Cheers & Jeers: The Mentalist's Psychic Friends Network
Richard Roundtree, Pruitt Taylor Vince
Cheers to a couple of old pros for bringing character to The Mentalist.
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Richard Roundtree and Pruitt Taylor Vince provided the dramatic muscle in an otherwise lightweight episode about a DOA at an MMA fight. The man once known as "the black private dick who's a sex machine to all the chicks" — Shaft! — proved he still knows his way around the ring as a sly trainer. If only Roundtree could recur, like he did in recent years on Heroes and Desperate Housewives. Maybe Simon Baker's Thomas Jane could distract himself from obsessing over Red John with a few boxing lessons?
Meanwhile, Vince, an Emmy winner as a serial psycho on Murder One, returned as J.J. LaRoche, an eerily calm internal-affairs officer investigating the mysterious demise of a cop killer in CBI custody. An even cooler cucumber, Cho (Tim Kang), lied to J.J.'s face to protect teammate Rigsby (Owain Yeoman), but one can only assume — and hope — we haven't seen the last of LaRoche.
Did you think Richard Roundtree and Pruitt Taylor Vince elevated The Mentalist?
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