The Mentalist 3X23: Strawberries and Cream Part 1
Added 2025-09-26 19:00:10 +0000 UTCA very nervous-looking man (Jesse Lee Soffer) pulls up to JD's Gas & Go Food Mart in Sacramento in his car. He approaches the station's attendant, Gupta (Ravi Kapoor), but is spotted by two police officers. The man reveals that he is strapped to a bomb, which detonates in the ensuing standoff. The investigation by the California Bureau of Investigation reveals that the man, identified as Alan Dinkler, was coerced (with the bomb strapped onto him) into robbing his employers, a Cash In Motion payday loan establishment, of $50,000.
Jane (Simon Baker) deduces that the stolen cash was a ruse to hide the real item of interest in the robbery: CDs containing client transaction records. When Lisbon (Robin Tunney) and Jane check out the gas station, Gupta tells them Dinkler was trying to get to the bathroom. They enter the bathroom and find the code "AD-297A6 WINDSOR" written on the wall, which they guess refers to a geographic location.
Lisbon pursues possible locations that the code may point to and ends up at the abandoned Windsor High School. Jane follows her there and finds her unconscious and strapped to a bomb. She receives a call from a person speaking through a voice changer who instructs her to obtain the stolen CDs from CBI headquarters and deliver them to the speaker. Jane pretends to follow the demands, but drives Lisbon to the gas station instead, and they find that the one behind the set-up was Gupta. After a standoff, Jane disarms Gupta and takes the detonator for the bomb, and the CBI arrives to arrest him. However, he somehow manages to free himself from his handcuffs in the car and attempts to flee, forcing LaRoche (Pruitt Taylor Vince) to shoot and kill him.
It is later revealed that Jane figured out the code in the bathroom was fake, since the bomber could have directed the victims strapped to bombs via cell phone and wouldn't have needed written codes. Dinkler arrived at the gas station to deliver the CDs to Gupta, but the plan went awry when the police showed up and Gupta set off the bomb. With the CDs now in CBI possession as evidence, Gupta set up a trap to get a CBI agent to retrieve the CDs for him.
The CBI discovers that one of the clients on the list in the CDs, Max James, had been found murdered just hours prior. While searching James' house, the agents deduce that he was tortured to death by Gupta, who wanted information from him, before the Dinkler incident. They find a photo of James with Madeleine Hightower and realize they are relatives, which immediately alerts Jane that Red John is behind everything and is hunting Hightower.
Jane returns to the motel room where he has been staying and Hightower (Aunjanue Ellis) seeks him out.
