The Mentalist – The Crimson Ticket

• Title: The Mentalist – The Crimson Ticket
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With their boss dead, Red John in the wind, and their suspensions lifted the CBI team goes back to work, thanks in no small part to some finagling between Gale Bertram (Michael Gaston) and his opposite number at the FBI (Polly Walker). Jane (Simon Baker) is much more interested in talking with Lorelei (Emmanuelle Chriqui), and learning all he can from her about Red John, but until a deal with the FBI can be worked out no one will be speaking with the captured member of Red John’s inner circle.

As part of a public relations campaign to bury the botched operation the CBI and FBI (Ivan Sergei, Drew Powell) teams work  together on the latest case involving the death of two hotel employees. While Jane helps frame an innocent suspect (Jim O’Heir) to get the FBI team to go after the wrong man, he and Lisbon (Robin Tunney) talk with the dead woman’s older sister (Amanda Detmer) and Cho (Tim Kang) and Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) run down the history of the other victim.

When the FBI get a warrant for Lorelei as sweep her out of the CBI under Jane’s nose he has no choice but to blackmail Bertram into forcing an arbitration hearing to once and for all determine custody of the prisoner. Another sleight of hand that gets him chased around the courthouse by an angry FBI agent, but Patrick is able to force the judge’s (John Rubinstein) hand to rule in favor of the CBI. However, when Jane and Lisbon go to collect their prisoner at the Sacramento County Jail the find another woman has taken her place and he must accept that his best lead to find the man who murdered his wife and daughter has disappeared.

As to the murder case, Jane is finally able to connect the two victims and reconstruct the series of events that led to an impromptu celebration between relative strangers turning into a double homicide. The murder of the week has a nice twist that’s teased early but isn’t given away (although those paying attention the the episode’s title will figure it out long before Jane), but it’s the infighting between the CBI and FBI really carries the episode. I’m a little saddened to see Lorelei disappear so quickly, but I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of her before too long.