Agent Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney) and the team are very happy to have Jane back, and they are going to need him because of all of the insane cases they’ll deal with this season. Additionally, Lisbon and the team get a new boss in Luther Wainwright (Michael Rady), a hotshot young agent who doesn’t really agree with Jane’s tactics, although he can’t argue with his success. To further complicate matters, the team and the Red John case come under scrutiny by the FBI when Agent Susan Darcy (Catherine Dent) enters into the picture. She not only manages to put herself on Red John’s deadly radar, but eventually comes to suspect that Jane and possibly the entire team may be acting on Red John’s behalf!
A couple of familiar faces reappear from last season, including cult leader Bret Stiles (Malcolm McDowell) and murderess Erica Flynn (Morena Baccarin, V), and both will cause Jane and Lisbon trouble. As far as the personal lives of the team members, Agent Grace Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti) is still reeling from her fiancée's death at her hands. She definitely has some anger management issues to work out this season, but it’s fun to see a darker and grittier side to Van Pelt. Agent Kimball Cho (Tim Kang) is such a straight arrow all the time, but he falls for a hooker named Summer (Samaire Armstrong, Dirty, Sexy Money) who becomes his confidential informant and he’s got to keep his relationship a secret from the team. Meanwhile, Agent Dwayne Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) begins dating public defender Sarah Harrigan and, as things progress, Rigsby ends up the proud dad of a baby boy.
Once Red John makes sure people know he really is back with his signature bloody smiley face at the scene of a murder, Jane wants to catch him more than ever, until Red John taunts him with threats to others if he doesn’t give up. Jane has a meltdown at the office and humiliates Wainwright, getting himself fired in the process. The season finale picks up some six months later with Jane getting busted by the police in Las Vegas and the team reaching out to him. It seems he has given up on Red John and everything, really, and that’s when Red John reaches out by sending a beautiful woman to help Jane. Loralei Martins (Emmanuelle Chriqui) isn’t what she at first seems, as is everything that pertains to Red John, and it seems he has a deal for Jane. Bring him Lisbon’s dead body and he’ll give Jane a new identity and life. Can Jane resist the chance to finally capture his nemesis, even if it puts Lisbon at risk? By the end of the season finale, viewers will be on the edge of their seats waiting to see what happens next.
The Mentalist: The Complete Fourth Season is chock full of great episodes and Simon Baker as Patrick Jane is still the perfect combination of devilish charm, mischievous troublemaker and brilliant crime-solver. The entire team is great as well and I really enjoyed peeking into their personal lives a bit more this season, although it always drives me crazy when someone has to have an addiction to prescription drugs, which happens to Cho following a car accident. The only special feature to be had is a featurette on the real-life law enforcement people who consult for the show and it was interesting to watch how they trained the actors and just what they focused on to give the show a feeling of true police work. Episodes are varied and are great fun, but my favorites include one surrounding the murder of a young gay man outside of a female impersonators’ cabaret and one where Jane gets injured and loses his memory. The cabaret episode was unique because it was terribly sad the way the young man was bullied because of his sexual preference, but I didn’t feel like the show was trying to push any sort of agenda. Instead, they called to light the terrible tragedies that can happen when people are abused because of who they are and it was a really touching episode that displayed understanding for each other. In the episode where Jane loses his memory, it’s interesting to see him revert to his old ways as a con artist, but also horribly sad when he is forced to face the reality and memory of the loss of his family.
Overall, if you’ve been keeping up with the series, The Mentalist: The Complete Fourth Season is can’t miss stuff. The season premiere is just days away and I can’t wait to see how everything shakes out. The Mentalist is just the whole package with clever writing, great acting and intriguing storylines. Highly recommended.
