Red Is The New Black is the thirteenth episode of Season 4 of The Mentalist.
Summary[]
A disgraced fashion designer is murdered right before he makes his big comeback, and Agent Darcy begins to suspect that the man Patrick Jane killed was not Red John.
Recap[]
Jane pulls up on the scene of the crime this week to find Van Pelt talking with Mr. Liu, the owner of the import/export business below the loft rented by victim Wyck Theissens. Joining Lisbon and Cho upstairs, Jane observes that the place looks like a Puritan tailor shop, at least until he discovers the secret door behind some very plain dresses that clearly don’t have feathers like the gold one found in Theissens’ mouth. Behind that door hides the product of a great deal of work by an apparently very high-end fashion designer, and a pair of very large, very bloody fabric shears.
Research into Theissens shows that he was, indeed, a pretty famous designer until about 2 years ago, when a videotape slamming the industry, and his backer at the time. A French CEO named Guy Duval.
There’s no match for the prints on the murder weapon, but fabric like Theissens has been working with is expensive. Barring any other evidence, Lisbon suggest they check his financials. The money has to be coming from somewhere. In the meantime, Wainwright met with Agent Darcy. She’s back in town and doesn’t buy that Mr. Panzer was killed by the father of one of his victims, and she’s still not convinced that Red John is dead. She tells Wainwright she wants to review the Red John case files.
Back on the current case, Lisbon gets a call that Theissens’ “assistants” that his landlord told them about had shown up back at the studio and she takes Jane to go talk to them. The three of them have a solid alibi, they were arrested at an “occupy” demonstration the night before, but they’re not the “hooligans” that Mr. Liu called them. They’re design students that been working with Theissens on his new line for Duval. He’d been financing it by making knock-off dresses for Mr. Liu to send back to China. The reason Mr. Liu was so upset was because he’d just been told that he wouldn’t be making them anymore. The new line was supposed to premier next week. They also said that Theissens had been arguing with Duval a few days ago. Lisbon tries to talk to Mr. Liu, but his employees said he went to the CBI, a quick call to Rigsby shows that he’s not there either and the hunt is on for him while Jane and Lisbon go try to talk to Duval.
At the hotel, Lisbon can’t seem to get past Duval’s secretary, but nothing can stop Jane when he wants something. He sneaks right into the private dining area and invites himself to Duval’s table. A younger man, Junior Acosta, confronts Jane, but Lisbon has caught up and quickly points out that they’re with the CBI and need to talk to Duval about Theissens’ murder. Duval doesn’t look like he knew Theissens was dead. He’s reluctant to talk about their argument the other night, other than that it had to do with the “secret” clothing line, but yes, he was still buying a line of clothes he’d never seen. You make allowances for genius, even ones that insult you. Duval says that Theissens derailed his own career after that, but Jane accuses Acosta of doing it. Indeed Acosta did release the video and jumps up, pulls out a knife and threatens Jane. That’s enough to get him arrested and taken in for questioning. Lisbon stops in Wainwright’s office on the way in to apologize for missing the earlier meeting, freaking him out because it’s full of Red John files, and makes an appointment to discuss the case.
Then, in the interview at CBI it is proven that Acosta’s having sex with Duval’s wife and isn’t a very nice guy. He points the finger, anonymously, at a photographer named Tony Redgrave. He says that the argument was actually about using Redgrave around the kids Theissen was planning on bringing in. It seems he’s “creepy” and “likes them young”. But he’s also a great photographer that everyone uses.
Jane heads off to talk to Redgrave, while Lisbon goes to her meeting with Wainwright. The meeting is very brief. Wainwright’s clearly distracted even before Darcy calls him. She’s been talking to the morgue attendant that was there when Jane brought in Red John’s “friend”, Rosalind Harker, to identify the body of the man he killed. The morgue attendant remembered the visit because he thought it was odd that Jane would bring a blind woman to see the body.
Working the case at hand, Jane and Van Pelt find Redgrave and while he is creepy, he doesn’t even appear to care that Theissens is dead, unlike the model getting all weepy in front of the camera. Redgrave is scum enough that he’s eating up her sadness and shooting away.
