History Series / TheMentalist

* WhamShot: In ''The Red Barn'', as Jane is wandering outside a barn where three bodies have been found, the camera pans up to show a ''very'' old and faded Red John Smiley-face painted on the wall. The three men were all killed in 1988, over a decade before what had previously been considered the first Red John murder, and this helps Jane narrow down his list of potential suspects a lot.

** In one scene of "Red in Tooth and Claw" (Season 5, Episode 14) Simon Baker refers to the gummy dinosaurs he has bought as "jelly" dinos. This troper can't find any other similar slip-ups.

* WeddingRingRemoval: Jane continues to wear his wedding ring long after his wife and daughter were murdered by the SerialKiller Red John. After tracking down and killing Red John he continues to wear the ring, only removing it in the last episode, as he's preparing to [[spoiler:marry Theresa Lisbon]].

* MurderByProxy:
** In the very first episode, Patrick Jane's EstablishingCharacterMoment has him going through the kitchen of a family whose teenaged daughter was found murdered. Jane observes a few key details, then speaks to the wife, telling her that she knows perfectly well who killed her daughter, and why. The woman pulls out a gun and shoots her husband dead. A subsequent conversation reveals that the CBI team found the girl's journal after the shooting of the husband, and it is revealed that the father had been sexually abusing his daughter, and killed her when she finally decided to put a stop to it. Jane, himself the father of a young daughter who was murdered by Red John, has absolutely no patience for child abusers, and it's implied he had the mother kill the father rather than wait for the man to be arrested and tried for his crimes, which, as a consultant for the CBI, Jane is perfectly capable of seeing to.
** Fitting with his HeroicComedicSociopath tendencies, Jane is part of an investigation looking into the murder of a lawyer who had been very successful at defending a violent biker gang. While it turned out that the killer was the lawyer's own son, enraged at his father cheating on his mother, Jane has no sympathy on the biker gang, and arranges for it to look as though the gang leader had been taking bribes as a police informant, right in front of the gang. While we're never told how the situation ends, it had already been established that the gang killed traitors, and this trope is heavily implied.
** While Red John is a killer who has killed others before, he gets a thrill out of manipulating others to kill for him, and has an entire network of individuals at his beck and call ready to commit any heinous act he asks of them, including getting one man to claim his identity so that Patrick Jane would believe he had caught and killed Red John.
** Though the world at large believes Red John dead, Patrick Jane knows otherwise. He and his team encounter a particularly cunning serial killer who covered his tracks well. Jane tricks him into a TV interview, hoping to trip him up and get a confession, but he's too smart for that. In a move of desperation, knowing he can't prevent another murder any other way, Jane goads him into belittling Red John, knowing his ArchEnemy cannot stand to be mocked. The CBI finds the new serial killer dead, and it's confirmed that Red John is still alive.

** In the final season, when they get together as a couple, he can no longer deal with the possibility of her being in danger and twice makes moves specifically to stop it, once placing himself in the line of fire instead. He then declares that it's too much for him and he has to get away, regardless of whether or not she comes with him. [[spoiler: He comes back.]]

** [[spoiler: In ''The Red Barn'', while he was a pretty scummy guy overall, there's some ambiguity over whether or not the third farm overseer had any complicity or involvement with the first Red John murders]].

** In the season 6 episode ''Red John'', we never truly find out how Red John [[spoiler: managed to figure out Jane's list of 7 suspects months before Jane did.]] Red John claims that [[spoiler: he knew about the list because he's psychic, but considering that he's telling this to Jane right before Jane strangles him, it's debatable about whether or not he's being truthful or is saying whatever he has to in order to save his own skin.]]

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: In "Red Bricks and Ivy", Sophie [[spoiler: aka Rosie]] is a young chimpanzee, a great ape, but is several times referred to as a monkey, and none of the characters who would definitely know better ever correct the error. The original script called for a monkey, but the dialogue should have been changed when the species was.

*** When he finally reveals how he did it, it's even more clever than had been implied [[spoiler: He created the Blake Association, ostensibly a network of crooked law enforcement officers covering for each other, giving him an entire network of people to do his dirty work without any of them knowing they're under the thumb of a serial killer.]]

* DirtyCoward: This is what Red John turns out to be. [[spoiler: For someone who spent most of the series as a SmugSnake and a {{Sadist}} who took delight in murdering people, when Jane finally finds him and shoots him, Red John is downright terrified of Jane killing him. He does everything he can to avoid death, from trying to convince Jane that he's too good of a person to commit murder, to making a run for it and collapsing when the bullet wound takes its toll, to calling 911 in a vain attempt to save himself, to flat-out begging Jane to spare his life. It doesn't work, and Jane even calls him out for his behavior.]]

