The Mentalist – Recap & Review – His Thoughts Were Red Thoughts

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The Mentalist
His Thoughts Were Red Thoughts

Original Air Date: Feb 23, 2012

Kym – TwoCents Reviewer
kym@thetwocentscorp.com

The team is investigating the death of anti-cult activist Gabe Meadows. The scene is off though. The murder and theft (only the laptop is stolen) seem rushed, but yet someone took the time to wipe up blood and fingerprints, as if two people were involved. Jane smokes out the clean up man by spouting rhetoric about Meadows’ main target, Visualize. Officer Downs, the first uniform at the scene, was the one who cleaned up. He’s not talking though.

But that’s only the first layer of this case, because Downs had an alibi for the time of death.

Meadows was apparently born into Visualize and left after his parents died 5 years ago. Unfortunately his sister didn’t leave with him and he’s devoted his time since with trying to expose the cult for what it was and to try to get her out. Rigsby talks to Frank Bisbang, another activist that runs a website, to learn more about Meadows and learns that Meadows had been working on proving that the leader of Visualize, Bret Stiles, had murdered his competition, a man named Farragut, in the early years of the cult and gotten away with it. Lisbon and Jane are discussing that when Stiles himself shows up. He’s able to get Downs to talk and he admits to cleaning up, but says he did it of his own choice, not because of his duty to the cult. Of course he would say that. It’s Brainwashing 101 to teach your followers to protect the cult. Stiles gives his own alibi on his way back to the “flock”, which, as Jane says, “won’t fleece itself” and Downs gets taken to booking.

Van Pelt and Cho are still on “trash detail”, looking for the murder weapon, which is a special joy for Van Pelt since she hasn’t had any hot water for three days courtesy of an uncooperative landlord. I can sympathize. Trust me. Finally, one of the officers finds a hand-tailored suit with blood on it in one of the dumpsters and they have a clue to work with. They pass the word along to Jane and Lisbon that the tailor identified it as Stiles. Turns out his alibi didn’t hold up either. Lisbon wants to be careful though, calling Visualize, an international cult, a proverbial 900-pound gorilla. Jane, always up for some fun, leads her to a banquet at the Visualize center to poke the gorilla, where Lisbon is finally able to show Stiles a picture of him wearing that same suit the day before. They arrest him and at first it looks like his entire following is about to get into it to keep them from taking him away, but he tells them to “be at peace” while he leaves quietly with Jane and Lisbon. Kind of creepy, really. He also doesn’t seem to be the slightest bit concerned that they have so much evidence against him. Even in interrogation, he identifies the suit, but insists that he doesn’t know where the blood came from. It’s also notable that when Lisbon discusses motive, Stiles doesn’t deny that he may have killed Farragut, he only says that Meadows couldn’t have found evidence of it because there was nothing to find. Then he tries to get under Lisbon’s skin, like he does with his followers. Lisbon, of course, doesn’t bite and Stiles lawyers up. She goes out to talk status with the team, since time is short, but there’s not much to go on. The blood is the right blood type, but there won’t be DNA for another few days and there’s still no murder weapon. Van Pelt will get a warrant to search his house and Rigsby will go talk to the old hippy and former member, Randall Parker, that Meadows had talked to last week. Lisbon herself will try to talk to his sister who’s apparently attending the Visualize “college”.

Stiles has been cooling his heels, waiting for Jane to come and talk to him. They play some cat and mouse, but Stiles jabs are clumsily personal whereas Jane’s are as cool and calculated as usual. Jane knows that Stiles didn’t do it, but is confused that he isn’t acting like someone who’s being framed. In walks John Mushashi, Stiles’ lawyer, to declare the interview over just as things might have gotten interesting. But wait, they still get interesting as we watch Stiles turn into a completely different person alone in the room with Mushashi, as if there’s a bigger game here than we realize. Is the show for Jane outside the windows? Or is it for his own followers?

