The Mentalist - 'The Blood on His Hands' (Season 3, Episode 3): A fractured mind

“Sounds like he’s jealous Patrick. Sounds like he wants to take away everything and everyone that you care about. It’s a form of love you know... It seems that your friend John is planning a surprise party for you” - Bret Stiles

So arrived our first Red John focused episode of the season, and although it wasn’t up to the usual standard of a typical Red John episode, this was still a decent effort.

Affairs for the first three quarters of the episode are pretty mundane, back to basics stuff, with the CBI team investigating the murder of a girl who belonged to an organisation that we have come across before, Visualise, led by Bret Stiles (Malcolm McDowell) – who himself, it is revealed here, possesses information on Red John; and it is implied more than enough for Red John to be caught, but he withholds all but an address, at which Kristina is found, in a poor mental state.

The humour here was sparser than the last two weeks, but still great; highlights being Jane getting the Visualise staff member in the blue shirt to lead him to Stiles’ location and the fear of culpability causing that staff member to run away afterwards, and also Jane’s very clever use of a paper bag to disrupt a Visualise seminar and at the same time uncover who the FBI’s mole is inside the cult.

It was nice to see James Morrison, of 24 fame, here (Bill Buchanan was always great).

The slightly mundane murder investigation aside, the key focus here was simply getting Kristina back. And boy is she screwed up mentally (or playing a clever game; for those who believe she either is Red John or is an accomplice of his) – her believing that she dead and is currently residing in the afterlife; Patrick only being able to talk to her by ‘summoning her spirit’ in the manner that she used to for her work.



I was more impressed with the first two episodes of this season, but we’re still hitting highs continually so far, and The Mentalist is still currently showing the most potential for a great season out of all the shows I am currently watching.

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