Counter Culture

Warning Spoilers! This episode is particularly unsettling – a murder mystery in which the principal suspect cannot remember whether she committed the crime. Most detective dramas concern themselves with people who know the truth but are determined to conceal it. In “Redwood”, the fifth episode of the first season of The Mentalist, we are presented with something rather different. A young woman may hold the key to a murder investigation, but the truth appears to have disappeared from her own mind.

It is an intriguing premise, and one that allows the series to explore some interesting questions about memory, trauma, prejudice and the reliability of appearances. It also gives us another opportunity to understand Patrick Jane, a man whose remarkable ability to read other people is matched by his considerable difficulty in coming to terms with his own past.

Following the financial intrigue and calculated greed of the previous episode, “Ladies in Red”, we move into an altogether different setting. The wealthy homes and expensive possessions are replaced by the forests and isolated roads surrounding the small Californian community of Redwood Point. There is something almost Gothic about the location. The towering trees, remote buildings and enclosed spaces create an atmosphere in which danger seems to lurk just beyond the limits of visibility.

Two young women, Nicole Gilbert and Kara Palmer, have disappeared after leaving a party. Their abandoned car is discovered in woodland, and the California Bureau of Investigation is called in. Jane soon discovers Kara’s body beneath the vehicle. She has been stabbed to death. Nicole, meanwhile, is missing.

When Nicole eventually reappears, the circumstances could hardly be more incriminating. She is covered in blood, carrying a knife and behaving in a confused and distressed manner. Worse still, she cannot remember what happened.

For the local sheriff, the conclusion seems obvious. Nicole killed her friend and is either concealing the truth or conveniently unable to recall it.

Jane is far less certain.

This is where the episode becomes interesting, because it exposes the difference between conventional police thinking and Jane’s approach to investigation. The authorities see physical evidence pointing towards an obvious suspect. Jane looks at the suspect herself. Her behaviour, her fear, her reactions and, perhaps most importantly, the things she cannot explain.

He believes Nicole is innocent, not because he has discovered some overlooked forensic evidence, but because her distress appears genuine. Nicole’s conversations with Jane are among the episode’s most effective scenes because they reveal how uncertain she is about her own mind. She does not merely fear being accused of murder; she fears that the accusations might be true. Jane quickly recognises that distinction. Rather than treating her fragmented recollections as evidence, he treats them as signs of a trauma she cannot yet fully process. The tension comes from the possibility that both Nicole and the investigators may be drawing conclusions from memories neither fully understands.

Of course, this presents a problem. Genuine distress is not proof of innocence. Guilty people can be frightened, confused and remorseful. Jane’s confidence in his own judgement occasionally borders on arrogance, and the series is generally more entertaining when it allows us to recognise that uncomfortable truth.

Simon Baker is particularly effective in these quieter scenes. His Patrick Jane is often at his most amusing when exposing the pomposity of authority figures or effortlessly puncturing somebody’s elaborate deception. Here, however, we see another side of him.

He can be surprisingly gentle.

Jane recognises that Nicole is vulnerable and that simply treating her as a criminal will achieve very little. His attempts to recover her memories require a degree of sensitivity that we do not always associate with his character. Yet even here, his compassion is inseparable from his willingness to manipulate circumstances.

He is not above pushing people towards uncomfortable discoveries if he believes the result justifies it.

That raises one of the episode’s more interesting moral questions. How far should an investigator go in persuading a traumatised person to revisit an experience they may be psychologically unprepared to confront?

Jane believes that unlocking Nicole’s memory is essential to establishing the truth. Teresa Lisbon is understandably more cautious.

The relationship between Jane and Lisbon continues to develop nicely. Robin Tunney gives Lisbon an authority that feels entirely natural. She is neither an obstructive bureaucrat nor a conveniently gullible superior who exists merely to admire Jane’s brilliance. She recognises his extraordinary abilities, but she also knows that his methods can create serious difficulties.

