The Mentalist: Red-Handed (Episode 106)

First and foremost, a big thanks to Annie for taking over the last episode for me!  And, of course, for outing my sex and crystal meth addictions.  Admitting you have a problem is the first step, and it’s been tough, but if Mulder and Stephanie Tanner can overcome then so can I!

We start off this episode at the Nevada-California state line.  Jane, Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt assemble around a dismembered hand with the number 43 written on in the middle of the road.  Rigsby complains about how difficult dismemberment cases are and how they don’t really have much to go on, so Jane lists some facts about the deceased that he’s determined just by looking at the hand.  He then gets down on all fours and sniffs the hand.  Perfectly normal.  He lists a bunch of details about it that somehow amounts to the hand-owner being rich and working as “upper management in a hotel or gaming business.”  Cho thinks it’s just a guess and actually bets money that Jane is wrong.  It’s only 35 cents, but still, can you say guaranteed loss?  More importantly, we learn that Cho has one of those big Crayon banks that he puts all his loose change in, making me love him even more.  Lisbon comes over and tells them that the hand is in California, and therefore it’s their case.  The fingerprints have identified the victim as James Quincy Meier, who runs the Calinda Resort and Casino.  The team heads off to work, and Cho gives Jane the 35 cents.

Sometime later, Lisbon, Jane and Van Pelt meet with Jim’s family at their home.  They confirm that the hand was severed post-mortem.  I have to give Lisbon credit for losing the Mom Jeans hair.  Her do is a little Farah Faucet right now, but it’s a big improvement.  The last time the family heard from Jim was when he called the previous night from a casino phone, as he didn’t believe in cell phones.  Wow.  Join this century, buddy.  Jim was always working, which means that there’s hidden resentment in this family and probably some deep dark secrets as a result.  35 cents says that somebody’s screwing somebody they shouldn’t be.  We also learn that James’ son-in-law, Daniel, worked for the casino, rounding up big gamblers (or “whales”) and getting them to bet more. 

Jane wanders into another room, looking at books and pictures and such, and sees a picture of Jim and Frank Sinatra.  Jim’s daughter Jessica follows him and we discover that Jim wasn’t around a lot when she was growing up.  They walk back into the living room just as Daniel freaks out over the football game that he’s watching.  35 cents says he’s addicted to gambling.  Though the whole cutting off the hand thing is a mafia signature, the mob doesn’t have a lot to do with casinos these days, so it’s doubtful that Jim was killed by them.  Robbery also isn’t a likely motive, since Jim never carried any cash.  “Jim’s word was money,” his widow Ann informs Lisbon, which is possibly the lamest thing ever.  She also mentions that Jim wore a lucky $100,000 chip around his neck, and shows the team a picture of it.

Lisbon, Jane and Van Pelt arrive at Calinda.  They meet Matt Etienne, the casino’s head of security.  Jane goes off on a tangent about how casinos use the same techniques on humans that animal handlers use to control flocks of sheep and cattle.  He sounds pretty critical, but when Matt asks him what his point is he says “Oh, no point. I love it.”  And we love you.  His hair notices a man gambling at a nearby table (shocker!) and Matt informs him that he’s Logan’s asshole father from Gilmore Girls Cal, a whale. Jane decides to play the tables for a bit, and gets Lisbon to lend him $100 after he promises to pay her back triple.  He goes over to a blackjack table and the games begin.

While Jane is no doubt dominating at the card game, Van Pelt and Lisbon head to the security headquarters.  Van Pelt checks Jim’s calendar and learns that he had an 8:30 meeting on the day he disappeared, and this entry was annotated with the number 43.  When Lisbon brings up the possibility of a mob hit, Matt basically calls her an idiot and says that the mob doesn’t run Vegas anymore.  Seriously, Lisbon, don’t you watch CSI?  Mob activity is so done.  We cut back over to the blackjack table, where Jane has made quite a bit of money.  He draws 17 but hits again, which is not the smartest move in blackjack.  But low and behold, he draws 21!  He takes his substantial winnings and heads over to another table, this time with a pretty Asian dealer.  His magical hair powers luck continues, so much so that security suspects him of cheating and Matt is alerted.  He and Lisbon rush down to the table (which is table 43, btw) to ask WTF is going on, and Jane’s tells them that he’s simply memorizing cards.  Matt talks to him like he’s about three years old, saying that “we don’t like it when people do that.”  Heh.  He threatens to bar Jane from the establishment, so Jane calmly gets up and informs him that the Asian dealer has been cheating.  Apparently, she’s been flashing cards to a portly Asian man at the table, guaranteeing him success.

