On what may be my favorite episode of The Mentalist so far this season, the search for the San Joaquin killer brought Jane toe-to-toe with a worthy adversary. A man who could evade the police, the CBI, even Patrick Jane himself. That was until a little "Blinking Red Light" had Jane performing the ultimate set up, as he used one serial killer to take down another.

Jane and Lisbon. I always want to see more of these two but I did enjoy how Jane continued to push Lisbon to go with her instincts. He had faith that she'd be able to find the bad guy that way. Because the killer wasn't on the original list of eight suspects, you couldn't really blame her for not being able to pick him out, but the guy she did get was certainly plenty creepy, killer or no.

Lisbon and Van Pelt. The women of CBI made a good team but when they executed the search warrant at Richard's home, shouldn't they have had more backup? It seemed odd that it was just the two of them... not to mention dangerous and time-consuming for Van Pelt to search the entire house solo. I won't even get into Lisbon turning her back on a possible serial killer to try and pull something out of the fire. He could have cracked her skull and ran before Van Pelt ever got down the stairs.

Cho and Rigsby. We barely saw the boys tonight. The only decent scene for them was Cho's disgusted look as Rigsby made a mess of his hot dog. I'd love to go back and count how many episodes we've seen Rigsby eating something and how often he's dropped his food. 

Jane and Panzer.  Panzer was an obvious serial killer suspect right from the beginning. So obvious, in fact, that I'd written him off as a red herring. I thought they were simply going to use him to mirror Jane's obsession with Red John. Boy, was I wrong.

Jane became more emotionally invested the longer the case went on. When yet another victim showed up dead, he looked more shaken than I've ever seen him. I enjoyed that they didn't even have to show the girl's body. The look on Jane's face was enough.

Jane and Red John. I didn't think it was Jane's intention to pit serial killer against serial killer going into that TV broadcast. I believe he thought he could insult Panzer enough that the man would say something incriminating on air, but when he looked him in the eye and told him he knew what he was doing, the plan changed.

That little blinking red light sent Patrick Jane right back to the beginning. Right back to where he arrogantly taunted Red John and paid the ultimate price for it. Then he walked James Panzer into the same trap.

Of course, Panzer thought he was insulting a dead man but you know what they say: All's fair in love, war, and deranged serial murderers. 

So, was it genius or insanity that pushed Patrick Jane to take down a serial killer using a serial killer? Either way, in doing so he conned his nemesis out from hiding and showed the world that Red John is very much alive.

C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.