The Mentalist"Paint It Red"
Original Air Date: Jan 18, 2009.
Liz - TwoCents Reviewer
liz@thetwocentscorp.com
Surprise! Mentalist came this week on a Sunday and somebody forgot to tell me. Well, truthfully, it's more likely that I just forgot. Compared to the busy, plot-heavy episode of a couple weeks ago, this one was a light-hearted romp in the park. As are most things involving stealing from a Russian mobster, obviously.
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The Mentalist
ReplyDelete"Paint It Red"
Original Air Date: January 18, 2009.
Liz - TwoCents Reviewer
liz@thetwocentscorp.com
Surprise! Mentalist came this week on a Sunday and somebody forgot to tell me. Well, truthfully, it's more likely that I just forgot. Compared to the busy, plot-heavy episode of a couple weeks ago, this one was a light-hearted romp in the park. As are most things involving stealing from a Russian mobster, obviously.
Jane sums the crime up handily when he describes it back to Frank, the security guy who was getting his jollies by taking the blonde to have sex in his boss's office: "You and Miss Duane go in there to have sex, and crap, there's a dead body." Indeed. But it's not just any dead body, the dead body used to be Harry Lashley, who was the boss's son-in-law. Also in the commission of the crime, a painting valued at fifty million dollars is stolen. Jane points out a bust on the desk as an improvised weapon -- all evidence points to the murder being secondary, and the theft primary.
When checking out who knew that the security cameras were going to be off and for how long, they discover that a lot of people knew. As in, more than they could feasibly investigate and close the case in a timely manner. Now, the idea is that Harry Lashley may have been involved and then gotten rid of once he had outlived his usefulness. So instead they move on to talk to other people -- like Catherine Hawkes, Caid's art buyer. Catherine mentions that they outbid a Russian oil baron, whose name I will not attempt to butcher here, and who was not pleased with being outbid. As Russians tend to turn out, this guy is a glorified mobster with a front in the oil business. Sadly, in an attempt to rule out Låashley, a record comes up for him -- six months in jail for stealing money from a former employer. Also discovered is a twenty thousand dollar payment to a guy in a "small farming town" up north. So Jane takes Grace on a little road trip.
In this small town they find the guy they are looking for -- Bob Wallace -- doing a portrait of a little girl. Jane, deriving much pleasure from embarrassing Grace right after she told him not to, strikes up conversation with the owner and gets him to draw Grace's portrait. While she is sitting for that, he starts poking around in the back and finds the painting behind a secret door. Unfortunately, at that point, Wallace has escorted Grace back to the room at gunpoint. After the commercial (if you're not dead from anticipation), we learn that Wallace is an art forger, and will make forgeries for people to hang in place of the real paintings -- which makes a certain kind of sense, of course Caid wouldn't hang a fifty million dollar painting on the wall of a room that all manner of people have access to. So Wallace made two copies at ten thousand dollars each. Oho! Now things are getting interesting.
Caid seems quite happy for a person whose son-in-law just expired, but he also thinks said son-in-law was in on the theft of the painting. As a matter of interest, Jane asks to look at the real painting which Caid keeps in the vault. After a few seconds of looking at it, Jane quickly determines it to be a fake, like the one in Wallace's back room -- a man in the background on horseback is carrying a gun, which is quite out of place in Renaissance Italy. Caid is enraged, although Catherine says that the painting was certified and everything.
They want to look at the Russian oil guy for lifting the painting, but the problem is that he is travelling on a diplomatic passport, and therefore can't be investigated. But of course, threat of an international incident isn't enough to stop Patrick Jane! He, Rigsby, and Cho road trip it to the mobster's with some kind of plan in mind. Using their cell phones as walkie-talkies, Patrick gains entrance to the building and gives a signal for Cho and Rigsby to pull the fire alarm. In the ruckus that follows, Jane lifts the real painting. Lisbon is, needless to say, not amused, despite the fact that Jane says he didn't tell her because it gave her total deniability.
The mystery isn't quite over, though. They return the real painting to Caid, and in a tirade fueled by Caid's buoyancy over getting the painting back when his daughter is clearly suffering, tosses the painting in the fireplace. Everyone is appropriately horrified -- except for the thief and murderer, Catherine Hawkes. She commissioned the two fakes from Wallace, one for Caid and one for the mobster, and then kept the money and the painting for herself, killing Lashley in the process of obtaining the painting. Arrest is made, and everyone goes home.
While it lacked the heavy character drama of the episode two weeks ago, or even last week's, it was a nice change. That is one thing I think that this show does well. It balances the humor with the drama and the character driven with the plot driven. As of yet, neither has managed to override the other.