In the local police headquarters, Cho is interrogating the dealer, Alexandra.  The big guy is her cousin, and they were splitting his winnings.  It turns out that Alexandra’s mom is in desperate need of a liver transplant, and she had been stealing money in order to pay for it.  Since Jim wrote “43” on his hand they assume that he knew about the cheating and fired her.  The fact that she came back to work suggests that she already knew he was dead.  She claims that she came back to beg for her job and when she found out that Jim was dead and he hadn’t told anyone else about her misdeeds, she just went on working as usual.  Jane interrupts the meeting and asks if Matt had anything to do with the scam, and she denies that he did.  He thanks her and tells her that she’s free to go, and Cho sort of sputters his confusion at this.

Lisbon also doesn’t understand what Jane is up to.  He’s completely unconcerned with the whole “breaking of laws” thing.  He also insists that Matt is lying and that they should let Alexandra go to make him suspicious and tell him that they’d like to speak with him.  But enough of all that official stuff, because Jane has presents!  He pulls out two white boxes from a Calinda gift shop bag and hands Lisbon and Van Pelt one each.  Inside are gorgeous necklace and earring sets, emeralds and diamonds for Lisbon and rubies and diamonds for Van Pelt.  Why can’t I have co workers like this?! Rigsby and Cho walk in and want to know where their gifts are, since getting stuff just for the ladies “would be creepy.” Jane pulls out two more boxes that contain ridiculously blinged-out watches.  They’re heinous but very expensive, so the guys like them anyway.  God, this is the cutest scene ever.  This group has great chemistry together.

Jane wants to take the team out for an expensive dinner but Lisbon puts her foot down, so they eat at a semi-crappy bar.  Van Pelt asks Jane how he managed to win so much without cheating, and he explains that he gives each card in the deck a character.  For example, the jack of hearts is “a ballet dancer with devil’s horns” and the two of diamonds is a “duck smoking a cigar.”  He also says that “every position is a location in [his] memory palace.”  This is a vivid place in your mind that you can mentally walk around.  His is a Midwest carnival circuit, so he sees the card characters in different places at the carnival depending on where they are in the deck.  Wow.  That’s both completely crazy and world-endingly adorable.  Jane seems to use that combination a lot.  Lisbon finally breaks up them party and says that they can’t keep the gifts, even though Jane tells her how well the emeralds go with her eyes.  Aw.  And I’m not gonna lie, Lisbon is looking kind of hot in this scene.  The whole bar atmosphere really suits her.  If it turns out that she had a past in a motorcycle gang I will love this show forever.  Anyway, she and Van Pelt return the jewels (reluctantly on Van Pelt’s part) and leave the boys alone.  Once the ladies are gone they tell Jane that they aren’t given their watches back, and he gives an enthusiastic “that’s my boys!” and taps beers with them.  And I take back what I said before; this is the cutest scene ever.

That night, Jane’s insomnia acts up.  Oh, nice continuity, show.  Eventually he gives up trying to sleep and collects the jewels that the girls gave back.  He puts them in a bag and drops in a Planet Aid collection box.  Could he be more adorable in this episode?  I just want to hug him as well as some other stuff.  Lisbon calls him and says that Ann the window wants to confess something, so they head over to the Meier house.  Ann admits that she was having an affair with Matt.  Called it!  I believe someone owes me 35 cents.  As it turns out, Jessica was aware of the affair.  “I didn’t like it, but I understood it,” she says.  “Dad was neither there for mom.  Or me.”  This girl is damaged, you guys.  I don’t mean that because of her statement; there’s just something about her.  Ann insists that she still loved her husband and didn’t want any harm to come to him, and that Matt wouldn’t have killed Jim to free her up.  Jessica becomes upset by these insinuations, and starts to say that her mother isn’t a whore before she’s cut off by her husband.  Wow, looks like whoring is a sensitive issue for her.  Spoiler?  After this heart to heart Jane takes Daniel aside and asks if he can get him into a high-stakes poker game with Cal the whale.  Daniel agrees to set it up.

Later on Lisbon and Jane arrive at Matt’s house, complete with a warrant and several police officers.  Lisbon accuses him of letting Alexandra continue to run her scam because she knew about the affair and threatened to tell Jim.  He confirms their theory, and says that he didn’t mention the affair earlier because it had nothing to do with the murder.  Jane, who has been wandering around during this conversation, finds footprints in the dirt leading to Matt’s garage.  They go inside and open a freezer, only to be greeted with the sight and smell of Jim’s decomposing body.  Yuck!

They take Matt back to the police station, where Cho gets his interrogation on.  Matt explains that, on the night Jim was killed, he and Ann planned to meet up at the Pine Branch Motel at 12:30.  Since he left work at 11 pm, there’s quite a chunk of time unaccounted for, so the team is still suspicious.  Matt claims that he wouldn’t have needed to kill Jim to get Ann because Jim was so obsessed with the casino that he wasn’t even in their relationship anymore.  He was so obsessed, in fact, that he constantly watched security tapes of the whales to see what they were up to.  After the interrogation, Van Pelt says that Jim’s cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and that his lucky $100,000 chip had been ripped off his neck.  Lisbon sends Cho and Rigsby to Jim’s office to look for the DVD copies of the security tapes he was watching on the night of his death.