At the Clearview campus, Lisbon is clearly being unnerved by the “student” waiting with her until Dean Nora Hill shows up to show her around, and introduce her to Meadows’ sister, Jessie. Things seem business as usual on the campus, which isn’t surprising since it’s been decided that they don’t need to know what’s going on. They don’t even have the internet, considering it “junk food” for the mind. Even Lisbon’s conversation with Jessie, who’s clearly bought into the entire “faith”, is closely monitored by Hill. She seems a little angry at her brother leaving her, but insists that her real family is there. Rigsby is having better luck with Parker. He’s a bit paranoid, but maybe he’s right and the conspiracy theory seems true. Farragut was leader when the cult started and it seemed like a pretty typical hippy commune until Stiles came along in 1976. A year later, Farragut, who never drank, died in an “alcohol related” accident. Then, later yet, the cop who Parker says doctored the report “committed suicide”. It does sound suspicious, but even he says that they’ll never find evidence to prove it.

Jane calls Lisbon to fill her in on the little scene that Stiles just put on. He’s on his way into the “snake pit” at Visualize to put on a little scene of his own. He sends one of the “inner circle” to gather everyone up, since he has a message for them. While he’s waiting for the gathering, Van Pelt’s questioning Stiles about his belongings. Apparently he has none, at least not in his name. Then he starts trying to get into her head. He’s good and almost pulls it off, but she catches him, telling him he’s good, but not as good as Jane. He teaches her a little trick, a valid one, about how to dispel her anger. I can see how easy it would be to fall for his bit, especially if you’ve got a lot of emotional baggage, because his bag of tricks include effective techniques like meditation. In the meantime, the circle has gathered and Jane strolls in to seat himself in Stiles chair, where they all insist they’re holding a meeting tomorrow to reaffirm Stiles as their leader. He tells them he didn’t have a message and just wanted them all there to accuse one of them of framing Stiles, but of course they didn’t. They’re confused, I’m confused, I think Jane himself may even be a little confused. I think he expected more of a reaction out of someone.

Rigsby recaps the whole scenario from Parker to the team and Van Pelt suggests she try talking to Stiles again. Lisbon catches that Stiles is trying to get to her and tells her to be careful talking to him. He’s not very helpful though. He’s still trying to get to her and not offering much. He clearly didn’t like Farragut as a leader though, calling him a dreamer that didn’t know what to do with his followers once he had them. When asked again if he killed Farragut, he changes the subject to talk about Van Pelt instead, flattering her intellect and asking her what it was like to kill someone she was close to and offering to show her how to “fly”. Jane comes back while she’s down there and obviously he has a theory. He enlists Van Pelt’s help to manufacture some evidence and has Lisbon call Stiles’ lawyer in. They show Stiles and Mushashi a photo from a local traffic camera showing a bloody Stiles leaving Meadows’ office. They arrest him and send his attorney away so that can “book” him. Jane comes in and Stiles jumps on him for the phony photo and it comes out that Stiles was actually framing himself to flush out his suspected competition in the inner circle. He’s surprised that no one has made a move yet, but it explains why Jane “turned up the heat” with the photo. They all head back to visualize to crash the meeting where they were supposedly going to reaffirm Stiles. But no, they don’t. Instead, with the exception of Hill, everyone votes for Jason Cooper to take the seat at the head of the table, just as Stiles, Lisbon and Jane walk in. They’re all quick to try to suck up and make up for their error in judgment, or, in Hill’s case, to make sure that Stiles knows that she supported him against all of the others. That’s the last clue that Jane needed. Hill had to speak up in Stiles’ favor because she was the killer and knew that Stiles wouldn’t be convicted. In interrogation she spills it all. She was Meadows’ source for everything he’d written so far but had started to worry when he kept pushing for more information about Farragut than she could provide. In a stupid move, he even went so far as to threaten to tell Stiles about her. So, Hill is off to prison for murder and Stiles is heading back to his followers without Van Pelt, in spite of one last attempt to bring her into the fold. But there’s hope that the videos that Meadows left for his sister might actually win her away from the cult and satisfy his ultimate goal, even if he had to die himself first.

It’s obvious from comments throughout the show that the team has encountered Stiles and Visualize in a previous episode, but I must have missed that one, so this was new ground for me. That said, there might have been things in that episode that would contradict the feeling I got from this one. That feeling, and I would love your thoughts on this, is that while being a cult related case of murder on the surface, this episode was also a comment on an existing religion that many believe to be a cult. So, did anyone else get a Scientology vibe from Visualize?