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Monday, February 18, 2013

The Mentalist "Red in Tooth and Claw" Review

 


The Mentalist in a nutshell: It's all an ILLUSION (read: Visual Lies), it's easy to tell.

 Dr. Linus Wagner: Everything you told me, Mr. Jane, is total fiction, isn't it?

A tell within a tell: The program isn't real.  Patrick Jane appears to be a "Wizard of Odds" in poker but he's really the joker in the deck.  In "Red in Tooth and Claw" Jane demonstrates his amazing memory skill using storyline imagery to burn the killer of a brilliant student, Linda Parfrey (read: fairlyland rep) who was attracted to a moth.  It is amazing how Jane concocted a story by just looking at objects, reminds me of Verbal Kint aka  Keyser Söze of the "Usual Suspects."  Jane also demonstrates his skill at cards by revealing the poker face of his boss to let Grace Van Pelt get a free ride to the "White Hat" -  also a convenient time for her to give birth.

Stuck on the Yellow Brick Road -  anyone else notice the Mentalist writers have been on this road before?  The museum was the focal point of another episode,  poker games have been used by Jane  to win money for good causes, and even the comic banter between Rigsby and Cho - the Cowardly Lyin and the Tin Man without a heart is getting old. Hopefully, the series is not coming to an end over the rainbow.  If the series is an homage to "Oz," then "White Hat" Van Pelt is the Good Witch and "Lisbuns" is Dorothy, which leaves Jane as the Wizard of Odds. The question remaining: will Jane find his "Ruby Slippers" to find his way home?  (Of course, if the ratings don't improve, The Mentalist itself may be "Over the Rainbow.")


The moral of the story in "Red in Tooth and Claw": don't play with spyders, kids.

RED LIGHT

Jane appears to be a Sherlock Homes super-sleuth character, but in reality is a mental patient with a cracked eggshell who suffers from paranoid delusions due to feelings of extreme guilt in the deaths of his wife and child who were burned as he was (CBI = intensive burn care?)  in a horrific car accident involving a driver named Tanner when he failed to stop at a BLINKING RED LIGHT CROSSING AN INTERSECTION, hence the RJ symbol, while he was driving intoxicated (Patrick Jane anagram is  "Captain Jerk") and spends his days with the remote watching TV shows, which generate his ideas for the delusional episodes.  Note: 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).


Burning Clues: Jane burns his Red John files with a bottle of booze.  "The Mentalist" is obsessed with fire, as in half the episodes it plays a significant plot point.  Out of the Frye-ing pan into the... As Kristina Frye discovered, when you get too close to Red John, you get burned.  "Tiger, Tiger burning bright, they were "Au-burned."  In the "Red Mile" episode Jane arrives at a crime scene outside Auburn, California.  Shouts from Alabama football fans of "Roll Tide" first appeared during the Alabama-Auburn Tiger IRON BOWL game in 1907. Curiously, a corpse was found in a burned car in "Ruby Slippers," in which Jane discovers the identity of Fifi Nix, like Jane's Phoenix, has risen from the ashes of his past life.  In "Red Dawn" Jane is given a desk next to a fire extinguisher that is there, then it's gone, then it's there again.   Fake Red John read all about it - catch the fire-y headline on the front page of the newspaper Tim Carter was reading before Jane shot him.  Red John appeared to Jane in the burn mask.  Jane: It's not my fire.

Total Fictional Recall:  Red John is Patrick Jane's imaginary evil twin, his "perfect symmetry" alter-ego (Jane/John) Professor Moriarty character in a Tommy Westphall" imaginary world like "St. Elsewhere's" snow globe and "Life on Mars" that is the dream state of Jane.  NB. The fake Jane character in "Red Moon" where a corpse was found in a burned car was named Ellis Mars (El - He is Mars).  

Ellis Mars: The mind is a powerful weapon. It can create reality.

 Who's a Lyin'? Jane or Mar-tinsS

Jane: Perhaps we can see each other again.
Lorelei: That’s not up to me.
Jane: Oh, you have no say in it?
Lorelei: None at all. It’s very "Westphall."
Jane: I don’t follow you.
Lorelei: I do what Red John tells me to do.
 
 
                         Red Face to Face

 The Mentalist logo.svg

Mentalist in a Box

.   Shaking hands with Red John


Drink Scotch Whiskey all night long and die behind the wheel

 BLOOD and SAND
½ oz. Johnnie Walker Red Label
1 tbsp. orange juice
½ oz. sweet vermouth
½ oz. fresh cherry syrup
Orange peel for garnish
Add the Johnnie Walker, orange juice, vermouth and cherry syrup to a shaker filled with ice. Shake until cold and strain into a rocks glass. Garnish with orange peel.


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 and our need to let go of the past,  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. 


                                                                                  
  

Jane: Don't look behind this curtain, people. It will shatter your illusions. Read John's "SEVEN" COME 11: 


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"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 lines.

"COLUMBIA ROADS"    Logline:  US embassy investigator discovers Aurora prophecy that threatens civil war in the US.    Tagline: All Roads lead to Columbia.  Download -COLUMBIA ROADS-

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"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?"

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