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Red Badge is the third episode of season two of The Mentalist.

Recap[]

Lisbon sits with her shrink, Dr. Carmen, but doesn't feel like sharing. She's been going for five weeks, but he won't sign off on her yet. He signed off on Jane in one week. "He has good mental health," Carmen says. He recaps Lisbon's life: Mom dead at 12, abusive alcoholic father, now dead, three younger brothers. Her phone rings. She asks why he won't sign off on her. "Because there's something you want to tell me first."

They follow up an anonymous call about a dead body two blocks away. They don't see a body and argue over who has to look in the Dumpsters. Jane notices ants crawling along the wall. They open a door and find their corpse, shot three times in the chest. Lisbon recognizes him as William McTier, a serial rapist who served time at Pelican Bay. She knows because she sent him there.

Back in the office, Jane tries to get Lisbon to relax. He has her breathe deeply then name 20th century presidents as she concentrates on which mug something is under. He says he's reading her thoughts as he picks up a mug to reveal $20. He asks how she knows Agent Bosco.

Out in the office, the team is looking up stories about Lisbon catching McTier. He abducted young girls and she was the San Francisco inspector who solved the case. Reading the news report, they read a commendation from her supervisor: Bosco. They're already looking into the father of one of the girls. Jane goes with Van Pelt to talk to McTier's live-in girlfriend.

The woman, Tanya Derask, says she was Bill's fiancée and he treated her like a queen. She claims he was innocent and was only arrested because a "bitch cop" had a vendetta against him. Tanya's brother David comes in from fixing her sink and says hi. A moment later, a young girl, Emily, comes bounding in the door after school to greet to her mom. Patrick talks to Emily and sends her to the kitchen. He tells Tanya he doesn't think Bill touched her daughter yet, because he was grooming her, Van Pelt adds. Patrick runs through Tanya and Bill's relationship: They met at a mall where he worked when she was with Emily, probably near the arcade. He was sweet towards her, didn't pressure her to have sex, and was so good with Emily and listened to her daughter. Lately, he'd been asking if he could take Emily on an overnight trip, pressuring Tanya a little and she'd started to have doubts. Watching her reaction, it's clear he's right. Patrick tells Tanya she and Emily deserve better.

Cho and Lisbon meet with someone from the DA's office to prep cases, including Howard Milbank. Rigsby comes in and says they have a problem. They got a print off the gun that killed McTier. It's Lisbon's.

Lisbon meets with Minelli. Her fingerprint was on the magazine. She thinks it's a lab error. She's off the case and Bosco gets it. Jane joins them. Minelli doesn't have an alibi, which Lisbon falters in providing. Bosco wants Lisbon to a polygraph, but she doesn't want to. "Nobody said you did yet," Bosco tells her. She leaves.

Jane finds the team outside, debating whether to interfere with McTier's case. Rigsby is the only one who thinks they should follow up if Lisbon actually killed him. Nobody else minds that he's dead.

Jane meets Lisbon for coffee. He says she lied about her alibi. She resists for a minute, but then admits she can not remember. He wants to hypnotize her but she doesn't want him in her head.

Dreyer, the father of one of McTier's victims, comes in but he'll only talk to Lisbon, so she gets to sit in. He insists he didn't kill McTier. Then he turns on Lisbon and says she could have saved his daughter. He's read the case files and knows Lisbon knew about McTier the week before his daughter was attacked. Lisbon explains she didn't have a strong case then. Dreyer storms out.

Lisbon's ready to take the polygraph.

Van Pelt and Cho talk to McTier's boss at a sex shop. He says he didn't fight with McTier, his friend "Dog" did. So he fired McTier.

Lisbon's waiting to testify when one of the people she's going against, Milton Howard, stops her, trying to get her to listen to his story. Then Minelli comes for her. Lisbon failed her polygraph. She's suspended. She turns in her badge and gun.

