The Mentalist: Red Tide
By fred | October 15, 2008
(S01E03) It was made clear from the beginning that Patrick Jane is no magician, he’s not a psychic, he can’t read minds or anything like that. He used to pretend so and appear in TV shows as one for a living, but then everything changed when his family was killed. Now, he’s helping cops solving crimes using his “abilities”, or talents, but without pretending any more.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t do no cool stuff, stuff one might not really know or understand how he does it and which, therefore, look just as cool as if he was pretending. And while I’m not exactly sure if having such a little show off in every episode would be a good idea, every once in a while it sure is fun. This being the beginning of the series still, we get to see them often, and so far it’s always been pretty fun.
Not long ago it was Jane playing rock, paper, scissors and never losing, and this week he found the hidden keys God knows how really. See that, that’s exactly the kind of fun moments I enjoy in this show, and even better are the little “tricks” he use when interrogating people. For instance this week, and I have no idea how relevant it actually was or if it even helped him at all, but he kept asking about what animals people would be, or what color the victim would have been… Cool stuff.
Or, the fact that he liked the beach and decided to stay for a while longer there, it goes with the character he created for himself. Of course, he had an idea in mind from the first minutes he walked the beach, he wasn’t just having a good time, but it doesn’t matter, it was fun. I’m not too sure the big sand-castle wasn’t pushing things a little bit too far though… was it?
On the other hand, when he started to go down the hypnosis road again, I started to get worried. Because let’s be honest, him using his ability to notice details or read people is all good, the tricks he uses during interrogations that’s all good, and I don’t mind something like an hypnosis every once in a while I guess, but that really shouldn’t be a rule.
Of course this time it was actually a trick, because he didn’t really do anything, he was just pretending to. Which was both good and a relief, because the whole “I touch you here and tomorrow you’ll spill out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” really isn’t the way we want to see cases be solved, is it?
One thing I really appreciated this week, is that the CBI didn’t need nor waited for Jane. In previous cases, we’ve seen them need Jane to solve the case, almost to the point of being unable to achieve anything on their own. Without him they couldn’t do nothing, and usually they would have their suspect, while Jane had his, and in the end guess who was right?
So this week, while he was playing on the beach, it was actually really good to see the rest of the team conducting the investigation and, of course, eventually meeting Jane halfway through. Also good was that this looked a lot more like a full cooperation rather than a competition. Lisbon wasn’t trying to prove she was right while disagreeing with Jane, or just proving him wrong, no this time they were all working together for the same thing.
I’m also very happy with the fact that the murderers aren’t always very easy to find. In the pilot, the moment the guy showed up you knew he was the one, and so did Jane, he also had to “trick” him into confession. But now it’s not always that obvious, it takes time for us and for Jane, and quite frankly I had my suspects, a couple of them, which were indeed guilty, but I didn’t had the “they all did it” part, I’ll admit, and I like that.
The only complaint I would have would be that except for Jane, of course, and Lisbon, the rest of the team remains quite nonexistent. They’re here, sometimes they’re walking by, every once in a while they’ll ask a question or two, but for the most part we don’t know nothing about them, and they’re not really doing much.
But the show is turning out to be really good and enjoyable, and getting better week after week, so it’s all good news. What did you think of this episode ? Did you suspected all the surfers to be guilty ? Who come the first episode wasn’t called “Red Pilot” or something, given how every episode must have “red” in its title it seems ?
Posted in Reviews
Shows: The Mentalist
