The Mentalist"Seeing Red "
Original Air Date: November 11, 2008.
Liz - TwoCents Reviewer
liz@thetwocentscorp.com
If you think Patrick was unbearable before and managed to miss this episode, let me assure you that he is just as unbearable (albeit hilarious) as ever when you add "indignant" to "smug" and "arrogant." Angst! Drama! Sarcasm! This is what I come to television for.
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[photo: Michael Ansell/Warner Bros.]
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The Mentalist
ReplyDelete"Seeing Red "
Original Air Date: November 11, 2008.
Liz - TwoCents Reviewer
liz@thetwocentscorp.com
If you think Patrick was unbearable before and managed to miss this episode, let me assure you that he is just as unbearable (albeit hilarious) as ever when you add "indignant" to "smug" and "arrogant." Angst! Drama! Sarcasm! This is what I come to television for.
Kristina, a "real" psychic, has been Rosemary Tennant's spiritual adviser for some time. Patrick is, for multiple reasons, right to warn others to be wary of her "gift," especially since the victim was shelling out three thousand dollars a week for this spiritual advice. For that much money, I would tell people whatever they wanted to hear and add a jaunty tap dance if they'd like. Cosmic connection or not, though, she seems to have the measure of Patrick: "deep guilt and self-loathing covered up by arrogance." He has a point as well, of course; his tragedy is well known and anyone with an internet connection could read about it and make some deductions upon meeting him -- it is, after all, the sort of game that he played for so many years.
We next meet Rosemary's boyfriend, Jeremy, who ran her son Travis out of the house and turned his room into a photography studio. He looks skeazy, I don't really blame Travis or anyone else for thinking he was trouble. Back at the headquarters, the daughter Clara comes in to answer some questions, including the whereabouts of her brother. When she has no answer for that, Patrick has her dial Travis's number into his phone. He then leaves him a message subliminally suggesting a trip to the carousel, which is genius mostly because it works like a charm.
At headquarters, Patrick determines that Travis did not kill his mother, ergo it must be true. Patrick also makes the correct guess that Kristina had been added to the will, which she has. She had also previously been added to five wills, which sends up a red flag. They go to visit her, because she claims to have some information for them. Patrick points out that the front room of Kristina's place looks like a cheap gift shop, to which she answers with a barb about people expecting razzmatazz, like glitzy suits that he used to wear. It's true, what psychics do fits into theatre in a very broad sense, and when people see a show, they simply expect certain things. The back and forth continues until Grace clears her throat, reminding us all that she's there. It's too bad that psychics don't actually have anything to whip out and measure.
Kristina had a vision of where the car that killed Rosemary is. Thusly, police pull Rosemary's car out of a reservoir outside of town. What follows is some of the best Grace/Patrick dialogue since the pilot. After he implies Kristina is involved in the murder, Grace loftily says, "Or maybe she is in touch with something you can't possibly understand." Without turning a hair, he replies, "That would be golf and musical theatre of the thirties and forties."
Patrick discovers a new portrait of one Connie Adams in Jeremy's photography studio, and when they track her down, they catch Jeremy with his pants down and a can of Reddi Wip in his hand. Jeremy is hauled in and when he is questioned about Kristina, he wanted to talk to a lawyer. Talking to Kristina reveals that they had sex -- and by the way, it was awesome she adds. So while Jeremy is definitely guilty of being slime, it doesn't seem like he's guilty of murder.
In what is either a last ditch effort to get the killer to come clean, just plain fun, or both, Patrick wants to set up a séance at the reading of Rosemary's will. Grace has really strong objections and isn't afraid to share them. She also single-handedly shoots down Patrick's flippant attitude towards it with, "What if your family's looking down at you at the séance tonight and want to talk to you and can't because you won't believe?" That's right, she went there. And it was brilliant, lines like that absolutely have to be played right otherwise they will come off as cheesy. But Amanda Righetti did it like she gets handed lines like this all the time. (And maybe she does. I haven't really seen any of her other works.)
As it turns out, it's not really Kristina that Patrick was setting up at the séance -- but Clara, with his trusty gun-phone now in speaker mode with a whispery voice transmitting, "Clara… why did you do it?" He had known she killed her since their first meeting, when she lamented her mother dying in the gutter -- which she would not have known if she hadn't been there. She was angry with her mother for choices she made after their father died and disinheriting Travis, who had been having some trouble with drugs and the law, was the last straw.
In one last scene, Kristina says she spoke with Patrick's wife and answers one question that had supposedly been coming back to him since she and their daughter were killed: the girl never woke up. She never knew what happened, and she was never scared.
I may have wept a little, what of it?
This episode was great because while we are constantly bombarded with Patrick's disdain for his former occupation and people who believe they are psychic, the only voice that really advocates the opposite point of view is Grace. All the way back in the pilot when the team is at dinner in the seafood restaurant, they have this discussion. This episode made me believe that writers etc. aren't really taking a stance on the question of psychics being real or not, but keeping us open to the possibility that some people really do have that gift, but there are also people out there like pre-series Patrick who have turned an earthly skill into an unearthly one.
Do you think psychics are real? Doesn't really have much to do with the show, but it's a good question. Next week's preview didn't really give much away, but I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I can't wait. (It's the week after next that I'm really looking forward to -- according to IMDb.com, the episode title is "Red John's Friends.") See you next week!
Really good eps.I was glad to see him cry in the end, made him so vulnerable.
ReplyDeletehear, hear.
ReplyDeleteJean actually has a weakness, and a human-like side. It's worth it, and how protective (well...) of his daughter, kinda cute really.