Season 6 episode 8 is an anomaly in the fabric of reality. It will disturb you and haunt you and make you question your most deep rooted beliefs in life. I was shocked. It is okay if you, as a loyal fan of the series, are shocked too. After watching the episode, as I struggled to make sense of the entire affair, I asked myself the following question and came to these following conclusions.
Who is Red John?
1. Red John is a charismatic, middle aged man, who has soft body and rough hands. I believe this is a true physical description of Red John.
2. He is a great seducer. He seduces people to meet an end. A recurring motif in the show has been Red John's desire to "provide" Patrick with a new life. Is it possible he seduces people by "making their problems go away", and "providing" them with a "new" life over which he has a great degree of control?
3. Unlike other serial killers who have some sort of psychopathy leading to an internal urge to kill, Red John has often exhibited control. In season 5 finale, He says he is going to start killing soon, and more often, until he catches Patrick or Patrick catches him, concluding that he has voluntary control on whether or not he will kill? It must be noted that Red John has resolved to play a game of chase with Patrick in which killings will be performed by Red John as Patrick tries to catch him.
4. Red John created Blake Association to aid him in getting away with his murders. He is not a lawman, but has top level partners in California law enforcement, together with whom he created this association. It is possible these partners are more like his disciples with the hierarchy of the organisation being like that of a pyramid. The Association specializes in providing covers for bad people and serves the dual purpose of bringing more bad people under his chain command who are now dependent on him directly via Blake Association. He "provides" for these people to utilize them to meet an end. Brett Partridge, Thomas McAllister, Reede Smith and Gail Bertram are all members of Blake Association. Rebecca Anderson may or may not have been a member, but was closer to Red John compared to any of the above individuals.
5. Red John has non legal disciples as well. Examples include: Lorelei Martins, Michael Kirkland etc.
These are some major conclusions can be logically drawn from the "facts" alone, presented by the show till season 6, episode 6.
I will discount the physical details and other details we can obtain from the physical presence of Red John from episodes where we see Red John, such as the episode where we see Red John trying to kill Patrick and where he recites "The Tyger", the episode where we see him drinking a cup of tea, the episode we see him poison Rebecca Anderson etc. simply because there is no guarantee that the shown individual was Red John.
I will also discount that Red John has ever shaken hands with Patrick, simply because Lorelei Martins said it. We have never seen her before those episodes so, if she brought the topic up, so casually making the statement as if she was present while Patrick and Red John shook hands and wondered why they didn't become fast friends?, it was because Red John informed and instructed her to do so. This is analogous to the fact that Red John also informed Timothy Carter about the scent of Jane's wife and daughter in order to make him believe that Timothy Carter was Red John. Both these times, Red John tries to make Patrick believe a lie by revealing a truth or truth-like statement and makes him do something against Patrick's general characteristics.
The above facts however, are the very basic and form the core of Red John mythology.
Now, how can we extrapolate from these facts, who Red John is?
The answer is, we cannot.
However, we can verify if a certain individual is Red John or not.
I base this analysis taking into account all the events in The Mentalist from season 1 to season 6 episode 8.
1. Brett Patridge: Perfect age, looks handsome, can be charismatic. Perfect profile for Red John, except he is dead. Hence he is not Red John. He was a member of Blake Association and perhaps indirectly worked for him. But then he went all x_x Anyway, something that bothers me is why did Red John kill Brett Partridge first? He could have killed off Smith or Bertram or anyone else in the list. But, he chose to dispose off Partridge at first, when there was no compelling reason for it.
2. Thomas McAllister: Age mismatches, looks handsome, can be charismatic. Somewhat good profile for Red John. But then Red John is a super smart person, who will never risk meeting Patrick Jane and risk getting killed. Red John may be a pathetic little insect with delusions of grandeur but he is a super smart pathetic little insect with delusions of grandeur. He controls all the variables in an Environment he is present. He will never meet Patrick and get strangled to death.
3. Ray Haffner: A former CBI agent with strong links to visualize. Perfect age. Charismatic. Strong hands. One of the most viable candidate if there was one. He is not a member of Blake Association, which neither makes a case for him or against him being Red John. Very viable. But he is not Red John, because he has been killed off. I don't expect him to return back from the dead. But, if he does, we will know he is Red John. There is something strangely off about him. Was he really as clean and loyal as he projected?
4. Bob Kirkland: Not Red John. He was hunting down Red John and got killed at Reede Smith's hand. A clever play on Heller's part would be to make Bob's twin Michael as Red John hence making all that "Red John is indeed one among the seven in the list of suspects" from Bruno Heller some degree of truth.
5. Gale Bertram: x_x Plus, he is kinda stupid to be Red John. Age mismatches. I wouldn't call him charming or seductive. He more like the loyal dog who will attack at any direction pointed by his Master. He is a hollow bureaucrat who does whatever is necessary to gain promotions.
6. Reede Smith: Just a lowly lackey. He has turned himself in. Doesn't fit any of the descriptions for Red John. Also, he was being chased off by Oscar and was on the verge of being killed, had it not been for CBI.
7. Bret Stiles: Had age not been a factor, I would never be convinced of anyone else as Red John. He fits the profile of Red John, failing only at the age criteria. However, he is dead. Some interesting questions lingering in my mind are a) Was he the father of Red John? b) Is Red John among his first disciples? c) Is he somehow related to Patrick? and my favourite e) Is Red John and Patrick Jane brothers/twins and Bret Stiles their real father?
So, yeah there goes.
And you may have guessed it. My conclusion/hypothesis is that Patrick Jane had a twin brother who is now Red John and Bret Stiles is their father.
Bret Stiles was a psychic show-off, who made a living out of defrauding people. He had two sons Patrick and his twin. When Patrick was young, something separated him from his twin and Bret Stiles, leaving Patrick behind. A sensible direction would be that Patrick Jane's twin was a born psychopath and tried to kill Patrick when he was very young. Bret came in time and saved Patrick but Patrick was left traumatized by the event. So he hypnotized Patrick into forgetting the events, but Patrick remembered everything. So, Bret made efforts until he realized that the only way to stop Patrick from the suffering was to erase his entire memory and send him away (Remember the episode in which a little girl approached Patrick with a message from Red John asking Patrick if he gives up, and Patrick made the girl forget the entire incident. In The Mentalist universe hypnosis is really so powerful that it can erase memory). Bret then hypnotized a man and Patrick making them believe that they were real father and son, whom we see as Patrick's father in his flashbacks. However, Bret kept close watch over Patrick while his twin watched Bret looking at Patrick and grew to resent Patrick even more. However, Patrick retained some intuition or shadow of memories of the "Mental-ism" that Bret performed, and grew up to mold himself into a Mentalist. Also, being Bret's son those came to him quite naturally. Patrick's twin however was equally as intelligent as Patrick and used those "Mental-ism" to create a cult of followers, who loved him and were ready to die for him at his will. Bret however protected Patrick from his twin. Until, ofcourse, that fateful day came, when Patrick came to taunt Red John and spell his doom.
This theory has several advantages:
1. It explains why Red John had such a great deal of control over people. He is a Mentalist too.
2. Being his twin, he would have got the list of seven suspects directly from Patrick's office. Imagine the horror.
3. In fact, being his twin gave Red John the perfect cover. He just hid in plain sight and no one noticed.
4. This explains how Red John knew about the "fond memory" from Patrick Jane's past. He watched the events of the memory happen before his eyes.
These are MY conclusions and I believe the Red John story-arc may have been truly over. But what if it wasn't over? What if Red John was still out there? Could the above be possible?
Hit Green if you agree!!