While everyone else is doing the boring work, Jane arrives at his poker game.  There are several other players, including Cal and Daniel.  One guy calls Jane Goldilocks, which means that the hair will exact sweet and painful revenge on him shortly.  Jane maintains his sweet and proper demeanor, which makes the eventual pwning all the more hilarious.  I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but Jane never seems to quite fit in with any group he’s with.  Even earlier at the bar, there was a feeling that he and the team were not quite on the same level.  I don’t know how Simon Baker does it, but it’s very affecting and he deserves all sorts of praise.

But enough of all that thinky stuff.  Rigsby and Cho are looking all around Jim’s office but they aren’t having any luck finding the DVD.  Rather than spend hours looking through the entire bookcase, Cho calls Jane.  Jane (who pretends Cho is his girlfriend!) tells them to look in the Bible, and sure enough the DVD is there.  It contains footage of the door to Cal’s suite.  A scantily clad woman knocks on the door, and Cal lets her in.  Sexytime!  They rewind the DVD to try and get a look at the woman’s face, and holy daddy issues, Batman, it’s Jessica!  I told you guys she was damaged.

Lisbon confronts Jessica with the footage.  Jessica denies that she had sex with Cal.  Lisbon says that they took a look at her financial situation, and she’s currently drowning it debt.  Apparently Daniel is a professional gambler, but not a very good professional gambler.  Speaking of which, he is sucking all sorts of ass at the poker game.  The only players left at Daniel, Cal and Jane, and Jane is winning by a landslide.  Both Cal and Daniel go all in on the next hand.  Daniel wins, so Cal is out of the game.  Daniel is feeling lucky, so he challenges Jane to another game.  This doesn’t bode well for him.

Rigsby and Cho catch up with Cal as he’s leaving the casino.  They show him the video.  At first he’s evasive with their questions, but when they’re like “how about we charge you with murder?” he decides to open up.  The night before the video was recorded, Cal played in a game with Daniel and cleaned him out.  Because Daniel is “a degenerate gambler” he wanted to keep playing, and put his wife up as the equivalent of $50,000.  He lost the game, and Daniel made sure Jessica upheld the deal.  “Man’s a second-rate card player, but he knows how to control his women-folk,” Cal says.  Well no wonder he can’t get any action on his own; he’s a complete slime ball.  He makes sure to clarify that Jessica was very willing so that he doesn’t get arrested for rape, and unfortunately they cannot take him in on counts of douchbaggery.

Back at the poker game, things are not looking so good for Daniel.  He has to win the next hand to stay in.  Jane sets on an ice cube, and when it falls to the floor and Daniel and the dealer turn to look at it he slips some cards into the deck.  He set it up so that Daniel gets four kings and an ace, a nearly unbeatable hand.  He’s so excited that he wants more to bet with than the little he has, so he pulls out Jim’s $100,000 chip.

Dear Daniel,

FAIL.

No love,
Gemma

Good lord, that might actually be the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen.  To make matters worse, Jane set himself up for a straight flush, so Daniel loses the game.  When Daniel tries to leave the room, Cho and Rigsby are waiting outside the door to arrest him.  They take him back to the station and he confesses everything.  Jim confronted him after he saw the tape, fired him, and said he would do everything possible to get him out of Jessica’s life.  Daniel responded by shoving his father-in-law’s head through a car window and beating him with a bat until he was dead.  He cut off his hand so that the police would suspect mob involvement.  He dumped the body at Matt’s house because he knew the affair would come to light, making Matt a perfect scapegoat.  That’s an awful lot of planning for someone without a brain.  Before they take him away he asks Jane how he won the last hand, and Jane calmly informs him that he cheated.  Suck on that!

Ann and Jessica are waiting outside of the interrogation room, having just heard the entire confession.  Jane returns the chip to Ann and tells Jessica that her father died protecting her.  “So in the end, he was there for you,” he says.  That’s supposed to make her feel better?  She’s prostituted herself out, her dad is dead and now you’re essentially saying that it’s her fault?  Comforting fail.  Anyway, Jane goes back into the main workroom of the station and lies down on the couch.  Rigsby and Cho approach him and ask how much money he won in the last game.  Their faces light up when he tells them his pot was about $300,000, but alas, he already spent it.  On what you ask?  Well, we cut over to a hospital room in which Alexandra the dealer is sitting by her mother’s bedside.  A nurse enters with a suitcase and tells Alexandra that “a really cute blonde guy left this for you at the front desk.”  She opens the suitcase and burst into joyous tears when she finds that it’s filled with money.  Back on the couch, Jane smiles.
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NEXT WEEK: A medium and a mentalist!  Oh the shenanigans!