Recap -- The Mentalist 2.15 "Red Herring"

Lisbon gets a furious call from the attorney general, now that a senator's daughter has died on their watch. Cho and Rigsby go to talk to the husband, Arliss, who inherits her money and doesn't seem broken up by her death at all. Arliss points them back to Abigail, who supposedly had a big fight with Jeff at a grocery store just a couple weeks ago.

Lisbon and Jane to to interview Abigail again. Jane notices the photos of Abigail on the wall, and how she doesn't look quite as she did before. He guesses that she's pregnant, and she admits it. It's Jeff's child, and he didn't react well to the news, which is what the argument was about. Lisbon tells Abigail they have to search her home.

As the search is conducted, Jane sits comfortabl in his chair. When castor beans, the source of ricin, are discovered, Jane doesn't seem all that convinced. The team then learns that Julia was poisoned with ricin in the hot pepper she always sprinkled on her food--food that Jane almost ate during his kitchen investigations, before Duesterberg interrupted him.

Jane gets Lisbon away from her interrogation of Abigail, and takes her back to the hotel for a memorial service the chefs and Duesterberg have put together for Jeff and Julia. Jane noses around the kitchen, and intentionally starts a burner fire so that he can slip hot pepper into the soup. Once seated at the table, Jane watches as the guests fan their mouths over the hot soup that they swear wasn't prepared that way. Jane confesses that he put some of Julia's famous hot pepper in the soup. Eliza starts choking and looking terrified, and when they tell her she'll be denied medical care for 48 hours, she panics and tells the truth about the poison in the pepper.

The other guests are relieved when Jane assures them he didn't use the poisoned pepper, and Eliza is furious. Back at the CBI headquarters, Eliza shows no remorse. Lisbon guesses that Jeff didn't want to lose Eliza as sous-chef, so he got Julia to use her government connections and squash Eliza's liquor license application. The 2am phone call to Eliza was a confession from Jeff, as he tried to make amends. "Like I was gonna let that go," Eliza says coldly, detailing how she went to Jeff's apartment and poisoned his liquor--and then poisoned Julia's pepper.

Next we see Abigail confronting Lisbon about the planted castor beans. Lisbon says that it was Jane's way of luring out the real suspect, and though his hunch was correct, she was sorry for what Abigail went through. Abigail says she appreciates Lisbon's honesty, and to tell Jane he was "a mean, irresponsible sadist". Lisbon agrees that she will. Just before Abigail leaves, Lisbon calls her back. She tells Abigail that Jeff entered rehab right after he found out about the baby, and that he broke up with Julia. She says she understands it's hard living with an alcoholic, but she wanted Abigail to know it seemed like Jeff was trying to make a go of it with her again. Abigail is grateful, and thanks Lisbon.

Lisbon seems affected by this conversation, and though Jane tries to get her to talk about what's bothering her, she refuses. She does repeat Abigail's "sadist" description and Jane calls it "pretty accurate". He gets up and leaves Lisbon's office, and then we see her go over and open her bottom desk drawer. There's a bottle of liquor inside with a glass. She takes them out, struggles with the decision to drink, then puts the liquor back in the drawer.

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