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RSS'The Mentalist': Is dancing with me...
We haven't really touched The Mentalist's Red John plotline in awhile, so I hope that comes up tonight. I do enjoy all the episode titles using the word "red," though. Tonight we have "Ladies in Red." Let's see what Patrick Jane has in store for us...
We join our intrepid team in San Francisco at a crime scene. It's a house belonging to Jason Sands, a big political contributor. Mrs. Sands found her husband gone and his office ransacked, with a blood stain on the floor. Patrick insists Mr. Sands is still in the house somewhere by noticing a bookcase that is a front for a secret room. He gets the code from a painting of sailboats, while delightfully singing, "Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies," which I have loved since I was 6 years old and saw Jaws for the first time. When they open the secret room, they find Mr. Sands dead.
The funeral. Bagpipes ring out, which is grating. There is a lawyer suspiciously hovering around the widow. Teresa and Grace leave the funeral and Patrick takes the opportunity to ask Rigsby why he hasn't told Grace how he feels about her. He advises Rigsby to use "love and affection" and then bets Rigsby $100 he can seduce any woman at the funeral. Rigsby says, "The widow." Oooh, I like it! Patrick introduces himself to Mrs. Sands, asserts himself over the lawyer and tells Mrs. Sands that he can help her. It's... actually kinda hot. Go Patrick.
Their boss (last seen as President Logan on 24) is irate because the family's lawyer has complained to the Attorney General. He threatens to have Patrick thrown off the case. Mrs. Sands calls and says she's willing to drop the matter if Patrick will apologize to her. In person. Woo woo.
At the Sands house, Patrick bonds with the daughter over troll dolls (they still have those?) and then Mrs. Sands over his wife's death. Charming. Mrs. Sands wants his help because her husband's business had gone under and left them with massive debt. She wants him to find the hidden money because Mr. Sands wouldn't have left them with nothing. Patrick agrees because obviously the person who killed him thought there was money somewhere. Suddenly the asset-seizers arrive and Patrick intimidates them with talk of shots and immunizations because of the suspected anthrax involvement in the murder. Snerk. They turn tail and leave.
Back at the office. It turns out the business has been dead for 10 years, but that up until two weeks ago there was $10 million in Sands' personal account. Patrick admits to being a little sweet on the gorgeous, grieving widow and Teresa is obviously bothered.
Teresa meets with the family lawyer to question him about the financial troubles. The lawyer thinks Jason took out the $10 million in cash to run away and avoid jail. Back at the office, Grace says she found out Sands got the money from an office supply company that supplies Happy Landings Entertainment with copy paper. Happy Landings is basically a front and Grace is charged with digging further into Happy Landings.
Teresa, Cho and Patrick visit the address of the office supply company, which turns out to be a pretty fancy yacht. It's been ransacked and someone is still aboard the boat. It turns out to be a young woman, who pulls a gun on them and declares she is Jason Sands' fiancee. DUN DUN DUN!
Cop shop. They question the woman, Adrianna (ooh, is she a drug-addict child actor?), who is less than forthcoming but does hit on Patrick. Classy. She regales them with a story of being in a detention camp at a young age (she has a generic Eastern European accent) and says she's not scared of them. She says Jason was divorcing his wife for her and that he had bought $10 million worth of diamonds for when they ran off together on the sailboat. I can't decide if it's more Suicide Kings or Sleeping with the Enemy, but Adrianna says they were going to take his daughter Julie with them. She then volunteers names of guys who were after Jason because Jason was money-laundering for them and that's where he got the $10 million. They are named Dieter Webb and Carter Lewis.
They are hotel owners, DJs, drug dealers and pimps, basically. Patrick questions Adrianna about taking Julie, but Adrianna says she loves Julie and says Mrs. Sands is cold and heartless. Patrick tells Adrianna not to leave town and Adrianna replies, "As you like." The Dread Pirate Roberts, she is not.
The Sands house. Patrick questions Mrs. Sands again, spilling about the $10 million nest-egg but that he doesn't know where to find it. Mrs. Sands lays it on thick with compliments but Patrick still spills the beans about the mistress. Mrs. Sands wants to know how old she is, if she's good-looking and if she has the money. Hmmm. She then asks Patrick to hold her, but Patrick says no. Interesting.
Oakland, CA. Rigsby and Van Pelt stake-out and confront Webb and Lewis. One of them bolts, Ferris Bueller-like, through a backyard but is felled by a chain-link fence and Rigsby arrests him. In lockup, Cho questions the Ferris Bueller one about Jason Sands taking $10 million from them. Lewis says that Adrianna has the money because she used to work for them. Suddenly, Mrs. Sands calls Patrick in a panic because Julie has been kidnapped. The ransom note says Mrs. Sands knows what the kidnappers want from her, which she feigns is the money but we all know better because we've watched TV before, right?
The intrepid team taps into Mrs. Sands' cell phone, who gets a text from the kidnappers. Man, kidnappers have gone so high-tech from the days of Mel Gibson screaming, "GIMME BACK MY SON!" Patrick goes to the drop spot where Adrianna gets in the car and pulls a gun on Patrick, demanding the diamonds and saying she doesn't want Julie to die. He shows Adrianna some "diamonds," getting her to hand over her gun and phone so she can inspect them (wow, is she dumb). She was threatened with pictures of Julie tied-up. The team traces the last number dialed and move in on the address. There is a shoot-out.
