Your musical sound track over whelms your dialog !!!
Tone it DOWN !!!!!

"- Is it just me or are you feeling old too? Whenever shows have a flashback to when one of the characters was a kid, it's in the 1980s. The 1980s! I was an adult then and as the years go by, I'm feeling older and older."

Hang in there, buddy. Take it from me, it only gets worse from here. I don't mean to upset you, but if you think about it, it will be hardly 5 more years and you'll be having conversations with adults who don't remember 9/11 because they were too young!

"I guess one could make a connection, with fathers putting too much pressure on their sons, but it seemed to come out of nowhere. He just got hit in the noggin with a fly ball and started thinking about his dad and the carnival and the little sick girl."

You guess? It was the fathers pressuring their sons that precisely brought up those memories. It most likely brought up the memories casually, but getting hit in the head left him time to really focus on them.

The trigger was clearly Jane's conversation with Cho and why he (Cho) quit playing baseball. Jane is actually saying: "Eh, parents. It's funny, isn't it? The regrets in life people keep to themselves."

agree with what you said. not the best Mentalist episode but it was enjoyable.. the content of the flashbacks were kind of a disappointment.. though I do appreciate your comparison to the flashbacks in Bloodshot (those were few but SO significant) but here I feel the writer lacks the knowledge of how to get a flashback into an episodes (wish Gary writer of "Bloodshot" could write another episode *dreams*)

anyways, I liked how they go on with case, you'll say that why he didn't go to the hospital, I'll say this stubborn Jane.. Lisbon insisted that he go but she wasn't with him the whole time to actually take him herself ..

I actually found time to watch it, and spent most of my time muttering "go to the hospital!" Sorry, but it bugs me to no end how TV writers treat head injuries like a splinter in the finger. Plotwise, nothing too new, but I like the actor who played his father. can never remember his name but I enjoy his work.

Yeah, as was said, it did have that 80's feel to it. Now we just needed Magnum PI or Simon & Simon to wander into the scene, or hey, maybe Barnaby Jones! ;)

As you say, not the best mentalist episode, but I did enjoy it. You mentioned the lack of a trigger for his flashback? I think the trigger was the presence of the overbearing fathers. About seeing a Doctor, it wasn't clear to me whether or not the Dr at the beginning looked Jane over... I assumed he did. I thought it interesting that Jane's coworkers had no idea what he was thinking... he joked, etc, and yet was reliving an unpleasant time in his life.

Law and Order did this same exact episode many years ago. The 'too old' ballplayer who fudged his age to get him into the big league. That show was about Little Leaguers but the same outcome. Fudged identity and a younger kid floundering in school while pretending to be his older more talented ball-playing cousin.

I liked the flash backs to the younger Jane and appreciate the development of his conscience but what I'd prefer to know is how he met and loved his wife, created a child and let the intensely grave moment of their murder change his trajectory,

For me, Jane is often too whimsical for a man who has survived such darkness.

He's made some moral choices but there is no true past/present connection.

Jane is lost and trying to recoup his sense of ethics and dignity. This show is too often about his pranks and not enough about the true pathos.

Jane is such a brilliant but self-absorbed a@@hole. And, yet, we love and embrace his genius. I know he'll solve Red John one day but I don't want the writers to forget everything else in getting there.