The Mentalist and the Hero's Journey

The main character of The Mentalist is Patrick Jane, who at the beginning of the epic, is a television personality using his powers of observation to pose as a psychic. The show starts with Jane working as a non-psychic but highly observant consultant to the CBI to solve murder cases. While the show is comprised of great characters, clever plots, excellent writers, and superior acting talent, a large part of the show’s success is due to the hidden depth of its story. The transformation of Patrick Jane throughout the seven seasons of the show follows to a large extent the blueprint for the heroic journey (as laid out by Joseph Campbell) and therefore represents the most enduring and universal themes in human literature: the victory of cleverness over strength, the struggle for personal growth, transformation into higher levels of awareness, and the search to find meaning.

When the epic starts, Patrick Jane’s normal life is based on the carnival. He has succumbed to his father’s control and embraced his life as a shyster, suppressing his discontent. Established with money, wife, and child, he thinks he is on top of his game. His ego and sense of superiority dominate; he is arrogant and begging for comeuppance. When his wife and child are murdered after his public display of contempt for Red John, he must face this loss if he is to survive. After a mental breakdown, he spends 6 months in a psychiatric ward, his emotional world destroyed and broken. He is helped by a therapist, and during this period, he formulates his quest motivated by his thirst for revenge: he will find and kill Red John in retaliation and as a matter of justice. He is helped in this by the CBI director Minelli and by Teresa Lisbon, both of whom start him in his role as consultant to the CBI. He commits to this role while planning to use his position and its resources to further his quest.

For the next 10 years he participates in murder investigations, during which time he meets many allies and enemies, some that chip away at his emotional isolation (Lisbon), some that challenge his status as a know-it-all (Kristina), some that entice him (Erica), some that attract him as power-equals (Walter Mashburn), some that ally with him (Bret Stiles, J.J. LaRoche, Hightower), and many other characters that contribute to his world. Finally, he enters the final route to Red John, he fakes his own dissolution, he gets involved with Loralei, he whittles down the list to a few names, he takes risks with himself and others, the tempo increases as he nears the end. Amid violence and death, he ends his quest: identifying and killing Red John. His reward for completing his task is freedom; as he runs away from Red John’s body, we feel the wind at his back and the air on his face. We understand that he is running away from something bigger than the body and from capture by the police – he is running away from his own demons. He finds his way to Mexico where he takes the time ne needs to enjoy life and heal from the violence and obsession of his path.

His letters to Lisbon during this time pave the road back to the world. He returns to the FBI to resume a life of investigation, but as a man without an obsession for revenge. He must understand what this means; he tries his former manipulative tricks, but they don’t work; he can’t control Lisbon, she won’t let him. He begins to suspect that she represents a new quest (or maybe the true quest all along), but he doesn’t yet understand what this means. He is at a loss how to proceed. He is frustrated by Lisbon herself, who is losing her patience and turning toward other rewards. This continues until his resurrection is accomplished: he finally realizes that he must be honest with himself and with Lisbon about his feelings or he will lose her. He confesses and begins his relationship with her, but even then, he encounters more tests. He must face his rival and his own inadequacies. He must encounter danger in his job both for himself and for Lisbon, who has now become important to him. He must learn to communicate and trust. Finally, he must face the biggest challenge: the reality that Lisbon faces danger on every job, with the very real possibility that she could die and be removed from his life – how will he face that loss, a loss that could return him to the hell he endured after the death of his wife, a full circle without end or beginning?

When he finally returns to the world for good, he brings the elixir of completeness: he has accepted himself and Lisbon, his place in the world, and believes in his own capability to deal with his own emotions and in the sanctity of his union with Lisbon. He has left behind his false life for a life of authenticity and connection. His full reward is his new marriage and the cycle ends, symbolically with new life: new life for Jane and Lisbon as a married couple, and new life with the birth of a child. The heroic journey is complete.

If Jane is the hero in a Homeric journey, Lisbon is the Woman Who Waits. She waits for Jane to join the team at the site, she waits for him to reveal facts in an investigation, she waits for him to reveal the identity of the murderer, she waits for him to provide the conclusion of an investigation, she waits for him to explain himself, she waits for him to speak his truth, she waits for him to heal, she waits for him to come to terms with his path, she waits for him to grow up. She waits actively; she pushes him, but she doesn’t walk away when he fails. She accepts his foibles even when she protests them. She teases, berates, insults, taunts, and even derides him, but she never abandons him. Even when she finally decides to leave, the door is still open, and when he is ready, she falls back through it with the grace of full understanding. She both completes his heroic journey and at the same time makes it possible.

The depth, power, and universality of this story provide the context for seven seasons of banter, flirtation, disagreement, concord, withdrawal and reunion during which Jane and Lisbon fall in love with each other and we in turn fall in love with them and their story. As much as we love the characters and would like to remain with them as their story continues, in fact, the story ends in its right place. Jane and Lisbon have passed the tests that life has put before them and have earned the sanctity of their private world. With completeness achieved, their story has ended. To continue beyond would deny their status as completed characters and reduce them to the ordinary and commonplace. Jane and Lisbon are protagonists in an age-old story, one that has lived in ancient times as much as in present, one that continues to guide and inform humanity as we undertake our own journeys through life. As with all great literature, we let those stars shine in fixed firmament, living always in our reflections and memories, never forgotten and always beloved.