The Mentalist

The Mentalist

Episode 19: Red Letter Day

Mini-Review

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 weekly case this week took place in a small town that is literally owned by a small family. This family owns the roads, the schools, the houses, and the commercial buildings. The town has fallen on hard times but they have tried to use tourism to pay the bills. The victim is the patriarch of the family. There are multiple leads in the cases. It could be related to the meth labs that have been exploding or the real estate issues as he had been planning on selling the town. The best part about the weekly case is how Rigsby and Cho basically pull of their own Jane stunt. They manage to figure out that the meth labs not only never exploded but that they didn't exist in the first place. They trick the chief of the police into admitting that he was creating a meth lab scare in order to acquire properties for a mall he thought would be built. It's nice to see how Jane is influencing the police tactics of the CBI. The real estate issue led them to having the person who ran the tourism sector as a suspect. This guy believed in the town and was trying to save it. He didn't do it. Of course, the real person is someone who the show didn't want you to suspect until the end. The twist is that it was the guy's son who had killed him. Was it for the money? Was his father's drinking leading to the two of them getting in huge fights? The real reason that the victim was killed was because when he was younger he got a girl pregnant. This girl was not his wife. He would later hire this girl as a waitress. A waitress that would start shacking up with his son. The son doesn't react well to this news and he kills his father for it because...his father was forbidding him from marrying his half-sister. Okay, the motive doesn't make a lot of sense. The weekly case was a bit fun to solve as the characters got to have the closest to a wild-west themed episode this show can get and the Jane stunts were fun. I've got to say that it's always memorable whenever he comes across someone who basically does what he used to do for a living.

The weekly case wasn't the only part of the episode! Rigsby doesn't just get to trick the chief of police into revealing himself but he gets Van Pelt flowers. He's hoping that the flowers will mean that she's going to make a move but he finds out at the end of the episode why she won't. She found a guy in Los Angeles. That whole scene at the end where he's about to face up to his courage and admit he loves her but then finds out she has a boyfriend has been done to death before. It's not very original and the show doesn't add a fresh take to it. So basically there's a love triangle now and I'm not excited about where it's going to go based on how it begun. The Red John plot also has some small strides this week. The Homeland Security guy has some guys break into Jane's office. He's an antagonist so he ensures that all the evidence they collect isn't stored into the servers. This means that only he has access to this evidence. For some reason, he recreates the board Jane has created. I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish. I'm sure it's no good. Jane does know that someone was in his office since he likes to leave little strips of straw or paper at the door when he leaves. The Red John plot was interesting because of why the Homeland Security guy needs to rebuild Jane's evidence wall but other than that not much happened. It is hopeful we're building up to something.

Other Notes:

Next week might get a full review depending on how good the episode is and if I have a lot to say about it.