"I ordered you a scotch. Thanks for meeting me so late. I just came from the network."
"No problem. What's up?"
"We've got big trouble."
"You mean the lack of viewer interest in Fischer, Wylie and Abbott?"
"Who?"
"See what I mean?"
"No. It's not that."
"You mean the absence of a compelling story arc since Green Thumb? We're dealing with that. We've taken the network's suggestion and put nubile women in jeopardy this week but so far, no one seems to give a shit about them."
"It's a three-part arc. You still have time to give the girls cancer or STD's. That always does the trick. The female 18-49 will eat that up. If not, we'll make some of them pregnant."
"I'll make a note of that.
-"So what's the big trouble? The spectre of cancellation?"
-"The gulp factor from other networks we're shopping the show to because of the high-ticket production cost?"
-"The fact that with the Red John quest over, Jane comes off more as a self-pitying, self-involved opaque twinkle toes rather than as an enigmatic heroic avenger who found his moral compass through loss and pain?"
"All excellent points, but no. That's not it."
"What's the problem then?"
"It's the small chick."
"Lisbon? She's a popular character."
"Not since she started acting sexy. Her numbers have plunged."
"Is it the Fran Drescher quality she gets in her voice when she tries to laugh seductively?"
"Yeah."
"Is it the curled lip and the way she bobs her head and runs her teeth over her tongue?"
"Yeah."
"Is it that it accentuates the 'hot dog vendor at Wrigley Field' quality that's always been latent? The quality that Jane balanced out with his natural class and elegance but Pike only accentuates with his unfortunate squid face?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah. Guess I'm not the only one who noticed. I have to admit that not since Elaine danced on Seinfeld have I seen a perfectly attractive woman make herself so skeevy so fast. It's like watching a train wreck."
"Someone has to tell her."
"Tell the actress she's not good at being sexy?"
"You're the producer. That's why you get paid the big bucks."
"Wait a second! You've just given me a brilliant idea for how to resolve the Jane/Lisbon romance."
"What is it?"
"We have Jane witness Lisbon talking sexy to Pike and he's so turned off by this hidden fishwife-on-hormones facet of her character, he runs off and tosses his cookies in a nearby trashcan, his dream of the lovely Teresa shattered.
-"I mean, Lisbon in heat makes Lorelei seem like Grace Kelly."
-"Maybe he tries to fantasize about her later in the privacy of his Airstream but he keeps hearing that cackle and he can't get his body to respond."
"Love the gritty realism. Failed masturbation is a neglected topic on network TV. We could be talking Emmy here."
"Then, gallant fellow that he is, he behaves like a complete jerk to Lisbon so she feels fine about going off with Pike to D.C."
"I'm gonna tell everyone I was in the room when you came up with this."
"You provided the inspiration."
"I love it. In the end, who can blame Jane? The body never lies. Lisbon winds up with a guy who thinks her acting sexy is actually sexy. And the viewer understands that the reason Jane didn't touch her all these years is that, subconsciously, in his mentalist way, he knew he couldn't fuck her even with Pike's dick. So Jane dodges a bullet and so does Lisbon."
"Who says we writers don't like an uplifting ending?"