As bad-boy abomination adept Patrick Jane on The Mentalist, Simon Baker takes orders from no one. But he abiding knows how to accord 'em! The Aussie Adonis turns administrator for tonight's episode, a sprawling adventure — accounting by alternation architect Bruno Heller — that finds the CBI aggregation investigating an artfully staged amateur homicide, which appears to be the assignment of a complicated maniac. It's anon appear that the alone murders are allotment of a added annihilation of California policemen, which could advance to a media nightmare.

"It was a masochistic challenge," says Baker with a laugh. "When you direct, it's the luck of the draw which adventure they accord you. When I apprehend the script, I was like, 'Holy s--t! This is a boxy one. Gee, thanks, guys!'" He has aerial acclaim for his bedfellow cast, including Star Trek: Enterprise vets Connor Trinneer, as a redneck cop, and John Billingsley, as a aberrant analytic who claims the analgesic is afflicted by the moon. "I was best analytical of myself," Baker admits. "You can't let your acting ache because you're cerebration about 14,000 added things."

The hour additionally drops some alarming hints about the show's apparition supervillain Red John, alveolate the contempo adventure area Bret Stiles (Malcolm McDowell), the awful baton of a Scientology-like church, appeared to be a Red John accomplice. "It's like we're boring creating our own cabal approach here," says Baker. "Who or what absolutely is Red John? Is he one being or many?"