The Mentalist Wiki
Register
Advertisement

Red All Over is the twentieth episode of season two of The Mentalist

Summary[]

When a media mogul is murdered, Patrick Jane and the CBI team investigate cult leader Bret Stiles, who may have had an axe to grind following the publication of a critical story about his group.

Recap[]

CBI has to investigate the death of media mogul, Xander Harrington, murdered in formal wear at his own party.

Stabbed in his office with a letter opener, Harrington bled out for a good twenty minutes before succumbing. Nothing else is amiss in the office, except a file of a confidential business sort is missing. This file contained the names of employees who were to be laid off on Monday. One of the attending reporters even has blood on the bottom of her shoes. Xander’s brother Ed told the reporter about the list and she was just satisfying her curiosity.

Visiting the family brings more things to light — patriarch Alex’s much younger wife, Tara, is busy blaming herself because she had security cameras turned off in the home. Alex himself is reeling. Xander had organized a coup to take over the family’s media conglomeration, and become CEO. Finally, Xander’s daughter Ashley is holding secret tea parties under tables and saying things like her dad went on a trip.

The family had received threats from a group that would appear to be a cult. Founded by a man named Bret Stiles (Malcolm McDowell), this group, called Visualize, specializes in “brainwashing with a sideline in tax fraud.” The threats are in response to an expose that the family’s newspaper was planning to publish.

Cho attempts to get some kind of useful information out of them, while Jane takes a seat in the Visualize assessment room where prospective members are tested for inner vision. After a series of questions, Brother David determines that Jane has issues with “paranoia, depression, and negative thinking in general" and insists he needs their "immersive Visualization program," but Jane has been leading him on and isn't buying.

While Lisbon is visiting the family again, Alex receives a threat via text message — specifically for a bomb in the grand salon. Lisbon instructs him to evacuate everyone he can, and then calls Jane for help in finding the bomb. Jane tells her to get out of there even though he correctly figures out where the bomb would be hidden in that room. Ashley comes in, slides under the couch, and will not leave. With ten seconds left on the bomb, it starts beeping, Lisbon panics, and disarms it by tearing the wires out.

Once the adrenaline subsides, Lisbon starts asking to talk to the staff and people who had access to the room. Suspicion eventually lands on Sadie’s assistant, Elizabeth Stanfield. While looking in her apartment, Cho and Rigsby find an autographed copy of Bret Stiles’s book Visualize.

Lisbon and Jane go back to speak with Stiles. Jane calls Stiles out immediately as an undeniably charming con-man, but still a con-man. Stiles responds by bringing up Red John and Jane's dead family.Lisbon puts the boys back on track and somehow Stiles knows that Elizabeth is with Ed Harrington.They catch Elizabeth there and when they bring her in to HQ, she begins acting very strangely.

With more threats for the Harringtons coming in, Alex asks Hightower for extra protection — specifically, Lisbon and her team. It’s arranged and they use it in concocting a ruse to catch the murderer — Xander’s own father, Alex. Jane plants the idea that Ashley witnessed the whole thing by uncovering (planting) a teacup in the office. When they fake a security breach and send them to the panic room, Alex starts to subtly question Ashley about the “game” that he’d been playing with her daddy. Cho pops out at the opportune moment to arrest

Its revealed that while Xander was managing the coup, Ed was having a relationship with his stepmother, Tara.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Recurring Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

Trivia[]

  • This is the first appearance of Red John suspect Bret Stiles.
  • Visualize is a clear satire to scientology, and Bret Stiles is based after L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of scientology
Season 2 Episodes
Redemption  · The Scarlet Letter  · Red Badge  · Red Menace  · Red Scare  · Black Gold and Red Blood  · Red Bulls  · His Red Right Hand  · A Price Above Rubies  · Throwing Fire  · Rose-Colored Glasses  · Bleeding Heart  · Redline  · Blood In, Blood Out  · Red Herring  · Code Red  · The Red Box  · Aingavite Baa  · Blood Money  · Red All Over  · 18-5-4  · Red Letter  · Red Sky in the Morning
Advertisement