rionaleonhart | You're About As Helpful As An Actual Murder Victim.

The Mentalist inexplicably disappeared from UK television for a few months, but it has now returned! Here are some thoughts on 'The Redshirt' and 'Fugue in Red'.

Regarding 'The Redshirt':

'Tempting, really, but I shot and killed my last boyfriend. I'm not ready for a relationship yet.'

Grace Van Pelt, I love you.

I also love Lisbon. 'You pissed off a mob boss and you didn't tell us? You're about as helpful as an actual murder victim.' (Which I initially mistyped in the subject line as 'You're about as helpful as an actual murder weapon.' Murder weapons can be helpful! I mean, they're helpful for murders, obviously, but candlesticks hold candles and everything!) Also:

'Arrest this man.'
'For what?'
'For... questioning.'
'That's not arresting!'

This was generally a rather quotable episode. AND CHO WAS ON JANE'S COUCH. THAT'S NOT ALLOWED. I was genuinely shocked!

Since I wrote that, 'Fugue in Red' has been broadcast. I sort of love that Van Pelt's response to hearing Jane fancies her is a grin and a 'Really?', and Cho trying to take advantage of Jane's amnesiac state by telling him he liked going door-to-door was excellent.

I do not, however, love Jane's personality after he loses his memory. I hope it isn't supposed to be a reflection of his personality before the Red John incident, because that just doesn't make any sense to me. Jane's a git, but he's not that sort of a git. Before he met his wife, maybe, but I'm still very dubious.

I wondered for a while whether Jane was just pretending to have lost his memory. I knew for a fact that it was genuine when he pretended to remember his family in order to get Cho out of the room; I don't believe he would use the memory of his family like that.

I'd like to be able to say that Jane hit on both Lisbon and Van Pelt because HE'S IN LOVE WITH BOTH OF THEM AND HIS SUBCONSCIOUS MEMORY OF THAT CAUSED HIM TO FLIRT, but he also pursued random women, so, you know, probably not. He is in love with both of them, though. The fact that this episode isn't solid evidence for it doesn't make it untrue.

Incidentally, Lisbon's desperation when she didn't know whether Jane was going to survive or not broke my little heart.

(Augh, episode, why did you have to cut off there? I so, so, so want to know what happened between Jane and Lisbon immediately after Jane got his memories back in that violent, horrible way. Plus I really missed Jane during that episode; I would have liked to see 'our' Jane again before it ended.)

Finally, a non-spoilery thought on something that's appeared a few times before: I'm so amused by the way Jane likes to dramatically dismiss suspects, and how Lisbon always ruins his plans for a dramatic wave-of-the-hand, 'This person is innocent; you can go' dismissal by actually, you know, doing her job. JANE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD THERE'S PAPERWORK.

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Murder weapons are also helpful for discovering when murders have been done! If I've learned anything from Phoenix Wright, it's that if you don't have a murder weapon, a DNA sample, a map, a perfect-in-every-detail scheme for someone else to have done it, and that person actually in the room, preferably confessing, they just find the first person they arrested 'guilty' and head off for brunch.

And, as you say, candlesticks hold candles, and bloody knives can also be used to carve roasts, but you should probably clean them off first.

Sounds like a fair and reasonable judicial system to me! Do they generally at least have some reason for suspecting the first person they arrest?

Cho is allowed on Jane's couch because Cho is Jane's bro and that is okay. Grace is allowed on Jane's couch and so is Lisbon so naturally Cho is too. The couch has healing properties, don't you know ;)

Without rehashing all of the ridiculous long essays of meta I've done on "Fugue In Red" I will say I AGREE WITH YOU on Jane not being a womanizer because he's all kinds of dickbag before RJ showed up but not that kind of dickbag.

I wondered for a while whether Jane was just pretending to have lost his memory.

it's still a plausible interpretation! My initial spec was that he was doing his Jane thing and going around the world needing to be told that he was useful and necessary. Which would make sense after shooting the wrong Red John in a food court and feeling terribly powerless in the face of HUGE CONSPIRACY.

I will never forgive Show for rushing the end and cutting it off like that. If they hadn't been in such a rush to get back to normal they could have stretched this one a little longer. We deserved emotional payoff! :c

Heh, I just finished rewatching these two episodes like five minutes ago :D

But yeah, the personality thing doesn't really work for me either, if we're supposed to see it as he was before his family's death. For one, it makes his wife look like a total fool for putting up with him...

It works better as an actual dissociative fugue, which is not a loss of memory - it's a loss of personality. To avoid the pain of his grief, Jane created himself a new personality, one which is completely free of guilt. This isn't the Jane who hasn't lost his family - it's Jane who never had that family in the first place.

And I wish the episode hadn't ended there, too. The thing about disassociative fugue is (or so Wikipedia informs me), that when the person wakes up from it, they have no memory of the time during the fugue. So Jane basically suddenly found himself staring at the smiley face without knowing how he got there :/

This isn't the Jane who hasn't lost his family - it's Jane who never had that family in the first place.

I think the fact that Jane could remember his career as a 'psychic' but not the significance of his wedding ring supports that; if he's reverted personality-wise to the last point he can really remember, that's a point before he was married. I don't like the idea that Jane was that guy at any point, really, but I might just about be able to accept that he was that guy before he met his wife; I cannot believe it of him afterwards.

So Jane basically suddenly found himself staring at the smiley face without knowing how he got there

Oh, wow, I don't know whether that or Jane actually remembering how he behaved would be the more interesting scenario. Either way, Lisbon is facing a difficult conversation.

I think the writers were going for a more Hollywood!amnesia thing, but I'm going to hold on to the actual definition of a dissociative fugue and believe that he never really was that bad. For one, the personality that manifested is at complete odds with the composed and controlled persona that he had during his psychic days as shown in the flashbacks.

So Jane didn't revert to his actual old self, but rather to what he could have been, had he never had his family, or possibly to the kind of person he thinks he was back in those days (considering that he doesn't seem to have that high regard of his old self). Maybe even the kind of a person who he wants to be, a man who feels no guilt, who cares about nothing and no-one, who can have relationships without fearing that the other person will end up dead - a man who cannot be hurt again.

I was both disappointed and amused that there was an amnesia episode and then it was never mentioned again. They wrote that Jane lost his memory and then forgot about it!

This is an incredible way of putting it. You're not wrong!

In response to your 'I'm glad you don't seem to mind me going through your Mentalist tag' comment: I am loving you going through my Mentalist tag. I really love this show - the character interactions, the strange darkness of it - and I'm always delighted to be reminded of it.

You're About As Helpful As An Actual Murder Victim.

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