Quick Take: The Mentalist, "Pretty Red Balloon"
Jane helps a former client find her kidnapped son.
Review: The Mentalist, "Pretty Red Balloon"
(S0403) I suppose it was bound to happen. Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) has run into a client from his fake psychic days while on a case. It makes perfect sense that Lisbon (Robin Tunney) would send him home and it makes even more sense that he would insist on staying after another fake psychic shows up to help.
I have always wanted to see scenes of Jane working his game on past clients. What makes it even better is seeing him explain how the game works. Predicting the sex of a baby is not that hard to do, especially when the expectant parent is hungry for information about their unborn child, which they all are.
I was relieved to see that Glass (J.D. Walsh) didn't drop his persona when first confronted by Jane. Too many times, we see characters like his let someone in on their scam, thereby informing the viewers of their intention. A true fake psychic would never stop pretending unless he absolutely had to. It's too bad he so easily gave up his game to Jane at the end. A personal recording device is exactly why a scammer never admits what he's doing.
I really thought Jane's psychic performance was over the top. After so many speeches about how there are no real psychics, wouldn't somebody in the office speak up? Obviously, the team was in on it, but when a young boy's life is at stake, I would imagine that some secretary or someone would call bullshit.
I am a big fan of The Mentalist but after such an awesome couple of episodes, this one showed a noticeable drop in quality.
