"The Mentalist" in a nutshell: It's all an ILLUSION (read: VISUAL LIES) that no one checks out. I'm not lyin'. See B.S.
Dr. Linus Wagner: Everything you told me, Mr. Jane, is total fiction, isn't it?
Jane: From the INCEPTION
"Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice
'We are all just prisoners here of our own device" - "Hotel California"
In episode "Pink Champagne on Ice" Patrick Jane comes to the rescue of old friend Jack Hellion (read: "he lyin"), a fellow illusionist whose career track mirrors Jane's as both were sidetracked by personal tragedy. Hellion's bad luck continues when he is forced to rob a mob-run California casino to save his kidnapped girlfriend. Jane hypnotizes Jack to bring out his natural ability to crack the safe and the show goes on. "Pink Champagne" is an homage to the Eagles' classic song "Hotel California" and the casino heist film, "Oceans 11." The episode opens like the song - on a desert highway, cool wind blowing her (Lisbon's) hair. Jane notes the highway sits in a prehistoric ocean seabed, perhaps foreshadowing a PARALLEL reference to the casino robbery in "Oceans 11." As the "rob-the-casino" plot has been done before, Heller would only deal this joker-in-the-deck story to make a point: Jane's situation mirrors Jack's (note the symbolic mirrors reflecting Jane and Jack in Jack's dressing room). While both are masters of ILLUSION, Jane and Jack are "prisoners of their own device" - oblivious to the deception by their close female associates. While Jane and Jack are reflected in the mirrors, their assistants, Trish and Teresa, hide behind mirrors. The kidnapper is revealed to be Hellion's associate, who hides behind mirrors of the Blammo Box . Hellion attempts to transfer his psycho assistant into the Blammo Box but is interrupted by Jane, who gets punched in the nose. Hellion's psycho assistant is caught Red Handed by Jane's clever mirror ploy and Lisbon's Blammo Jack-in-the-Box (Aussie) ripper. As Jane so acutely observed, "BLAMMO, it's all about the assistant." Lisbon...Jack - Ripper? A little too-on-the-nose? Yeah. Jane's situation is one of supreme irony: a master of deception and an acute observer of others' emotions, Jane is a "prisoner of his own device" - deceived by his own emotions.
"The Mentalist" - "Monk Meets Life on Mars and Elsewhere Over the Rainbow"
One does not have to have super analytical skills to recognize Bruno Heller's "The Mentalist" is a similar-- but- different version homage of Monk, another emotionally crippled San Francisco area investigator savant tormented by his wife's unsolved murder and committed to bringing evildoers to justice mixed with "Hey, it's all a dream" genre like "Life on Mars," "St. Elsewhere" and the "Wizard of Oz."
Mentalist in a Box
Scrambled Eggs: Red John is the Professor Moriarty-type character in a "Tommy Westphall" imaginary world like "St. Elsewhere" that is the dream state of a teetotaler supersleuth character who is really a burnt mental patient, Patrick Jane, who suffers from paranoid delusions due to feelings of extreme guilt in the deaths of his wife and child who were burned to death when he failed to stop at a RED LIGHT - hence the RJ symbol - while he was driving intoxicated and spends his days watching TV shows, which generate his ideas for the delusional episodes. TM is Bruno Heller's attempt to push the envelope of the "suspension of disbelief" to force the viewer with half a REVIEW BRAIN to realize "The Mentalist" is an ILLUSION.
Jane's eggshell blue car - a vintage 1972 Citroen DS 20 that Warner Bros., producer of "The Mentalist" for CBS, had in its inventory. It was used in the 2008 movie "Speed Racer." For "The Mentalist," the car was shipped from Germany and painted eggshell blue (it was originally red).
Drink Scotch Whiskey all night long and die behind the wheel
The Man with Two Names -- Red John's alias is ROY Tagliaferro (read: "cut iron"). The ROY CUT IRON anagrams are "court irony" and "you r citron." How ironic that Jane, the court jester who arrives at the crime scene in his Citroen, a master reader of how others' emotions control them, was a prisoner of his IRON-ic chains to the past. Until Jane leaves his OLD LIFE BEHIND, The Mentalist is on the mental list, a PRISONER of his own device. In the End the Mentalist was on the mental list.
Blue Illusion
Jane: Lisbuns, we are all just prisoners here of our own device.
Read John "Seven" Come 11: my mental list of 7 scripts so you can dream along with me
"DRAGON STAR (2014) Logline: Codecracker tracks a serial killer who returns after seven years to terrorize his hometown. Tagline: You can go Holmes again. DRAGON_STAR_-_Final[1]
“MIDNIGHT RIDE” Logline: Garage band cruises a small Pennsylvania town on a stormy night that changes the course of rock music. Tagline: “She loves you and you and you, yeah, yeah, yeah”
"DIVE" Logline: An American naval officer is forced to pilot a Colombian cartel submarine loaded with cocaine into San Diego harbor. But there's something else on board. Tagline: Sub-text: Hidden between the white lines.
"COLUMBIA ROADS" Logline: US embassy investigator discovers Aurora prophecy that threatens the US. Tagline: All Roads lead to Columbia. Download -COLUMBIA ROADS-
“FACESPACE” Logline: CIA Deep Throat recruits a conspiracy writer to stop a mind control op using social networks. Tagline:Who is like FACESPACE and who can defeat it? Sample Download FACESPACE PDF
"SPYDER AND THE FLY" Logline: A black op team gets caught in its web of deceit. Tagline: "Come into my parlor said the Spyder to the Fly, but who was the Spyder and Who was the Fly?"
"THE 11 O'CLOCK NEWS" Logline: Two bloggers, Richie Scalia and John Scott, get in way-over-their-head trouble. Tagline: Hindsight is 2021
