< The Mentalist

The Mentalist/Characters


The Core

Patrick Jane (Simon Baker)

The titular mentalist, Patrick Jane is a former psychic and stage performer, but enrolled in the CBI when the mass-murderer Red John killed his wife and daughter after Patrick badmouthed him on TV, hoping to exact revenge.

Possessing exceptional knowledge of human behavior, extensive meditative and hypnotic training, a refined memory and superhuman deductive skills, Patrick Jane is one of the most valuable agents of the CBI in the fight against crime. Though technically he's not a cop, just a consultant.


  • Adult Child: Shows shades of this.
  • Awesome By Analysis: To ridiculous and ridiculously awesome degrees all the time. At one point he instantly reads the movements, tactics and habits of a boxer, and gives better practical advice than the man's coach despite possessing no fighting skill himself whatsoever.
  • Badass Bookworm: Presumably, though he's long since mastered his field of expertise by the time the show starts, and so we never actually see him study.
  • Badass: Throughout the entire show, he manages to fire off a grand total of four bullets on two separate occasions, dislikes violence, has no apparent combat training whatsoever and is repeatedly saved by his female boss who's a head shorter than himself. He still manages to be this.
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: Never seen outside of his trusty suit and waistcoat. Not even when getting ready for sleep. Seriously.
  • Batman Gambit: He loves this trope.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: Another favorite tactic.
  • Beneath the Mask: Patrick is an outwardly cheerful, optimistic and stable man who rarely loses his cool, but every once in a while the facade cracks, and we catch a glimpse of all the anger, sadness and loneliness he represses.
  • Berserk Button: He really doesn't like seeing people repeat mistakes he's made in the past.
  • Big Eater: Really likes the cases where there is food in close proximity, see episodes Red Hair and Silver Tape, and Red Herring as prime examples.
  • Blatant Lies: Willing to go as far as to talk out of his arse to draw out the baddie. Can occasionally cross the line into Seamless Spontaneous Lie.
  • Break the Haughty: We've got a glimpse of the con man Jane in "Fugue in Red". Before Red John paid a visit, Jane is basically Charlie Harper with expertise in theatrics and microexpression.
  • Brutal Honesty: When he doesn't care to charm or manipulate you, this is what you get. And if it isn't Ship Tease then you won't like it.
  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: From the point of view of the CBI, they put up with his antics because he solves cases. Jane however only stays because they're his best chance of catching Red John.
  • Catch Phrase: Numerous variations of "Oh, I'm not a cop, just a consultant", "Please put the guns down!", and for the first seasons: "No such thing as psychics".
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: he buried a suspect alive
  • Crazy Awesome: Sometimes, in the case of his more obscure gambits.
  • Crazy Prepared
  • The Charmer
  • The Chessmaster
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Between the father taking advantage of his skills as a child, his background as a phony and the murder of his daughter and wife, not to mention all the guilt, it's absolutely no wonder Patrick is a wreck.
  • Dude in Distress: Carrying no weapons, not even a sidearm, and possessing zero practical fighting skills, Patrick often finds himself in this role. Ensue Holding the Floor until Lisbon arrives. Amusingly, Red John's accomplice lampshades this the moment before Patrick finally subverts it by shooting him point-blank with a concealed gun.
  • Doesn't Like Guns
  • The Empath: A 100% natural example, though no less effective.
  • Fake American: Simon Baker is Australian. Occasionally has a case of Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping.
  • Friend to All Children: Most of his Pet the Dog moments. Probably due to the loss of his daughter, and semi-background as a circus performer.
    • Fridge Brilliance: For someone who spends his every waking minute figuring out people's dirty secrets, younger children must seem positively wonderful company.
  • Heads or Tails: An episode of season 2 has him winning a bet this way. It landed heads 20 times in a row. No wonder they thought he was cheating.
  • The Hero: With shades of Anti-Hero on the issue of revenge.
  • Hollywood Atheist: Bordering on Nietzsche Wannabe when challenged.
  • Hurting Hero: See Beneath the Mask above. Occasionally lampshaded.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: To Lisbon, technically.
  • Non-Action Guy: Patrick is only really useful in non-combat situations or as Mission Control.
  • Phony Psychic: Used to be this. In fact, people still tend to assume he has supernatural powers upon demonstration, despite his constant denials.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He is very fond of those, a failed example of which ultimately provoked the murder of his family.
    • Especially when he identifies the target's actions with his own past failings.
  • Sherlock Scan
  • Shipper on Deck: He openly encourages Rigsby and Van Pelt, and keeps their relationship a secret.
  • Showy Invincible Hero: He's almost always right, but then if he weren't right so often he probably would have been fired years ago.
  • Sleepyhead: Usually on his brown couch at the office. Known to sleep through briefings.
  • The Smart Guy
  • Smart People Play Chess: Not that he even needs a board or pieces to play. Used as a Running Gag in one episode.
  • The Social Expert
  • Talking Your Way Out: With varying success. Bad guy pointing a gun and Lisbon not around? Only one thing to do... See Dude in Distress above.
  • You Killed My Wife and Daughter: His motivation for hunting Red John.
  • The Wonka
  • Unwitting Pawn: Selectively. Red John consistently outmaneuvers him throughout the series, which is lampshaded whenever the Gambit Pileup starts anew.
    • He evens up the game by season 3 finale. Except it was an accomplice, and Red John probably expected him to die, given that he got said accomplice to pretend to be him.

Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney)

Leader of the team, Senior Special Agent Teresa Lisbon of the CBI stands with the impossible task of keeping Patrick in check. Although Jane's antics are annoying and often lands her in deep trouble, she respects him highly, and often supports his theories in the face of skeptical superiors, and even common sense.

Wayne Rigsby (Owain Yeoman)

One of the special agents of the CBI. He's an arson specialist. Dates Van Pelt throughout season 2 but is forced to break up by Hightower.

Kimball Cho (Tim Kang)

One of the special agents of the CBI, and probably the most down to earth of the group. Asian-American of Korean heritage. Before joining the CBI, he was a gangbanger called "The Iceman", a fact which Jane finds hilarious.

Grace Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti)

The youngest member of the CBI, special agent Van Pelt is the rookie of the team, and often tasked with research. She dates Rigsby throughout season 2, but is forced to break up by Hightower, and is later engaged to FBI agent Craig O'Laughlin. She kills him in self-defense when he turns out to be Red John's mole


The CBI

Virgil Minelli (Gregory Itzin)

The first Special Agent in Charge of CBI.

Madeleine Hightower (Aunjanue Ellis)

Luther Wainwright (Michael Rady)

The new Special Agent in Charge of CBI, starting from Season Four. A wise man; everyone in our CBI team seems to like him.

  • By-The-Book Cop: by default, he is this. That doesn't mean he cannot be reasonable, though. Read on.
  • Da Chief
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Thanks to his flexible approach, he is very respected by the agents and the audience both.
  • Fair Cop
  • Genre Savvy: at the end of his first appearance, he understands damn well that Jane is a sociopath...but extremely useful sociopath. Hence, he is...
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: he is insistent about following rules, but he's also very tolerant of Jane's antics, compared to two previous bosses.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man

Sam Bosco

He takes over Red John's investigation in the first half of season two. Until Red John's mole Rebecca kills him so Jane can be in charge of it again

Rebecca

Bosco's secretary.


The Villains

Red John

A mysterious and dangerous Serial Killer who murdered Jane's wife and child after the former, in his capacity as a television "psychic", gives a phony and insulting psychic profile calling Red John "weak". It was the last time he would murder for his original pathology (torturing and killing women)- all his victims in the series are either to cover his tracks or to mess with Patrick Jane, or otherwise to avenge an "insult" such as "cheap imitations" of his work.

While Jane is hell-bent on tracking Red John down and killing him, Red John seems fascinated by Patrick and doesn't make any attempt to kill him, instead playing subtle Criminal Mind Games and acting mostly either to screw with Patrick or cut off any leads that might come back to him. Neither his identity nor his goals have been confirmed but, unusally for a Serial Killer, he seems to be at the head of an entire network of murderers and serial killers, many acting independantly but seemingly ready to kill or even die for him.

