cutting him to the very core, and his breathing became increasingly shallow here.

Unfortunately, Jane’s always been vindictive (unless he feels he got what he deserved) and he retaliates at Wainwright by digging for himself an even bigger hole. Like Luther shamed Jane, Jane utterly humiliates him by calling him a baby and a momma’s boy. He doesn’t stop even when Lisbon tells him to and points to his mouth, saying Luther  still has her milk on his face.

Here Luther blows a major gasket, he goes crazy and tries to attack Jane and has to be held off by Rigsby and Cho. When he calms down, Jane continues the humiliation by wiping off the corner of his mouth. Luther tells him, he’s not suspended, he’s fired and tells him to get out.

-Damn. I don’t care what anyone says. Until I see proof of a long con, Jane here was acting completely on impulse, the stress of RJ coupled with the shame he felt at Luther suspending him causing him to lose his head and cause himself to get fired.

Lisbon obviously thinks so as well. She tells Jane not do anything rash, adding “We can work this out, we’ll fix it.”

Jane tells her, “I doubt that.”

Lisbon: “I’ll come by your place tonight, we’ll talk it out, okay?” and asks him to let her help him.

Jane’s reply? “You’re sweet.”

Yes she is. Also, Jane is an idiot.

But he’s been through a lot and we can’t help but love him.

Best scene

The winner: End scene. Need I explain why? Everyone was fantastic here. Lisbon worried, trying to stop the impending explosion, Grace’s utter shock when it happens, Lisbon’s helpless expression, Rigsby and Cho watching the scene in despair, the music (god, the music!!). Baker, Tunney, Rady, Righetti, Kang, Yeoman, Blake, everyone was in top form here.

1^st runner up: The team discusses Jane. Rigsby asks Cho and Grace if they know that Jane told Lisbon he was giving up on RJ. They concur and Cho says it’s hard to believe.

-I love this because it makes me imagine that mommy Lisbon talked to her kids one by one and asked them to take it easy on their older brother, he’s going through a hard time.

Then, Grace asks Cho and Rigsby if they think Jane is cracking up. They’re quick to reassure her no, their concern written all over their faces.

2^nd runner up: Jane drinks his three meals alone. This was such a heartbreaking scene.

 Best Quotes

“Jane seem off to you?” -Grace

“Always.”-Cho, in response to the above.

 Conclusion

So, were Jane’s actions here part of a long con or a result of the events within? Or were they both?

I guess it depends on whether you believe him when he says he’s given up the chase. Also might depend on who fans think is smarter: Jane or RJ.

If we think about it from the beginning, RJ was what set this entire episode in motion. After finding the card from RJ on his car, Jane visits his family’s graves; this despite Lisbon’s call earlier to hurry and meet her at a crime scene.

-Now Red John had obviously placed the card on Jane’s car, knowing Patrick would feel compelled to visit his family graves. The question here is, had Jane, likewise, read RJ’s mind, sort to speak, and known the killer had another message to give him, hence his going to the graveyard? Or had he simply gone there to brood?

Then we have Jane’s blow-out with Luther at the end.

Here’s the thing: Jane has a pattern of acting out outrageously after RJ slips from his hand. In Season two’s premiere, Redemption, Minelli tells him “Ever since the Tanner incident, you’ve been going way too hot.” To recap, that was after he shot an important RJ lead to save Lisbon’s life. Then there was Jane insufferably acting out most of season three after his run in with RJ in the Season two finale.

In this season, however, Jane shooting Carter seemed to have lifted a huge weight off his shoulders. With the world thinking that RJ was dead, Jane seemed to be content to move on with his life. He even placed a flower in the ocean, as a message to his family. At the time I stated that it was a symbol that he wants to get over their deaths and his revenge, and that was why Jane refused to admit RJ was still alive. Another reason, undoubtedly was letting RJ retire, kept him from killing again.

But it seemed RJ’s shadow, Jane’s failure to catch him, continued to haunt him. In Blinking Red Light, Jane felt compelled to catch Panzer at all costs. It was almost as if he couldn’t bear to let another killer walk free. So he brought RJ back from the dead to kill Panzer.

But, again, Jane then tried to go back to the new status quo; public knowledge being that RJ was dead.

Darcy’s investigation made that impossible. So in this episode, Jane had to admit to himself, and the world, that he can’t catch RJ and that he’s officially moved on.

But his failure continues to haunt him. Once again, Jane runs into an evil killer whom he can’t bear to not catch, and goes to evermore needlessly extreme methods to do so.

I say needlessly because I believe the accountants would have eventually figured out what was going on, as they did here, and Lisbon and co. would have gotten a warrant to search Marx house and probably found the keychain that belonged to the victim.

Despite Jane’s statement “what’s the point if you don’t catch the bad guys” that wasn’t what he was after. What he was after was revenge, he said it himself. He wanted to give Marx a taste of his own medicine. Unfortunately, that’s not how society works.

It appears that the title of the previous episode, “Farewell and Thanks for All the Red Snapper” was actually foreshadowing for the events of this episode, Cho and Summer’s break up was just a decoy. Like their doomed relationship, Jane’s time at CBI, his friendship with Lisbon seems to be impossible. He’s a man with his own code of ethics and he’s been increasingly unable to restrain himself from them in favor of the CBI’s, and his country’s laws. And no matter how much Lisbon’s been bending the rules for him, she knows better than to out rightly flaunt them, even the ones she disagrees with. They’ve been able to work together for eight years, but seem to now be at an impasse.

As to Luther, he lacks the experience and the emotional capacity to comprehend all that Jane is going through. No one can blame him for loosing his cool, but it’s so tragic that, had Lisbon’s boss been Minelli or Hightower, this situation probably would never have occurred. Even LaRoche recognized how damaged Jane was and said just as much when Jane threatened him.

Now what? No idea. Can’t wait to see the finale. Thank god the show’s been renewed or I’d be a whole lotta worried.

Meanwhile, here’s an awesome Mentalist video that might depress you (totally worth it though).

And here’s the episode’s fantastic art by Chizuru-chibi to make up for it 😉

Image by Chizuru-chibi. Copyright Reviewbrain May, 2012. Not to be used without permission.

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