Let me tell you the story 'bout the call that changed my destiny.Ah, suburbia.  Where the grass is always green and the sun is always shining.  We open up on a shot of a beautiful suburban home, where everything looks peaceful and perfect.  But since this is a crime drama, it only takes about half a second for the utopian scene to be disrupted by the arrival of a SWAT team.  They burst into the house and immediately head for a locked room.  Inside, a semi-naked man is sitting on a bed with the bloodied body of a semi-naked woman lying next to him.  He’s crying and seems to be in a state of shock, and doesn’t respond when the SWAT team breaks down the door.  This whole scene would be a lot more interesting if my sister hadn’t forced me to watch Desperate Housewives all week. This guy ain’t got shit on those crazy ladies.

Laying down the law
I’d like to dedicate this recap to whoever invented the AutoSave feature on Microsoft Word.  It’s nice to know that, if your computer MOTHERFUCKING CRASHES FOR NO APPARENT REASON before you manage to save your recap, it will still be there when you finally get the piece of shit working again.  No offence Veronica (what I named my computer), but I sort of hate you right now.

THIS IS RELAVENT TO MY INTERESTSA few notes before we start this week’s recap:

1. Simon Baker was named one of People Magazine’s sexiest men alive!  And guess what for?  Yup, the hair.  He’s actually quoted as saying “my hair has a personality of its own” in the article.  THESE ARE TRUFAX. 
2. We completely kicked NCIS’s ass in the ratings, making us the number one show on Tuesday night!  What what in the butt!
3. Finally, today just so happens to be my 20th birthday!  And I’m spending it at my computer, writing a recap for you guys.  Y’all best to feel the love.

Jane makes friends wherever he goes.We open up at the Davis Motor Inn, a ridiculously craptastic motel.  A police car pulls up and a young officer immerges.  The motel director leads the cop to a room in which gunshots sounded, and the cop knocks on the door.  When nobody answers, the cop (who looks absolutely terrified by the whole situation) finds the door unlocked and opens it to what is quite possibly the least gruesome crime scene in the history of crime scenes.  He doesn’t seem to appreciate the complete lack of gore and quickly spins away from the room, panting hard.  Buddy, I suggest that you stay away from Quentin Tarantino movies.

It’s nighttime at the Temple of Harmony, a very peacefully looking house.  A woman runs out of the front door, clearly very upset.  Another woman follows her, calling her Rosemary and telling her that she’s in “serious danger.”  Rosemary just keeps walking and tearfully exclaims that she’s not listening.  Well, this isn’t very harmonious.  Rosemary walks down a sidewalk and pulls her ringing phone out of her purse.  She looks at the caller ID and then shuts it off.  Then a silver car comes speeding after her, knocking down trash cans as it jumps onto the sidewalk.  Rosemary tries to get away by running into the street but the car follows her, and she cries “no!” before it hits her.  She rolls off the windshield and into the gutter, dead, and the car drives away.

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.

Hi, I'm Annie, and I'll be filling in for Gemma this week while she's busy partying with hookers and blow. No, I'm just kidding. It's crystal meth, not blow.

Hey, it's Ron Butterfield! Well, Michael O'Neill has been in a lot of other things but I've been watching a lot of The West Wing recently so right now he's Ron Butterfield. Anyway, Sheriff Ron Butterfield greets Jane, Lisbon and Cho and tells them he called them for help because his small town department isn't equipped to deal with a potential murder case. Lisbon snaps that her team doesn't help, they take over, and he needs to be okay with that. Taken aback, Sheriff Ron Butterfield agrees and Jane apologetically explains that Lisbon isn't a morning person.

Hi, my name is Patrick Jane and I'll be seducing you today. 

Settle in, folks, because I am bringing a little more snark than usual this week.  It’s not really show’s fault, I just haven’t slept in a very, very long time and I’m starting to get a little bit cranky.  It’s all out of love, I swear.

Best. Episode. Ever.A little girl and her mom frolic happily on the beach.  That never leads to anything good.  The girl picks up some seaweed on the sand, and is promptly traumatized for life when she finds the body of a blonde girl underneath it.  Cut to the CBI headquarters, where Lisbon and her new sporty ponytail are debriefing the team about the dead girl.  Her name was Christine Tanner, she was 15, and she was hit in the head with a surfboard and then drowned in a ditch.  Not in the ocean, as we would expect.  While she’s doing this, Jane is…waltzing with Van Pelt?  He calls it “finding where she hid the van keys,” but whatever.  Van Pelt seems to be mentally telling him to go in one direction, and Jane seems to buy it until he suddenly goes in the opposite direction and finds the keys.  The team shares a giggle at this tomfoolery, and God help me, but I think I might ship it.

You can't touch this.This week, show has decided to clarify what the title means for those audience members (read: me) who didn’t think to Google it.  Apparently, a mentalist (noun) is “someone who uses mental acuity, hypnosis and/or suggestion; a master manipulator of thoughts and behavior.”  Thanks, Webster’s!  Although that might have been helpful last week.