The Mentalist Episode Review

The second episode of the first season of The Mentalist aired on 9/30/08. The episode is titled Red Hair and Silver Tape. Patrick and his CBI coworkers are trying to find the murderer of a Napa Valley waitress. Patrick thinks it is the work of a serial killer but his boss Teresa thinks is just the drug dealing boyfriend. Warning: my episode review contains plot spoilers.

Red Hair and Silver Tape is an interesting episode of the Mentalist and provides more information on the secondary characters. Tim Kang plays Kendall Cho, the jaded cop who speaks in a deadpan voice and is very skeptical of Patrick Jane. Owain Yeoman plays Wayne Rigsby, the friendly cop who has a crush on his coworker Grace. Wayne is more open to Patrick and is the typical friendly cop. Amanda Righetti plays Grace Van Pelt, the rookie cop who actually believes in psychics. I think my favorite out of the three is Kendall Cho. He delivers his lines so straight faced even when his is saying something rude that is very funny.

Patrick uses his mentalist abilities and actually hypnotizes a girl and gets her to tell the truth about the dead girl's boyfriend, Hector. Of course Teresa is mad that Patrick hypnotized the girl but is happy with the new tidbit of information and declares the case solved. This part of the episode irritated me. Teresa is a smart cop, I doubt she would really give up on the case that easily but I guess it helped move the storyline along. Turns out Patrick Jane was right on his theory of the serial killer but Teresa is still unwilling to listen to Patrick. This results in him getting into a sticky situation and Teresa having to shoot the two killers. Maybe now she will start to take Patrick more seriously.

The episode Red Hair and Silver Tape was still enjoyable but didn't pack as quite a punch as the pilot episode. The writers need to provide a little more back story on Teresa and Patrick's story because I do not understand why she is so untrusting of him. We do learn that Patrick totally blames himself on his wife and daughters murder, which is hinted at in the first episode. This seems to be the driving force of Patrick helping the police. I give the episode 4 out of 5 stars.