The Mentalist – Fake art and real murder

(Season 1, Episode 13 – “Paint It Red”)

“Jane doesn’t get sick, Rigsby doesn’t date because he’s in love with you, and the Kings aren’t playing tonight.” – Lisbon, to Van Pelt

I loved the start of this episode. When the Pittsburgh Steeler player made that last interception and sealed the game for … oh, wait, that wasn’t The Mentalist, that was the freakin’ football game that ran past 10 PM, thereby screwing up my recording of this episode. That’s what’s wrong with DVRs.

This was one of those episodes where you play Spot The Guest Star. Hey, that’s Commander Shelby from Star Trek: TNG and Guiding Light! Wait, isn’t that Helen Bishop from Mad Men? Yeah, that’s Wings Hauser from … everything! They’re all middle-of-the-road when it comes to how well-known they are, so it’s not as if the killer was obvious from the casting choices. Except who the killer was became obvious for other reasons.

Honestly, the plot of this episode didn’t really entice me, even if I liked all of the pieces separately. I like stories about mysterious art theft and forgery; I liked the villainous foreign collector; I liked the girl in the bra at the beginning. But the plot was just kinda ho-hum for me. And it was obvious that Elizabeth Dennehy was the killer/thief. Sort of a cliched character that acted slightly weird/uptight, hiding something. Not sure I buy how Jane figured it out either (and Dennehy didn’t mean to kill the guy but just grabbed something and hit him over the head? Zzzzzzzzz — I think that’s been used 4 million times on TV since 1970).

What I loved was all of the character interaction between members of the team. The way Jane and Van Pelt made an odd investigating couple (though that scene in the artist’s shop was lame — I hate when professionals like cops act all nervous and lie badly on TV shows). The way Lisbon was blunt with Van Pelt about Rigsby’s obvious love for Van Pelt, and the way Jane gave Rigsby one of the last drinks in the fridge to subtly get him on his side. I enjoyed that stuff immensely in this episode.

I also loved how Jane said that he was sorry for lying about the painting but he needed a subterfuge, and the family dysfunction was it.

I think this episode would have worked well even if it wasn’t a murder and was just the art theft. I’d like to see more episodes that don’t feature a murder. Give us a locked room puzzle or impossible theft that will really be clever and make Jane think. Something like Banacek. I think that would be a nice twist to this show.

Clacked by Bob Sassone
on Jan 19, 2009 @ 08:00 EST5EDT