Hospital. The Sands' lawyer was seriously wounded in the shoot-out, because he stole Jason's money and kidnapped Julie. They don't know if the accomplice was Adrianna or Mrs. Sands, but Patrick has an idea. Maybe they can re-enact the night while Tim Curry in a butler's uniform runs around and explains it to us.
Adrianna and Mrs. Sands confront each other in the hospital waiting room. Cho and Grace drop the name "Wendy," which is the name of one of Julie's troll dolls, and that the family lawyer should be pulling through nicely and able to talk any minute now. Both women react in thinly-disguised alarm and when the team returns, they are both gone. Adrianna has gone to comfort Julie but Mrs. Sands has gone home to ransack the house, looking for the Wendy troll doll.
Patrick is there waiting for Mrs. Sands. She cries and says it was the family lawyer who planned the whole thing, but Patrick knows she is lying. Mrs. Sands starts yelling about her daughter loving "her father's whore more than me!" We flashback to the family lawyer and Mrs. Sands torturing Jason for the combination to the secret room. Patrick then reveals the actual diamonds are in the chandelier in Julie's room.
Mrs. Sands is arrested and Patrick says just because he lost the best to seduce Mrs. Sands doesn't mean Rigsby shouldn't take his advice. Van Pelt wonders what they're talking about. Snerk.
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Zap2it Twitter Talk 
The crime of the week was much better this week, and Simon Baker is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Still, Robin Tunney's voice makes me wanna rip my ears off, and Amanda Righetti is rather underused. I think they're going to hold off on the Red John storyline till sweeps.
Actually Westley, aka the Dread Pirate Roberts, says "As you wish."
Good episode. There has to be someone else out there to play the lead female role for this show. Watching Robin Tunney for an hour is like looking at a She-Male at the local carnival.
The show is not great, but it is good. It needs a bit more refinement. I suppose that happens to a lot of shows. ER and CSI were not Cl*** A in their first seasons. The shows improved greatly in the 2nd and 3rd seasons.
I think that they are keeping the Red John story on the back burner until later. The producers do not want to make the mistake of revealing the villain and solving that case too soon. They probably will give us a little taste two more times this season, and then they will carry the story into season 2.
Everyone has their opinions about the actors. I, for one, think that Robin Tunney is quite pleasing to the eye. I just think that she should dye her hair a lighter shade of brown; the color that she has now looks too artificial. Other than that, she is still sweet.
AMANDA RAGS IS SO HOT!
A great new show and it makes you think. And I love to think about solving a mystery. Plus they have some hot woman on that show e****ally last night.
Good show - I like that Simon Baker here is much better than his previous show, The Guardian, where he looks grim and moody all the time. Here, he's all smiles and very charming - like he was in The Devil Wears Prada - GREAT improvement. As for Amanda Rhigetti - they should give her character more meaning - she's so wasted here - what is she, just a pretty face to add color to the show..?? Such a waste. She was so GREAT in NORTH SHORE (which, IMO should NOT have been cancelled). Perhaps they should replace Robin Tunney with her as lead actress - now, THAT would rock...!! As for this episode - it was too transparent, too predictable, which takes the suspense for the whodunit away. On that note - did I miss Tim Curry..?? Don't recall seeing him - what butler..?? Hope the writers will do better soon, before this show will not get renewed for another season. Really. Seriously.
As a former music major, I had the mystery solved when Jane asked the mother the Peter and the Wolf question, and she answered it incorrectly. Even after the camera lingered on the chandelier in the little girl's room when Jane first met her, though, I had no idea that's where the father had hidden the jewels (I thought like the mother and that he'd hidden them in the Troll Dolls). God, I would have loved having a room like that when I was little! And does anyone know much about the woman who played Adrianna, like if she's really Russian? She's played an Arabic woman before, as well as a few other things, so she's very versatile...plus I'm very jealous that she has such awesome cheekbones. :)
This was a good episode. When Patrick was with the little girl in her playroom, you had to wonder about how he acted with his daughter. I also wondered how his wife felt about his fake psychic act. Was it just a job that provided for the family or did she think he was providing a public service and entertainment?
I caught the "Peter and the Wolf" question too. But I didn't agree that the widow was a suspect because "she was dressed way too hot for a funeral." Maybe she like to dress attractively. That is what sometimes get people in troublebecause their lifestyles don't conform. A Marine widow went on trial for murder because she was promiscuous and got breast implants with his insurance policy, therefore she must have poisoned him. She was later cleared. A missing baby's mother is on trial for murder and the only thing she is guilty of is partying heartily and writing bad checks. At least Jane learned she didn't have an alibi before he went further with his investigation.
'Adrianna' has had a recurring role on 'In Plain Sight' this past summer.
Robin Tunney looks like she could be the big sister to 'Rorey' on 'Gilmore Girls.'
Yes, they're telegraphing too many clues like Peter and the Wolf, but I, too, thought the diamonds would be in a troll doll because the gems on the chandelier looked like pearls. I still have a few troll dolls hidden away. :-)