We open on a crime scene, outside a big gated mansion. As people look at posters of a missing girl, Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney) and Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) stroll past the police tape and towards the main house. A coroner's van is parked in the driveway, and a "Missing" poster is ripped off a nearby tree. The girl has obviously been found, and not in a good way. Agent Lisbon approaches the police captain, who says she's not needed, and that they suspect the neighbors' kid, a floppy-haired teenager in a black T-shirt with skulls on it who's already in custody. Skulls? Oh, he totally did it. Jane assesses the boy carefully from a distance. Then the body is brought out of the house, and Jane notices the coroner's assistant's grim reaper tattoo. Oh, he totally did it. Two suspects in two minutes? Awesome.
The parents are giving a press conference, thanking everyone for their help. The dad's gratitude sounds a little scripted, and he looks pretty composed, while the mom looks as if her daughter just died. Jane watches as she pulls her hand away from his, and he grabs it back, holding her close to him with an arm around her shoulders. Jane turns and walks into the house, which has a fancy, vaulted entry way and a big-ass kitchen. We see his badge: he works for the California Bureau of Investigations, and he's a consultant. He puts a kettle on the stove, raids their tea supply, and... starts making a sandwich? He's got cheese, bread, cold cuts... he's actually making a sandwich in the grieving family's house. Aaaand now he's eating it. What is this guy's damage? He looks at pictures on a bulletin board, including a photo strip of the father with what looks like his 16-year-old daughter sitting in his lap, and right away I know what's going on here. I think the -- oops, kettle's ready! Tea time!
The mother enters and asks (rightly), who he is. He offers her some tea, as he's made two cups. Smooth! They sit down at the kitchen table, and he says he knows what she's going through. When she doubts that, he rattles off a whole bunch of observations he seems to have made based on her kitchen: she likes India, she hates skiing, she's happy her friend gained weight, etc. She asks if he's psychic, he laughs and says he's just observant, but he used to make a living pretending to be one. He then asks her why she suspects her husband of murdering her daughter, and she almost does a spit-take before saying she doesn't. But it's too late, and Jane gets her to admit that the two of them have acted strange for the past year, and she thinks her daughter tried to tell her what happened once. Jane then asks her if she asked her husband if he did it, saying that a wife knows when her husband is lying. At that moment, the husband walks in, looking for his wife, and Jane introduces himself as "the police" before dropping the bomb on him himself: Did he do it? The husband says "no," and his wife wails, knowing he's lying. She leaves, and the husband is throwing Jane out when she comes back with a gun and shoots him twice in the chest. Tunney and the cops run in, and find Jane standing over the body, the wife in a daze. "It's not as bad as it looks," says Jane.
Palm Springs, California, two weeks later. An SUV pulls into the driveway of another nice house. One brother is dropping another brother off after a golfing trip. As they commiserate on their scores, we track past them to see that the door is open, then go inside to see that a man is dead in one room, form a blow to the head with a golf club, then down the hall to the bedroom, where a woman is dead in the bed, and then to the mirror, where we can see a smiley face drawn in blood on the wall. Have a nice day? Maybe not.
Cut to the airport, where Lisbon is arriving with three agents in tow. The only other female in the group has checked luggage -- a rookie mistake, so she gets sent directly to the police station to get their field headquarters set up. The rest head for the morgue, where Jane magically pulls up in a taxi at the exact moment they get there. Turns out he's on mandatory leave for getting a guy killed, even though the girl's diary revealed that her father was having sex with her. He's got another week of leave, and Lisbon tells him to come back in a week. He says he needs to be on this case, because it's Redjohn, and Redjohn is his. Lisbon leaves him at the door, telling the guard not to let him in. Once inside, however, her phone rings, and it's her boss. As they enter the examination room, Jane is with them, and he apologizes for going over her head. So, even though his boss was probably the one who put him on mandatory leave, his boss is pulling strings to get him back on the case? Whatever.
The medical examiner rattles off cause of death -- stun gun and golf club to the head for him, stun gun and multiple stab wounds for her. "Textbook Redjohn," says Agent Cho. It was the woman's house -- her name is Allison Randolph, and her husband Price is apparently a pro golfer, and was coming back from a tournament. The dead man is apparently her doctor, Dr. Tannen, and when someone suggests an affair, Jane reveals that he somehow knows that the man is gay, causing everyone to stare at him like he's crazy. Luckily, the doctor's colleague, Dr. Wagner, is there to confirm or deny that, and even more luckily, he's played by Zeljko Ivanek, who just won Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Damages! Nice timing, CBS! Wagner immediately confirms Jane's theory, and says that Mrs. Randolph and Tannen were just friends. When he asks who did it, Agent Rigsby says it looks like Redjohn, causing Wagner to ask who that is and causing Lisbon to close her eyes in frustration. Looks like Redjohn is on a need-to-know basis, and at this moment Emmy-winning actor Zeljko Ivanek does not need to know.
