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Rose-Colored Glasses is the eleventh episode of season two of The Mentalist.

Plot[]

To find the murderer of a couple shot dead in their car, Jane and Lisbon go to the male victim's high school reunion, where old misdeeds rise to the surface.

Recap & Review[]

A double homicide in Rancho Rosa, California brings the CBI team out of the office — minus Rigsby. Since Lisbon has promised Grace more time in the field, Rigsby is riding the desk on this one. They are investigating Selby and Jana Vickers, husband and wife who were found murdered. With the clues of a “borrowed” dress, an opened bottle of alcohol in the back, and lack of a present, Jane deduces they were headed for a fifteen year high school reunion.

Lisbon and Jane crash the reunion party, where Tess, the cheery student ambassador, points them to Willa Brock, the reunion committee chair. When they speak to her and L.J. Cordova, they learn more about Selby. It was a surprise that he would be attending, expelled before his graduation because of a prank he pulled on a boy named Derek Logan. This prank included taking Derek to the girl’s locker room, stripping him down and blindfolding him with his briefs, and taking and distributing the photographs. When another classmate, Gabe Nyland, shows, it is said that there’s no surprise if Derek didn’t show either — his family skipped out of town shortly after the prank and rumors of his demise are wide and varied.

Cho and Grace are checking out the Vickers apartment. Nothing jumps out to them, until Cho finds a message on the answering machine of a man demanding his money from the pair. In the meantime, Rigsby calls Grace with next of kin info for Selby and it’s painfully obvious that Rigsby is bored by the amount of small talk he makes. They talk with Selby’s mother who doesn’t have much help, but says his life was meandering along until Jana came. She doesn’t have any next of kin contact because she moved from Poland, but when they play the message for her, she recognizes Galitan, CA as where Jana was from when she met Selby.

Jane is having something of a blast at the reunion, a hotbed of people lying to each other. He even pins down Lisbon as not changing since high school — driven to succeed, shutting out girls, blowing off boys, and wondering what it is she really wanted. Also, she played an instrument. Perhaps against her better judgment, she gives him permission to stick around. He observes as LJ and his toadie are reminiscing with Phil about how they used to call him Frog Man and put dead birds in his locker. At the bar, Jane encourages Phil to confront LJ. This ends in a brawl.

While people are in the hospital, Jane assures Lisbon that souls were healed. Cho interrupts to tell Lisbon that Jana’s INS records state a Galitan address of Terence Badali. Jane is also thrown out of Lisbon’s office at that point, and Rigsby has the Derek Logan update for him. The family left Rancho Rosa for Virginia, he developed a heroin habit and died of an overdose on his twenty-third birthday. He shows Derek’s old school ID to Jane, who is kind of bummed — he liked Derek for their killer. He also comments that Derek looks like Rigsby.

Terence Badali tries to give Cho and Grace the slip, but Cho manages to get him. With Badali under arrest, they drag him in and he does confess to being the one to leave the message on the answering machine. He had brought Jana over from Poland via a dating website of a mail order bride sort. She left him for Selby once they met, and Terence threatened to turn her in to the INS unless he was reimbursed thirty thousand. Jana had told him that Selby would get the money from an old friend.

When it is revealed that Gabe Nyland arrived for the reunion a day early, Lisbon and Jane go to his hotel to pay him a visit. He’s acting a bit shifty and won’t open his bedroom door for them, so Jane does it for him. Revealed is Tess — Gabe’s illegitimate daughter, born a few weeks before he graduated high school. He gives up the evasive politician bit for a moment, and talks plainly about Selby Vickers, painting him as a nice guy who liked to be liked. The pieces are already falling into place for Jane.

He shows up at the Homecoming picnic and latches on to Vice Principal DeSouza, who takes Jane to the girl’s locker room — where the incident took place. Further details of the prank come out. Derek heard Selby’s voice and when DeSouza confronted him, he confessed with a simple “I dunno” as his reasoning.

With the final pieces in place, Jane has a plan. He blackmails Rigsby into making an appearance at the final reunion event as his look-alike, Derek Logan, in order to draw out the murderer. He interrupts the Achievement Awards to give a revenge speech. People start to leave the room and the team follows — LJ to be sick over the side of the balcony, Phil to answer a phone call, and Willa… to pack.

Willa was the mastermind behind the prank that ruined Derek Logan’s life, and Selby had photographic evidence to prove it. With her talk show ready to go national, Selby was planning to blackmail her for the money to pay Terence Badali. She killed Selby and Jana, took the photographs and the negatives, and remained the popular girl who manipulated Selby, a nice wannabe, into helping her ruin someone’s life.

With an open invitation for the twentieth reunion and as they dance the rest of the night away, only one mystery remains unsolved: what instrument Lisbon played in high school.

Cast[]

Main 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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