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: Averted in "Something's Rotten in Redmumd." [[spoiler: The murderer was a 35-year-old female teacher who was having an affair with a 16-year-old male student. She killed the victim, a fellow teacher, with a baseball bat because he caught them making out in the woods and was going to report it. Cho points out to the 16-year-old student that what his teacher did to him constitutes statutory rape.]]

* EvilAunt: In [[spoiler: "Red Lacquer Nail Polish]], which also initially seems to [[EvilNephew invert]] this, with the victim's nephew seeming like a greedy schemer and prime suspect before it turns out that he's being framed, and his lawsuit against his aunt was in fact fully justified, as she was guilty of embezzlement while he wanted to do a better job of managing a family charity.

* EveryoneHasStandards: In [[spoiler: "Black-Winged Redbird"]], the head of the company was apparently willing to cover-up his products having caused civilian deaths in the Middle East, but as soon as he finds out that the "victim" of the episode [[SuicideNotMurder actually killed himself]] out of guilt, and was partially driven to this by the third conspirator, he angrily turns on her for letting/encouraging their friend to kill himself and offers to make a statement to ensure her punishment in spite of there being no hard evidence against them.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

** [[spoiler: Nilda]] in [[spoiler: ''Bloodhounds'']], who sadly confesses to the crime even as [[spoiler: her sister]] coldly denies it, and is implied to have pressured her into it.
** [[spoiler: Sonya]] in [[spoiler: "Desert Rose"]] who is seen trying to talk the others out of actually killing the victim in the flashback and is quick to confess after Jane's summation, [[DownplayedTrope although this is at least partially done to try and avoid the lion's share of the blame for herself]].

** [[spoiler: Brenda Shettrick]] shows some unhappiness about having to help Tommy Volker with the worst of his actions.

** Averted in Season 4's "Red Rover, Red Rover." Jane's method for getting the murderer to confess to their crimes was to knock them into a coffin and bury them alive, similar to what they did to the victim-of-the-week. While he doesn't kill them, Jane's actions land him in hot water with his boss, who points out that what Jane did was torture and that any confession the murderer made is going to get thrown out because of that. This proves true in later episodes when it's revealed said murderer was out on bail and was looking to be acquitted by a jury [[spoiler: only to be killed off by another person before that could happen.]]

* {{Irony}}: in 'Ball of Fire', the team are discussing who might have kidnapped Jane. They mention his habit of pissing off everyone he meets, including police officers, but Hightower doesn't think "a cop would go after a civilian over Jane." Umm... [[spoiler: who was Red John again?]]

** Red John spends most of the series as this. Whether through his accomplices or circumstances or his intelligence or through sheer luck, he manages to evade Jane's attempts to capture and kill him. [[spoiler: This finally comes to an end in season 6.]]
** Tommy Volker is one of the few criminals on the show that's managed to pull this off. Despite Lisbon's attempts to link him to the massacre of an Amazon village and the murder of a news reporter who was going to expose Volker's crimes, he manages to escape justice and even kills his secretary for tipping off Lisbon while making her death look like a suicide. [[spoiler: He does eventually get his comeuppance though.]]

* TheOldConvict: Rigsby and Van Pelt interview a relatively old prisoner in ''Red and Itchy'' who recalls recently-released Scott Saynay as the easiest cellmate he ever had due to the man's "quiet" nature, has a good idea of what was in LaRoche's tupperware when they bring it up and quickly terminates the conversation out of fear of crossing the person [[spoiler: who cut Saynay's tongue out]].

* SuspiciousSpending: In [[spoiler: "The Desert Rose"]] after Jane points out how the victims body was stored in a freezer like that of the diner that their in (and then describes his theory) the diner owner retorts that there are lots of other diners the victim could have been robbed and killed in. Jane agrees, but then points out that ''this'' diner is the only one which could afford to put a fancy sign on the highway to attract more customers.

* TrickedToDeath: In "Blinking Red Light" James Panzer ([[spoiler: a.k.a. the San Joaquin Killer]]) is on live TV discussing the San Joaquin Killer, and Jane manipulates him into making unflattering comparisons to Red John. He [[TooStupidToLive does so despite]] such on-air discussion of Red John having resulted in three deaths and one person catatonic by that point.

