Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Mentalist - Throwing Fire, S02E10

As a nice send off before the hiatus, The Mentalist gave us an episode that not only had the delight of Jane (Simon Baker) being slightly out of sorts, but also flashbacks to his childhood and his relationship with his father.

When a baseball trainer is killed, by several blows to the head with a baseball bat, our CBI team is called to investigate. Jane gets whacked in the head by a fly ball, passes out, and starts remembering his father and the moment he chose former path in life.
The episode focused on father-son relationships, with a focus on the pressure fathers put on their children to succeed and what disastrous consequences that come later.

Naturally, of all the baseball players' fathers who were trying to get their sons scouted, the one with the best relationship with his son turned out to be the killer.

The lesson? Make your own choices because in the long run you will be responsible for them. And Jane really felt that was an important lesson.
In his flashbacks, we learn about how his father trained him to be a psychic for the circus. We see him delighting in bringing happiness to a woman when he knew something about her life, but regretting the con when he was supposed to be able to save a little girl's life, something he knew he could never do.

The moment when he decided to go through with that con was the moment when he sealed his own fate, putting him on the path that led to the death of his wife and child. I have to wonder if Patrick Jane has ever actually thought of that. He probably blames many things on his father, and on himself, but in some ways I think he might be too selfish to share that blame with anyone else.

As for the rest of the team, Lisbon (Robin Tunney) didn't get enough attention, though she did get a few zingers in at Jane's expense, Cho (Tim Kang) got the chase down an escaping witness, and Grace (Amanda Righetti) and Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) had several sweet moments at work, but proved that they could remain focused in a crisis.

Now, I just wonder if we will pick up the season with a Red John episode, or whether episode 8 is all we are getting for a while.

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