The Mentalist 1X5: Redwood

Okay, so we've got a dead girl and a missing girl. And rumor around town is that the missing girl killed the dead girl and took off.

Eventually, missing girl, Nicole, shows up at a convenience store covered in blood, holding a knife, with no memory of what happened. The local cops find this convenient and already has plans to book her for murder as soon as she's out of the hospital. Bro. No.

Patrick talks to her and starts to actually get somewhere. She can remember the two girls in the car leaving a party. She asked Kara to pull over because she had to throw up and a man approached. But, then, her hospital monitors start going crazy and the doctor kicks them out.

Even though the sheriff is still sure that Nicole killed Kara, Patrick is not. He's pretty sure she's not only innocent, but a victim. Since she remembered hearing running water, they start checking out empty cabins near the river (or whatever body of water it was). But nothing comes from that.

Meanwhile, we've got an actual suspect. A guy who used to shower Kara with make up and gifts in hopes that one day she'd have sex with him. He's gross and sleazy and disgusting, but Patrick is sure he didn't do it. So, I believe it as well. Lol.

Back at the hospital, Patrick asks Nicole if she killed Kara and she tells him she doesn't know. She can't remember, but she can't think of why she would. Shortly after, Patrick smuggles her out of the hospital. He drives her back down the same road and plays the same music trying to trigger her memory. And it works. We end up with everything except a name.

While this is happening, Teresa is out looking at other cabins with one of the local cops. And surprise, he's our killer. Once Teresa realizes it, she first tries to arrest him calmly, but he's not going down like that. They end up shooting at each other. Thankfully, Teresa happened to be on the phone with Patrick when this all happened, so she slides the phone into the middle of the room, distracting the cop enough to escape. Once he follows her out, she puts a gun to his head, and Rigsby pulls one from the other side.

The one thing that bugs me about this, is when they are talking to the killer cop, he says something like, he noticed Kara once or twice. This is the tiniest town in the world. They went out of their way to say it a zillion times. You were literally just friends with the person your age because they are no people. So how did he only see her once or twice over the years? I know this is meaningless, but for whatever reason, it really stuck with me. 🤷‍♀️