Counter Culture

Spoilers ahead.

Patrick Jane is a fraud. Or at least he used to be. That’s something worth remembering when watching The Mentalist, because it’s easy to become so entertained by his cleverness that we overlook the rather unpleasant way he made his living before joining the California Bureau of Investigation.

He pretended to communicate with the dead. He took advantage of people’s grief, their hopes and their willingness to believe that somebody might possess knowledge beyond ordinary human understanding. He was extremely good at it, too. Then he made the catastrophic mistake of publicly mocking the serial killer Red John, who murdered his wife and daughter in retaliation.

We know this background from the beginning of the series. What makes Seeing Red, the seventh episode of the first season, interesting is that Jane comes face to face with somebody still practising his old profession.

Kristina Frye, played by Leslie Hope, is a psychic medium. She’s attractive, confident and knows precisely how to make people feel comfortable. Jane takes an immediate dislike to her. Actually, dislike hardly covers it. From their first meeting, he seems determined to demonstrate that she’s a charlatan.

He’s probably right. But his indignation is rather rich coming from a man who once did exactly the same thing.

The case begins with the murder of Rosemary Tennant, a wealthy widow deliberately run down by a car. She had recently consulted Frye, who claims to have warned her that danger was approaching. Naturally, this attracts Jane’s attention, although he’s more interested in exposing the psychic than entertaining any possibility of supernatural foresight.

I rather enjoy watching Jane dismantle the claims of professional mediums. Cold reading is a fascinating business. A few carefully chosen observations, some vague statements, a willingness to follow the subject’s reactions, and suddenly somebody appears to know things they couldn’t possibly have known. Add a grieving relative who desperately wants to believe, and the effect can be powerful.

I’ve never believed in the ability to contact the dead, although I understand why people might want to. Bereavement can leave even the most rational person longing for another conversation, another opportunity to say something left unsaid. There’s nothing foolish about that. The questionable part is charging people for the supposed privilege of providing it.

Frye is an interesting character because she doesn’t behave like an obvious con artist. She’s composed and apparently sympathetic. Leslie Hope wisely avoids turning her into some theatrical fortune-teller. Her Frye is a professional woman who seems genuinely convinced of her own importance, and perhaps of her powers.

Whether she actually believes in them is another matter.

Jane certainly doesn’t give her the benefit of the doubt. He needles her, questions her methods and plainly enjoys making her uncomfortable. At times, his behaviour borders on bullying. His past explains some of that hostility, but I suspect there’s professional pride involved as well. He doesn’t simply want to prove she’s wrong. He wants to prove he’s cleverer.

One of the pleasures of the series is watching Teresa Lisbon attempt to keep Jane under some sort of control. Robin Tunney has a difficult job playing the sensible one, the person who has to worry about evidence, procedure and whether Jane’s latest performance is going to wreck a perfectly good investigation.

It’s not always a glamorous role, but Tunney makes her convincing. Lisbon doesn’t have Jane’s extraordinary powers of observation, yet she possesses something he frequently lacks: sound judgement.

She also recognises that his dispute with Frye is becoming personal. Jane may insist that he’s exposing a fraud, but he’s allowing his feelings to interfere with a murder investigation. Lisbon, quite reasonably, would prefer him to concentrate on finding the killer.

Meanwhile, the investigation moves into Rosemary Tennant’s complicated family affairs. Her children, Clara and Travis, have their own problems, and tensions over money and Rosemary’s behaviour provide possible motives. There are questions about her will, relationships within the family and the extent to which Frye may have influenced her decisions.

It’s the sort of domestic unpleasantness that often lies behind apparently mysterious deaths. Families can be extraordinarily vicious towards one another, particularly when money, disappointment and years of accumulated resentment become entangled.

The eventual revelation that Clara killed her mother is not particularly shocking, although the circumstances are more interesting than a straightforward inheritance killing. Clara’s anger and her feelings about her mother’s treatment of Travis are central to what happened.

What I found more entertaining was Jane’s method of exposing her.

Having spent much of the episode attacking Frye’s supposed supernatural abilities, he stages a séance of his own. It’s an elaborate performance designed to put pressure on the murderer and provoke a revealing reaction.

So there we have it. The man who despises fraudulent mediums employs their methods when it suits him.

Jane would undoubtedly argue that the difference lies in his intentions. He wants to establish the truth, whereas Frye claims to possess supernatural knowledge. Fair enough. But it doesn’t alter the fact that he is manipulating people’s emotions to achieve his purpose.

I’m not entirely convinced some of Jane’s methods would survive serious scrutiny in a real investigation. His elaborate tricks are entertaining television, but they sometimes depend on suspects behaving exactly as he expects. Human beings are rarely so obliging.

Still, that’s part of the pleasure of The Mentalist. It’s not a documentary about police procedure. We watch because Jane has a gift for noticing the small things everybody else overlooks, and because Simon Baker makes the character so enjoyable even when he’s being thoroughly objectionable.

Baker is particularly good in this episode. He can make Jane’s contempt apparent with little more than a smile or a raised eyebrow. His usual relaxed manner, lounging on furniture and drinking tea while everybody else works, disguises a much harder personality. When Frye challenges him, that side comes to the surface.

There’s an interesting moral question here, although I don’t think the programme needs to labour it. Jane knows how easily hope can be exploited, yet he sometimes seems more interested in humiliating the supposed psychic than protecting the people being deceived.

There’s a difference between challenging dishonesty and mocking the vulnerable. It’s one he doesn’t always recognise.

His own tragedy gives him every reason to feel bitter, but it doesn’t excuse everything he does. I like that about the character. He’s neither a conventional television hero nor a reformed sinner who has suddenly acquired perfect judgement. He’s capable of genuine kindness and considerable insensitivity, sometimes within the same conversation.

Seeing Red is not the strongest murder mystery of the first season. The case is serviceable rather than exceptional, and the final revelation doesn’t carry quite the impact the writers might have intended. But I enjoyed the episode because of the tension between Jane and Frye.

Leslie Hope makes her a credible opponent. She doesn’t appear intimidated by Jane, and there’s a certain amusement in watching somebody who is accustomed to controlling every conversation discover that another person can play the same game.

I also like the fact that the programme doesn’t entirely settle the question of Frye’s sincerity. Jane is certain she’s a fraud. As viewers, we’re entitled to agree with his scepticism while still wondering whether she has managed to deceive herself as successfully as she deceives others.

That possibility is more interesting than presenting her as an obvious crook. People can be remarkably talented at convincing themselves of things they want to believe, particularly when those beliefs also provide a comfortable living.

By the end, the murderer has been identified and the investigation completed. Jane has demonstrated his cleverness once again. Nothing unusual there.

But Kristina Frye has left him uncomfortable, and I suspect that’s because she reminds him of a past he would prefer to put behind him.

He may have given up pretending to speak to the dead. He hasn’t given up playing games with the living.

And I suspect he never will.