Back at stately Randolph Manor -- I wonder if all of the houses on this show will have gates? -- the local crime scene examiner walks Lisbon, Jane, Cho and Rigsby through the murders, constantly asking them to get out of his way in a not-quite-polite way, and not exactly showing respect for the dead. Saying that Tannen was there for a "Richard Gere and ice cream orgy" -- which makes me wonder how he knew Tannen was gay, since they all just found out -- he almost gleefully re-creates the golf club swing that did him in, complete with sound effect. Jane loses interest and wanders into the bedroom, taking in the blood-stained mattress, the photo of Randolph, her husband and his brother on her mirror and the bloody smiley face on the wall. The music swells to...
Five years earlier! On a darkened stage, Jane tells a woman in the audience that her deceased loved one is asking for forgiveness, and she forgives him, and he's happy, and she cries and cries, and then Jane snaps back and says the spirit is gone. Everyone claps, and the lights come up, and it turns out he's on a talk show with a fairly obnoxious duo who ask him about his work with the police, calling him a "psychic detective." It turns out he's helping the cops track down a high-profile serial murderer named Redjohn. Hey, that's the same guy that they're tracking now! So why didn't Dr. Wagner recognize the na--
...And we're back in the room, as the crime scene guy comes in and gleefully shows off the Redjohn smiley face. He's literally thrilled to finally see one. Unfortunately, Jane tells them all it's not Redjohn, because the smiley face is on the wrong wall. It should have been the first thing they saw, because that's how Redjohn works, but instead it was the last thing they saw, after the body -- they actually had to enter the room and turn around to look at it. Makes sense to me, but the crime scene guy isn't buying it. Jane calls him a ghoul, and guesses that he gets turned on reading Fangoria -- the ghoul doesn't exactly deny it. When Lisbon tells him to simmer down, Jane drops the line of the night before storming out: "I'm sorry, he irks me. He's irksome." Oh, snap! Who says "irksome" any more? It works for Jane, but I don't think I could pull it off.
Back at their temporary headquarters (where Agent Van Pelt has done a bang-up job), Lisbon, Cho and Rigsby watch tapes of Redjohn crime scenes, and decides that Jane may have a point, although they admit it could mean anything. As Cho and Rigsby go to question the hubby, Lisbon calls Jane and tells him he may be right, and that he should come by the station. He's already there, strolling in as soon as she hangs up on him and meeting newbie Van Pelt for the first time. He takes the desk that has more light, because more light is always good. He and Lisbon have playfully antagonistic banter. Awwww.
Rigsby and Cho watch home videos of Allison horsing around with Price, presumably taped by his omnipresent brother. Price is drinking; his brother is curled into a ball on the couch. When Price says that he's lost a precious angel, Cho agrees that she's a good-looking woman. Rigsby rolls his eyes. What's with these two and their inability to say appropriate things to the survivors of crimes? When they ask him why he stayed at the tournament until Sunday when he'd been disqualified on Friday, Price is defensive, but eventually reveals that he was with a "massage therapist." For two days? What kind of massage therapist stays overn -- oh, one with "Lady" in the title. That kind. The brother says the name should be on the credit card bill -- good thing Allison was killed, because if she hadn't, she would have killed the two of them the minute she found a two-day "Lady massage" charge on her monthly statement.
Lisbon and Jane visit Dr. Wagner and ask about Allison Randolph. Turns out that Wagner's practice, which Tanner worked at, gives half their profits to founding clinics in poor African communities; judging by Wagner's office, it looks like the other half was spent on African furnishings. It's like an import/export business in that room. Jane notices a book on personality and deviance on a shelf among other medical books; not unusual, since the practice does psychotherapy as well as sports medicine and cosmetic surgery. Jane asks if Tannen kept a diary, prompting more eye-rolling from Lisbon, although it seems like that should be the first question they ask; Wagner doesn't think so. When asked about any unusual treatments for Allison, Wagner reveals that Tannen had asked him to approve off-the-books birth control pills for her -- since Price had a vasectomy in 2002, that can only mean one thing: Allison was getting her holes-in-one somewhere else. (My bad pun, not anyone on the show, to their credit.)
