So I was watching this week’s episode of The Mentalist, and a couple of things about it bugged me. Overall, I really enjoy the show (and this episode), which I think coasts by on some clever writing, hints of darkness, and Simon Baker’s not inconsiderable charm. But the show isn’t perfect, and this week’s episode was no exception. Some spoilers follow.
First, there was the Taser scene. Agents Lisbon and Rigsby are trying to take a suspect in for questioning. The suspect gets angry, pushes Rigsby away, then moves threateningly towards Lisbon. And then she, very calmly and with a smile on her face, Tasers him. Leaving aside the potentially ugly subtext of this being an angry black man going after a white woman — which I suspect was unintentional — I was a little disturbed to see a Taser depicted as the acceptable, immediate go-to for law enforcement. (That’s what it’s increasingly become, but there’s plenty of evidence that that’s not a good thing.) It was a quick scene, played mostly for laughs — but I think that’s maybe what bothered me most about it.
Then there’s the fact — and this is the much bigger spoiler — that the episode is all about revisiting the sins of Patrick Jane’s past and the consequences of the lies he told as a “spiritual medium.” Except it turns out that this one wasn’t a lie. He told a woman that her husband was cheating on her. She divorced her husband, and now he and their son blame Jane for the whole thing. But the husband was cheating on her. Jane may have been lying about how he knew this — more direct observation, less spiritual connection — but I would have liked it more if he’d told her what she wanted to hear, ruined a man’s life, and then been wrong. This way offered too quick a redemption — See? He cheated some people, but he probably helped this woman. Heck, she even went on to happily re-marry. The show has demonstrated it’s willing to take Jane into some dark emotional places; I wish they hadn’t pulled their punches like this.
Oh, and while I’m speaking of spiritual mediums, it turns out that my former Jujitsu instructor is one. I don’t know exactly how — if at all — to feel about this, largely because it’s been close to twenty years since I was a student with him. But I find the whole medium thing rather morally dubious. I suppose there’s something to be said for providing comfort to grieving family and friends, but that comfort comes with a pretty high price, as well as claims to psychic abilities I’m fairly certain I don’t believe in.