* VillainCred: In [[spoiler: "Green Thumb"]] a prideful kidnapper and ex gang member who almost extorted ten million dollars from the Federal Government agrees to sign a confession after an appeal to this.

** Season 2's "His Red Right Hand". [[spoiler: Rebecca]] is revealed to be an accomplice of Red John in the CBI, [[spoiler:Bosco and his entire team]] are killed, [[DaChief Minelli]] resigns from his position, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and it is strongly implied that Jane knows about Rigsby and Van Pelt's secret romance]].
** Season 3's "Strawberries and Cream". Red John is revealed to be hunting down Madeleine Hightower to cover loose ends. Jane blackmails LaRoche to get the list of suspects who could possibly be Red John's mole in the CBI. Initially, the team is lead to beleive it's [[spoiler: Gale Bertman]] but it's later revealed to be [[spoiler: Craig O'Laughlin]] who killed Todd Johnson and framed Hightower for it. [[spoiler: O'Laughlin kills the police protecting Hightower and injures Lisbon, but Van Pelt and Hightower shoot and kill O'Laughlin. Lisbon then calls the last number O'Laughlin dialed and a man sitting next to Jane answers.]] Jane [[spoiler: deduces that the man is Red John and when he confronts him, he confesses to being him. After a tense conversation, Jane kills the man, and the episode ends with Jane being arrested by security guards at the mall.]]
** Season 4's "Scarlett Ribbons" [[spoiler: The man Jane killed turned out not to be Red John, but was an accomplice who (along with his wife, Sally Carter) was keeping a girl captive in the basement. Sally is arrested, and Jane uses this to convince the jury that the man he killed was Red John. However, after being freed, he reveals to Lisbon that Red John is still alive.]]
** Season 4's "Blinking Red Light". [[spoiler: In order to stop Panzer from killing again, Jane manipualtes him into belittling Red John on live TV.]] The episode ends with [[spoiler: Panzer]] dead, and [[spoiler: the signature Red John smiley face painted over his corpse.]]
** Season 5's finale: [[spoiler: Jane narrows his list of Red John suspects down to seven names, and Red John responds by announcing that he's going to start actively killing again.]]
** Season 6's premiere. Jane and Lisbon have an argument, Lisbon [[spoiler: gets called to an abandoned house by herself and is captured by Red John. The episode ends as he taunts Jane over her phone and paints his bloody smiley face on her face.]]
** Season 6, episode 4. [[spoiler: There's an organization of corrupt cops and officials (that may or may not have Red John as a member). They identify with each other using the phrase "tiger tiger".]] [[spoiler:Kirkland]], one of the [[spoiler: Red John suspects,]] is killed by [[spoiler:Smith]] another suspect, [[spoiler: who is a member of this organization.]]
** Season 6, episode 6, "Fire and Brimstone". [[spoiler: Jane leaves Lisbon stranded as he rounds up every remaining suspect to check for a tattoo that is allegedly supposed to identify Red John. Three of them have it. A shot is fired and then the house they've gathered in blows up.]]
** Season 6, episode 7, "The Great Red Dragon". Three of the [[spoiler: Red John suspects]] are found dead following the explosion. Jane subsequently rules out one of the two survivors, leaving [[spoiler:Gale Bertram]] as the only possibility. When a manhunt for [[spoiler:Bertram]] starts, Dennis Abbott from the Dallas division of the FBI comes in and order the CBI to be shut down due to corruption.
** Season 6, episode 8: [[spoiler: Bertram is revealed to NOT be Red John. One of the suspects [[FakingTheDead faked his own death]] in the explosion, and ''he's'' the real Red John. He kills Bertram and confronts Jane, who shoots him, chases him down, and strangles him to death. The episode ends with Jane going on the run from the FBI.]]

** In ''Red Bulls'', Bosco's field team is shown to have eight agents in it (including Bosco) as they prepare to raid a house, but four of them are neither seen or mentioned in the next episode, which has Bosco and the other three members [[spoiler: killed by Red John and his accomplice, with dialogue in that and subsequent episodes implying that the whole team was wiped out]], although it is possible they were out of town on another case or something, or were a second team brought in for reinforcements for the raid, given how most other CBI teams seem to have just four members throughout the show.

* CelibateHero: Jane has been disinterested in relationships ever since the death of his wife. He is, however, a terrible flirt.

-->'''Lisbon:''' [''After Jane gets slapped by a suspect''] I hope that hurt.//