The Mentalist: The Thin Red Line
By fred | November 26, 2008
(S01E08) The thing with all shows such as this one, based on the whodunit concept, is that there’s a risk one loses interest in the episode if the killer is pretty easy to figure out early in. Unless of course they’re going for another approach, like putting the appeal of the show not in finding out who the killer was, but witnessing how the team will actually either figure out themselves, or managed to prove it.
Here, it’s no secret that most of the interest comes for Patrick Jane and his “abilities” and other tricks. More than finding out who the bad guy is, what we love to watch week after week is how Jane will use use tricks to figure it out and catch him. And that is why I didn’t like this episode so much, and might even put it down as one of the least interesting of the show so far.
While it’s not the first time that you can pretty much figure out who the killer is very early on, and that the show is quite predictable, it’s always been fun nonetheless. But here, you know that young cop was the killer, but he didn’t know at the time the girl was no other than his sister – because that, too, became extremely obvious – and the thing is, it wasn’t all that fun to see them catch him.
From the moment they were explaining him what their plan was to catch the “killer” we knew they were all playing him. It was easy to suspect him to be the killer from a while now at that time, and from the scene earlier when Jane went to talk to his mother, we knew that (a) he done it, (b) his father wasn’t cheating on his mother, and (c) he probably hadn’t realized he killed his own sister.
And there was no way Jane of the rest of the team didn’t know that, so we weren’t fooled by their plan like he was, we were just watching it unfold. Yet, it was very long, they insisted over & over again to show how all radio calls were fake and destined to fool the kid into thinking he had an opportunity to prove he was the killer, and I got bored during all that, quite frankly, as well as both the interrogation/confession scene after wards, or when Jane brought the baby that never cries, even after a night left alone in the car without food or heat or nothing, because that, too, was quite predictable.
Usually what saves the show, though, is Jane and his tricks. But this time I felt the episode was incredibly light on that part. Sure, he figured out there was a baby involved before anyone else did, and it was fun to see him “hold hands” with the cop to play the human lie detector, but it wasn’t much, and more importantly it wasn’t really required. I may be wrong, but on that one I really feel that had Jane not be involved at all, they would have been able to figure it out and catch the bad guy the same way and at the same time, pretty much.
In the end this episode left me quite disappointed, though I wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy the hour I spent watching it — even though the last 20 minutes or so I thought ended up boring.
Little tidbits :
* Yet another reference to pineapple, just as Psych love to do. I’m sure it’s no coincidence, and USA show too had pineapple on a pizza once, and it’s always fun for us who watch both shows.
* Loved Jane’s little chat with Grace about how to be a “nice bitch” — very fun. “If you want to get ahead in life sometimes you have to be a bitch. I know you know how. (..) It’s all about the balance Grace, Yin, Yang. Nice, bitch. Little bit of bitch inside the nice, little bit of nice inside the bitch.”
* I also loved the side-look he gave Lisbon when she mention the then suspected cop was a “good looking man“. And I’m sure he really does know it every time she’s lying. And yeah, I loved the look on her face when he explain how he knew exactly how she was lying about her Thanksgiving…
* Is that really doable like that ? Just a fork, a spoon, a match, and you can do that little thing he did, where it looks like the fork & spoon are hanging on defying the laws of physics ? Damn I gotta try that now, looked pretty cool! This is the little things I just love about this show…
How did you feel about this episode ? Did you like it more than I did, or was the whole ending a bit of a let-down ? Anyone tried that spoon-fork thingy at home ? Does it work ? (I won’t be responsible if you end up blow up your kitchen instead…)
Posted in Reviews
Shows: The Mentalist
Just to let people know, the trick with the fork and the spoon actually works! Watch closely what he’s doing, and you’ll be able to impress your friends!