Lisbon talks to Dr. Carmen. He tells her to ask to retake the polygraph. She tells him her dad used to have blackouts when he drank and nearly beat one of her brothers half to death. Lisbon wants to know if it's possible she killed McTier and doesn't remember. Carmen can't help her until she remembers.

Lisbon goes to see Jane. He knows why she's there.

Cho and Van Pelt look for info on "Dog" in the files. Bosco finds them and tells them to knock it off. Rigsby stares him down and they get back to it.

Rigsby found that McTier had a cell mate who went by "Dog". It's Tanya's brother, David.

At Lisbon's house, Jane says he's not going to hypnotize her because she's too stressed about it. He continues reassuring her not to be worried about being hypnotized as he counts down from 100 and slowly puts her in a trance. Jane gets Lisbon to admit she dances to her Spice Girls CD before he brings her to Tuesday night. She's finishing forms on the Milbank case. Lisbon pauses when Jane asks where she went after work. She starts to get agitated so he reassures her everything's okay. She can't remember. He calms her down and brings her out of it, saying it's a little weird. She's upset and crying, but asks him to go. He promises it'll be fine.

Back at McTier's house, Cho and Rigsby grab David/Dog.

David says their friend the cop paid him to bring McTier to the alley. But he only got direction through texts. He was supposed to get McTier drunk and take him to the alley. So he did, and ran when he heard shots. The next day, there was $10,000 in his account.

At work, Lisbon and the team lay things out for Bosco. He tells her she's not even supposed to be at work. She starts twitching, then yells and screams that she's sick of everybody and runs to her office, in full breakdown mode. Jane comes in and the team tells him Lisbon is freaking out. He's not concerned until she picks up an office chair and hurls it through an office window. She asks him what's happening to her.

Back home, Lisbon dances to Spice Girls, surrounded by pills and booze.

At the office, Rigsby and Van Pelt have found that the Cayman's account that paid Dog $10,000 paid someone else $1 million, probably the shooter. Bosco hears them, but says it's okay. He asks about Lisbon.

Minelli and Jane worry about her, too. Minelli wishes he'd taken her off-duty weapon.

At Lisbon's house, Dr. Carmen stops by at Minelli's request. He sees the booze, pills and bullets. She turns around with her gun in her hand. She's drunk and upset. She points the gun at him and tells him he was right, she wants to tell him how angry she is about all the bad stuff she sees. She thinks she killed McTier, she admits as she points the gun at her head. He says if she did, it's okay, he was a bad man. She still can't remember. As she holds the gun to her head, he tells her to remember the alley. He walks her through the entire scene, describing every little detail, including the dumpsters and a cross nearby. She's still crying and shaking but then stops abruptly. How did he know about the cross?

Lisbon is completely sober. It was an act. Jane comes down from the darkness upstairs. He commends Carmen for getting her to come back week after week so he could get her fingerprints from the coffee mug and dose her with something to make her lose her memory. He knew she'd conceal the memory loss, which made her fail the polygraph. Carmen realizes her breakdown at CBI was fake. After that, all they had to do was get Minelli to send him there. "I've been waiting for you all night," a cheery Lisbon says. Jane tells Carmen he went too far with the memory loss drug because when Lisbon couldn't remember, even under hypnosis, he knew she'd been drugged.

They bring Carmen in. He wants a deal, but they don't think he even knew who he was working for. Rigsby tells Carmen they do. Milton Howard is walked by in cuffs. Van Pelt explains it took them awhile, but they traced the shell company back to him. Milton paid Carmen and Dog to frame Lisbon to discredit her and get himself off the hook.

Bosco drops in Lisbon's office. He's impressed by her breakdown skills, but a little hurt they didn't warn him it was an act. He heard Minelli is billing her for the window. He leaves when Jane walks in. Jane announces that he sees it now, Bosco's in love with her. Lisbon brushes him off and goes back to fixing up her office, everything hunky dory.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Recurring Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

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
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