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Pink Tops is the eighth episode of Season 4 of The Mentalist.

Summary[]

The CBI tries to figure out who killed an undercover narcotics officer who was killed in an alley outside a nightclub where she was investigating a drug dealer.

Recap[]

The victim is still alive. She’s hanging out at a very busy night club, clearly trying to catch the attention of a slick-looking man she called “Omar”. Things seem to be going well until she gets a clearly upsetting text message and starts hurrying out of the club, continuing a conversation by text. Even the unidentified girl trying to follow her can’t keep up. She gets out to the street and to the deserted area around her parked car and bang – shot from behind, two to the head.

A short time later, Lisbon and Jane arrive at the scene, wondering why they’d been called in for a seemingly tragic, but all too common, shooting outside of a night club. But this shooting is anything but common.

Seargant Henderson is trying to play it off that way though, until Jane points out that the dead woman was not a typical “club girl”. Her nails were short and badly painted and she showed signs of being awkward in her spike heels. Finally Henderson pulls them aside and confesses, quietly, that she was actually an undercover narc named Yolanda Concepcion, or Yoli as everyone called her. She was investigating a dealer named Omar Vega and her true identity needed to remain a secret – the case was ongoing and there were other undercover cops to protect. By the time Lisbon’s finished this conversation, Jane’s already at the club looking for Vega and having no luck with the owner, Vince, who avoids answering questions by claiming he can’t hear.

Once Lisbon gets there, he stops the music and offers $500 to anyone willing to point out Vega. No one’s willing, but he still finds Vega since he’s the one person everyone was avoiding looking at. Vega will only admit that he knew Yoli and that he heard she got “popped”. He also claims he has “nothing to hide”, but Jane knows otherwise and points out that he’s trying to hide his anger about something.

Back at the station, Henderson’s filling everyone in on Vega. It seems he came in and took over the drug trade in the area in less than a year and runs it like a group of terrorist cells, with no one knowing more than what they need to know for their individual job. They’ve had no luck so far getting into his inner circle. Assignments go out. Cho and Risby are sent to check out a hotel room paid for with one of Yoli’s credit cards. Van Pelt is to keep tracking her missing cell phone and to get the records and Jane and Lisbon are off to see Yoli’s family.

At Yoli’s house, they meet her husband Lalo and his cousin Elvia, who’s been helping with the kids while Yoli’s been undercover. Lalo’s clearly bitter that his wife has been killed for the “war on drugs”, but it’s Elvia that Jane’s curious about. She does seem oddly cheerful considering the death in the family. He corners her in the kitchen where she initially claims they were “like sisters” before confessing that she’d been following Yoli the night before. She’d found condoms in her pocket while doing laundry and thought she might be having an affair. Lalo’s angry that she might have been responsible for her death and kicks her out.

Meanwhile, at the hotel, Cho and Rigsby burst into the hotel room and discover a hooker and her client, in a very compromising position. They bring Summer in and for questioning, but at first she claims to know nothing and to be more interested in propositioning Cho. Finally, she admits that Yoli was already dead when she found her, so she took her cards. She’s also the one that made the anonymous 911 call reporting the shooting. She knows who Vega is though, and makes a deal with Cho. If she provides useful information, they’ll drop the theft charge against her. She offers that Vega was recently fleeced by a group called the “Perry Boys”. He’s now after revenge and his stolen goods.

Van Pelt’s also made some progress. She’s gotten the texts from Yoli’s phone. The idea of an affair rears its head again, since the last one suggests meeting at a “favorite hotel” for some champagne. Lisbon sends her back to Yoli’s house to look for more information there. When Lisbon and Cho head back to Henderson with their separate bits of information, things come together a bit differently. He already knows about the Perry Boys an apparently the “affair” language is part of a code that the Perrys use when texting each other about their activities. Lisbon calls Van Pelt and tells her to switch from looking for evidence of an affair to evidence that Yoli may have been on the take, but Van Pelt’s already looked through both Yoli’s work computer and her laptop and found nothing. Lalo suggests she look on the computer in the kids room – Yoli was paranoid – and behold, there are pictures of the Perry Boys’ house. Lisbon invites Jane to go along to check it out, but he’s busy with other things at the station.

Jane has already spent his time questioning Yoli’s partner Bianca, who swears that Yoli would never cheat. Now he’s looking for Trey. He asks him if it’s hard living double lives and fakes a “spill” to steal some of the evidence he’s checking in.

When Lisbon and Henderson arrive at the Perry Boys’ house, they’re already dead and whatever drugs they had are gone. One of them was killed with a video game controller in his hand, not a gun. They were killed the same night as Yoli, and with the same gun.

Jane’s plan, it turns out, is insane and really supports the theories that there’s just something “not right” about him. He goes to Vince, the club owner, and intentionally pisses him off, pointing out that he knows Vince is laundering Vega’s drug money and that he wants to talk to Vega about a deal. Vince passes the message in record time; Vega’s goons are already waiting for him outside. Jane was ready for that, he had Cho and Rigsby ready to follow a tracking device he was wearing.

Unfortunately, Cho and Rigsby weren’t ready for Vega’s men taking Jane’s jacket and shoes and throwing them out the window. They’ve lost him. Cho gets the idea to go back to Summer for a lead on Vega. She’s pissed at first, though she also seems legitimately attracted to Cho. She finally sends him to an abandoned garage that Vega works out of. In fact, Jane’s in front of Vega there right now, seeming oddly calm since he must know he’s on his own unless Cho and Rigsby can find him without the tracker. He’s offering Vega a deal he knows he’s already been offered, forcing Vega to call his bluff and bring out the dirty cop that already made the offer – Bianca. She incriminates herself on everything, she has to because Vega’s ultimately planning on shooting the one he decides is lying; she made a deal with Vega, she killed Yoli because she’d become suspicious, and she killed the Perry Boys too. Vega’s still trying to figure out which one of them to shoot when the cavalry arrives to arrest everyone. In her formal confession, Bianca says she meant to make it look like the Perry Boys had killed Yoli, but that when she got there, things didn’t go according to plan.

One final ending twist, Cho goes back to Summer yet again. He says he wants her to be a confidential informant, and does indeed sign her up as one.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Recurring Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

Season 4 Episodes
Scarlet Ribbons  · Little Red Book  · Pretty Red Balloon  · Ring Around the Rosie  · Blood and Sand  · Where in the World is Carmine O'Brien? · Blinking Red Light · Pink Tops · The Redshirt · Fugue In Red · Always Bet On Red · My Bloody Valentine · Red Is The New Black · At First Blush · War Of The Roses · His Thoughts Were Red Thoughts · Cheap Burgundy · Ruddy Cheeks · Pink Champagne on Ice · Something's Rotten in Redmund · Ruby Slippers · So Long, and Thanks for All the Red Snapper · Red Rover, Red Rover · The Crimson Hat
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