The Mentalist - S1E1 - Pilot

Chapter 5

The team were inside Price Randolph's house, analyzing the crime scene. They were accompanied by one of CBI's forensic investigators, Brett Partridge.

"Red John enters here," Partridge says walking from the side entrance of the home towards the living room. "Excuse me, sorry," he whispers, asking Rigsby to give him some space.

"He comes around here. He waits for her, expecting her to come in alone. Only thing, her friend Tannen chose the wrong night to come over for a Richard Gere and ice cream orgy." Partridge waits a moment for a reaction to his joke but no one obliges, giving him irritated looks instead.

"So Red John zaps 'em both with his trusty stun gun and..." Partridge walks towards the edge of the living room. "and... excuse me..." he again whispers to Rigsby.

"Grabs a 5-iron from the bag here and...BAM!" Partridge races towards the middle of the room and theatrically imitates the murder of Dr Tannen. "Crushes Tannen's skull. Then he takes his sweet time dealing with Alison how he likes. She's a nice big girl, so unless he's pretty strong, I'm guessing that he grabbed her by the arms and..."

As he spoke, Patrick Jane had turned away from his dramatic storytelling and walked into the Price's bedroom where Alison was found dead.

He entered the room and looked across the stained bed. A grim look had marred his face. Jane walked in and observed the couple's life, as told by the pictures stuck on a mirror on Alison's messy makeup desk. There was a picture of a flower with the quote, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Beside that, there were various personal pictures. A young Alison on a toy horse, a photo of the couple near a pool with Tag in the background scowling, and finally the ghastly smiley face drawn in Alison's blood above the makeup desk.

Seeing that red smiley face triggers a memory of Jane's previous life as a psychic.

— 5 years earlier —

A younger, more presentable Patrick Jane speaks into a microphone at a TV show where he's invited as a guest psychic.

"He says he's sorry for all the pain he's caused you and your mother. Deeply sorry. He asks you to forgive him. Can you do that, Jenny?"

A sniffling woman on the verge of a breakdown nods vigorously.

"He needs to hear it."

"I forgive you, daddy", she manages to whisper with her voice almost breaking. The audience is gripped with empathy and tears, as Jenny screams out at the top of her lungs, "Daddy, I forgive you."

"He's smiling now." Jane says quietly into the mic. "They're tears of joy. He says 'God bless you and keep you.'" While Jenny continues crying, Jane suddenly lowers his mic and changes his expression. "He's gone."

The TV show music plays as a cue for the audience to applaud, and Jane heads back to his seat at the sofa after his successful piece of audience interaction.

The two hosts, Kelly and David, are standing, welcoming back Jane.

Kelly: "Amazing, amazing. Amazing."

Davis: "She's... amazed."

He chuckles and they all sit down.

Davis: "Patrick..."

Jane motions him to stop, as he sips on his tea.

Kelly: "Give him some time."

Davis: "Absolutely! Come on back to us."

Jane: "I'm back. Thank you."

Kelly: "He's back."

Davis: "So, Patrick, I understand that you're also sort of a paranormal detective. Is that right?"

Jane: "I try to help the police when I can."

Davis: "And-and you're helping them hunt this scary serial killer. What;s his name? Red John."

— —

Back at Price Randolph's bedroom, Brett Partridge enters the room.

"There she blows. Classic Red John smiley face. Drawn in the victim's blood. Clockwise with three fingers of his right hands, wearing a rubber kitchen glove. I'm stoked to finally see one in the flesh." Partridge comments with a cheeky smile on his face.

Jane interrupts with a surprising comment. "This isn't Red John."

"Right..." a skeptical Partridge replies.

"Red John thinks of himself as a showman, an artist. He has a strong sense of theater. In all the previous killings, he made sure that the first thing that anyone sees is the face on the wall. You see the face first and you know. You know what's happened and you feel the dread. Then, and only then, do you see the body of the victim. Always in that order. Here, it's the opposite. The first thing you see is the body and you have to look around to see the face on the wall. Doesn't play nearly as well, does it?"

"Depends on your taste, I suppose", Lisbon offers her weak explanation.

"No, come on. The killer could've painted on the correct wall here", Jane said, pointing towards the wall that could be seen directly from the front door and the corridor that leads up to it, "but he didn't because he didn't know better because he isn't Red John."

"Wow. It's... interesting." A frowning Partridge says, trying to suppress a condescending laugh.

Jane finally talks to Partridge after a long sigh. "You know what your problem is, my friend?"

Partridge shakes his head.

"You enjoy your work a little too much. You're a ghoul. If you don't get horny reading 'Fangoria', I'm Britney Spears."

"I-I resent that." Partridge stutters out his words.

"This is you trying to redeem yourself, is it?" Lisbon sharply asks.

"I'm sorry. He irks me. He's irksome."

As Jane walked out the bedroom, he made a final comment. "You don't need me here."

The trio of Lisbon, Cho, and Rigsby all were left with a faint smile on their faces.