The actress who played the daughter was incredibly wooden. She was incapable of pretending to shed a tear, or even look remotely angry or sad. She scrunched up her face but there was no emotion there. There was a semi-comedic scene where she was reading her lines intentionally badly on set; ironically, that was her best acting yet. She just looks like she's fumbling while reading her lines in all her scenes anyway.
Even in the climax of the final confrontation scene, she just looked fake. She was supposed to act like her stepmother was tearing her life apart, so her face should have shown betrayal, pain, SOMETHING. Instead she looked like she needed to sneeze.
Jane had to go on set and tell the stepmother her acting was unbelievable, while her daughter's acting was great. I would have laughed if I wasn't cringing. Her "stepmother" acts like an Oscar winner next to her.
The Mentalist is a pretty hammy show and even the main cast isn't believable a lot of the time, but this side character had the worst actress of this entire show thus far.
Review of A Dozen Red Roses
