Plot summary
Patrick Jane, an independent consultant to the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and a former television psychic, works alongside Senior Agent Teresa Lisbon and agents Kimball Cho, Wayne Rigsby, and Grace Van Pelt. While investigating the murder of a teenage girl, Jane goads the victim's father into revealing his guilt, prompting the girl's mother to shoot him. Two weeks later, the team is called to a double homicide bearing the smiley-face signature of the serial killer Red John. Jane concludes it is the work of a copycat because the mark is painted on the wrong wall, and identifies the killer as Dr. Linus Wagner, who murdered to conceal financial fraud; Wagner is arrested after Jane manipulates him into incriminating himself.
A flashback reveals that years earlier, while posing as a psychic, Jane publicly taunted Red John on television, and the killer retaliated by murdering Jane's wife and daughter, a loss that drives his work and his obsession with bringing Red John to justice.
Credits
Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, The Mentalist season 1. HTML formatting and reference markers removed.