The Mentalist

The Mentalist

Episode 7: If It Bleads, It Leads

By: Carlos Uribe

The Mentalist is a show about Patrick Jane, a consultant for the cops who solves crimes while seeking revenge for his family.

Spoilers Ahoy!

The marketing for the episode made it seem like it was going to be a light episode where Patrick Jane investigates the death of a promising journalist. The idea of the episode could have been fun but the investigation went into a surprisingly dark place. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but I currently have mixed feelings for the episode. The episode didn't really do anything wrong. It's simply a strange episode. Let's take it one step at time. Jane wasn't very committed to this case for most of the episode. This meant that the CBI was left alone to actually solve the case and they're not completely incompetent. They actually manage to figure out the person who killed the journalist but they don't know how to arrest him for the crime. This is because the killer is a wealthy billionaire who can use his resources to get rid of people he doesn't like. He is such a monster that he wiped out an entire Amazonian village because they were getting in the way of some project. This wealthy billionaire is able to cover his tracks well and they have no evidence against him. The only person they had who could potentially find something to send the billionaire to jail was his assistant and she's killed before she can do any real damage. This is after Lisbon had promised the assistant that they would protect her from the billionaire. When Jane finally does get involved in the case, he manages to get the man that the billionaire had used that messed with the brake system of the car of the journalist but not even he can get to him. As I said, the episode went to a surprisngly dark place.

The weekly case did have some fun moments in it and they were generally whenever Jane was involved. His technigue of getting people to use a single word to describe the dead journalist really paid off when he used the weather girl's rumors against her. When he shows up at the newsroom at the end of the episode, he takes over the news broadcast in one of his usual schemes. He's able to potray the news anchor as the person who killed the journalist. The anchor tries to deny it but runs away. This anchor was personal friends with the billionaire. The billionaire had been able to easily manipulate the anchor into messing with the journalist's brakes which led to her death. It was a fun way for Jane to solve part of the murder that worked well within the world of the weekly case. That he used information he had gathered in the beginning of the episode to catch the anchor was simply genius. Whenever Jane wasn't working the case, it got a little bit more serious. That's when Lisbon met the billionaire and his assistant. A little bit later, she's able to get the assistant to agree to testify against her boss with the promise of protection. When the assistant is killed, the episode went into an even darker place because the billionaire was watching it. This is all to state that Jane's presence in the case was when it was the most light. This doesn't mean that the show was potraying him in a positive light. He's shown to be obsessed with the Lorelai case and he's trying to formulate a plan to break into maximum security prison.

Jane might be in a dark place but Lisbon might head there soon. She might be angry with the billionaire at the moment. She's going to want to catch him. That's all true. What is also true is that she failed in keeping her promise to the assistant. She failed in ensuring the assistant's safety. She had assumed the responisbility only to fail. She's the one who convinced the assistant to betray her boss and who put the assistant in danger in the first place. That means that she's going partially blame herself in the assistant's murder. There's a small chance that the writers won't explore the emotional impact that this murder has on Lisbon in future episodes due to the procedualized nature of this show but I hope that's not the case. If the ending is any indication, this isn't going to be something that just goes away. The real question should be on just how far this show is willing to explore the effect this is going to have on Lisbon.

What is the ending? A member from Homeland Security stops by Lisbon's office and tells her that she doesn't need to worry about the wealthy billionaire any longer. He urges her to step away from the investigation for her own safety. He starts to leave the office when he bumps into Patrick Jane and calls him by name. The episode makes it perfectly clear that this agent from Homeland Security is going to be important. It's pretty much hinted that this is the same agent that the FBI agent had talked to in Red Dawn. He's connected in some way to the Red John case. The entire weekly case had gone out of it's way to bring the Homeland Security agent into the show's universe with a perfectly plausible excuse. That might be why I didn't like the episode: it had a weird tonal shift. Half of it was light and the other half was dark but the show never properly balanced it out. This meant that it seemed like two good episodes were haphazardly spliced together.

The Mentalist had a pretty good episode that sets up the next epsiode. We know that Jane wants to break Lorelai out of prison. We know that this Homeland Security agent has revealed himself and that he's going to play a major role this season. It used the weekly case to accomplish this with mixed results. The weekly case successfully brought the agent into the show but it came at it's own cost and that is the weekly case itself suffered in quality. This episode was never a bad one but it could have used some more time in the writer's room.