'Mental'-ly Unfit for Trial

I knew something didn't feel right about this week's episode. At first, I just chalked it up to poor planning on the writer's part or just a weak episode. I couldn't understand why this random court case was inserted into the episode without a lot of background information. It just felt out of place. I went with it, reluctantly, and then things started to get interesting. The ace prosecutor began seeing blurred images of the jury, witnesses, defendant and members of the crowd. I wasn't sure whether she was having an acute vision problem or if she was about to become one of Dr. Gallagher's patients. It wasn't until she started seeing flashes of Jack in a different setting that I began to suspect something was amiss. At that moment on the balcony, I started to suspect that what we were seeing wasn't really happening. I gotta say, this little twist was pretty brilliant! I went from kinda strongly disliking the disjointed feeling to the episode to kinda strongly loving it at the end.

One thing I did not love (at the beginning or the end) was Veronica's continued affair with Baby-Faced Doctor. I figured from last week's "I'm having an affair" discussion with Nora that things were still hot and heavy between these two and this episode confirmed it. I know we don't really know the cutey husband, but I feel so bad for him. I'm not going to deny that Veronica and Baby-Faced Doctor have some serious sparks, but I'm having a hard time getting on board with the story line. She either needs to end the thing, come clean to her husband and move on or end her marriage and be with the young doc. Make up your mind, woman. Either way, someone is going to get very hurt.

Mental airs Friday nights on Fox. If you missed this week's episode, watch it for free at Fox.com.

Famous 'Mental' Patient

I always get a kick out of episodes about actors and Hollywood (the kick being, of course, that a Hollywood-produced show cast with actors is basically eating its own). Almost the entire hour is one big "wink, wink." This week's episode of Mental continued this tradition with a famous patient who suffered a very public breakdown while promoting his new film on a late-night talk show. Of course, his spin doctors sold the story as a publicity stunt and research for his next role (which had him playing a psych patient). The press bought it and then packed their best paparazzi lens and flashbulbs as they camped out at the hospital, stalked the doctors with relentless phone calls and savored every leak they could print (courtesy of the publicity-seeking Dr. Belle). Sure, there were plenty of "wink, wink" moments including negative comments about actors, the business and the ridiculous army of people that make up Team (insert your fave celeb's name here). Every time I see Hollywood make fun of, well, Hollywood, I'm reminded why I love my anonymous life. In fact, I'm pretty convinced that a spotlight as large as Liam McBride's could drive the most sane person into insanity. Add in his disturbing and scarring past and you have an unsettling recipe for emotional and mental disaster. Oh, and I kinda loved the fact that Jack didn't really hypnotize Liam. That was pretty awesome.

The show's best episode thus far was about the young girl whose deranged husband had convinced her that she was pregnant because the episode, a) had a patient of the week who was engaging and her story was fascinating and surprising, and b) it mixed in a compelling and startling personal story for Veronica (my fave character, which should come as no surprise since I adored Jacqueline McKenzie on The 4400). I was feeling like the show had sorta dropped the latter story line until this week. Veronica came clean to Nora. Even more interesting, though, she said, "Because I'm having an affair," not "I had an affair." When last we dropped this story line, Veronica was telling the young doc that they couldn't continue. At the end of the episode, she seemed pretty resolved to the end of the affair as she sat in the car with her cutey patootey husband and they talked about their future. Now, I want to know what happened between then and now, but we've been left in the dark. Personally, I'd like to see the show flesh out these characters a bit more. I want to feel invested in them, but right now, I don't. The patient with mental case of the week is always well developed. All we need now is to know more about the docs treating them.

Mental moves to its new night next Friday, July 3rd on Fox. If you missed this week's episode, watch it for free at Fox.com.

