photo: cbs
The Mentalist
Red Badge
Original Air Date: Oct 1, 2009.
Liz – Associate Staff Writer
liz@thetwocentscorp.com
Lisbon is in mandatory therapy. No, not because Jane has finally driven her crazy, but because of the bang of last season’s finale — pun intended. Dr. Cameron says that Jane got signed off on after only one session because he has good mental health. I agree with Lisbon, I want to see his license to practice medicine.
Being called out of her therapy session for work, Lisbon and the rest of the team are scouring an alley for a dead body. In a way that only a girl who has grown up in a family of boys can do, Grace protests that she did it last time, and Rigsby wins the Rock, Paper, Scissors competition between himself and Cho to see who gets the honor. But before Cho can go trash surfing, Jane follows a trail of ants looking for moisture to the decomposing body. Jane would totally ruin any and all games of Hide and Seek.
The body is that of William McTeer, convicted serial rapist of little girls. Earlier in her career, Lisbon as an Inspector for SF PD (which I’m going to guess is San Francisco Police Department) put this guy away in conjunction with Agent Bosco. That’s right, that lame ass who has been beating down our woobie Jane used to be in tight with Lisbon. The old team uncovers this information through their brilliant collective sleuthing skills, and Lisbon blows it off.
Since the case is still theirs (for the time being — oho!) Jane and Van Pelt go to see McTeer’s fiancée, Tanya, who apparently had no idea of his seedy past and refuses to believe it. The kicker is that she has a little girl, Emily, and Jane’s sense start pinging and she gives him the details — he was great with Emily, even asked to take her on an overnight trip, even pressured Tanya to allow it. Honestly, it turned my stomach more than a little. A man who she says is her brother is there, fixing the sink — but again, these things are never as they seem, are they? Back at HQ we learn a disturbing new development in the case: they found Lisbon’s fingerprint on the murder weapon.
The case is handed off to Agent Bosco and his team faster than you can say, “Holy child molester killer, Batman.” It seems to me that if Bosco and Lisbon have the history that they do he might not be a wise decision either, but for the sake of the story I suppose disbelief can be suspended. She gives her alibi as being at home on Tuesday evening, watching the cooking show with the angry man we’re looking at you, Chef Ramsey. They take it for the time being, but Jane and Lisbon meet later. Of course, he knew right away that she was lying, and when he says so she folds like a lawn chair. The thing is, she can’t remember where she was and does not want Jane to hypnotize her. Thus they have reached an impasse. Back at work, the father of one of the girls that McTeer raped is in for questioning with Bosco, and Lisbon agrees to take the polygraph after he says he blames her for his daughter’s rape because of a week’s delay she took in closing the case in order to gather more evidence. Unfortunately, she fails the polygraph and is suspended from duty.
Lisbon goes to see Dr. Cameron again for advice, and he is quite shifty. She says her father used to have blackouts when he drank and had memory loss. He returns with the question of if that’s what she was doing; drinking (note that she never really answers him). He says until she remembers there isn’t anything he can do to help her. That night, Jane hypnotizes her, but even under hypnosis she can’t remember where she was on Tuesday night and what she was doing. (But she still dances around to the Spice Girls.)
While all these shenanigans have been going on, Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt are conducting their own investigation on the side and even though Bosco threatens them to try and make them stop, the appeal is fruitless. They come across the mug shot of the man who had been McTeer’s cellmate in prison, and Grace immediately recognizes him as the man who had been fixing Tanya’s sink. This wonderful gentleman says he had been paid to set up killing McTeer, but does not know by who. When they take this financial evidence to Bosco, he basically handwaves it away and says they would take care of it. What follows is a Lisbon meltdown of such proportions that even Jane is worried.
When Lisbon is home that night, with the alcohol and pills on the table and dancing around in a jersey to her iPod, Dr. Cameron drops in on Minelli’s request. Seemingly upset and probably drugged and drunk and god knows what else, Lisbon is taking turns pointing her glock at herself, and him, and back again. He tries to talk her down calmly, and to get her to remember that night, when he mentions the cross — a small emblem that had been on the inside of where the body was hidden. He immediately tries to backtrack, saying that she told him about the crime scene, but she did not. Jane appears from his concealed place on the staircase. He was tipped off to what was happening when he hypnotized Lisbon; even then she could not remember what she had been doing. Dr. Cameron was drugging her with Lorazepam in her coffee and took her fingerprint off of the mug. What I love most about this entire scenario is that Lisbon arrests him in the football jersey. No pants just seems kind of undignified but hilarious to me.
It’s discovered that Dr. Cameron was in cahoots with someone who was funding it. My CBS was cutting in and out at the end, so I didn’t get to see enough to know what his connection to the whole thing was but I did get his derisive, “You should kiss me, you’re pretty,” to Van Pelt and her cool response: “So are you, compared to a lot of state prison inmates.” Snap.
Even though I had a few problems fitting this episode into my head (and a few technical problems in trying to view it, as I just said), it was a good one, I thought. It gave Robin Tunney a chance to really stretch those old acting muscles and it was an excellent showcase for Lisbon. There were a lot of great moments with Jane and Lisbon too — ship them or not, they were heartfelt and touching, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
I agree…great episode. It was good to see Agent Lisbon in the spotlight, and Robin Tunney was awesome. I also loved the tender moments between Lisbon and Jane. I think those two have great chemistry.
yes it was awesome, one of the best episodes so far. nice to see more of Lisbon’s character. Robin did an amazing performance plus that dancing scene was one of the most funniest memorable moments of the show.
The chemistry between Lisbon and Jane is awesome, Lisbon showed serious trust in letting him hypnotising her.
Brilliant episode! I’ve been on my toes since the promos and was so excited when it aired. I’ve even watched it three times after it aired online. Desperate, I know. awesome acting on Tunney’s part and Simon Baker as usual. Lisbon and Jane has so much chemistry. My favourite scenes are the ones with them, where he hugged her in her apartment and the hypnosis scene, the meltdown scene, the scene where she cries and admits she trusts him and my personal favourite: The very scene at the end when he teases her about Bosco being in love with her and when he leaves and returns just to look at her. Was it just me or was that a longing look he gave her? It wasn’t an amused expression, maybe he’s jealous of Bosco. Who knows, we’ll find out soon. Can’t get enough of this episode. Just magnificent! Props to Bruno Heller.
Lisbon’s dad beat up her and her brothers? Poor Lisbon! But I agree, great episode.mlove the scene where Lisbon throws a chair though the window.
notice how, when jane gives her donuts at the end, she never actually swallows them, she just chew and probably spits it out as soon as the camera stops rolling. the fact that i noticed this is another fact that i probably watch these episodes in too much detail.