The Mentalist 4x08: Pink Tops

Original Air Date: 17 November 2011

Storyline: In order to find the killer of an undercover narcotics cop, Jane and the CBI team retrace her investigation. Meanwhile, Cho finds a surprising source of information.Trivia: In the club, Jane declares that he and Lisbon are Five-O. Five-O is slang for state police. The slang comes from CBS long-runner series Hawaii Five-O that depicts the story of Hawaiian state police. Two fun facts: Hawaii in real-life never has any state police, and CBS is currently airing the update version of the series as Hawaii Five-0 (with zero).Best Quote:

Summer: You're very invested in this man-in-an-iron-face routine, aren't you? I bet I could make you cry like a baby.
Cho: No bet.
Summer: There may be hope for you yet.

Jane's Logic: Unlike her co-workers, Bianca never took off her criminal disguise.Review: Two weeks I've waited for this episode, hoping it would revisit the Red John plot. It didn't, at least not until the very end and that was just a short reference, but I'm not disappointed about that. First, because the case kept me interested - if not in the killer, who was easy to spot, at least in Jane's adventures. Secondly, because we got to see a lot of Cho and, if you've read my reviews before, you know how much I've complained about not seeing enough of him. By far, he's the most interesting character other than Jane himself and it's really a pity he doesn't get more quality air time.

The case of the week was the murder of an undercover Narcotics officer who was investigating a slick drug lord by the name of Omar Vega. As I said above, Yoli's killer was easy to discover, not only for Jane's astute mind, but also for me; I didn't even lean towards another person and I hate it when this happens, because all the charm of the actual detective work goes down the drain. Oh, how I miss Poirot movies! They were the ideal of the genre, always keeping me guessing until the very end. But, then again, originality doesn't come easy when you have to produce an episode a week.
I sort of miss the times when Jane had to sneak behind Lisbon and the team in order to put one of his plans in motion, or at least have to go through a lot of convincing work. It seems like everyone just follows his lead nowadays and things are not as fun anymore. I wonder if Lisbon really knew about him stealing the drugs from the Narcotics unit, but other than that, the team was pretty willing to have Jane go undercover in a drug lord's lair, even though he is usually afraid of getting into dangerous situations that might get him shot. But I loved Cho's reply to Rigsby's "We're screwed" when they found Jane's jacket and shoes: "We're fine. Jane's screwed." Gotta love Cho's dry humor.
A big part of this episode was Kimball's back and forth with Summer, the call girl that reported the murder in the first place. She was one of the few persons to see behind his "man-in-an-iron-face routine" and have the guts to tell him that in the face, and that was what intrigued him about her. There was clear chemistry between them and maybe Cho would have made a pass would she not have been a call girl. Who knows? I just hope she's not one of those characters who get lost on the way, like a lot of others who challenged either one of the team members along the way but never made it back (and speaking of which, I heard Morena Baccarin will reprise her role as Erica Flynn, and that's great news).
I will refrain myself from listing the plot holes (except that how did Sergeant Henderson figure out he could fool the CBI into thinking Yolanda Concepcion was a club girl?). These have become a given in today's crime procedurals. I'll just end by saying I've enjoyed this episode, but I hope that Jane and Lisbon get to have a talk about Red John soon. The Mentalist 4x07: Blinking Red Light Back to Season 4