Beginners guide to The Mentalist
All the deductions in the world can't help you when you've lost your car keys
Imagine what would happen if Derren Brown stopped showing off and instead put his mystical mental powers to use solving crimes for Scotland Yard, and you’ve pretty much got the premise for The Mentalist.
Every cop show needs its quirk and The Mentalist’s is its pretentious protagonist, a former celebrity psychic called Patrick Jane. Jane’s charming sharp-suited exterior hides a man who’s seething with anger and guilt over the murder of his wife and child at the hands of serial killer Red John. With Red John still at large, a mission to exact revenge by hunting down the crimson criminal is what drove Jane to police work, a field in which, as it turns out, he’s pretty handy.
With powers of observation and deduction that could rival even the great Sherlock Holmes, Jane can finger the culprit of a seemingly unsolvable crime thanks to the smallest possible detail. Unsurprisingly, he quickly establishes himself as a priceless asset for the fictional California Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the series follows his adventures as he helps the serious crimes team to solve unexplained murders.
The CBI provides a gaggle of brilliant background characters to help support Simon Baker’s star turn as the show’s titular character. Amongst these are Special Agent Timball Cho, the perennial straight man with a troubled past. There’s also muscle man Wayne Rigsby, the unit’s arson specialist who provides his fair share of comic relief, particularly in his on/off relationship with rookie cop Grace Van Pelt.
The team are led by Teresa Lisbon, who’s the Dr Watson to Patrick Jane’s Holmes. A straight-talking career cop who plays things by the book, Lisbon shares much of the screen time with Jane often criticising his arrogant behaviour and attempting to debunk his elaborate theories. An ideal foil to the ferociously charismatic consultant, Lisbon also shares an attraction with Jane and is one of the few characters our hero trusts with details about his private life.
This is not a crime drama that involves itself with the gritty realities of street life and social ills. Instead, it’s a light breezy jaunt of a show that mixes classic whodunit with an added ‘howdunit’: trying to work out how Jane’s unorthodox techniques lead him to his extraordinary conclusions.
Each week sees the team take on a new case, while the ever-present spectre of Red John provides the ‘big bad’ that bookends the series. But the main draw here is Patrick Jane, whose brilliant deductions and charismatic personality make him one of the most entertaining sleuths on the small screen.
It’s perfect light entertainment with just the right mixture of humour, drama and mystery to keep you comfortably perched on the edge of your seat. The titular character too is worth tuning in for alone and you’ll spend as much time laughing at his sarcastic sideswipes as you will trying to work out how he cracked the case.
