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This week, sexy Patrick Jane helps track the killer of a rich man’s adulterous wife at a posh California resort in the highest-rated episode of the season.

Claire Wolcutt is shot dead while in bed with her lover, who escapes with a gunshot wound - and is found already in bed with another woman the next day. Wolcutt’s husband, a controlling prick who puts the pressure on the CBI team to find the killer, dons a tux and heads out to party with his rich business partners just days after the kill. A former assistant who was fired for theft tried to blackmail her boss about her affair. A mousy little man with the resort’s reputation first in his mind wants the investigation wrapped up pronto so he can reopen the house where the murder happened. Need any more suspects?

As they investigate, the CBI team learn about men who who call themselves “women whisperers” - nightly sweaty sex with no hint of commitment. Jane quickly figures out one man is doing it to hurt the woman who broke his heart - a woman still in love with him. Both have ties to the posh resort where the murder happened.

By setting another one of Jane’s ingenious traps, the CBI team also discovers the whodunit, which can be caught by viewers if you carefully follow the clues and watch character action and reaction.

The episode was great - as usual - but one of the funniest scenes is at the end, when the ultra-serious Agent Cho suits up to test the one-night-stand man’s theories, with Jane and the others watching on a closed-circuit monitor in the background.

It is just too funny to see him out of his serious office attire, in a suit with sunglasses, swaggering into the bar, where women cannot take their eyes off of him. This is after a few scenes where the deadpan, tough-as-nails agent goes head-to-head with the dead woman’s nasty husband - who happens to be a friend of a high government official. (Aren’t they all?) The scene, titled “Cho’s Got Zing,” is available online for high-speed Internet customers.

It seems with all the joking in the show, the writers put at least one subtly-sad reference to Jane’s dead family. At the end of the episode, Jane is shown still wearing his wedding ring and when two women ask him to join them for a drink, he declines, saying he’s married. It is this subtly touching moment when viewers feel that ultimate loneliness Jane feels for the loss of his wife and child.

Jane’s disdain for Wolcutt is clear. The man acts like he cares and puts on a show to find his wife’s killer, but he doesn’t really care. For Jane, this is a disgusting slap in the face. Remember, he is still mourning the loss of his family. Even though Claire Wolcutt was having an affair, her husband should show some remorse - or respect. Jane makes sure he knows that.

I will admit, though, I thought this was a rerun at first when I saw the gigolo men with their suave suits and pick up lines that set my teeth on edge. It took a while, though, to realize that another crime drama (Without a Trace, I believe) did an episode this season using that exact same scenario. Instead of one man filling in the law enforcement team on the best ways to pick up desperate women - as in this episode of The Mentalist - a guy was giving classes to nerds with money, dishing out the same crappy information before viewers are shown that he always ends up alone when he goes out, his inflated sense of self making him believe it is because he is too good for the catches at the bar.

I’ve noticed shows - especially on CBS - tend to use the same scenarios within different shows. This is why it is a bad idea for all writers on shows to come from California. They all have the same ideas and regurgitate them too often - especially within the same networks.

This episode ranked the highest audience ever for the freshman CBS series. According to Deseret News, nearly 20 million viewers and helped the network to have its best performance on a Tuesday night in 14 years.

Even on its bad days, The Mentalist offers this incredible acting and plots, and a seamless production that puts sub-quality imitations like Psych in their place. (That show is just too stupid for words.)

And it is FUNNY. As I’ve said before, the irony and fun in this show give it a refreshing twist to the common crime drama. Most crime dramas and police procedurals take themselves too seriously - like Law and Order. That is OK - for a while. But after a while, it gets stressful to watch too much of it.

I love crime shows and police dramas. What I love more is how The Mentalist has tapped into this inexplicably successful mix of comedy and drama to create a show I look forward to watching after NCIS. And let me tell you, I look forward to the next episode, Scarlett Fever, about a country club cougar who gets killed. I can’t wait to see how much fun they have with that topic.

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