The Mentalist/Awesome
- 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 investegators 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, that's the rule.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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: (agressive) 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) Did you just put a hand on me?
Agent: No...
Jane: Yes you did, you laid a hand on me. Don't ever lay a hand on me again.
Agent: (incredulously) Or what?
Jane: (leans in close) Have you ever smelled a dead rat before? Well... I just slipped one into your pocket. And now, no matter how much you wash, no matter how much you scrub, that jacket will always smell like dead rat, and you will always remember, not, to lay, a hand, on me. (Agent nervously reaches for his pocket, the recoils in horror and flings his jacket to the ground) Actually, there is no dead rat. But that's the power of suggestion for you.
Agent: Son of a bitch!
- 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.
- In "Strawberries and Cream," the Season 3 finale, Jane finally meets and kills Red John. Then he calmly sits down and has a cup of tea.
- But the end of the first episode in Season Four reveals it wasn't really Red John. He was a horrible person, though.
- How Jane prevails over the serial killer in "Blinking Red Light". He basically tricks the killer to badmouth Red John in TV and causes the pissed off 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.
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