Chances of rain this evening and tomorrow. That makes two Fridays in a row, if it comes to pass. Not an end to the drought by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a start.
Had a call from Pete Crowther today, asking me if I would consider editing one of his forthcoming books. Heck, when someone like Pete asks, how can you say no? So I didn’t. Today’s newsletter from PS Publishing has some of the details about the project, but my job probably won’t kick in until sometime later this year or early next. Cool getting the chance to work with PS Publishing, though.
I don’t usually catch bloopers, but I spotted one on The Mentalist last night. A subtle one. When Lisbon brings the pizza to Hightower at the camp hideout, Hightower is reading while her kids are playing. I’m always curious about what characters in shows and movies read, so I kept an eye on the book to see if I could make out the title or the author. As Lisbon approaches, she sets the book down on the picnic table, face up. There’s an immediate cut to the reverse angle shot and the book is now face down. Alas, I couldn’t make out any details about the book, though.
Pretty amazing ending to The Mentalist, though, right?
The bombing plot was a little overblown, but it had it’s moments. I loved Patrick’s reaction to seeing Lisbon in the bridesmaid’s dress. “Beautiful, a princess. An angry little princess. Someone stole your tiara.” Per usual, Cho doesn’t even blink when he says they have to go to a crime scene. “You might want to change.”
Hightower is ready to come in from the cold, especially after her cousin, who’s been helping her hide, is murdered. “Are you alone?” she asks Patrick. “Just me and my demons,” he answers. Is that the first time anyone has called Cho by his first name? (Kimball)
Okay, I want to go on the record here: I totally called it. I knew who the mole was two or three weeks ago. I found at least one post (May 6) where I said this, and I thought there was another because I’ve had this notion for a while. So I was pretty disappointed when it looked like I was wrong at first. “It’s not you, it’s me,” Craig says at the end, the stereotypical brushoff. I guess that mean’s the wedding’s off. I wonder about the necklace he gave Grace. When he did so, I thought that it might be bugged, but if that was the case he would have heard everything and cottoned onto Patrick’s floor gag. He pulled it off her neck at the end. Given that she just put a bullet in her fiancé, I was a little disappointed when she went to him instead of tending to Lisbon in the aftermath.
The last several minutes, though, were amazing. I noticed the guy sitting in the food court before and wondered if he was someone we should pay attention to. The voice was convincing. I remember thinking when we first heard it (when Red John quoted the poem that Cho knew by heart, of course) that Red John might be a woman. The conversation at the table was so surreal. “I want to release you from this curse you are under,” Red John says. “I look at it more like a hobby,” Patrick returns. Red John then teases Patrick, saying that he’s not the devil or a monster, just an regular human being with flaws and vices and problems, just like everybody else. “I’m not worth ruining your life over.” Then he has to dig a little deeper, telling Patrick to live his precious life, find a woman to love, start a family…the very things Red John took from him. Patrick’s response: when you’re dead.
Finally, Red John provides the proof Patrick needs to believe that this really is his nemesis. Details about wife and daughter that seemed to ring true with him. Patrick seems emotional. Vulnerable. And then he does the unexpected and uses one of those guns he’s always condemning everyone else for. His mission is at an end. He puts the gun conspicuously and gingerly on the table, calls for the check (the woman looks at him like he’s insane: no blame there) and calmly drinks his tea while the police arrive.
Where does the show go from here? If that really was Red John, we still have a lot of unanswered questions. How does he get an FBI agent to do his bidding? What power and influence does he did he possess? It’s possible that Lisbon won’t believe that he really is Red John, which would be a nice reversal next season, provided Patrick doesn’t spend all 23 episodes locked up in jail. Pretty amazing.