'Mental' Games

Back in my Mario days, I would dream about that crazy Italian plumber trying to get away from the meanie mushroom people, fire-breathing-pipe-dwelling flowers and of course, that princess-kidnapping lizard Bowser. And even though I would wake up sweaty and sure I had finally figured out how to beat that damn game, thankfully, I never allowed the game to plague my awake time. In fact, it was the Mario-infiltrated dreams that convinced me that I needed to put down the controller and forget about Princess Peach (who, instead of demanding someone save her all the time, should have been demanding a new name -- I'm jus' sayin'). Poor Connor didn't have this option since his video game was a figment of his imagination, and it completely took over his conscious. Add in some over-protective parents who refused to allow Jack and his staff to treat their son and a secret family history of mental illness and you have a recipe for a very confused, upset and ill young boy. But Jack isn't one to give up, so he eventually convinced (forced?) the parents to do the right thing for Connor. Unfortunately, the mother wasn't as onboard as the father (saying that she'd call right before she walked out of the office), so I'm not sure if she's going to be there for her son. Thankfully, his father will be.

Just when I was starting to get bored with the "breathing calls," Jack gets one that leads him to a local Presbyterian church. Will he finally find his mentally ill sister? Meanwhile, Nora made a disturbing discovery about her teenage daughter. In a very timely story line, she learned that Aynsley had her own web site and was using it to post lingerie-clad photos of herself. The whole "sexting" phenomenon has become a dangerous epidemic with young people across this country, so I was expecting a bit more to this than we got. They gave us a forced scene between mother and daughter where Nora confronted her and Aynsley gave some excuse about her mother keeping her cancer recovery from her and presto! -- they were all good. I know this because at the end they were headed off to dinner together talking about that hottie Jack Gallagher. Maybe we'll get more on it in future episodes, but this was a way too tidy resolution to a very complicated and prevalent issue.

Mental airs Tuesday nights on Fox. If you missed this week's episode, watch it for free at Fox.com.

PTR Goes 'Mental'

With this post, I am officially adding the new Fox drama Mental to the PTR summer line-up. I watched the premiere last week and was a little iffy about it, but this week's stellar outing rocketed the show into the line-up. I'll admit that I first tuned in for star Jacqueline McKenzie. I loved her on The 4400 and was so pi$$ed when USA Network canceled that series, and I'm pretty sure that her performance in the little Australian film Angel Baby is one of the finest (if not, THE finest) pieces of acting that I have ever seen. Needless to say, I'm so glad to see her back on my TV screen and in another leading role. They didn't do much with the development of her character in the premiere, but they sure made up for it this week! She has been cheating on cutey-patootie husband with a fellow doctor in the staff lounge (p.s. I wonder how much nookie actually takes place in real staff lounges at hospitals? I only ask because ever freakin' hospital show since the dawn of time seems to have characters gettin' it on in there like it's some sort of epidemic in hospitals across the country!). I have to say, I was pretty shocked when they dropped this bomb. Veronica seems so straight-laced, so serious and so by-the-book that I wasn't expecting it. I did notice that she was quite cold toward her musician husband and his apparent lack of motivation, but I kinda dismissed it as one of those "sore subjects" between couples. I really thought she was going to come clean at the end in the car, but she kept quiet.

This week's psychiatric case had me swinging back and forth. At first, I thought it was all the wife and then the OB/GYN husband showed up and insisted that his wife was pregnant. So, I figured that he was going along with his wife to keep her from getting upset, but then he just went off the charts. Before I knew it, I was so hating the husband and his manipulations. In the end, I felt sorry for him. He wanted a child so badly, he invented one and he bought into the delusion. I liked the role reversal and the way it presented the man as the one who wanted a baby with every fiber of his being. The story went against the cliches and stereotypes and reminded us that men can want a family just as much as women.

I'm also enjoying the irony in this show. We have a group of psychiatrists whose job puts them in charge of the mental and emotional states of their patients and yet, every single one of them has his/her own issues that they're not dealing with properly. From Veronica's aforementioned frustrations with her husband and subsequent affair to Jack's unresolved relationship with "Beth" and how it more than likely factored into his decision to uproot from Vermont to Los Angeles to Arturo's obsession with sleeping with Chloe to Nora's not so secret feelings for Jack to Carl's ego: everyone has something they need to work through and they choose to ignore it instead. I think Alanis Morissette said it best when she said, "Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?" Welcome to the PTR line-up, Mental!

Mental airs Tuesday nights on Fox. If you missed this week's episode, watch it for free at Fox.com.