The Mentalist
Episode 12: Little Red
Corvette
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!
This
was a pretty fantastic episode of the Mentalist. Volkner has been a
pretty great recurring antagonist. He's a billionaire with a lot of
resources. This has allowed him to kill people without actually
getting his hands dirty. This makes him a formidable opponent that
shares some similarities with Red John. The only difference is that
Lisbon knows who Volkner is so she knows where to dig in order to
hopefully find some answers. A major problem is that he always seems
to be one step ahead of them. They get a warrant to search some
offices that might contain condemning evidence only to find out that
the office has been completely abandoned. They bring in a suspect for
questioning only to find out that he's dead. They find out that a kid
happened to witness one of his murders and they have to race against
time to save his life. Since this is a broadcast drama, it shouldn't
come as a surprise that the kid is saved in the last minute. Volker
gets captured personally going after the kid and it appears to be the
end of that plot. I wouldn't be surprised if the show finds a way to
keep it going because Valkner has a huge law defense but he shouldn't
lost the law case. He was caught red-handed going after a kid with a
gun. That's pretty difficult to explain especially since the kid is
going to tell the jury what he saw happen.
It
should be noted that Lisbon is only able to get Volkner because she
had enlisted Jane's help. Jane's advise on how Lisbon should
investigate the case allows them to get close enough for Volkner to
get desperate and make some major mistakes. It is interesting what
the writers seem to be advocating here. Catching Volkner required
Lisbon to ditch the principles that a law enforcement officer is
supposed to stand for. It meant going to the edge of the law and even
breaking it at points. Whether it's blackmailing a district attorney
or lying to a judge, Lisbon crossed a line in order to get the
results she was getting desperate to get. It shouldn't be lost that
the person who is basically guiding her into doing these actions is
the protagonist of the series. Lisbon might have been a character who
tolerates Jane's antics but this is a completely different level.
This is Lisbon abandoning her values as a law enforcement officer.
There are many cop shows on the air for multiple reasons. One of
those is that they're supposed to be promoting law and order. These
cop shows have a tendency to have characters of great integrity that
the viewers can look up to and mold themselves. Having Lisbon abandon
this integrity is as if the show is stating that it is sometimes
necessary to break the law. It is the very antithesis of a broadcast
cop show. Granted, it's been doing this with Jane from the very
beginning but there have been some differences. The primary is that
Jane is not actually a cop but a mere consultant so he's not expected
by anyone to live up to the same standards. The second is that Lisbon
has always been the force that's supposed to control him. Lisbon is a
cop but this episode has her abandon these standards without anyone
there to keep her in check. In fact, she's being encouraged to play
dirty. It is partly because of Lisbon's gradual descent from the
integrity her post is supposed to have that makes this episode work
so well.
It's
because her descent comes from a very real and human place that makes
the episode really work. She wants to catch Volkner not just because
she's a cop or because he's a terrible man but because he had
inadvertently made it personal. She had promised to protect the
secretary and she had failed. He had basically bragged to her about
how he had done it. If Volkner was just another character then Lisbon
would have never thought about blackmail or bluffing to a judge. It
would be against her character as there would be no catalyst to drive
her there. The secretary's death had deeply impacted Lisbon. This
wasn't an immediate impact as it's a death that happened a few
episodes ago. The pain of it has only grown as Lisbon has failed at
being able to bring him to justice. It is this emotional guilt that
allows Lisbon to become so guilty that she's willing to betray her
values in order to bring him to justice. Now she can finally begin
the process to truly process her feelings over what had happened to
the secretary.
Lisbon's
actions might have made Volkner act out rashly but it's Jane that
ultimately brought him down. Jane is the one who deduces that a kid
had witnessed a murder. It's Jane who is able to use his intelligence
in order to figure out who the kid is. It's Jane who is able to use
his interrogating and observational skills to learn that the kid is
actually alive. Lisbon didn't just need Jane's help in stooping to a
place where she normally wouldn't go but in actually being able to
outsmart the billionaire. This is possibly the only flaw I might have
with the episode. This is Lisbon's case and when it comes to Volkner
then she's the protagonist. This might be Jane's show in most
episodes but he should have merely given her the advice on where to
look and what to do. Doing all the leg-work with the kid cheapens
Lisbon's pursuit of the killer and once again makes her out to be
slightly incompetent. It also means that it's inconsistent with what
the entire plot had been trying to do. Jane might have Red John but
Volkner was Lisbon's nemesis. She was the one trying to bring her
down and this was her victory to earn. This is a flaw but it's not
really big enough to ruin the episode or hold it back in a
significant way. This is because it's also ironically a strength.
Why? It shows that in order to catch Volkner, Lisbon needed Jane. In
the same way, in order to catch Red John, Jane is going to need
Lisbon.
Little
Red Corvette is a pretty fabulous episode of The Mentalist. It
seemingly wraps up the Volkner case in a really entertaining and fun
way while exploring the idea that having integrity might hold you
back when trying to capture monsters. What's the best part is that's
it's as entertaining and as engaging as this show can be-this is
usually reserved for Red John episodes, but Volkner has been a
captivating villain to see taken down.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please be respectful of people's opinions. Remember these reviews are MY opinion and you may disagree with them. These are just TV shows.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.