Well obviously i'm sharing my disappointment here. The Lazarus serial killer was a joke, not more than any bad guy they catch on a regular basis. It wasn't series finale material except for the wedding part, but that would fit rather in gossip girl final or so. I am angry at myself for not letting go since the day I saw the leaked episode 608. Though I stopped watching after that episode, I kept reading content on this website and other articles, keeping my hopes up. Even today I watched the finale hoping for a "Hello Patrick" that never arrived.

I guess my attachment to the RJ arc got me stupid, but I must say that reading amazing theories here also makes you long for more, for smarter, for greater and more surprising than what the writers delivered. I have different scenarios in mind, RJ was Partridge, RJ was Rigsby, RJ was Haffner, RJ was Stiles, RJ was McAllister but none of them include a master hypnotiser that didn't manage to cure his fear of pigeon, none of them include pigeons at all.

Some called me brain-dead for expecting the RJ return, but I believe TM changed and started to mainly address the "brain-dead" in the way that season 6/7 would please people that just watch the show without engaging in a deeper analysis, who don't connect the dots, who don't see the ramifications or the bigger picture.

One last point, writers should take into account the readers (and in our case the viewers) and not give away hints here and there and never act on them. They used writing elements to build cliffhangers and to drive drama but left us hanging there, that is not good writing, it is false adver-teasing (what Bosco told Jane for example) that leads nowhere. Just for that reason, I consider these writers are cheap and actually don't deserve the title of writers.

Thanks all for sharing great theories, raising valuable points and plot holes, for commenting, giving your opinion, analysing and re-analysing and always want to think an extra-mile. This state of mind might not be the dominant majority and might cause us some more disappointment in general, but I believe that's the right path.

Keep being curious and smart,
Merci!

Three out of four theories posted on this website were far better than what the producers of The Mentalist managed to write for these two past seasons.

I've read some incredible theories that would have been the perfect ending to this series.
But nooo, the whole Red John extravaganza turned out to be nothing but crap. I am sorry that we wasted our time coming up with these ideas, all these connections between the suspects and Red John.

With this Red John plot, the show adopted a different angle for the current police tv series, it's a shame that it had to end (and in a horrible manner) in season 6. I can't see the point of the season 6 after Red John plot and season 7. At least we expected for something Red John related to be revealed in the final episode, maybe some deeper connection between Lazarus and RJ.

All this time, our minds were awfully tricked into coming up with all these theories, we tended to pay attention to some details that maybe even the producers missed. It's stupid not to have a main antagonist for a whole season. I felt like watching a combination between NCIS and some soap opera show. No plot, no nothing.
But I guess this happens when our expectations were great. Nothing.

Anyhow, thank you for these past years where every single one of the posts came up with an original idea. It's amazing to see all these people being involved in such a manner in this tv show.
I will miss the discussions about the RJ episodes and all the theories. And especially the moment when the RJ episode was leaked, the way everyone hoped it wasn't the real one (myself included).

We had a good run for 6 and a half seasons. Those moments will be remembered!

Sincerely,
A simple fan.

Holy fuck...please kill me.

Corrections:
've loved this showed and followed The Mentalist since the very first episode. It's been my favorite television show for many years. I loved all the literary allusions and clues as much as any of you, but Bruno Heller and the other producers killed the plot.
Mentalist Producer Szentgyorgyi told Deadline, "We started plotting out a conclusion to the Red John story about a third of the way through season six. 
http://deadline.com/2015/02/the-mentalist-series-finale-original-ending-jane-lisbon-cho-future-spino....
So that's it. All the clues were pointless. In my mind Brett Partridge was the real Red John. Grace and Rigsby should have been killed by RJ and Patrick Jane never should have had a happy ending.
I'd like to thank the creator of this fansite and Stoopkid for never giving up on crazy theories.

Red John says " The game is over and i won"

I say: The game is over and we lost.

Well, so that was just garbage. I'm sure I wasn't alone in throwing up in my mouth for pretty much the entire second hour.

I didn't come on this site before watching the finale - didn't want to get spoiled if RJ really did come back...ha. But now that I see that picture someone posted, of the wedding invitation with "Lazarus" RSVP'ing, it's obvious Bruno was just jacking us around. He made it seem like this was a big deal, and guess what? Lazarus had absolutely nothing to do with anything.

Every single horrible thing we feared (yeah I'm talking about the "3" clue) pretty much materialized. Was yelling at the TV "just shoot me" but still held out to the very end with a glimmer of hope...of seeing a red smiley. Nope. It's like when the rough cut of 6x8 was leaked, and we were like, nah it can't be this bad. Then as we're watching the live episode, we keep waiting for the twist, and only at the end do we realize the leaked episode was real, and yes, it really was that bad.

Today's finale was like reliving that all over again. I can't even deal with this right now. I think back to what that writer Tom said about the finale: "everything you ever hoped for." I barfed again.

Good acting all around though. Such a shame they didn't have good showrunners.