I have received plenty of negative messages for my comments on the first two seasons of The Mentalist because generally I have found it to be a solid but unremarkable genre piece that I feel can do more. This is how I have found it and, although it has improved a little into season 2, I still felt like it was playing safe, biding its time and not really pushing the main threads along unless it needs something to produce a fall or season finale. In the main season 3 does this again but I actually enjoyed this season more than the others to the point that I think it has become one of the better in the "quirky detective" genre at the minute.
For a lot of the season we do still have the "case per week" format and this still got to me at times. It bugged me that Red John is very close and very real in one episode and then in the very next there is not even a mention of him as they return to crime solving per week as normal. I can sort of understand this because sometimes the alternative is mentioning it for the sake of mentioning it but where Red John affects characters in a major way it is not great to have everyone back to normal in the very next episode - the disappeared woman who is found is one example that Jane manages to get over very quickly. Likewise the twists involving Hightower make for a dramatic episode and a big revelation but then are forgotten minutes later (although of course return for the finale double episode). This lack of consistency is a problem to me as it was in the previous two seasons but here it is not quite as obvious for two main related reasons.
The first is that the supporting cast get a bit more to do. Cho is made a bit cooler and his deadpan delivery is allowed to be a bonus to the show but the main addition is the on/off romance between Rigsby and Van Pelt - OK a bit "writing 101" but it does the job. Related to this is that the support characters do a good job of serving as a foil to Jane and also allowing additions to the plot - specifically Hightower and LaRoche for different reasons. So although we have a case per week run of shows, I did still feel like they were linked and something was going somewhere, even if it wasn't always Red John. Speaking of Red John, I am still waiting for the best use of this rivalry between him and Jane. The season finale is strong but closes things out too quickly where to leave a more open ending may have been less dramatic but would have been a touch more satisfying - and it would have saved a lot of plot contrivances at the start of season 4 to ensure Red John is still on the table (and they will do this until the network tells them to wind it up). This aspect is still a pain to me because the writers are never going to definitely move down this path until the very end, because they know they need it in the bag - they know it and I feel it in every weaker episode where it feels like padding. Fortunately this is infrequent and most of the cases-per-week are engaging as they deliver the formula of tricks and entrapment (which is how most of them end!).
In terms of the cast I do have to say that Baker has grown on me. In this season he has really settled in and I enjoyed seeing him do his stuff as much as I liked when he had some darker material. The problem continue to be with the material because he doesn't have a consistent shelf to act from so he doesn't do as well as he good but, for this genre he is more than sufficient and he does a good job. Tunney continues to be a little bit too grumpy for me and sometimes she does not work as well as his partner as others have in other shows with the same genre dynamic but she is still good. I enjoyed Kang more this season and, while not particularly good, at least Yeoman and Righetti had more to do. Ellis and Taylor Vince as authority figures add a good dynamic while also serving to a certain degree to spread the Red John thread out a little. The various recognisable faces come and go each week but mostly the main cast lead the way.
Season 3 is better than what has gone before because the characters are used better and the episodes have a bit more linkage to them. There is still room for improvement and in particular season-long threads need to be improved beyond being something that really comes to the fore in the fall/season finales and not much else; but I did enjoy season 3 as it stepped up a bit to be one of the better examples of this genre formula at the moment.
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