The Mentalist

The Mentalist

Episode 9: The Redshirt

By: Carlos Uribe

The Mentalist is a show about Patrick Jane, a mentalist, who solves crimes.

Spoilers Ahoy!

When the car of a former football star is blown up, the CBI is brought in to solve the crime. At first everyone thinks that the football star was the one who died in the car. It turns out that it was actually his assistant, and the real star is still alive. The intended target was obviously the star, so the killer blew up the wrong guy. With the whole world thinking he's dead, the CBI decides to take advantage of the situation and play a “trick” on the murderer. There's multiple red herrings before the answer is revealed to be his manager. It also happens that the manager is one of the few people who knew about the trick, so they had to play a different trick on him. It would have been a boring case if the football player had actually died.

Having the star made things interesting because of the interesting layer it added. As Patrick Jane noted, it's extremely rare to be able to actually question the murder suspect. The cops can try to solve the case by having the player answer all their questions, which theoretically would mean a lot less snooping. As it turns out he would only reveal any useful to the cops after they had uncovered evidence that he was hiding relevant things from them. It seems that Jane simply overestimated the usefulness of keeping the player alive. It should be noted that even though he wasn't much help himself, what was actually interesting was to see how the case affected him.

He got to sit in on all investigations of all the potential suspects. This meant having to listen to people talk about what they actually thought of him. He discovered that his ex-wife still loved him and that knowledge reunited the couple. He also discovered that his girlfriend was resenting him and hadn't liked him in a long while. When the real killer, the manager, is revealed, the football player realizes that he has no real friends. All he has leaving behind him is the football legacy that he is leaving behind, and in a way this insight was a gift. It may have been painful for him to hear, but the truth will be able to set him free.

There is also a sub-plot involving Rigsby. It's some relationship drama that frankly wasn't at all very interesting. The problem is that the two simply don't have any chemistry. When he kisses her at the end of the episode, it's supposed to feel like it's romantic and consensual. What the viewer saw instead, at least what I saw, was Rigsby seemingly looking like he's about to rape her. Something tells me that's not what the show was aiming for. I don't mind the show exploring the personal lives of the characters but it should at least be believable. If Rigsby had any chemistry with the actress playing his girlfriend, I would have liked the story better.

It was overall a pretty good interesting, especially with the interesting, albeit unoriginal, twist on the show. When the show first came out, critics stated that the premise wasn't original but the execution was top-notch. Likewise, the premise of this episode has been done by other shows but the show still executed the premise effectively. It was an episode filled with mind tricks, which were all fun to see them play out.