Their exchanges provide some of the series’ most enjoyable moments because the tension between them is rooted in genuinely different approaches to justice.

Lisbon believes in procedures, evidence and responsibility. Jane believes in observation, intuition and the capacity to expose human weakness. Neither approach is sufficient on its own. Several moments in the investigation illustrate this contrast particularly well. Lisbon remains focused on evidence that could withstand scrutiny in court, while Jane is prepared to follow instincts that cannot easily be justified on paper. The episode never entirely endorses either position. Instead, it suggests that solving the case depends upon a balance between Lisbon’s caution and Jane’s willingness to question assumptions that everyone else has accepted.

There is also a question of social prejudice running through the investigation.

Nicole’s troubled family background and previous difficulties with the law make her an easy target for suspicion. The suspicion directed towards Nicole often seems to solidify before the evidence has been properly examined. Once she reappears covered in blood and unable to remember what happened, many characters treat the case as effectively solved. The episode’s criticism of that attitude is one of its strongest aspects, because the audience can see how quickly a person’s reputation can become more influential than the facts.

It is hardly an unfamiliar phenomenon.

People are frequently judged not only by what they have done but by where they come from, the people they associate with and the reputation they have acquired. Once an individual has been labelled troublesome, subsequent events tend to be interpreted through that reputation.

The episode suggests that the investigation is in danger of becoming an exercise in confirming existing suspicions rather than examining all the possibilities.

Jane, for all his faults, is particularly good at recognising when people are seeing what they expect to see.

The apparent simplicity of Nicole and Kara’s friendship also begins to unravel. As the investigation progresses, we discover that the relationship was not quite as straightforward as it first appeared. Personal loyalties, romantic entanglements and betrayals complicate the picture.

This is familiar territory for crime drama, but it serves a useful purpose here. Young people can experience friendship and romantic disappointment with an intensity that adults sometimes dismiss. A betrayal that might seem relatively insignificant to an outsider can feel devastating to those involved.

Yet “Redwood” does not ultimately reduce its central crime to a straightforward tale of youthful jealousy. The personal tensions become part of a more disturbing story, one in which Nicole’s missing memories conceal a terrible experience.

The episode’s treatment of memory is perhaps its most fascinating feature, although it should be approached with a little scepticism.

Television dramas have long been attracted to the idea that the mind can protect itself from unbearable experiences by blocking access to traumatic memories. Such stories offer obvious dramatic possibilities. A forgotten event becomes a mystery within a mystery, waiting for the right sound, image or emotional stimulus to unlock it.

Here, Jane uses familiar surroundings and sensory associations to encourage Nicole to reconstruct the events of the night Kara was killed. These sequences are effective because they place the viewer in much the same position as Nicole herself. Each fragment of recollection appears to offer clarity only to raise further questions. Rather than relying solely on exposition, the episode allows the audience to experience some of the confusion and uncertainty created by memories that refuse to form a coherent narrative.

This is worth remembering because the methods employed by Jane, however successful within the fictional world of The Mentalist, would raise serious questions if used in a real criminal investigation.

There is a danger in confusing psychological insight with scientific certainty.

Nevertheless, the scenes in which Nicole struggles to remember are among the episode’s strongest. Shelby Fenner gives a convincing performance as a young woman caught between terror and uncertainty. Her character is not simply frightened of what somebody else may have done. She is frightened of what she herself might be capable of doing.

That is a particularly cruel position in which to find oneself.

The direction makes effective use of the woodland setting. The forests are beautiful, but they are also threatening. Their apparent tranquillity disguises the possibility of violence, and the isolation creates the uncomfortable feeling that help may be a very long way away.

John Behring keeps the story moving without allowing the atmospheric elements to overwhelm the investigation. The result is an episode that feels rather more ominous than some of its predecessors.

As the truth emerges, the narrative becomes more conventional, with the investigation leading towards a dangerous confrontation. Lisbon finds herself in considerable peril, providing a reminder that Jane’s cleverness does not remove the physical risks faced by the people around him.

