Owain Yeoman-related stories
Posted Nov 6th 2009 2:40AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S02E06) "No takebacks!" - Jane, to the killer, about her confession
So this episode had two things that scare the hell out of me: prison and mice. I think we all view prison as a place that would freak us out if we ever found ourselves in one. I hate the very thought of being in that situation. I think I'd try to escape like Jane did tonight. What's the worst that could happen, they'd send you to prison?
As for mice, I have a few every winter in my apartment. They come in through the wall behind the fridge looking for warmth and food. Really irritating and gross.
And this episode had
both of those things. Gah.
Continue reading Review: The Mentalist - Black Gold and Red Blood
Posted Oct 30th 2009 12:57PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S02E05) "Spooky!" - Patrick Jane
As soon as the introduction sequence played out, I was excited at the thought of seeing how Patrick Jane and more down-to-earth Lisbon would deal with a spooky case.
I knew Lisbon would not believe in ghosts but what about Jane? Would he believe in them for real or would he fake believing in them for the case or would he not believe in them at all?
This spooky episode, perfect for Halloween time, also finally (!) gave us some relationship advancement between Rigsby and Van Pelt.
Continue reading Review: The Mentalist - Red Scare
Posted Oct 16th 2009 11:43AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S02E04) "Everybody is. I am." - Jane, on people who are geeks
Is Patrick Jane really, really brave or just clueless?
I've been wondering that the entire series. He's not a fighter. He's not even one of these "strong, silent" types who acts wimpy but is secretly a karate master or former Navy Seal or whatever. He honestly doesn't have any physical skills but he insists on interrogating people who could turn his bones into mulch. Like tonight's confrontation with bikers in a dive bar. Or maybe he was comfortable because Lisbon was there with a badge and a gun. I think he's done it in the past with no backup though, so I'm not sure if he's brave or just oblivious or doesn't care.
Continue reading The Mentalist: Red Menace
Posted Oct 9th 2009 12:05AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S02E03) "I didn't lie ... he made risotto." Lisbon, to Jane, about a certain cooking show with "the angry man" she watched on Tuesday
Hypnotism is a lame shortcut in TV shows and movies. Hypnotists seem to do it so easily, and the subjects seem to be put under so quickly and then remember just enough to solve the puzzle or at least advance the plot to another point.
That's why tonight's hypnotism of Lisbon by Jane was so satisfying. I groaned when it started, but I like the fact that he hypnotized her without her knowing it, how she made a comment about Rigsby and Van Pelt while under, and how the hypnotism didn't really work in the end.
Continue reading The Mentalist: Red Badge
Posted Sep 25th 2009 1:40AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S02E01) "If you sit by the river bank long enough you'll see the bodies of your enemies float by." - Patrick Jane
Where will the second season of
The Mentalist go? Will we focus on Red John the whole time or will we get cases of the week until we have a Red John episode? It looks like it's going to be more of the latter (though there's a big plot development concerning the Red John case in this season opener), and that's just fine.
I do wish the cases were more
Columbo or
Murder, She Wrote-ish, though.
Continue reading The Mentalist: Redemption
Posted Apr 1st 2009 12:38AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S01E18) This was a fun episode of
The Mentalist, reminiscent of parts of the psychic episode, "
Seeing Red," in that we got to see Jane in a comfort zone of his, something that he knows well. The difference is that Jane believes in hypnosis.
And we got to see Jane do his thing tonight ... his hypnosis thing anyway. He was clever enough to put the tracer in Rigsby's pocket, but my favorite episodes of
The Mentalist are when Jane knows whodunnit ahead of time and sets them up. When Jane is a step -- or two -- ahead of everyone else, he shines.
Continue reading The Mentalist: Russet Potatoes
Posted Mar 26th 2009 12:42AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S01E17) "This is a goat turd about six months old." -- Cho, about Jane's "fossilized worm" Ah, a few things I love about
The Mentalist showed up in tonight's episode: a quote from Cho, a setup from Jane, and Lisbon and Jane banter. Top that off with a couple of my favorite guest stars and you've got yourself a fun episode of
The Mentalist.
Oh, and we can't forget Jane doing his Jane things: trying to get Rigsby and Van Pelt together in a car for three hours, monologuing about the beauty of the desert, teasing Lisbon and Faulk (the "Boom!" line) and smiling throughout everything.
Continue reading The Mentalist: Carnelian Inc.
Posted Mar 18th 2009 2:09AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S01E16) "My other senses are heightened. They're super-heightened. I'm like Daredevil." -- Jane on his blindnessNow, this was an interesting episode of
The Mentalist. We veered from the formula a bit, and I liked it. We got to find out a lot more about Jane's past, albeit Red John-free. Sadly, this episode was fairly Cho-free, as well, but we did get a lot of Rigsby / Van Pelt payoff.
