thread: 2011-06-01 : TV Roundup
On 2011-06-14, Daniel Klein wrote:
Yeah, it does get a little dumb procedural at times, especially when they give too much screen time to Van Pelt or Rigsby. Lisbon and Cho are both amazing characters in their own ways, and the episode where Cho was stuck with the kid was an amazing showcase of very subtle and grudging character development. You knew where he had to get (identifying with the kid, helping him out), but you had no idea how cold, closed-up Cho could get there from where he was without breaking character, and then somehow, slowly, subtly, they made it happen.
He even smiled.
But yes, I respect them most for how consequent they are. Uhm. I guess we venture into spoiler land here. Please do not read this if you haven't seen all of season 3 of The Mentalist.
(I will italicize the spoilers for easy skippability)
From the get-go, Jane has been adamant about one thing: if he ever got the chance, he would kill Red John in cold blood. This is an extremely tough thing to do for a network show: have a lead character who says he will kill in cold blood. Lisbon has always said she wouldn't let it come to that, and I accepted that that was how the show would treat it: dangle opportunities before Patrick's face but never let him do the deed.
And then: strawberries and cream. Holy fuck. I must have rewatched that climax a dozen times, just to let the brilliance of the acting sink in. And all the while the show is being smart, the way it usually is at a crime scene. RJ is placed prominently in the foreground of shots early on. He has red reading glasses on. When Jane gets up, he puts both hands into his vest pockets. RJ's gun is visible in shot, barely, a few times before. And when RJ seems to have triumphed ("you can't just walk away!") we remember what Patrick said before that scene: "he will think he is one step ahead of me." Now while Patrick couldn't have planned the O'Laughlin thing—the rope really just occurred to him at the mall (and how brilliant! Even I thought, when we panned over the would-be assassins tools, "hand-cuffs *and* a rope? That's a little redundant. Whatever."), but immediately he understood what was going on and played the victim perfectly, holding the gun in his pocket all the while.
I read an interview where Simon Baker explained that in the original draft, he shot Red John in the back as he walked away. Simon himself must have pointed out that that's not very Patrick Jane, that Jane would want to WATCH Red John die, and Bruno Heller loved the idea Baker brought to the table, which is how the scene was shot in the end. I have massive respect for a show runner who can say "yep, my actor gets this role, he's got a point, let's do it this way" and at the same time for an actor who obviously LIVES the character so well that he can make a brilliant suggestion like that.
Anyway, TL;DR: I wavered, once or twice, was about to stop watching the show when it got too dull—the episode with Rigsby's father? Oh dear god, make it stop. But then it strings together SUCH a brilliant end to the season and does what it did in the last episode and I just feel like my investment of time in this show has paid off.
End rant! Sorry.
