- Patrick Jane gets this in the first few minutes. In a scene the creators made to clearly show off how badass he is, (and it worked) he goes into the house of a family discussing the arrest of the (alleged) killer of their daughter, he makes a sandwich and a pot of tea, offers the wife a cup when she walks in, talks with her, tells her all he's picked up about her, tells her he thinks that her husband killed her daughter, explains how a wife knows when her husband is lying to them, and then the husband comes in. He has a bit of small talk and blatantly asks the man if he did it. The man has an outrage, which causes the wife to leave, a minute or so later, the wife comes back and shoots him, knowing that he was lying and had actually killed their daughter. Yes...
- He does it again in the beginning of the 3rd episode where he was able to get the location of the keys to the van from one of the other investigators "mentally", without hints. When asked how he pulled it off, he responded...Patrick: If I tell you, the Magic Circle will send assassins to kill us all, it's the law.
- Everything he does in "Black Gold and Red Blood"... most of it from prison. He provokes a suspect, over the phone, into getting himself arrested so Jane can talk to him in person. He escapes from jail using a mouse he caught with nothing but a Bible and a cranberry muffin. He pushes the killer into confessing when she hears the police arriving... only to calmly admit that the police are actually there to arrest him for the aforementioned jailbreak.
- And there is Jane finally killing Red John for good in Season 6.
- This cannot be overstated. More to the point, Jane actually outsmarted him, having planned this the moment Red John planted the bomb in his house. After waking up, he realized that Red John had faked his death, culminating in planning a meeting where Patrick planted a concealed gun in the church, and brought along a bird to distract Red John after realizing that he was afraid of birds.
- In "Code Red", Patrick Jane convinces an entire factory of people (including Lisbon) that they are going to die very shortly due to an accident with an experimental bio-weapon, going so far as to advise them all to call their friends and families and get their affairs in order, all to catch one killer. And he gets away with nothing more than a bruised jaw.
- YMMV on that one, though. Some fans decry it as a major moment of
Character Derailment for Jane, turning him from a mischief-maker into a plain old jerk. For those who disagree with what he did, it's a Crowning Moment for Lisbon, who when Jane reveals what he did, flat out punches him while he's talking instead of just scolding him as usual.
- YMMV on that one, though. Some fans decry it as a major moment of
- Lisbon, who is usually a By-the-Book Cop Deadpan Snarker backdrop to Jane's Bunny-Ears Lawyer, has a CMoA when Jane has been blinded.Lisbon: You Terrence Andrews?
Andrews: Who's askin'?
Lisbon: People call you Terry or Terrence?
Andrews: They call me Mr Andrews.
Lisbon: Why don't you come downtown with us, answer a few questions.
Andrews: No, I don't think so.
Rigsby: (pulls him away) Come on.
Andrews: (aggressive) You wanna make something here?
Lisbon: (disinterested) No, thank you. (Tazers him.) You OK? Mr Andrews.- Way more awesome than it sounds.
- This little gem from the third season's first episode:Jane: (tries to leave a crime scene, but he's stopped by a fellow CBI agent) You just put your hand on me.
Agent: No... I mean, yes...
Jane: Yes you did, don't ever do that again.
Agent: (incredulously) Or else what?
Jane: (leans in close) You ever smell a dead mouse? You remember that smell?
Agent: Yes.
Jane: Well... I just a put now put a dead mouse in your jacket pocket. And no matter how many times you clean that jacket, you will always smell that dead mouse and you will remember that you should *never* have put your hand on me. (Agent nervously reaches for his pocket, the recoils in horror and flings his jacket to the ground)
Agent: You son of a bitch!
Jane: It's actually just a wadded-up napkin, but, uh, has the same psychological effect. Human mind's funny that way. - Lisbon gets a truly incredible moment in the episode Redacted 3x20. For background: Jane has spent the entire case trying to get a robber out of prison so that he can't tell the police that Jane hired him (don't ask), and failing repeatedly, even at hypnotising the guard. He tells Lisbon about the problem roughly two minutes before the end of the episode: she nods coolly, goes to the prison, and punches the guy hard in the face. The case is thrown out of court and the guy is immediately released.
- How Jane prevails over the serial killer in "Blinking Red Light". He basically tricks the killer into badmouthing Red John on TV, causing the offended Red John to kill that killer. It's the darkest, coldest, and most brilliant Batman Gambit by Jane so far. And as if it's not enough, it also pays tribute on the past sin of Jane and reopens the Myth Arc.
- Wainwright stands up to Jane's shit in "Red Rover, Red Rover." For the first time, we see a boss that has some spine.
- Virgil Minelli's epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the reporters
after one stupidly asks how he feels after losing Bosco and his team. - Richard Haibach's Roaring Rampage of Revenge. If not for some blatant Plot Armor he seriously would have succeeded at killing Jane, Rigsby, and Van Pelt all. He was one of the only villains who made Jane of all people beg for mercy.
- And this is a CMoA for Rigsby who get shot point blank with a buckshot and then a 9 mil and still manage to survive and save the day.
- Let's not forget Cho in "Bleeding Heart"—who turns an interview with a reporter for a documentary on its head and starts interrogating the reporter about his life on camera.
- And Lisbon tasering Mr. Andrews.
- All of Red John, he might have been a serial killer but you got to give the guy his props. He manages to kill without ever being caught, organizes a group of people in various organizations to ensure he's never caught. The fact is Jane would never found out it was him if he hadn't shown himself to him and admitted to it. Let's not forget the other "psychic" whom he managed to convince was dead.
- In Crimson Cassanova: Jane has an amazing Shut Up, Hannibal! moment with the killer after he shows no remorse for killing an innocent woman when he was trying to kill the man she was having an affaire with.
Jane: "I care! I care about Claire Walcott! She was a living person! You took her life."
- Those members of the audience who don't like the way Jane constantly tramples over people's civil rights with his consultant status might like the way that Wainwright gets up in Jane's face and fires him after he buries a suspect alive to get a confession (although it's undermined by how Jane planned this to manipulate his enemies into approaching him after his firing).
- Judge Manchester's speech chewing out the FBI and CBI for how their Jurisdiction Friction got an agent killed and they are covering it up, after which he says that he'll rule in favor of whichever side annoys him least during the hearing.
- LaRoche tends to get one per episode when he shows up. Highlights include an Awesome by Analysis discussion of Jane's Batman Gambit to ensure the death of a suspect who killed a team member's loved one and how both times someone tries to rob the safe in LaRoche's house leads to at least one dead or captured intruder.
- Max Winter's Best Served Cold gambit in "Red Carpet Treatment." He pretends that he has forgiven the imprisoned rapist and murderer of his wife and believes the man is innocent while buying the warehouse where evidence against the killer is stored to tamper with it and get him released so Winter (who has spent years practicing his marksmanship) can kill him. And since Lotsa People Try to Dun It, it's impossible to tell if Winter actually killed the victim, and he gets off scot-free, after which he gives Jane a fancy gun for his own quest for revenge.
