The Mentalist 1X6: Red Handed

Okay, so they totally threw me off with this one. I assumed we were setting up the son-in-law to be the red herring. But, alas, he was the actual culprit. Dun dun dun.

We've got a hand chilling in the middle of the road right between the boarders or California and Nevada, and both states are hoping the other one ends up with the case. But, surprise! CBI is the winner! So, while they are waiting around for forensics, Patrick deduces pretty much everything about the guy who used to be attached to the hand. No one is surprised how spot on he was, right?

Turns out he runs a casino, so we'll be doing a lot of gambling in this episode (unless you're Patrick, he's just winning). When they go to notify the guys family, the son-in-law is too busy watching the football game and growling at his wife to pay that much attention. But Patrick does find out that Meier (the dead guy) always has a 100k casino chip around his neck for good luck. The more we look into it, the more it's looking like a mob hit, but Matt (the head of security) swears that it's been years since the mob ran Vegas.

Once we get to the casino, Patrick begs Teresa to give him some money to gamble with, promising to triple her money. She hands it over and goes with Matt to the security room to look over some footage. While they are there, they get a message that someone is cheating at table 42. Wanna guess which table Patrick is at? Of course he can count cards. But, he also informs Matt that the dealer is cheating as well. Patrick takes his $250,000 that he won and they head back to the station.

Patrick decides that the dealer just needs extra money for her mom's liver transplant, and is not the killer, so they decide to cut her loose. Then, he hands over crazy ugly (but very expensive) jewelery and watches to the rest of the team with part of his winnings. The girl eventually, decide they can't keep theirs, but the guys keep their ugly watches. Later, Patrick tosses the jewelry and the rest of the cash into a donation bin.

Then we find out that Meier's wife was (is?) having an affair with Matt. But she swears neither of them had anything to do with his murder. But, while at the house, Patrick gets the son-in-law to get him into a crazy high stakes poker game for later that eventing.

After we leave, we had over to Matt's house and find the body of Meier in the freezer. But, it's fairly obvious that he has no idea what's going on. But that's okay because Patrick's got it all figure out.

At the high stakes poker game, Patrick ends up playing against the son-in-law at the last hand of the night. He causes a distraction and during it, he swaps the card decks making sure that son-in-law has a monster hand. One you have to bet. But of course, Patrick made sure to deal himself a slightly better hand. So, with four kings, but no chips left, son-in-law pulls out the 100k chip that was around Meier's neck. Patrick ends up winning with his straight flush and son-in-law is arrested as soon as he leaves the room.

Afterwards, we find out that Patrick ended up gifting the 300k he won in that game to the dealer to pay her mother's medical bills. Man. I wish I had enough money to gift it to other people. I remember the days when I actually had extra money to donate. Those days feel very far away right now.