Monday, March 18, 2013

The Mentalist - Red, White and Blue


The CBI is called in to investigate the murder of a army medic (April Billingsley) specializing in helping soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. Solving the case means working with the victim's platoon commander (Matt McTighe) who is more than a little miffed the CBI took control of the investigation from his men. Talking with another female officer (Lily Nicksay), Jane (Simon Baker) and Lisbon (Robin Tunney) learn the victim had an unknown secret admirer at the time of her death as well as problems with some of the men in her unit. They also discover the man who placed the 911 call but fled the scene was one of the medic's patients (Jesse Luken) who suffers from short-term memory loss and has absolutely no memory of the entire night.

Cho (Tim Kang) questions the bartender (Christina Carlisi) of the blues club where the victim got into an argument with a pair of soldiers from her unit shortly before her death. Talking with the head of the unit (Eddie McClintock) and the other members Cho can't find anyone who admits to having a problem with the victim, but talking with another one of her patients (Stephen Martines) Cho gets an entirely different story when he learns the victim had been taking shit from several other soldiers after filing a sexual harassment suit against another member of the platoon.


Hoping to restore a small part of the soldier's memory, Jane tries to recreate the situation the night the soldier found Lucy's body and called 911. Although Jane's stunt is a success, and clears the soldier as a suspect, he's unable to give a full description of the man who slit the neck of his friend and left her to bleed out in a back alley. Eliminating each suspect with a motive, Jane pulls out one of his trademark stunts and organize a meeting of the remaining suspects at the clinic where the victim worked in order to unmask the killer (Jim Holmes) and expose the reason for her murder.

The episode has some fun moments (particularly Jane tricking Lisbon into singing "Kansas City" at the crime scene in the opening) and a good mystery (even if it doesn't have much of a payoff). Cho's subplot of getting the sexual harassment case open again works quite well. Although the show has used the amnesiac storyline before this episode gives it a different twist and allows Jane a chance to uses his various tricks for good when he introduces the soldier to the idea of Jane's "memory palace" to, hopefully, help the young man make and hold onto short-term memories.

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