Recap — The Mentalist 2.11 “Rose-Colored Glasses”

We begin The Mentalist “Rose-Colored Glasses” with Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) and Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti) canoodling in the CBI break room. They quickly break apart just before their boss Lisbon (Robin Tunney) arrives to tell them there’s a double murder to investigate in Rancho Rosa, where “the local sheriff is in over his head”.

As Lisbon starts to head off with Rigsby, Van Pelt stops her and mentions that she’s been promised more time in the field. Lisbon agrees and tells Rigsby to take office duty on this one. Van Pelt is thrilled, and quickly asks Rigsby if he’s okay with this. He replies that he is, but we can see he’s a little unsettled by it.

Van Pelt joins Lisbon and Jane (Simon Baker) at the crime scene. A couple in their thirties, Selby and Jana Vickers, were found shot in the chest in their car. Jane spots a bottle of liquor in the back seat, while Lisbon informs him that it’s a local lovers’ lane for teenagers, and that the sheriff thinks it’s a simple robbery gone bad.

When Van Pelt remarks they’re too old to be necking, Jane asks “There’s an age limit on that?” Van Pelt quickly remarks that their clothes aren’t disheveled, which Jane agrees with. He also notices a piece of paper tucked into Mrs. Vickers’ dress. It’s a price tag, noting that the dress was $800. Jane has an “a-ha!” moment. He conjectures that they were going to something where they wanted to impress people, perhaps relatives or people from their past. Mr. Vickers needed a drink of Scotch just to take the edge off.

He has Van Pelt guessing for the occasion, until Lisbon insists he get to the point. Sighing with disappointment, Jane turns and asks the sheriff for the name of the local high school. The next scene begins with a shot of a banner, welcoming the Rancho Rosa High School Class of 1995 to their reunion.

Lisbon and Jane enter the reunion, where Lisbon is immediately confronted by a drunk attendee, who calls her “Stephanie” and swoops in for a kiss. Lisbon tells him she’ll arrest him if he does it again. “Sorry, I had to,” he says. “You’ve always been the one.” Lisbon lets go of her gun and heads into the party with Jane. As they survey the crowd, Jane says with a smile, “High school. Best years of your life, eh?”

At the greeter table, current high school student Tess tells them to pick up their name tags and reunion books. Lisbon identifies herself as CBI and asks if the Vickers were expected. Tess confirms they were, and also for the next day’s homecoming picnic and dance. Lisbon asks to see someone who would know the Vickers, and Tess points them over to the reunion committee chair, Willa Brock.

Jane teases Tess, asking if they looked old enough to be reunion attendees. “Everyone over 21 looks the same to me,” she chirps. “Tactful and evasive,” Jane compliments, “You’re going to do very well in life, Tess.” Tess giggles happily as they move on.

Willa and another former student, L.J., let Lisbon and Jane know that it was surprising that Selby Vickers was going to attend the reunion. He had attended previous reunions, most likely due to his expulsion from high school years before, for a “prank”. Selby apparently dragged “socially-challenged” Derek Logan into the girls’ locker room, blindfolded him with his own underwear, tied him up naked, and took his picture and posted it all over the school.

Asked if the two know anything else, they quickly talk about how popular they were in school and how Selby was a nobody. Willa says she’s hosting a talk show in Chicago and doesn’t even hear about her own family. Asked to point out Derek Logan, a third person joins them, laughingly asking “He’s not here, is he?”

Willa introduces the newcomer, Gabe Nyland, to the CBI. Turns out Gabe is the DA for San Diego county, and also a candidate for lieutenant governor. Jane asks how Nyland knew Logan wouldn’t be there. Nyland tells him Logan left school and moved out of state after the prank. “Word is, he killed himself.” LJ. claims that he heard Logan was a blackjack dealer.

Lisbon quickly stands up and asks Willa if there are students who still live in the area that could possibly tell them something about Selby. Willa refers them to the student ambassadors, who would know which few were still in town.

Next scene we see Van Pelt and Cho (Tim Kang) at Selby and Jana’s apartment. Van Pelt says the mail is all “big bills and small bank accounts.” Van Pelt looks at the surroundings, and a photo of the smiling couple. She surmises that even though they weren’t living high, they were happy.

Van Pelt takes a call from Rigsby, who informs her that Selby’s mother still lives in Rancha Rosa. He stalls to keep her on the phone, and it’s clear that he wants to be in the field. She hangs up when Cho calls her over. There’s a message on the machine, from an irate man demanding his money or “he’ll be forced to take action.”

Back at the reunion, Jane is taking aim at a couple who claim they haven’t seen Selby around town at all. He points out the guy’s hair plugs, his rented girlfriend, etc. As the couple leaves, Lisbon asks Jane what his problem is. Jane answers that it’s just a room full of people lying to each other, trying to prove how much they’ve changed–when the very effort of it proves that they haven’t.

