The Mentalist 7×04 – Black Market – Recap

Jane and Lisbon team up to catch this week’s killer in a very unusual way… Has Lisbon psychic powers Jane didn’t know about?
Read on our recap of the new episode of The Mentalist, Black Market, to find out.

The FBI must retrieve a cache of diamonds worth half a million dollars, stolen outiside Forth Worth, and catch the responsible of said stolen cache.
How to do that?
The first step: Cho and Lisbon undercover as a couple purchasing an engagement ring, which is part of the cache of stolen diamonds. The jewelry store’s owner says he’s got nothing to do with it, that he bought the diamonds from several sellers.
One of these, named Rosales, sold him $50,000 worth of diamonds. He’s a vendor at a travelling gem show. When Vega and Cho visits the gem show, they are approached by Kirk Upton, a vendor. When asked if he knows Rosales, he answers that he doesn’t.
Rosales also says he’s got nothing to do with the stolen diamonds, and he can prove it.
A few minutes later, outisde the gem show, Vega and Cho find the dead body of Kirk Upton. It looks like Upton has no connection with the diamonds, but Jane suspects Upton must have had a partner. Jane also suspects that when he saw Cho and Vega he panicked and tried to convince his partner to confess, and he was killed for that. The team must find this partner.
Looking for a possible suspect, the team looks into Greta Fortensky, the gem show appraiser, and her daughter Bibby.
From the office, a sick Jane is looking what happens at the gem show with Wylie, via the security cameras.
The investigation is going on, but with no valid suspects. Until Jane comes up with an idea to catch the killer, the same person who stole the diamonds. But since he’s sick, Lisbon will have to make his plan possible, turning into… a psychic. At the gem show, she does an incredibly fun reading, (thanks to Jane’s help who’s guiding her from the office) during which she claims to be talking with Kirk, who’s leading her to his killer: Bibby. The young woman wanted to be free from her mother, and convinced Kirk (who also needed money), to steal the diamonds.

Vega is still trying to apologize to Cho, for what happened during last week’s episode, but Cho seems to be inflexible, for now. He says he doesn’t trust Vega, and he doesn’t want to work with her. This new case, and Abbott’s orders, bring them working close together again though, and Cho ends up giving Vega a second chance.

We meet Abbott’s wife, Lena, a beautiful successful woman, who’s just recently become the undersecretary for the Deparment of Commerce. Even if it’s not a done deal yet, it has to be confirmed. For that to happen, both her life and Abbott’s have to be monitored. Something came up about Abbott’s past. Something that has to do with one of his first operations with the FBI, to take down cartels near the border with the DEA. Abbotts says he’s got nothing to hide regarding that operation, but it looks like there is indeed something he doesn’t want to share, something that could harm his wife’s career.

I’m not sure where the storyline for Cho and Vega is really going, but I just personally hope it won’t involve something romantic between the two. Vega is too young for someone like Cho, and she still needs to learn a lot about him. I think it would be better to see a working relantionship grow, with that trust Cho wants from her. I’d also love to see Vega stand up for herself first of all.

The highlights of this week’s episode were certainly the first scene, in which Cho and Lisbon go undercover as a couple. I wonder how Cho must have felt, while he was being kissed by his former boss.
Psychic medium Lisbon was something The Mentalist’s Creator Bruno Heller always wanted to bring on the show, and we finally had it. It was a fun, entertaining moment, turned even more entertaining by the fact that Jane was guiding Lisbon through a microphone the entire the time.
At the end of the episode, Jane and Lisbon discuss it in Jane’s airstream, and we find out Lisbon had a lot of fun doing the psychic with Jane. Perfect partners.
Suddenly though, Jane changes the subject completely, and tells Lisbon: “What if we just left? Go someplace different, move on. Are we really gonna work for the FBI for the rest of our lives? Look at dead people, chase bad guys?”. To which Lisbon simply replies: “It’s who I am, Jane”.
Lisbon then leaves Jane for the night.
This moment connects what was hinted in the previous episodes: Lisbon is insecure about Jane’s plans. She doesn’t know if he’s going to stick around. Jane, in the first episode, wasn’t so eager to go back to work, and admitted he doesn’t have a plan for his future with Lisbon. And then these words. Lisbon must have felt that feeling coming back. Insecurity and doubts about Jane’s commitment to their relationship.
It’s definitely another step they need to discuss, and we will surely see that happen in the next episodes.