The Mentalist episode “Aingavite Baa” begins with the new boss, Special Agent Hightower, asking for volunteers to collect some intel. Rigsby and Van Pelt volunteer, but she assigns Cho and Van Pelt. As the two agents cruise a neighborhood picking up trash bags for evidence, Van Pelt gets neurotic over Hightower’s decision to keep her and Rigsby apart. As Cho and Van Pelt get ready to leave the neighborhood, a woman stumbles into the beams of their headlights, looking disoriented and bloody. When they rush to assist her, she dazedly asks if they can help her find her shoe.
Jane arrives with the ambulance, and gets the details from Van Pelt while the mystery woman is treated. She has amnesia, caused by a head wound from a bullet. Van Pelt guesses that since she only had one shoe on, she hadn’t been able to get far, so the crime must have happened nearby. Jane concurs.
Jane approaches the mystery woman on the gurney, holding her hand and using some soothing meditative techniques to help “draw out” her pain. When she’s more relaxed, Jane asks her simple questions, hoping to tap into what memories still remain. She remembers being in a room that was cold and dark. With prompting she recalls added details: she was lying down, the floor had dirt and straw, and smelled like horses.
Lisbon arrives, and the team heads to the closest set of stables nearby. They wander around in the dark building with flashlights, until Jane cheerfully announces there’s a light switch. The team is horrified when a flip of the switch illuminates three dead bodies in one of the horse stalls.
At the hospital, a doctor informs the CBI team that their Jane Doe was only grazed by the bullet, but it was enough to knock her unconscious. The team guesses the killer must have just assumed she was dead when he put her in the stall with the others. The mystery woman should get her memory back, but the doctor isn’t sure how long that will take.
Back at CBI headquarters, Hightower calls Lisbon, Rigsby, and Van Pelt into her office. She tells them that she doesn’t always like the rules, but she has to follow them. Rigsby and Van Pelt have one day to decide if they want to break up their personal relationship, or break up their work partnership. After the two leave, Hightower lets Lisbon know she’ll be writing her up for not handling the issue earlier.
Jane can see the three are upset when they return to their own workspace, but none of them want to discuss it. Lisbon asks for an update, and learns that two of the three victims have been identified as Janine and Mitchell Langham. Neighbors claim the couple was last seen going for a hike 100 miles away. This older couple was shot from close range, but the young male victim and the amnesiac mystery woman were both shot from far away. Jane suggests that the Langhams were collateral damage: the two people shot from far away were the targets, and the Langhams may have stumbled onto the crime scene at the wrong moment.
Fingerprints identify the third victim as Leonard Railton, who lived on a nearby Native American reservation and had a criminal record of minor offenses. Lisbon takes Jane along to meet with Railton’s only emergency contact–his parole officer. On their way to the elevators, Jane tells Lisbon she needs to let go of some of her hostility towards Hightower or she’s going to explode everywhere. Lisbon snaps that she hopes he’s next to her when she does. Turns out this is exactly what Jane is afraid of.
Rigsby and Van Pelt share a quick moment, and Van Pelt is panicking about what they will do. Rigsby does his best to calm her, telling her they’ll get some wine and discuss it calmly that evening.
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