TVSquad

(S02E02) Tonight's episode of The Mentalist was an incisive look at how the ... HEY THAT WAS STARSKY!

Yes, Paul Michael Glaser made an appearance in this episode, and it's good to see him in something else besides those fix-your-credit commercials.

This season seems to be about the personal lives of Jane and Lisbon a lot more than the first season was, how the search for Red John is affecting both of them (Jane is on the outside of the investigation; Jane is seeing a psychiatrist because of what happened in the season finale). Last season I didn't want every other episode to be about Red John, and I still don't, but I'm more intrigued by the Red John investigation than the murder-of-the-week. Where last season the tension in the CBI regarding cases and who was in charge was scattered here and there; that tension seems to be a theme this second season.

I keep thinking that we've seen Red John already. We probably haven't. It will probably be a guest star later in the series. But wouldn't it be cool if Red John turned out to be Lisbon's psychiatrist or someone close to Jane? I'm sure I'm way off, but every time I see a new character introduced, I keep thinking, are they fooling us here? Is this person Red John or connected to Red John in some way? But I guess that's what the show creators want from their viewers, right?

Tonight's episode was about ... oh, I don't know. A woman got murdered and Jane solved it. Like I said, I'm more into the whole Red John case, and tonight I enjoyed Jane's battles with Bosco, Van Pelt's interrogation of the suspect, and the interplay between Rigsby and Cho. Those are always the best parts of each episode anyway. I did like how Jane planted the bug in Bosco's office (great ending, really showing how this season is going to go) and how he kept saying he'd have the killer in 24 hours or 12 hours.

And I knew it wasn't Starsky.

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