Maybe one could argue that in the end most serial killers are caught and not while they have the upper hand. Maybe Helper thought of season 6 of the mistakes and the demise of Red John. He was exceedingly clever and was in the upper hand right until he let his guard down to Jane. Maybe he was so certain and proud of himself and he wanted to the game to end so he thought it's time to end Jane. Bertram was already pronounced as Red John by Jane himself, as he said it would be a fitting end to the story if they were both found dead, together. I don't know. It's so conflicting. It seems like Heller thought of the BA, and bird acrophobia many years since the s how's commencement. One can clearly see a difference of opinion, a lack of continuity, and a sudden change of direction and ideas when it comes to gradual evolution of the Red John arc.

I think Heller totally screwed the pooch on this show. The fact that he could not write a show where when you looked back, you could see the "evidence" against Red John is inexcusable.

Now they are going to waste what? 12? shows on some half assed denouement. 

My husband came up with an ending I could be happy with: we go through all the BS with Lisbon and Jane's relationship and as he is carrying her over the threshold of a hotel room, you look on the bed and there are red rose petals in the shape of a smiley face. Fade to black.

I would be 10x happier with this than any dreck they are going to dump on us. 

I do like, though, that they have not named the last episode. I shouldn't hope, though, should I?

BTW, I thought Bradley Whitfield was a much better RJ than McAllister. 

And I am still holding out for something else with Pike. 

Cheers to the new season! At least Simon Baker's smile will still be there!

Two Caucasian males, a Caucasian female and an Asian male walk into a bowling alley.
The owner sees them walking up and says:
" You're FBI right? Who's Cho?"

Well, the US might not air till Sunday but Canada aired the episode Thursday night and I was not disappointed.  It's titled "Nothing But Blue Skies" but they went out of their way to over-include the color red when filming and at the very beginning of the episode the music seemed reminiscent of the RJ drum beat.  I'm not saying the RJ is likely to come back because the whole episode was full of call backs to classic episodes but this episode would set it up nicely if that were the case.
The titles of the episodes this season go through the entire color pallet except the color red and what do you know but the season finale is the only episode that's been left untitled.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Mentalist_episodes#Season_7_.282014.E2.80.9315.29
In previous theories, I've theorized that RJ's secondary colors are orange and yellow.  Orange is the tiger's color and the color of fire/explosions.  Yellow is the color of the flowers RJ left Jane after killing Bosco.  (Jane's colors are blues and Lisbon's are green).  Episode 3 is orange, episodes 4 and 7 are yellow, episode 11 is purple which is a mix of blue and red, 12 is brown which could be dried blood, and 13 could be red.  If I were to insert a hunt for RJ into the titles this is how it would look:

7x01: "Nothing But Blue Skies"        -everything seems fine but remember the RJ smiley in the sky
7x02: "The Graybar Hotel"               -gray prison bars = stripes = tiger      
7x03: "Orange Blossom Ice Cream" -orange for tiger tiger or RJ
7x04: "A Hint of Yellow"                     -a hint of RJ
7x05: "The Silver Briefcase"              -silver is the color of Mashburn's car
7x06: "Green Light"                            -Lisbon and the audience come on board to Jane's plan
7x07: "Little Yellow House"                -RJ's house
7x08: "The Whites of His Eyes"         -Jane gets too close and RJ finds out at end of episode
7x09: "Copper Bullet"                          - RJ's move and Jane realizes RJ is on to him at end
7x10: "Nothing Gold Can Stay"          -everything goes to hell
7x11: "Byzantium"                              -long awaited meeting of RJ and Jane, mix blue and red
7x12: "Brown Shag Carpet"               -dried blood -  Vanpelt and Rigsby murdered, the child lives
7x13  ?                                                -Jane catches RJ, Jane & Lisbon raise the child

And yes, I'm stilling theorizing under the idea that RJ is Walter Mashburn.  We saw him shake hands with Jane, has a mild dirt phobia, his episodes are full of the color red, is the only suspect that even comes close to having a similar personality to Jane's, lost his wife to Yuri, childhood issues that resulted in reform school, extensive experience with explosions, continually baits Jane, has the funds to be RJ, has talked to Jane about Jane's issues, only suspect that was carefully developed into a three-dimensional character, one of his episodes was written by Jordan Harper who is writing episodes 2, 5, and 11 - which are the two episodes with silver/gray and byzantium which is closest to red.

If I'm right, then RJ tried to use Jane to expose the tiger tiger group in the S2 finale with the words "tiger, tiger."  S3 was Jane accidentally antagonizing the tiger tiger group in his search for RJ and RJ deciding to give Jane closure because he wanted to get to know him as Mashburn or because he was insulted by the mess Jane made with tiger tiger.  S4 was Jane reaching out to RJ with an offer of friendship and then RJ getting pissed when it was a con.  S5 was Lorelei's and it brought the game to dangerous levels with tiger tiger and Jane knowing he'd met RJ and making the list in the notebook of his suspects and RJ countering by sending Jane a list of tiger tiger suspects.  S6 Jane takes out tiger tiger and fakes the explosion and deaths of the people in the house.  Jane made a plan with McAllister, Stiles, and Haffner(Stile's Visualize puppy inside law enforcement) to take out tiger tiger and to throw RJ off track.  McAllister and Stiles will return to help Jane.  McAllister will give the names of all the tiger tiger members and Stiles will return to his cult.

One last stupid theory to hope for . . . but the season looks promising regardless of any ludicrous theories I might write out.

Lets say Red John is dead. Lets say he was Macalister.
I know it pains me too...
The show never mentioned Visualize after ep 8.
They are saving it for this year.
Lisbon even hinted at his return if you remember that..

Visualize had tons of cops on the payroll.
Visualize is CONNECTED WITH THE BA.
Thats how Styles knew where Freye was.
Thats how Styles always knew Red John stuff.
This is how Styles knew the Fbi was coming down on him.
And that is why Styles faked his death to evade them.
Styles might be Janes dad and used Macalister to torture Jane.
Or maybe Styles is just a high up Ba member.