The Mentalist – Recap & Review – Red Sky at Night

photo: cbs

The Mentalist
Red Sky at Night

Original Air Date: Sep 23, 2010.

Liz – Associate Staff Writer
liz@thetwocentscorp.com

As always with our friends Jane and Lisbon, the first ten minutes are jammed with exposition and excitement. A new CBI director, Gale Bertram! A dead chauffeur named Peter Russo! A missing lobbyist, Harvey Dublin! Disdain for the media! Jane psychologically scars a minor character! And he has, according to Lisbon, had a rough summer. Understandable, considering where we last left with Red John so close.

Hightower expresses some concern that Jane is cracking up, although I have to say that “crazy” is not exactly a short drive in any direction. He isn’t interested in working the Dublin case, ostensibly because lingering guilt over Red John’s escape and Kristina Frye’s disappearance. But since Bertram wants him to be there working on it, it’s up to Lisbon to change his mind. She does what Jane himself would probably do in the same place, and lies and emotionally manipulates him into saying yes. Well played, Lisbon. Well played.

While Cho is keeping a hilariously histrionic Mrs. Dublin company at her house, Lisbon takes Jane to meet Nadine Russo — Peter’s daughter, who lives with her mother and stepfather, Keith. Jane acknowledges that Lisbon was able to manipulate him into agreeing to help because Nadine is the same age his daughter would be had she not been killed. And I die a little inside, because Simon Baker somehow manages to be so matter-of-fact and heartbreaking at the same time. All the same, he promises to have his revenge on Lisbon.

They continue to follow leads. Despite the shady location of the crime, Harvey Dublin wasn’t into prostitutes, and his assistant Marjorie thought that it had been a mistress since he and the driver went missing for a period of time every couple weeks. Jane surmises that he is already dead, but Lisbon, like the good cop she is, insists they can’t say that for sure. Mrs. Dublin then gets a ransom demand — for one million dollars. And whenever someone says, “one million dollars,” I imagine Dr. Evil saying it.

We get some new and interesting information about Bertram — he is a co-defendant to Harvey Dublin in a lawsuit regarding Rickson Lake which seems to be a real estate venture of some kind? I didn’t really catch that, but there’s trouble and so names are getting dragged through the mud. Jane says it’s “interesting” and Lisbon immediately insists that it’s not. Subtle misdirection is subtle… or not. Maybe I’m just getting too wise for this kind of thing.

Mrs. Dublin makes the million dollar drop in the park at the assigned time, and Jane maintains that the ransom money was never supposed to be picked up and the kidnapping was pretend. So, in true Patrick Jane fashion, he runs down the hill and grabs the money for himself. In about three seconds flat, five firearms of plain clothes cops are trained on him. Such a talent for trouble, our Jane.

Bertram is not really amused by how not well the investigation is going so far, and has dragged in Hightower, Lisbon, and Jane to let them know it. Jane gives two possible reasons for the murder: robbery, asserting that he carried a diamond around with him and that was “word on the street,” and the other is the Rickson Lake lawsuit — which supposedly all goes away if Dublin were dead. Since this gives Bertram motive, he is especially unhappy now. Of course, that doesn’t stop Bertram from going on television and spreading the diamond rumor. What.

This is, of course, all a brilliant plan on Jane’s part to set a trap. For who, he isn’t sure yet, but it is definitely a trap. He visits Nadine and her family again, and again mentions the diamond — clarifying it was hidden in a tooth, fobbing it off as nothing. Then, he plays the waiting game.

Well, he and the rest of the team do, anyway. In a huge van and a scene not unlike most family road trips I’ve been on, Lisbon follows Keith as he leaves the house. Rigsby interrupts everyone’s naps and such jamming along with his iPod, and I’ll be Cho didn’t even get to finish his book. Anyway, Keith went back to where he buried Harvey Dublin, and was trying to take out his teeth to see which one held the diamond.

Dublin was collateral damage, unfortunately. Nadine had been a badly behaved teenager, and after an incident where Keith hit Nadine — an unfortunate, one time occurrence — she told Peter, and Peter in turn beat Keith to a pulp. Keith felt particularly wronged, as it had been in his own home. So, he had tried to make the death look accidental.

Jane and Lisbon get one last moment to themselves before bantering off into the sunset. I have no idea where the writers are taking the two of them, but I like it. They can keep on keeping on if you all know what I’m saying.

Cho is, of course, a dream in deadpan throughout the whole episode — no one-liners stick out in my mind, but he’s so fabulous we hardly need them for every episode. We’d get bored. Rigsby and Grace get some screen time together, mostly chasing down hookers to talk to, including a particularly humorous incident where a pink-hared prostitute named Sugar peppersprays him in the eyes. Well, I laughed. I can’t lie, I wish they were still together, but there’s that whole stupid “rules” thing. They should spin them off into their own show where they can get married and be international spies. I’d watch it.

The big advertisement for this season is Jane’s uncertain future with the CBI, but I think they definitely downplayed that for this first episode. I mean, I know we’re probably locked in for a certain number of years, but I think that if they’re going to make those the stakes then they should really be the stakes and not just something they decide the conflict will be. Did that make sense? I don’t know that it does. Well, we’re approaching the witching hour here on the East coast, so that probably has something to do with it. What did you all think of the premiere?