The Mentalist Episode Review 1.3 Red Tide

The third episode of the first season of The Mentalist aired on 10/14/08. The episode is titled Red Tide. Patrick and his CBI coworkers investigate the death of a fifteen-year-old surfer. Warning: my episode review contains plot spoilers.

Red Tide focuses on the investigation of the murder of a surfer found drowned on the beach. Staged to look like an accident, it turns out she was drowned in fresh water. Patrick and the team head to the beach with Patrick striking out on his own again while the team investigating her friends and family.

The episode finally reveals more about Teresa Lisbon. Teresa's mother was killed by a drunk driver, resulting in her dad becoming a depressed drunk who eventually kills himself and almost his kids. Teresa sees her life mirrored in the dead girl's family. Her mother also was killed by a drunk driver, resulting in the dead girl having to take care of her younger siblings while her father immerses himself in work and alcohol. Teresa does intervene at the end and tries to talk some sense into the father before the other two siblings suffer from dad's depression.

Patrick does his usually trick and solves the crime, this time with a little more disturbing ending. Turns out the dead girl's friends killed her so she wouldn't tell the truth about an accidental killing. All four of her friends drowned her and then lied throughout the episode before Patrick gets them to turn on each other. All four teens are arrested along with the father of one of the kids. Turned out he was sleeping with the girl too.

Tim Kang as Kendall Cho had the best lines in the episode. As Kendall Cho is interrogating the pedophile father Dane Merrick, Kendall sympathizes with him very straight faced. Dane Merrick just looks at him with a look of superiority and says something like do people actually confess. Kendall deadpans "Yes they do." Hmmm, it doesn't sound very funny now but trust me in the episode it was very funny.

Red Tide was interesting in that the murderer wasn't obvious and was quite a surprise at the end. Everyone was surprised, including the characters. That being said, the episode still wasn't as interesting as the first episode. Unfortunately, as the series progress the episodes seem to be declining. I give the episode 3 out of 5 stars.