Lisbon then tries to argue that people do change, but Jane shoots down her examples. He believes people’s instincts are the same. He even tries to guess that Lisbon was driven as a youngster, alienating both girls and boys, and that she played the clarinet. Lisbon laughs and tells him he’s not even close. Jane tells her to find out where Logan is, that he’s sure Logan is just as angry as he was 15 years ago. Lisbon’s skeptical, but she agrees to look into it.

Jane asks if he can stay, since he never went to high school and he’s fascinated. Lisbon’s surprised at the confession, and allows him to stay, as long as he doesn’t make her sorry for it.

In the next scene, Van Pelt and Cho are interviewing Selby’s mother. She says she doesn’t want to talk about the prank; that it ruined Selby’s life and chances at college. But she said that Jana helped him turn his life around, and that he’d been doing really well. Asked about Jana’s family, Mrs. Vickers tells them that she didn’t know of anyone. Apparently Jana was from Poland, and Selby had only known her for a couple of months. They’d married after just a couple of dates.

They play the answering machine tape for Mrs. Vickers. She doesn’t recognize the voice, but the call apprently came from the same town Selby met Jana in.

Back at the reunion, Jane witnesses Phil, a former French horn player, getting harrassed by the jock L.J. he met earlier. When Phil leaves the jerks and approaches the bar, Jane buys him a drink. Phil recognizes him as CBI. They talk briefly about Selby’s death not dampening anyone’s spirits, and then Jane talks Phil into confronting the jocks that harassed him in high school. After years of torturing himself over “ifs”, he can at least know he faced up to them.

To Jane’s surprise, Phil walks up to L.J. and punches him, which escalates into a multi-person brawl in the center of the reunion. Jane doesn’t look all that upset as he watches the melee.

Back at the office, Lisbon throws a pencil at Jane’s head to express her frustration over what he did at the reunion, which ended up with people in the hospital. Jane confesses he’d been expecting something a little more controlled, but after all, it was a “cathartic brawl”. Cho interrupts then, saying that INS informed them Jana’s visa had her living at the home of a Terence Madali. Madali apparently had some prior restraining orders from women in the 90s.

Lisbon sends Cho with Van Pelt to interview Madali. She tells Jane to “Go to hell. Take a toothbrush.” Jane asks “Which way is that?” but after an angry stare from Lisbon, ducks out of her office.

Jane joins Rigsby, who has an update on Derek Logan. Jane is surprised to learn that Derek became a heroin addict and died in his 20s. Jane notes that the ID photo of Derek resembles Rigsby himself. Rigsby also has the photo Selby took of Logan, and asks Jane how anyone can recover from that. “In this case, they don’t,” Jane replies.

Next up, Van Pelt and Cho approach Terence Madali at his work in a lumberyard. He confesses to leaving the threatening message on the Vickers’ phone, but when Van Pelt says the couple have been killed, Madali hits Cho hard in the legs with a 1 x 4 and takes off. Van Pelt pursues him, but when he knocks over a stack of metal pipes, she gets trapped underneath them. Cho heads him off before he can get away, taking him down and arresting him.

Back at the CBI office, Madali says he “panicked”. Asked where he was the previous night, he said he was home alone, since Jana left him. He explained that he’d used an Internet service to buy a wife. He’d paid $25,000 to bring Jana over, and then she ran off with Vickers. The threat had been that he’d turn her in to the INS, but Jana said they’d pay him the full amount, that Selby was going to get it from “an old friend”.

Lisbon and Van Pelt discuss the case with Rigsby, who is clearly upset at having to be stuck in the office while Van Pelt works the case. When he shows Lisbon the arrival times of the reunion guests, she’s surprised to find DA Nyland arriving by private jet the day before the murder–even though at the reunion, he said he’d just arrived.

Lisbon and Jane go to Nyland’s hotel room and ask about the discrepancy. He tells them he had a fundraising dinner the night before, and didn’t tell his classmates because he didn’t want them to think it was the only reason he came. Jane is suspicious and asks to see the bedroom; Nyland refuses. Jane runs past him and opens the door, to find Tess the high school student sitting fully dressed on the edge of his bed.

Nyland tries to explain the issue away as being innocent, but Jane keeps pressing. He remembers Tess being “tactful but evasive,” like a politician–like her father. Nyland is stunned, but confesses that it’s true. He got her mother pregnant in high school, and both families promised to keep it quiet. He visits whenever he can, and “does right by her.” Lisbon asked if he’d seen Selby, conjecturing that Selby tried to blackmail him about Tess.

Nyland denies it, saying he had a pleasant conversation with Selby the last time he saw him. Selby had offered to print up flyers for his lietuenant governor run, free of charge. He says Selby was the same way in school, just trying to get people to like him. He adds that the prank Selby did was the same: “He just wanted to be popular.” Jane and Lisbon leave. Jane shakes Nyland’s hand, and tells him his politics are full of “greed and cynicism. But you have a lovely daughter.”

Jane shows up at the next phase of the reunion. On prompting from L.J., Willa tries to get Jane to leave because he’s making some people uncomfortable. When he asks Willa if Selby and Jena should go unavenged because of “low comfort levels”, she immediately back pedals and leaves him to his work. Jane gets himself some food and joins Vice Principal De Souza at a picnic table. DeSouza is bored out of his mind, as he finds the reunions “insufferable”.