On the way out, Jane asks Wagner for some sleeping pills, but Wagner says he wouldn't feel comfortable prescribing anything without a consultation first. Not sure if it's a ruse or legit on Jane's part, but I'm betting on clever ruse. Lisbon finds the whole thing amusing, so she either likes the ruse or thinks it's funny that Jane is addicted to medication not obtained through legal channels.
Over dinner (at Red Lobster?), the team discusses the likelihood that Price somehow snuck away from his 48-hour massage and killed his wife. Jane says Price has never won a major tournament, and always chokes on the 18th hole, so therefore he doesn't have the guts. Newbie Van Pelt asks if real psychics could tell that Jane was a fake psychic -- Jane says there are no real psychics, and that furthermore, Van Pelt's psychic cousin is either crazy or a liar or both. Also, after guessing that Van Pelt's father is a football coach, he says that there's no afterlife, either. Now, here is where we find out that Van Pelt is not only a believer in psychics, but also a teeny bit religious. She says twice, and stridently both times, that the Kingdom of God is a real place, and that Jane has an immortal soul. Jane hopes not. He also suggests that when Rigsby asks her to come back to his room, she go, because Rigsby is probably a good lover. Rigsby chokes on his lobster roll and gives Jane a look that lets him know just what a cockblocker he is, not that he was going to get anywhere with Sister Grace. Lisbon thinks that a fanatically religiously agent and a potential on-the-job romance between subordinates are both very amusing.
After a very awkward elevator ride, in which we see that all of the agents are, for some reason, staying on different floors (what, is there a convention in town?), we see Jane watching a show about cheetahs in his hotel room. Been there, buddy -- except, you know, porn. An envelope is slipped under his door, and as he opens it he sees a red smiley face. He immediately books it out the door and down the hall after a black-clad figure. They both descend the stairwell, but by the time an apparently out-of-shape and out-of-breath Jane makes it to the parking lot, the person is nowhere in sight. Back in his room, Sister Grace reads the letter, which is pretty mean-spirited, with Redjohn asking his "old friend" Jane why he can't catch him. Jane doesn't think Redjohn would risk capture to taunt him, so the team splits up: Sister Grace takes the letter to Forensics, Rigsby goes to check the security cameras and Cho goes to find Price Randolph. Lisbon tells Jane to get some sleep (awww), and then leaves, presumably to go back to bed while her team busts their asses. As she returns to Slumberland, Jane decides to head out on the town.
Cut to Jane in a 24-hour diner, drinking coffee and writing in a little book marked "DIARY." Where do you buy a book like that? Who labels a bright red diary with big block letters on the front, reading "DIARY"? I guess that's all that's available at the local bodega at midnight in Palm Springs. Jane appears to be writing crazy stuff in it, like the words "kill," "confess" and what looks like a bar graph. He underlines a lot of stuff. He's still working on it at the police station in the morning as everyone comes in, and Lisbon looks pissed to see him sitting there finishing a Big Gulp. She immediately schedules an appointment for him with Dr. Wagner. Rigsby has the forensics report, even though that wasn't his job last night, and it shows that a hair in the letter belonged to Tag Randolph, Price's brother. Wait, the brothers' names are "Price" and "Tag"? I'm either disgusted or really impressed that the writers got away with that.
Under questioning, Tag denies sending the letter, saying it's either a mistake or he's being framed. Jane tells Sister Grace that Tag and Allison were lovers a moment before Tag himself drops that bomb, saying that Price might be the one framing him. Grace thinks Jane really is psychic. I think he's a show-off.
Jane shows up for his appointment with Wagner, but it doesn't seem to be a regular doctor's visit. In fact, it looks like psychotherapy, and it sounds like it, too. Which is strange, because I thought Wagner was Allison's regular physician, not her therapist. Oh, well. Jane seems to be playing a character, the same one from before, saying he doesn't like doctors, because they want to be the smartest people in the room, when that's clearly him. He just wants to sleep; when Wagner asks him what keeps him awake, we get brought back...
...To the same moment on the talk show we left off at, five years ago. As Jane explains to the talk-show hosts how he gets a "psychic fix" on evildoers, and what an ugly, pathetic little worm Redjohn is, we see him driving back to his house late at night. Inside, he pushes a tricycle out of the way and climbs the stairs, only to find a note on the door of his bedroom. It's from Redjohn, saying that he doesn't like to be slandered, and a real psychic wouldn't need to open the door to see what had happened to his wife and child. Because he's not a real psychic, Jane opens the door, and the first thing he sees is a bloody smiley face on the wall. Apparently, Jane's wife and daughter were victims #9 and #10, five years ago? And now, as they investigate what they thought was victim #12, he's still on the case? Shouldn't he have been pulled off of it ages ago? Or do his prior knowledge of the case and unique skill set make him indispensible?
