TV Series Review: The Mentalist – Season 1

Posted on | December 29, 2009 | No Comments

The Mentalist, Season 1
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/the_mentalist/

The show follows the crime-solving success story of Patrick Jane, former fake psychic, as he uses his amazing powers of observation and, well, guessing, to aid a California Bureau of Investigation unit lead by vague romantic interest Agent Lisbon. The other members of the team include Agents Van Pelt – the hungry rookie – and Rigsby – the temperamental he-man – who not-that-secretly long for each other, as well as the only non-white character in the regular cast, the stoic Agent Cho.

Jane’s drive to solve crimes results from his guilt over the death of his wife and child, who were killed by the serial killer Red John (not terribly original, I know – either the set-up or the killer’s name) after Jane belittled him on national television. This turned him from a money-grubbing fraud to an honest man with a mission.

Jane is one of the creepiest heroes I’ve come across in a while. On one hand his ability to feel or at least fake compassion and/or understand people who others dismiss as flakes or jerks is endearing; on the other hand his cool detachment in the face of suffering is creepy as all hell. He may have a fascinated smile on his face as he views the scene of a rape-murder. He also talks quite seriously about meaning to murder Red John at the earliest opportunity. But we like him, because he’s clever and he’s always right, except when it’s cute or funny for him not to be.

The rest of the cast, from what we can tell in one season of episodes mostly focused on the crime of the week, more resembles a stock set of characters, the only exception being Agent Kimball Cho. It’s typical for crime shows today to consist of two women, one black person, no Asians, and a bunch of white guys*. The Mentalist breaks the mold by having the standard non-white character be that elusive Asian. Aside from that fact, Cho is atypical in that he is the perfect stoic, with few quibbles and a perfectly expressionless face, and apparently no life outside of his work. Maybe it’s thanks to the actor Tim Kang, but he was my favourite character in a show with very little time spent on characterization outside that of the lead.

Since that’s the kind of a blog this is, let me list some of the first season’s diversity fail.

Religion

In the episode “Red Rum” the team investigates an apparently occult killing of a teenaged boy. The parents point an accusing finger at the local Witch, Tamzin Dove. Tamzin introduces herself as a Wiccan, and yet goes on to tell the agents how she put a killing curse on the dead boy. For the record: while some Witches may throw killing curses, Wiccans do not – on of their core beliefs is that every spell is returned upon the caster. And, of course, all the CBI agents agree with laughs and shakes of their heads that Tamzin is a whackjob. Very sensitive.

Towards the end of the episode, Jane takes – or pretends to take – Tamzin’s religion seriously for about a split second, thus wrangling some more facts out of her.

The sad thing is that this is probably the best depiction of Wiccans I’ve so far seen on TV.

Race

The worst incident of racefail was when a Lisbon and Rigsby go interview a bouncer in relation to the death of a man he disliked. “Do they call you Terence or Terry?” Lisbon asks. “They call me Mr Andrews,” says Terence Andrews, a black man, quoting In the Heat Of The Night. An altercation occurs, Lisbon tazes Andrews, and says “You okay, Mr Andrews?”

In other words, they took an iconic scene of a black person demanding to be treated with respect and then tazed the black person and mocked his uppity bravado. I have to put it down to the producer’s and director’s privilege-blindness that this ever even got in.

Another example would be in the episode “Red John’s Footsteps”, where an Asian small business manager gives Cho a picture of her niece, suggesting he consider her for marriage. This without ever having met Cho before. Because it’s funny how Asians arrange marriages, or something? I don’t know.

Disability

Also in the episode “Red John’s Footsteps”, which was the season finale, there was a blind woman living by herself. As with the issue of the Asian manager, I’m not really qualified to judge this representation, but I did notice that they repeated the “heightened senses” gag and made it sound as if blind people necessarily had a hard time finding lovers. I’d love to hear some thoughts on this; I just know I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it.

They also repeated the “heightened senses” gag in “Bloodshot”, where Jane loses his eyesight, leading to all sorts of blind jokes, and the fake-disability gag was used in the episode “Flame Red” where a man pretends to have a learning disability, and again in the episode “Miss Red”, where a con man pretends paraplegia to seem more trustworthy to a company. It’s news to me that disabled people apparently find it so much easier to find employment…

So what’s the verdict? Well, it’s an entertaining enough show. You don’t have to swallow a lot more bullshit than you do with pretty much all crime shows, but the bullshit is not non-existant. The main character’s psychology is interesting and could do with more exploring. There is Cho. Some episodes give you the satisfaction of figuring it out just as Jane does just by following visual clues. I failed to make an emotional connection with it, though, and that is really what is required for the full enjoyment of any show. If you manage that, you’ll love this show. If not, it’s still a good mostly mindless diversion.

–
* This was first pointed out to me by Spacelogic, and it will never stop astonishing me how correct she was.

Rating 3.00 out of 5

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Category: 2 Stars, Reviews, Reviews - Television

TV Series Review: The Mentalist – Season 1

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