DeSouza takes Jane over to the girls locker room where the Selby/Derek Logan incident occurred. He said Selby was a good kid until that happened. He said Derek was “off”, that he always wore the same tattered jacket and hugged the wall as he walked. Jane asked how they caught Selby, since Derek had been blindfolded. He said Derek identified him by voice, and that when confronted, Selby confessed, and offered nothing but a shrug as reason for the prank. We can see Jane’s mind working on all these details.

Back at the CBI office, Jane gets Rigsby to sit down and memorize all the information they have on the reunion attendees, teaching him to associate places in a familar room with packets of information. When he needs to remember something, he just revisits that place in his “memory palace”. When Rigsby refuses to take part in another non-Lisbon-sanctioned scheme, Jane threatens to tell Lisbon about Rigsby and Van Pelt’s relationship. Rigsby tries to deny it, but it’s fruitless, and he has to give in.

Next we see Jane and Lisbon at the reunion dance. Lisbon looks antsy, saying it’s a risk, but Jane’s confident. He tries again to guess what instrument she played in high school, and he’s totally mystified. Back at the greeter’s table, we see Rigsby walk in, looking handsome and confident in a nice suit. He shakes hands with the former photo club president, and introduces himself as Derek Logan. As he walks past Jane and Lisbon, it’s clear Jane is excited about what will happen next.

Rigsby goes around the room and schmoozes the guests, doing his best to remember details. He gets a few wrong, but people seem to be buying it. Only Nyland looks slightly comfortable at seeing him. Touching base at the punch table, Rigsby nervously tells Jane he can’t do it. Jane tells him it’s no problem, if he fails, they blow the case, and he tells Lisbon. Ribsby calls Jane a “cold”, which only makes Jane smile.

Next up, Willa’s on the stage, announcing the Achievement Awards. Rigsby gets up and interrupts her, to give a speech as Derek Logan. He says that Selby called him a month prior, and apologized, and he now knows someone else was there, telling Selby what to do. The CBI team quickly follow anyone who leaves the room. Lisbon finds L.J. vomiting outside, and Van Pelt overhears Phil talking about his child on a phone call home.

Rigsby talks on, saying he’s come to the reunion for his revenge, and finally Lisbon and Jane see Willa heading out of the room. Ribsby raps it up and leaves the stage, while the reunion members look on, confused.

Lisbon and Jane then burst in on Willa’s hotel room, where they find her packing to leave. She says she needs to get back to her TV show. Jane tells her he’s got a title for her new show: “Humiliating pranks and the people who initiate them.” Lisbon guesses that Selby blackmailed her about the incident, which would have jeopardized her talk show, which was about to go national. Willa denies it, saying she didn’t need to pay or kill Selby, because he had no evidence and would have been considered a crackpot.

Jane continues looking around the room, knowing he’s going to find something. He paints a picture of Willa in high school, her perfect life at the top of the social hierarchy. And then Derek Logan must have done something to “irk” her, and upset that perfect world, so she manipulated the people-pleaser Selby into doing her bidding. She humiliated Derek, ruined his and Selby’s lives, to the “delight of her peers” and it was her crowning victory at high school.

Then Jane finds the picture, that Selby apparently took, of Willa next to Derek in the locker room. It was the proof Selby had, and rather than risk being blackmailed again by him, she killed them both. Willa angrily tells them that Derek told people she’d let him touch her. She was humiliated, and so he had to pay. And that once Selby met “that Polish, he grew a spine” and he would have been better off staying lonely and silent.

Jane tells her it was a pity she got done in by her own vanity.

As the police take her away, Lisbon tells Jane it was lucky Willa didn’t destroy the negative. Jane tells her it was a trophy, that she wouldn’t destroy it, because it was proof she could get rid of anyone standing in her way. Lisbon sighs and tells him he’s proved his point that no one ever changes. As they head back into the remainder of the reunion dance, they’re greeted by Phil, who thanks them on Selby and Derek’s behalf. He tells them they’re both invited to the 20th, but Lisbon says she hopes they won’t need to be there.

Lisbon asks Jane how he got Rigsby to participate in the scheme. He says he promised she would give Rigsby the say off. “Not happening,” Lisbon says. Jane pouts, telling her that puts him in an awkward position. Just then Extreme’s “More Than Words” starts playing, and Lisbon says it was her favorite song. Jane tells her she obviously wants to dance to it, and she can pretend he’s the boy she always wanted to talk to but never had the nerve to.

Lisbon gives him a dark look, but she agrees to dance. “No funny stuff,” she asserts. “Really?” he asks, grinning. They join hands and move onto the dance floor, and dance very closely. They’re silent for a few moments, and then Jane asks “Trumpet?” The camera spins around to Lisbon, who’s resting her cheek against his shoulder. “Nope,” she says sweetly, closing her eyes. They continue to dance as the scene fades out into the credits.