The Mentalist 5.10 "Panama Red" Review

Lisbon (Robin Tunney) and Cho (Tim Kang) are called to a CS where the DB of a dead climber is found at a gym.  She calls Patrick (Simon Baker) but he already had news of the call as he sits on the makeshift bed in the attic.  He's still enthusiastic about having shaken hands with Red John and so has met him.  Lisbon thinks he's obsessed.  She texts him Jeremy's apartment address and he meets her there; telling her someone's already been over the apartment.  There's a photo of Jeremy and his advisor, Alice Burns (Susan Gibeny) at his graduation.  Plus this time round, Patrick is intrigued by a puzzle box.  Well we all know about Patrick and Puzzles.  There's a hidden safe behind the books which he tells them are in the wrong order and the safe is empty.

Alice speaks with Lisbon and Patrick about how Jeremy was brilliant and gave her a puzzle box too.  She's also dying but has marijuana cigarettes to smoke.  He was working for a Matthew Gold at Westerly Organic, where they grow the stuff.  Matthew (Troy Ruptash) laments about not being able to grow more than 99 plants and how he was once a businessman, well once a businessman, always a businessman.  There's motive right there and he was my number one suspect.  Patrick noticing the seeds he's shown them.  Patrick then chats with Carson, another worker who is high and tells them how Jeremy paid him $8,000 to have his car fixed.  Patrick telling him to use eyedrops and breath mints.

Patrick uses a magnet to open the puzzle box and finds a keycard to JG Allen Tobacco company, letting himself in, he gets caught of course and tells Lisbon he left message on heh voicemail.  Patty asking if he should get down or put his hands up, only from Patty!  Jeremy's boss Francesca (Nicole Bilderbeck) says he was working for her on a project developing seeds, called Turbo Wolf.  Patrick tells them Lisbon's not his boss, but she adds she is.  He finds out that Jeremy's work area was bugged and Jeremy stole the seeds when he found out they were to be put into storage.

The security guard, Elwood (Michael Whaley) is brought in for questioning but doesn't say much.  Patrick finds Jeremy's notebook but can't decipher the code, so he makes up the name of a pharmaceutical guy, Olivier and copies part of the code from his notebook.  He gives a copy to the security guard, one to the boss and one to Matthew.  Thinking one of them will be able to decipher it.

Cho is brought onto task again by Tamsin Wade (Monica Gabriela Curnen) as part of the Rapid Response Unit and they break a counterfeiting ring.  Whilst in pursuit, Cho comes across Summer (Samarie Armstrong) at the raid.  She claims to be a bystander, but Wade wants to press charges. Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) tells Cho he dodged a bullet with her, also cos Summer is pregnant and is engaged but the baby's not his.  She was visiting with Chuck.  When Cho and Rigsby go to arrest him, there's another chase, as usual and Cho gets the brunt of it.  Oh Rigsby you need to speed it up a little.  Chuck (James Jordan) is willing to testify against the ring if he's given a deal which includes Summer being released.  ADA Osvaldo Ardiles David Norono) is on hand to make the deal and he didn't want to prosecute a pregnant woman anyway.  But Wade did and she's annoyed Cho went behind her back and she can't trust him, though she would have shot him down if he had told her what he wanted to do.

Patrick and Lisbon get Rigsby to play Olivier and see who comes a-calling at the hotel room.  Soon enough Francesca tells him she has the seeds and lets Rigsby sample the product, which immediately gets him high.  Matthew also arrives thinking he's got the real seeds.  Patrick thinks they should split the $4 million between them and Francesca refuses.  Matthew wants to and lets slip how he broke into the safe for the seeds, as well as killing Jeremy.  Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti) tells him Francesca changed the seeds so he killed Jeremy for nothing.

Patrick hides Lisbon's keys in the puzzle box and then she smashes it with a hammer from her desk, he can't believe she keeps it in her desk and she tells him he doesn't know everything about her.  Hmm wonder what that was about then, you know Lisbon having secrets, just like Patty does.  Also a brief parallel at the beginning when they met with Alice and she tells them that Jeremy could be secretive, ring any bells here, as said.

A fairly routine episode, a little slow in places since there wasn't much on Red John, not that we expected there would be.  At least Summer came and went, so we don't have to put up with her anymore, didn't like her storylines either, she wasn't quite right for Cho.  Didn't think much of Wade either, calling them "ladies" when she walks in.  Her character is a bit too much like that of Det Wallowski, that Monica used to play in Lie To Me.  Infact she seems to have similar character traits here too. Then referring to Lisbon as "your cute boss" to Cho, what's up with that?  Maybe she has designs on Cho, romantically, maybe she's another one who's up on the CBI and its nuances, perhaps even in league with a certain RJ, but that sounds a bit far fetched, even for me to mention.

Patrick: "I know I met Red John now, shook his hand."  Which is just more teasing on his part for viewers, cos not much will come of this anytime soon.  Of course that could mean just about anyone under the moon and also a convenient way for producer and writers to name just about anyone as RJ when they feel like it.  Patrick could just as easily have met him on screen, in TV speak, meaning the meeting didn't really take place until it's actually written in somewhere along the way in a script.  Also his saying "it's a curse some people live by" when Alice tells him Jeremy would be impressed he figured the puzzle.  Reinforcing what we know about Patrick already, he is gifted and is good at what he does. Yet has to suffer those with less intellect than him.  Must be frustrating especially since it sometimes makes him come across as a bit arrogant at times.

 Liked Patty coveting the puzzle box as soon as he found it, "it's mine"  me adding to that line perhaps, "me precious."  Haven't seen him that possessive before.  I would have called Patty cute here, never mind Lisbon, ha.  His hair kept changing almost every scene too.  His was back to his old self here a little his RJ 'obsession' aside and especially the way he sympathized with Alice when he asked her what's wrong with her.

Lisbon: "You only think you know everything about me."  Isn't Patty supposed to know everything, even about Lisbon.  The way she smashed the box showing she doesn't really have time for his 'games' and if she wants to, she will take the lead and be his boss.  Though Patty was gobsmacked and a little heartbroken I guess that she didn't ask him how to open it, or indeed how he did manage to open it.  In that respect, Alice was more interested in than Lisbon.

Rigsby hungry again and wanting the cheese, as does Patrick when he finds his con is getting interesting!  Some funny moments from Simon and Owain here showing us just why even Red John aside, this show is so riveting.  Even if Poor Van Pelt is left to interview the suspect after arrest and always break the bad news to them of how they needn't have bothered committing the crime, or it was futile.