The Mentalist 1X10: Red Brick and Ivy

This was fun. We don't usually get to see the murder, only the aftermath. Also, I thought it was delightful when the chancellor was claiming his confession was inadmissible, and Lisbon was like, 'You think that, but Jane does this all the time and somehow, it always works out in our favor.' 🤣

Okay, so, a researcher is about to give a talk at a university. He takes a sip of water and drops dead. Turns out, there was cyanide in the water. One of the main suspects turns out to be Patrick's old psychiatrist and she called him asking for help. Telling him he owes her.

So, the team gets to work. They are immediately unhappy when they get a clue that this might be animal right's related, as they are always a pain to deal with. They head over to the university and find out that they have found a part of the brain that basically turns off the evil gene in people (or something similar). Patrick (and I) think this is pretty much hogwash. But he and Lisbon continue listening. They find out that they've moved on the animal trials and Patrick meets a happy go lucky monkey who wants to share his banana with him. All seems good here. Then, they get a quick peek at the human trials they've started, but we don't see much.

Afterwards, they interview the ex wife, the research assistant, and the psychiatrist. We find out that the ex wife is totally out of the running, the research assistant was having an affair with him, and the psychiatrist basically knows more than she's letting on. Once, we kick Lisbon out, she tells Patrick that the dead guy (her ex) was going to expose all the data tempering they've been doing on this project. It 100% does not work. But if that were to happen, the university would lose a bunch of funding, so someone killed him to keep quiet. Turns out his research assistant knew too and was also gonna talk (oh yeah, they killed her too). She claims she doesn't know who is killing them, but it has to be over this.

Patrick sets up a scenario where he pretends the project works and they've 'made him evil.' He runs to the room where the researcher keeps his gun. And he tells them he knows one of them killed the two people and if they don't tell him who, he's going to shoot the psychiatrist. The researcher says he doesn't know and Patrick shoots her. She falls down 'dead.' After making the same threat again, the chancellor confesses. He claims he was just trying to protect the researcher.

The psychiatrist pops up (she's fine) and the men realize this was all a ruse. The chancellor claims this is all inadmissible because it was given under duress and coercion, but Lisbon dismisses that tells him they have a warrant for his house and are searching it right now. Plus, they are used to way Jane does things by now and it always seems to work out for them.

I'm assuming that at some point, we're going to have some sort of romance between Patrick and Lisbon. She's too flirty with him. I'm not opposed to this, but I hope it takes a while. I'm really enjoying the rest of the story right now. I'm not ready to bring a relationship arc in just yet.