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Friday 9 November 2012

The Mentalist 5.2 "Devil's Cherry" Review

This week's investigation leads to the murder of a demand merchant, Victor who was found eviscerated by a cutting tool in his own home.  The others are already at the scene when Patrick (Simon Baker) arrives and no he didn't leave his car in the middle of the road this week.  Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) and Cho (Tim Kang) notice Patrick seems a little off colour with all that Lorelei business and Rigsby suggests they invite him to a boy's drink out.  Cho won't ask him though.  Patrick is even warned by the ME (Cameron Meyer) not to step onto the blood pool, as he's standing so close by.

You'll notice this episode Lisbon (Robin Tunney) didn't have any interaction with Patrick at the CS until he goes out to talk to her via the kitchen.  Detouring for a cup of tea at the CS.  Okay so who does that anyway, besides Patrick and to make tea from already used leaves in a tea infuser in the sink, ewww that was disgusting.  No wonder he passes out, ha.  But not until later.

Lisbon chats with the neighbour, Betty (Lee Garlington) who tells her she couldn't see the kitchen from her bedroom window and she heard a man argue with Victor.  Patrick's kettle whistles and Lisbon asks what that is, really?  So he drinks his tea and notices a butterfly on the flower outside the window.  He then hears the lid of the pot on the stove rattling, where he finds a rabbit inside, as well as dropping his cup.  Of course we know what follows is just a hallucination.  With Patrick taking the rabbit to speak with the maid and Cho, but he doesn't make any remark about the rabbit and neither does the maid.  She's South American and is suspicious of black ants entering a home, as they signify death.  The maid gives him her necklace with a soaring eagle.

The rabbit escapes and Patrick follows it, eventually leading him to a garden and a blonde girl. She doesn't give her name, as they say, what's in a name, but then she takes him to where Victor worked.  His daughter's name was Charlotte (Dove Cameron) as he calls it a pretty name, but she's dead.  Ah the sad look on his face when he says that.  She was murdered and he found both her and his wife.  Here Lisbon and Cho arrive and she says he's having another episode and Patrick falls to the floor.  Cho identifies the tea infusion as belladonna so he needs his stomach pumped.  Here Patrick wakes and imagines himself strapped into a straitjacket, even though he knows he's not crazy.  Charlotte tells him he's having his stomach pumped.  She tells him about his search for Red John and how it's an obsession with him. His relationship with her mother is his business.  When she tells him, her mother feels the same way.  She should show some respect.

Patrick wakes up and asks for water, just so he can escape.  Only to end up sitting in an ambulance with Charlotte.  He tells Lisbon he's hallucinating her and Charlotte asks if she's his girlfriend?  He wants to go back to the CS.  He tells her drugs would not be his choice for solving a case, but he was inadvertently drugged but also that many "great minds have used them.  Lisbon pointing out he's not a great mind.  Others will take issue with that point.  Patrick even resorts to saying she should call him Patrick and he calls her Teresa.

Van Pelt interviews Julian (Yani Gellman) Victor's assistant.  He was his apprentice jewellery cutter and they were deciding on how to cut the Blue Orchid diamond which is missing.  Rigsby talks with his daughter and she was at a cabin but doesn't have any witnesses.  She did drink tea.  Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti) also talks with Fahad (Ajay Mehta) whom Julian said was an enemy of Victor's.  However he denies any involvement in the murder and even speaks a bit of Hindi that: "storm clouds that roar don't rain water."  Okay loosely translated, but he did not mention dogs incase you're wondering, since the translation he gave Van Pelt of what he said wasn't about 'barking dogs not biting.'  Betty says the man she heard didn't have an accent.

Lisbon and Patrick retrace his steps to where he found the rabbit, but there's a pool there instead, in which Charlotte swims.  He then wants to go to his workshop and promises if there's nothing there, he'll take his bed rest.  Here he finds the Blue Orchid in Julian's bag, but he didn't kill him.   Of course he would have his prints on the tools both shared.  Patrick senses there's more to this case.  Charlotte decides to leave as the drug wears off.  Before going she tells him that his family doesn't care about Red John or getting revenge for their deaths cos they're, dead.