Cho and Rigsby have had better luck. They’ve tracked Liu’s cell phone to a warehouse. On the approach, Rigsby tells Cho about the baby coming and that it’s complicated. They’re at the warehouse and on their way in, following the sound of Liu screaming. They find him being roughed up by a couple of badass looking Asians. Liu tries to soften things up by telling them that it’s all okay. They’re all friends and there’s just been a misunderstanding, but Cho and Rigsby know a beating when they see one and aren’t buying it.
At the same moment, Darcy is paying a visit to Rosalind, who does confirm that the body she visited wasn’t her friend, the man she’s been told was Red John. Back at the station, it seems the only English the thugs know is “Lawyer” and Liu will only say that they were there to convince him to keep the dresses coming. It’s possible that they went to see Theissens too, but if they did, they can’t be caught and, indeed, Wainwright’s talking to someone from the Chinese Embassy and they’re about to get cut loose. They’ve got diplomatic immunity. Jane has enough time to waive a feather under their noses and determine that they didn’t do it.
Darcy’s back at the CBI now too, finally ready to talk to Jane about her continued investigation. She tells Jane about the visit with Rosalind. While he confirms that she didn’t identify the body as Red John’s, he also says he didn’t consider her a reliable witness. It had been years since she’d last seen him. Darcy looks “half-convinced” as she walks away. Jane tells everyone that they’re going back to the hotel. The feather is the key, the killer will react to it. Privately, he talks to Lisbon about the conversation with Darcy. They’re both concerned that she’s still investigating, but at the same time, Jane decides that they shouldn’t stir up more trouble themselves and just stick to the story. Just as they’re leaving, Van Pelt notices that Rigsby is reading a baby book. She handles his news very well, considering their prior relationship, and is very supportive of his misgivings about the timing. He tells her that they’re not planning on getting married.
Jane is on a mission at the hotel. He hides the feather in Duval’s pocket, he’s mystified. He hides the feather in a magazine for Acosta to find, he’s also confused. In Regrave’s room, he sets up an elaborate affair with room service and Redgrave’s reaction is a let down too, but Lisbon notices the model on the couch freaking out. She calls Jane’s attention to it just as she jumps up and races out of the room, only to be intercepted and arrested by Van Pelt in the hallway. Lisbon tries to tell Jane he’s losing his touch, she wasn’t even a suspect, but he just says that proves the trick is good.
When they get “Sasha” into interrogation, she confesses. She went to see Theissen because she assumed she’d be featured in the show, he used to call her his muse. First he didn’t want to show them to her. Then, when she saw the dress with the gold feathers and talked about wearing it, he told her that he had someone else wearing it (one of the students), that it needed to be someone “new” and “fresh”, that she was too old and so she stabbed him to death with the scissors.
Jane gets a call from Rosalind. Red John has paid her a visit and wanted to let Jane and Darcy know that he’s aware of the “misunderstanding” and will be taking steps to correct it. Jane rounds everyone, including Darcy, up and heads to Rosalind’s house, but Red John’s gone. Rosalind’s disturbingly playing the piano as they find the body of the morgue attendant in her closet. In the final moments, Darcy confronts Jane again, wanting to know if he’s still trying to convince her that Red John is dead.
Cast[]
Main Cast[]
- Simon Baker as Patrick Jane
- Robin Tunney as Teresa Lisbon
- Tim Kang as Kimball Cho
- Owain Yeoman as Wayne Rigsby
- Amanda Righetti as Grace Van Pelt
Recurring Cast[]
- Michael Rady as Luther Wainwright
- Catherine Dent as Susan Darcy
- Alicia Witt as Rosalind Harker
- Xander Berkeley as Roy Tagliaferro (see)
Guest Cast[]
- Iddo Goldberg as Tony Redgrave
- Cosimo Fusco as Guy Duval
- Riley Voelkel as Tristan
- Griffin Matthews as Rafe
- Becky O'Donohue as Sasha
- Lawrence Adisa as Baris Acar
- Sarah Desage as Jacqueline
- Yuji Okumoto as Mr. Liu
- Van Hansis as Derek
- Andrew Pifko as Wyck Theissens
- Roberto Urbina as Junior Acosta
- Layla Alizada as Assistant
- Nick Jaine as Hotel Clerk
- Cristina Allica as Hipster
- Leticia Peres as Model
- Joseph Kung as Asian Guy
- Sterling Jones as CBI File Clerk
Trivia[]
- The photographer, named Tony Redgrave, is a possible nod to the alias of Tony Redgrave, that belongs to the main character Dante of the game series Devil May Cry.