‘The Mentalist’ season 7 spoilers: First photo of Morena Baccarin’s return!

One of the joys for the final season of “The Mentalist” could be seeing the return of many old favorites, and you can already chalk up Morena Baccarin as one of them. It’s been years since Erica Flynn has graced the series, but she may have an important role to play in “Orange Blossom Ice Cream,” the third episode that is going to air come Sunday, December 14.

What is the subject of this story? Ultimately, it is this simple: The “Firefly” alum is bringing back her character as she hopes to get amnesty for her past crimes. What does she have to do in order to earn it? It is as simple (or not so simple) as making sure that she turns her boyfriend over to the authorities when Jane and Lisbon pay her a visit in Beirut.

This is one of the first significant appearances for Baccarin on TV since being written out of “Homeland,” and also since welcoming a child. It’s nice to see her back, and we feel like we will probably be seeing a heck of a lot more of her in the future. She hardly seems like the sort of person who is going to be gone from the medium for a particularly long period of time.

While we’ve said this before, it bears repeating now that we hope that this is only one of many major guest-star turns we have for the final season. If there is not another appearances from Rigsby and Van Pelt before we close the book on the show, it is going to be a letdown. We know we had five seasons and a good chunk of the sixth, but that is still not enough for us!