Whenever I have some free time to kill or need a break I have this nice hobby: watching TV series.
I know many say it’s a waste of time but in my opinion it’s nothing more that a relaxing way to de-stress a little.
Although I usually prefer sitcoms (Modern Family is one of my favorites), from time to time I like to watch something more serious. “The Mentalist” is one of those TV series that is interesting to watch and also keeps you a bit in suspense for 40 minutes.
The Mentalist is an american TV series that came out in 2008. It’s a “police procedural”, if I may say so, since there is more than one crime in each episode. The series has crime, mystery, drama and just the right amount of humour (policemen are not robots, they can laugh)
The story is about Patrick Jane (Simon Baker, you may recall him from the role of Christian in “The Devil Wears Prada”), a so-called psychic who unfortunately pushed his luck to much and as a result, his wife and daughter got killed by a serial killer who goes by the name of Red John. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must feel like when you find your own family massacred. This hapened to Patrick Jane and from that moment on he decided to dedicate his life to finding the man capable of doing such a horrible thing and get revenge.
In order to accomplish his goal, Patrick gave up his old life of pretending to be psychic and joined the CBI (California Bureau of Investigation) as a consultant for the team responsible with the investigation of the Red John case. Being a really good mentalist, he uses his skills to do good and close real murder cases, instead of deceiving innocent people.
The main character has quite some abilities and soon enough he manages to gain the trust of his team mates. The team leader, Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney) is often annoyed with Patrick’s behaviour. I have to admit at first I found her to be a bit bitchy, but as the episodes goes by you’ll learn to like her a lot. Although it’s hard, she manages to keep it all together and soon enough she also gains Patricks trust and important story details begin to appear.
Kimball Cho (Tim Kang) is the one member of the team who trusts Patrick but also sees through his tricks. He has quite a colorfull past: he was part of a street gang, spent time in juvenille hall and has had a difficult childhood. Later on he became a police officer and because of his past he is one of the most tough and serious ones.
Wayne Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) is the team’s arson specialist. The insecure act is.. just an act. He is a good cop with previous experience before joining the CBI. He’s good friends with agent Cho and also in love with the other woman on the team, Grace. Well, love is all around and dealing with crimes every day is aparently not a good enough reason to stop having feelings.
Grace Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti), the newest member of the team. Young, beautifull, smart and tough. The perfect combination for a special agent.
This is the team that manages to close most cases with the help of Patrick Jane. Supervising agents come and go as the series develops. All are sceptical when it comes to the team’s consultant but eventually the unorthodox methods of solving murder cases turn out to be effective.
The series is still filming (4th season as we speak) so if you are interested in another good tv series, I recommend it.
