My overall rating of "The mentalist"'s Season 6: 2/10.
In Season 6 "The mentalist" takes some of its sharpest genre turns and zigzags. It sheds its heavily-serialised jokey police procedural skin bit by bit to reveal the layer underneath, which has always been visible through the translucent covering, but now becomes vibrant, which is the dramatic, tantalising overarching plot. Then it briefly crosses the shore of romcomy implications to jump into the river of unfunny comedy where the heavily-serialised police procedural crystallises right back onto its skin, except worse in quality, as its waters can't draw out the crystallised dramatic gold by interplay with the overarching plot and themes. Its overarching skin cracks into tiny, poorly-done, pathetic arcs. But then "Blue Bird" comes about. The river of unfunny comedy leads into a wondrous, shiny sea of actually reasonably funny comedy.
And then the show beaches itself in the desert of romcom mawkishness, tearing its flesh against rocks of cliché. I don't know whether the 7th Season is its being taken for taxidermy to be proudly displayed in a museum for posterity, or an inglorious end as fertiliser, and I don't care. I can't take any more of it. S6 killed "The mentalist" for me.
To address specifically this episode: Jane's too wimpy and too much of an open book emotionally; his manipulativeness is in-character but everything else isn't. The comedic interlude in his room is really great and hilarious - it makes next to no sense logically, but the pure comedic value is worth it. It's been an almost forgotten feeling for me to feel something other than cringe while watching "The mentalist". I don't love this bit, but it gives an interesting counterfactual: if "The mentalist" was a pure comedy, which it wasn't and shouldn't seek to be, this is what it would hopefully look like - and it's glorious, but just not the genre I tuned in for.
And then everybody drowns in sap, and is crushed by the cliches. The usual "The mentalist" flaws and the bizarre stock footage insert in the middle don't help, but any flaw looks good against the backdrop that is the plane scene, and Lisbon's decision.