Mostly what this episode was about, though, was Jane's questionable past: the lies he told to people, the money he unabashedly took, and the lives he ruined with his greed and his false representation of his psychic abilities. Jane is clearly carrying around a lot more guilt than just his family being killed, although that was obviously the defining moment for Jane.
Continue reading The Mentalist: Bloodshot
Posted Mar 10th 2009 2:19PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
Here we are in the middle of the March sweeps period (March this year instead of February, because we were supposed to switch to digital TV on February 17 and Nielsen was worried that would screw up the numbers) and
The Mentalist is a repeat tonight. Not only that, but it's the third week in a row where the show has been a repeat.
Hmmm...I wonder why CBS has made this decision?
Continue reading Wait a second ... The Mentalist is a repeat again tonight?
Posted Feb 18th 2009 1:50AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S01E15) The Mentalist never fails to entertain, even when the case is obvious. There was something about the writing or directing of this show early in the season; I could peg every killer nearly the moment he or she was onscreen, because of the weird shifty thing they did.
Well, that didn't happen in this episode; instead, they dropped the biggest, most obvious clue in the history of procedurals. I kept hoping that it was a red herring, but no. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy this episode; I loved the twists and turns the case took, but I hated knowing, absolutely knowing, who the killer was, in that different way than just the shifty stuff.
Continue reading The Mentalist: Scarlett Fever
Posted Feb 11th 2009 1:06AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S01E14) "There's no business like Cho business." -- Patrick JaneI'm not quite sure how
The Mentalist does it. At the beginning of every episode, I want to think that it's just a typical procedural and that nothing really sets it apart. Usually, it is Simon Baker who wins me over and makes me think differently. However, tonight it was all Cho.
We started off with Cho questioning Walcott about his wife Claire's murder. When the weasel threatens Cho's job if he doesn't give the name of Claire's lover, saying that he can have Cho's job with one phone call, Cho deadpans, "That's impressive. The best I can get with one phone call is a pizza."
Continue reading The Mentalist: Crimson Casanova
Posted Jan 19th 2009 2:35PM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S01E13) The opening of this episode was the Jane that I love -- random, bizarre, smart and observant, with no regard for convention. Did you catch the way he hammered away at Frank, the guy who found the dead body (Harry Lashley) with the woman he was having sex with?
Jane continued to be fun and outrageous throughout "Paint it Red," which made it one of the more entertaining episodes in a while for me. The case was relatively interesting, but Jane was so upbeat, divergent and ahead of the team -- love that! -- and the interactions amongst the team were top notch.
Continue reading The Mentalist: Paint it Red
Posted Jan 14th 2009 1:03AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S01E12) The opening scenes grabbed me right away this week.
The Mentalist is best when Jane is doing his divergent thing, and that's just what he does when the rest of the team goes into the flower shop to interview the missing boy's parents. He puts together the pink bike, the glance to the woods and the crows and finds the boy's body before the theme. Nice.
There were other parts of this episode that were throwbacks to the early days, when Jane was not only way ahead of the team, but also more over the top than some of the more recent episodes. Thank you, Bruno Heller!
Continue reading The Mentalist: Red Rum
Posted Nov 26th 2008 1:00AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, The Mentalist
(S01E08) I have a complaint about
The Mentalist: there's just not enough Jane for me. Simon Baker is the heart and soul of this show and I crave more screen time for him, and more of the antics we saw in the first couple of episodes. Regardless, this is one great show and I won't hold it against the writers that they are attempting to go deeper with the rest of the cast; a good idea, really.
OK, maybe I have two complaints, and this one is aimed at the director: Is it possible to tell the actor who plays the killer to not be so shifty the second they get screen time? I knew whodunnit so early on that I actually second-guessed myself.
Continue reading The Mentalist: The Thin Red Line
Posted Mar 29th 2008 11:29AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Pickups and Renewals, Casting
As someone who was a regular watcher of
The Guardian, it makes me happy to see that the star of that show is coming back to the home screens.
Simon Baker will star in the CBS drama The Mentalist. The pilot has been given the go-ahead by the network, which mean Simon could be back on the schedule by next fall (if the show is picked up).
The Mentalist sounds like it should be something like a Kreskin extravaganza, but it's not. Instead it's described as the story of Patrick Jane, a man with heightened skills of observation who uses his talents to solve crimes.
Continue reading Simon Baker returns to CBS & Wheeler gets a greenlight
Six Mad Men characters who are in limbo after the finale
Fact or Fiction: Big Bang, Brothers & Sisters and CSI
The TV Squad Podcast: Linda Purl talks about The Office, we talk spoilers, and more