Van Pelt mentions Betty being able to see the kitchen window from heh bedroom.  As Patrick mentions the necklace he gave Rigsby, but there was no maid and no necklace.  Eagles soar and can see high up.  Thus they set her up.  Patrick volunteers to make tea at her house and when she takes a few sips, she feels a rabbit under the table which they both pretend not to see.  Also Patrick and Lisbon speak German, most of it sounded gibberish with a few words thrown in for good measure.  She runs out of the house with  Victor's jewellery pouch which he never removed from his body, she needs a hospital cos she drank belladonna.  Patrick tells her she didn't drink any.

She later confesses to Van Pelt she had dreamt of a way to get her hands on those diamonds for months and to frame Julian.  She made him the tea and then got him to cut open his stomach and kill himself, telling him he had the diamond inside him.  She relished the killing.  Patrick makes himself some tea in his attic hideaway and we wonder if he's drinking the same stuff again, or if it's just his usual blend.  Besides there aren't any guarantees he'd hallucinate Charlotte again.  Of course as he told Lisbon, he wouldn't resort to drugs.  Though he does get up to no good in his attic, as we know.  Perhaps he decided to risk it.

From the outset this episode had shades of Alice in Wonderland.  From the white rabbit on the mug, which Lisbon points out to him, the rabbit he followed, down the rabbit hole, after drinking tea, as did Alice.  Then falling through the rabbit hole as he falls to the kitchen floor.  Patrick's mind has always been fragile since the season 4 opener after he thought he shot Red John, to the season 4 last two parts, where he was meant to have suffered a breakdown to go 'undercover' and fool Red John, at least bring him out of hiding.  Here once again his mind is mentioned, by Rigsby and Cho after Lorelei going missing and then Lisbon mentioning he's having another episode.

Patrick calling out to Lisbon when Charlotte asks him who really knows him.  More hinting here at Patrick's real feelings for Lisbon, more than just someone who he works with.  In Fugue in Red after Patrick suffered amnesia he asked Lisbon if they were sleeping together and here it's not hard to imagine or think why his unconscious mind, or his hallucinogenic mind, always refers to Lisbon.  Here Charlotte is about to ask if "they've ever..."  Also Patrick doesn't talk about his wife, her mother, to Charlotte.  Be they reasons of guilt or otherwise.  Perhaps that she wouldn't approve of him continuing on this Red John quest without moving on with his life and letting them go.

Then does Patrick subconsciously answer his own question, why is he after Red John?  Charlotte is his imagination so when he tells her he's doing it for them, she replies, they're already dead, what is the point of his obsession?  He says he does this job cos it's something to do but then Lorelei countered that by saying  last episode about his being in love with Lisbon.  let's hope they remain friends only.

In comparison to My Bloody Valentine last season where Van Pelt imagined her dead fiance O'Laughlin and he helped her to deal with her pent up anger and emotions, to move on.  This doesn't happen to Patrick, he still has his obsession though and he isn't ready to let Charlotte go.

Rigsby missing put on speaking with George Clooney over the phone as Victor had an extensive client list of celebrities and other high profile people.  Simon Baker was at his best here as heartbroken as ever over his family, more so over Charlotte but still managed to maintain the funny moments.  Charlotte was grown up, she had moved on in his imagination, but in his quest for Red John he still sees her as the child who was taken from him.  He never got to see her grow up in reality.

Patrick to Charlotte: "You are safe, you are loved and you are wise."  Which is all true, in his mind and heart, she is that.  She is in heaven.  Yet again, his hallucination so those words could equally be about him, though I may be sticking my neck out by saying that.  Since not all will agree.

Charlotte: "Red John, Red John, I am so over Red John."  Charlotte said it but Patrick thought it.  Maybe he wants to be over this but can't until he finally gets Red John or some pertinent answers or both.  As for all that black ants, Patrick warned to step away from the blood, was all about foreshadowing death but in what way and more importantly whose death?  Someone close to him?  One of the team, Red John (probably impossible) Lorelei?

A great episode once you get all the subtle references, have to watch this once again now.  Belladonna is known as devil's cherry. Oh the way Simon's hair kept changing throughout the scenes, from being combed to a little unkempt, then combed again next shot!  With that nice little bounce when his head hit the floor, ha.


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