the mentalist: s02 e03 the scarlet letter

This week, for once, it was all about Lisbon. Yay for backstory! Apparently, she's a hardass because she had an abusive father, a mother who died when she was 12 and three younger brothers. I'm assuming that it drove her to upholding the law as a direct result. And it's nice to get to know something about her; I've always sort of gotten the idea that something was broken there-- why else would she have so much trouble trusting people, relaxing, letting go?

Right, synopsis.

The body of a child molester that she put away when she was an investigator shows up in an alley, and she doesn't remember what she did the night it happened, which becomes a problem when her fingerprints are found on the gun. She's relieved of duty and her team is taken off the case, and she takes it badly. While the kids keep looking for clues in a phenomenal show of solidarity and faith, as well as stubbornness and bucking authority, she quietly dissolves. She fails a polygraph and asks Jane to hypnotize her in a touchingly fragile scene where she's about to come undone at any moment, and he does his best to help hold her together. Really, if they don't want me shipping these two, they need to not have scenes like this.

Anyway, even under hypnosis, she can't remember, and that apparently gives away the real culprit about the time that Van Pelt recognizes the corpse's cellmate as the brother of his girlfriend and that leads them to a money trail that uncovers the real culprit: the shrink who's been not signing of on her for weeks, and a guy who she was supposed to testify against that day in court. Jane figures it out, of course, but the episode is more subtle than usual, and we don't know that he's figured it out, so the big reveal at the end actually works better than it does when the payoff is only Jane's cleverness (which is usually a pretty great payoff, but I find myself liking the subtlety). Offscreen, they hatch a plot that involves Lisbon's very public breakdown, and a very visible downward spiral involving booze, drugs and her off-duty glock, and use all of the above to catch the shrink.

A very strong ep, and a great one for character development, without sacrificing the plot. That's a fine line, and they got it right off.

Best parts:

I loved that whole scene in her apartment. She's all nervous in seventeen different directions, and he snoops around a bit to distract her, then gets her to relax with reverse psychology. Regardless of his own brokenness-- or maybe because brokenness calls to brokenness in the age old traditions of tv-- he's starting to care about her. When she's out, he holds her for a second and pats her head, which was very sweet, and when she's under, he goes out of his way to keep her calm and keep her comfortable, and he doesn't force her when nothing comes up. And that moment when she's trying desperately to hold it together-- beautiful. They've got a secret together now, and he wanted to comfort her when she started crying, but he understands her well enough to know it's not what she wants. Wonderful.

I wonder how much of the displays and the talks could be considered real?

Bosco's in love with her? Isn't he married for, like, twenty-five years? But it was a new side to the gruff old adversary, and it both gives him depth and gives Jane something to leverage him with, especially since Lisbon doesn't even seem to notice. I hope when it comes up again, Jane doesn't use the detail to damage too much; we don't want him to lose Lisbon's support again too soon (though the inevitable return of Red Jack around midseason or season finale would be a good time to pull out all the stops and start burning through all this gathered information...). Relationships are so odd in this show; this looks like the start of a love triangle, but Lisbon doesn't even notice, Jane's too damaged to play it straight, and (I think) Bosco's unable to act on it.

I wonder how Cho's date went?

I like the comradery. I like that they take the team seriously, and they stick up for each other, even the boss who shouldn't play favorites. And is frequently annoyed with them all. The actors must actually like each other; it comes through in the acting.

Poor Rigsby. There's so many reasons why being in love with a team mate is a bad idea, and yet there it is.

Man, Robin Tunney does tense and brittle well. I was literally leaning forward through the whole last act, waiting for everything to fall into place and stop being so achingly horrible... Though it would have been nice if it was Jane (maybe with the team) who talked her down. But that would have messed up alot of dynamics, and would have put her into therapy for good.

I love that the method was the coffee that she's been saying is awful since the first episode. Awesome foreshadowing.

Lisbon's a lot smaller without her blazer and her gun. That was awesome costuming.