The Scarlet Letter (1 Oct. 2009)

While CBI investigates the murder of a California state senator's aide, Patrick works on his own under the assumption that the victim was having an affair with a member of the senator's family.

Director:

Charles Beeson

Writers:

Bruno Heller (creator), Tom Szentgyorgyi,

Stars:

Simon Baker, Robin Tunney, Tim Kang

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Simon Baker	...	Patrick Jane
Robin Tunney	...	Teresa Lisbon
Tim Kang	...	Kimball Cho
Owain Yeoman	...	Wayne Rigsby
Amanda Righetti	...	Grace Van Pelt
Terry Kinney	...	Sam Bosco
Christian Clemenson	...	Dr. Roy Carmen
Paul Fitzgerald	...	Elliot Batson
Treisa Gary	...	Dede Guerra
Paul Michael Glaser	...	Walter Crew
Mary Pat Gleason	...	Charlotte McAddo
Fay Masterson	...	Melinda Batson
Josh Stewart	...	Harlan McAdoo
George Wyner	...	Coroner Steiner
Daniel Zacapa	...	Janitor

Storyline

Californian state senator Melinda Batson's recently graduated aid Kristen Marley was pushed from a Sacramento bridge, staged as a suicide. The rumor of an affair with Melinda's husband and chief of staff Elliot is denied and he has an alibi, but Jane taxes their marriage loveless. CSI concentrates on Kristen's dubious stepbrother Harlan McAdoo, who expected a false alibi from her in another crime. Patrick turns a false trail into a crucial clue. And handles Bosco's obstruction in his Red John interest.

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Plot Keywords:

affair | stepbrother | false alibi | frame up | stepmother | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 October 2009 (USA)

Filming Locations:

837 Beacon Ave, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Primrose Hill Productions, Warner Bros. Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

43 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

16:9 HD

Did You Know?

Trivia

Minelli congratulates Jane for getting Lisbon to "drink the Kool Aid." A reference to the Jonestown mass suicide.

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Quotes

Kimball Cho: If she's a jumper, job's done.
Wayne Rigsby: Yeah. The senator's husband dumps her, she wants to make him feel bad
[Rigsby whistles]
Wayne Rigsby: splat.
Grace Van Pelt: Don't talk that way.
Wayne Rigsby: Okay not splat, bam.

User Reviews

The Mentalist 'The Scarlet Letter' Review

When there is a murder and thousands of suspects, you can count on Patrick Jane to narrow the odds. He even puts a time frame to when he would catch the culprit.

Things only get tricky when you're trying to solve a crime and politicians abuse their power to seal their footprints from the sand.

Jane always carries a self absorbed ego with him and this episode was not without his grim certainty and extraordinary detective skills to discover that the cleaner wasn't so much the mopping floors, cleaning the bathroom type and was more the type to cover up a bloody murder.

I found myself torn between deciphering 'who did it?'. The Politician and her husband were the obvious villains, but just because they didn't have the occasional heat in their marriage it didn't mean they were guilty. The stepbrother was the decoy thrown into distract us, so he was too obvious to be the one to kill his own step sister. The old lover unmasked by Jane was another suspect, but he was also the politicians father and this webbed episode turned into an entire chase that would have your head spinning.

When the cleaner put the knife on Jane it was rather foolish of Patrick to believe he was actually going to sit down, maybe Patrick believed he could outsmart him somehow.

The revelation of the many affairs that went on; father sleeps with daughter's lover, isn't really something you hear everyday and wasn't the favorite case of the hour, but how about holding a dead guy in an interrogation room to get everyone to fess up. Guilt reveals all and the truth can't remain hidden forever.

Now that Jane is off the Red John case, he is going all out of his way to get on Bosco's good side or his bad side as the case might be. His determination to catch the person that ripped his family from him, is like a venom that is seeping through his veins. It is the only crime he can't solve, the one thing he can't get his hands on and Bosco is just another splat in his way. At least that's why he planted a bug in Bosco's office, to get one step closer. It's almost depressing seeing a calm Patrick Jane carry so much pain.

We could depend on Rigsby and Van Pelt to add some romance and innocent flirtation to brighten this crime drama. Lisbon is often a tease when it comes to taming Jane, but it's just about time before he gets face to face with Red John, then all gloves are off.

Lexa Reviews

http://lexabuti.blogspot.com

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Four out of Five Stars

Grade B+

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