Indeed, there is an interesting reversal here. Jane is usually the person who walks confidently into dangerous situations, apparently unconcerned by the consequences. In this case, Lisbon must confront the immediate threat while Jane contributes from a distance.

The sequence works because it gives Lisbon the opportunity to demonstrate that she is considerably more than Jane’s supervisor or occasional foil.

There is also something rather satisfying about seeing his psychological tricks applied in a situation where the stakes are genuinely high.

One criticism is that the eventual solution follows a familiar pattern. The episode is at its most original when examining Nicole’s uncertainty and the assumptions made about her guilt. Once the identity of the killer becomes clearer, some of that psychological complexity gives way to more conventional thriller mechanics.

The villain’s motivation is also less compelling than the circumstances surrounding the crime. We have become invested in Nicole’s psychological ordeal, and the explanation of the murder cannot quite match the disturbing possibilities raised by the opening.

But perhaps that is not the point.

What matters most is that the apparent murderer turns out to have been a victim, and that somebody whose background encouraged others to distrust her proves to have been judged unfairly.

There is a distinctly humane argument running beneath the entertainment. People are not necessarily what they appear to be, and those who are easiest to accuse are not always those who deserve suspicion.

It would be tempting to describe this episode as demonstrating Jane’s empathy, but that is only part of the story.

Jane is an interesting character precisely because his empathy is selective and complicated. He can show extraordinary understanding towards a frightened young woman while casually humiliating somebody he considers dishonest or foolish. He can recognise another person’s suffering yet remain remarkably insensitive to the discomfort caused by his own behaviour.

There is a contradiction at the heart of his personality.

His understanding of human emotions is both a gift and a weapon.

We also know that behind his apparently effortless confidence lies the terrible loss of his wife and daughter at the hands of Red John. Jane’s professional life is devoted to exposing other people’s secrets, but his own tragedy remains unresolved.

Perhaps this is why he responds so strongly to people who have suffered experiences beyond their control.

Helping Nicole recover some understanding of what happened cannot undo her ordeal, any more than Jane’s pursuit of criminals can restore his family. But it does offer a small opportunity to bring order to a world that has suddenly become terrifying and incomprehensible.

There is genuine poignancy in that.

“Redwood” is not a flawless episode. Its understanding of traumatic memory is more convenient for storytelling than entirely convincing as psychology, and the final resolution lacks some of the sophistication of its central premise.

Even so, it is among the more affecting early instalments of The Mentalist.

It demonstrates that the series is capable of more than ingenious revelations, amusing exchanges and the exposure of elaborate lies. It can also examine the consequences of violence for those left behind.

Most importantly, it gives Simon Baker the opportunity to broaden his portrayal of Patrick Jane. Beneath the showmanship, the mischievous smile and the sometimes insufferable certainty is a man who understands suffering rather better than he lets on.

We are beginning to see why Jane is such an appealing character. He is not necessarily a good man in the conventional sense. He is manipulative, frequently arrogant and perfectly willing to ignore rules he considers inconvenient.

Yet he has an instinctive sympathy for people who have been hurt, particularly when those in authority are too eager to condemn them.

That contradiction is central to the success of the series.

In “Redwood”, the most important mystery is not simply who killed Kara Palmer. It is whether Nicole Gilbert can trust her own mind, and whether those investigating the crime can look beyond the evidence that seems to condemn her.

The episode leaves us with a thought worth considering beyond the boundaries of detective fiction.

The truth is not always concealed by somebody telling lies. Sometimes it is obscured by fear, prejudice and the dangerous certainty of people who believe they already know the answer.

And Patrick Jane, of all people, understands the dangers of certainty.

An engaging, atmospheric and unexpectedly compassionate episode that deepens our understanding of Jane while asking some uncomfortable questions about guilt, memory and the ease with which suspicion becomes judgement.

By Chris Storton