Regular readers here probably know by now that I typically don’t review every episode of The Mentalist. While the show clearly stands very well on its own — and while I know many people don’t care to follow long story arcs — I’m all about the Red John story arc and writing about it. This episode, though, was pretty special. It was a bit out of the ordinary, and it ended in a way that left us wondering what would happen next.
Seeing Jane acting in his “old way” might give us some insight into why he was targeted by Red John in the first place … y’know, if he’s not Red John himself, that is. Jane was kind of a dick to some people, especially when he was trying to work the ladies in an audience. So we have a guy who not only lies about his psychic abilities, but he uses them to help him get women. Could he have propositioned the wrong woman once upon a time? Or maybe he hustled money from the wrong guy? Seems like some rather petty things to cause a massive serial killer to target Jane so much, but it does remind us that Jane has a bit of a shady past that may have gotten him in trouble more than a few times. I understand that we’ve always been left to believe that Red John targeted Jane solely because of what he said in that television interview, but could it have just been the tipping point?
The end of the episode left the question of whether we’ll come back in January with Jane still missing parts of his memory, or if we’ll just be left to assume he regained all of his memories over the hiatus. More than likely this episode will be left to stand on its own, but it was one of only a few I can recall that had a larger impact on the viewer as far as insight into the man who is Patrick Jane.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Dec 16, 2011 @ 21:50 EST5EDT