  • Antagonist Title: Few episodes mention him, fewer deal directly with him, and only one can be confirmed to actually show him on camera (where he was wearing a mask), but every episode has some reference, however vague, to the colour "red" in the title, to show that he is still the main villain.
  • Arch Enemy: Jane considers him to be his; Red John, for his part, seems to treat Jane more as a one-sided Friendly Enemy.
  • Big Bad: For the whole series.
    • Bigger Bad: For episodes dealing with his various accomplices or "pawns" as Jane calls them.
  • Calling Card: A smiley face painted on the wall in his victims blood with a rubber glove, always clockwise, and always placed so that whoever was meant to find the body- usually a family member- will see it before finding the victim, so that they'll know what happened first and dread confirming it. Twice he has painted his victims toenails in their blood as well- Jane's wife, and later a young girl to lure Jane into a trap.
    • Also, the William Blake poem "Tyger, Tyger", used by both him and his accomplices, possibly to ientify each other.
  • The Chessmaster
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: What he does to his female victims, his preferred targets.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Perform cheap copy-cat killings of his work? He'll shoot you dead. Insult him on nstate televsion? He'll either kill you or he'll kill your entire family. But for the love of God don't try and empathise with him on national television, less you want to be brainwashed into believing you are dead.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Leaves a polite note starting "Dear Mr Jane", to tell Patrick he has just murdered his family.
  • The Ghost
  • Knife Nut: Inverted. These days, he mostly uses guns, but all his victims up to and including Patrick's family were killed, and usually tortured, with a knife.
  • Manipulative Bastard
  • The Man Behind the Man: A freaky amount of murderers and serial killers are actually controlled by him.
  • Revenge by Proxy: His murder of Jane's family.
  • Serial Killer: Though semi-retired; most of his recent victims are really just covering his tracks, or messing with Jane. When active he victim type was young to middle-aged women.
  • We Are Everywhere: Twice was able to kill an accomplice held in the CBI building, both under tight security, once and possibly both times using another accomplice. Tracked down and killed an informant before Jane could find him, knows and associates with other serial killers scattered throughout California and possibly the local Church of Happyology, and seemingly was tracking Jane throughout the season 2 finale with the latter being none the wiser. The team haven't noticed it, but he also has access to their security cameras and monitors them constantly. Has moles or allies at seemingly all levels of law enforcement, from a sherrifs deputy to the coffee girl at the CBI and even an FBI agent.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Two of his accomplices thusfar have been killed by him, either directly or through another accomplice, because they were caught and before they could identify him, the first by fast-acting poison, the second by being set on fire. Also murdered another associate and his hooker, though that was because the former actually tried to rat on him.

Bret Stiles (Malcolm McDowell)

The head of Visualize, a Church of Happyology in California. Besides Red John, he is one of the few criminals whom Jane fails to bust so far. Well, he's not exactly criminal, but shady and manipulative enough that we cannot consider him the good guy either. He's shown to have connections here and there; in fact, he knows Red John's network enough that he is able to tell Jane where Kristina Frye is

  • Affably Evil: Though he is a cult leader who may be involved in some very serious criminal activities, he is always polite to Jane and the rest of the team whenever he sees them. Thusfar he has yet to do anything obviously evil on-screen, and seems to be a genuinelly pleasant person in his day-to-day life.
  • The Chessmaster
  • Church Militant: Visualize people are willing to kill at his directions.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Devil in Plain Sight: He is under investigation by the FBI and the CBI consider him a highly suspect character; his church is thought to be involved in a number of criminal activities and is generally considered a cult at the very least. Yet nobody has been able to prove anything and the members and supporters of his church are prepare to defend him, violently if necessary.
  • Friendly Enemy: With Jane.
  • Manipulative Bastard
  • One-Scene Wonder: Sort-of; he tends to show up once a season.
  • Put On the Bus: At the end of "The Blood On His Hands", he retreats to Indonesia to open Visualize branch there.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections
  • Worthy Opponent

Erica Flynn (Morena Baccarin)


The Recurring

Craig O'Laughlin

An FBI agent that serves as Van Pelt's love interest in season 3.

Summer

A prostitute who appears since Season Four. On her first appearance, she withstands Cho's stoicness, insisting that if she were to cooperate Cho ought to show common courtesy. At the end of the episode Cho gives her a job as an informant.

Walter Mashburn

A millionaire that appears in two episodes so far, "Redline" and "Red Hot".

Kristina Frye

A proclaimed psychic whom Jane repeatedly calls out for being a fraud though he does seem to care for her. She insists not only that she is a genuine psychic, but that Patrick is a real psychic too, albeit in denial and one who was a really a con-artist in the past.

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