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The Blood On His Hands is the third episode of Season 3 of The Mentalist.

Summary[]

When Patrick Jane faces off once again with cult leader Brett Stiles, Stiles offers Jane information regarding Red John and the missing Kristina Frye.

Recap[]

A tattooed lady washed up on a bank of the Sacremento River, found by a jogger. Track marks between her toes indicate a shady past (discovered by Jane — manicure, but no pedicure). The FBI agent on Kristina Frye’s missing persons case calls Jane with a lead — a call on which Kristina's voice was heard was traced to a house, but by the time they arrived to investigate, no one was there and all that was left was a Raggedy Ann doll under a cot on the floor, with Red John’s signature smile painted on the wall.

The agent in charge doesn’t want to hand over the case despite Lisbon’s insistence, and to her surprise, Jane agrees. When Lisbon asks him why, his answer is chillingly concise: Red John let Kristina make a call that could be traced, and is playing a game.

The dead woman is identified as Celia Janovich, and her tattoo is a V symbol favored by members of Visualize, the cult led by Brett Stiles. After joining the cult she beat her drug addiction and started working as a member of its security branch, Vigilance, for Inner Circle church officials. While speaking with two of Stiles’s underlings, Chief of Security Warner Vander Hoek and the group’s lawyer, Julius Coles, Jane sneaks off to go snooping.

He sneaks into a seminar being given by Stiles, who tells him, “How nice to see you!” Their talk is rife with tension and understatements, like Stiles calling Red John a “perfectly unpleasant sort of fellow.” Stiles says if he could get Jane closer to Red John he would, letting on that he knows something Jane doesn’t and Jane is not going to get it out of him, by his usual means or otherwise.

While Cho deals with cult members, Jane sees Celia’s room on the premises and enters to look through her books. He winds up taking a nap on Celia’s bed. Rigsby talks to Celia’s fiancé David Herren, and finds out their marriage was "designated," arranged by high church officials.

Jane leaves the Visualize headquarters and finds a fortune cookie on the hood of the car containing the message “a friend is in danger and needs your help.”

They check in on Herren, who is from a family of old money. He is due to inherit ten million dollars from the family lumber business when he turns 27.

Upon his return, Jane advises them that Celia had trouble with church dogma and they should look for someone she would have been talking with, like a friend who had left the church. They find Lucy Joel, who fears for her life if she tells them anything, but she spills that Celia had been having an affair with someone in the church and the last time they had spoken she had to do something, but didn’t say what.

When Rigsby and Van Pelt leave Lucy’s, they have a brief talk about their relationship. She lied, and it bothers her that he’s seeing someone. Before this conversation can progress further, Rigsby notes that they’re being tailed. Grace tries to escape in the car but gets them rammed by FBI.

The driver of the vehicle is Special Agent-in Charge, Craig O'Laughlin, who was tailing them because the FBI has been surveying Visualize for years on suspicion of tax fraud, racketeering and worse, and they believe Stiles has someone in law enforcement. O’Laughlin and Grace then have a moment, where they recognize each other’s surnames as big college football names.

Jane surmises that the FBI has someone in Visualize, and takes a paper sack to ferret this person out. He pops the bag there, where Brother Wench blows his cover to Jane by reaching for his gun at his hip when startled by the loud noise. They want Celia’s “vent videos,” where all sins were confessed to the camera, because Celia almost certainly named the man she was having an affair with.

They all get caught because Jane gets into the secure room where the tapes are kept. When Stiles and his cronies show up to berate him, Jane convinces Stiles to go along with his ruse by only saying he’s going to surrender the tapes — and exposing Celia’s killer, since s/he is the one who will protest. Coles immediately protests and tries to cover it up, but as Jane says, “That sounds like lawyer speak for, ‘I did it. I did it. I’m guilty!’”

Coles cuts a deal with the FBI for turning over on Visualize, but it was not meant to be. Herren, fueled by a furious calm, shoots Coles and is taken into custody. He says that no one else knew and it was his idea.

Jane gets a text message to meet Stiles, and isn’t exactly pleased to see him. But he hands over something for Jane, a card with an address on it. He says Red John is throwing him a party…

The team bursts into the house at that address, guns blazing, and the house is empty, except for a blank-faced Kristina Frye in one room. When nothing can entice her to speak, Jane lights a candle, and in the fashion of a séance, he calls on the spirit of Kristina Frye. She tells him the afterlife is wonderful, and she hardly remembers her life — it seems “unimportant.” When she denies knowing anything about Red John, he gives up getting more information from her and extinguishes the candle.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Recurring Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

Season 3 Episodes
Red Sky At Night  · Cackle-bladder Blood  · The Blood On His Hands  · Red Carpet Treatment  · The Red Ponies  · Pink Chanel Suit · Red Hot · Ball of Fire · Red Moon · Jolly Red Elf · Bloodsport · Bloodhounds · Red Alert · Blood for Blood · Red Gold · Red Queen · Bloodstream · The Red Mile · Every Rose Has Its Thorn · Redacted · Like a Redheaded Stepchild · Rhapsody in Red · Strawberries and Cream
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