Back in Wagner's office, Jane snaps out of his flashback and decides to open up to the doc. It turns out, when he was a boy, he asked his little brother to do his chores for him, and his brother opened up an artery in his leg using the saw to cut wood. Wagner reflects for a moment, and says, "You know, that's almost exactly the same thing that happened to Johnny Cash." Jane says, "Is it really? Wow." Pause. "That's spooky." I don't know if Wagner can see through this not-so-clever ruse, but I'm pretty sure Jane just made all that up. Now I wish he'd been watching Walk the Line in his hotel room instead of the cheetah show.
At the police station, Price shows up with his lawyer to spring Tag, and gets really pissy about it... until Cho tells him that Tag was "banging [Allison] like a big bass drum." Granted, Price was being a dick about it, but Cho's ability to say the absolute wrong thing continues to astound me. Price is stunned, and is in the process of taking his high-priced attorney and going home when Rigsby decides to walk Tag down that same stretch of hallway. The Brothers McMulligan get in a screaming match, and it starts to look like neither one had any reason to want Allison dead.
Dr. Wagner's office. Wagner writes Jane a scrip for sleeping pills, but knows that everything he was just told was a lie. Jane admits it, saying that the truth is his (or rather, "mine," which is also what he said about Redjohn to Lisbon). As they leave the empty office, Jane tells him that they found out Tannen definitely kept a diary, and that he'll send the detectives back to do a more thorough search of the office in the morning. Then he hugs Wagner and exits into the night. A few minutes later, Wagner is on his knees in Tannen's ransacked office, digging through filing cabinets, and Jane waltzes back in. Turns out he palmed the card key from Wagner, although he tells Wagner the door was unlocked and he forgot his phone and... what's going on here? Wagner admits to playing detective, trying to find the diary, and Jane offers to help. He does a phony "getting a psychic fix" thing, wandering the room until he ends up on his back in front of a bookcase, reaching underneath and pulling out the red diary -- sorry, DIARY!!!! -- that he was filling in the other night! A-ha-ha! Another clever ruse!
Jane flips through it, but as Wagner approaches he snaps it shut and thanks him, heading for the exit. Wagner runs after him in a panic, reminding him he forgot his phone. They both enter Wagner's office, and Jane recovers his phone from the couch cushions as Wagner recovers a pistol from his desk and demands the diary. Jane hands it over, and Ivanek proves why he's an Emmy winner as he slowly realizes he's been had. Without admitting to anything, he asks what led Jane to him. Jane thought it was odd that Wagner didn't know who Redjohn was when he has a book on his shelf with an entire chapter on the killer. As the Randolph family physician (and psychotherapist, apparently), Wagner could get one of Tag's hairs, and as a doctor, he could hack up someone in cold blood. Yikes. That's a pretty damning generalization about doctors, although Wagner seems to have several job descriptions, so maybe "butcher" is one of them.
After admitting that his fake Redjohn letter was "mean-spirited" (that's what I thought!), Wagner reveals that Tannen was going to turn him in for embezzlement, thereby jeopardizing Wagner's good work in Africa. Allison Randolph was a red herring, to lead the police away from the practice. Jane tells Wagner he's under arrest and that there are no bullets in his gun, a lie that distracts Wagner long enough for him to make a break for it. At the entrance, Jane finds Rigsby, who showed up as ordered (if a little late) and just in time to draw his piece on Wagner. Way to save the cockblocker, Rigsby.
Back at the police station, a cheery Jane brings in case-closed donuts for the team as they pack up all of the evidence boards, but everyone is pissed at him for closing the case without them, and not letting them in on his suspicions. Rigsby is forgiving enough to eat a donut. By means of apology, Jane puts an origami frog on Lisbon's desk -- I don't think he folded it himself, because it looks like Cho threw it to him just before. So Cho is the team's origami expert. Good to know. Lisbon scoffs at the gift, until it jumps up and startles her. She looks flustered, and Jane smiles as he leaves. Awww.
Then we see Jane going home to an empty house -- it looks like it's the house he came home to before, only this time there's no tricycle, or furniture of any kind. He climbs the stairs and walks over to a small mattress on the floor in the corner of a room, then lies down on it in his clothes. The camera pans up to reveal a faded Redjohn smiley face on the wall. It looks like someone tried to scrub it off, but couldn't. This is the room where his wife and child were killed. This is where he sleeps. This is totally effed up. This show is awesome.
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