In my opinion, Red John is 1 of 3 people;
Bertram, Haffner, or Partridge. I’m
strongly leaning towards Bertram, for many reasons which I’ll explain, but I
can logically see Haffner or Partridge being our serial killer, so I’ll explain
those as well.
It seems to me that there are outside forces working that drive the outcome of
shows like this, and in the case of The Mentalist, the biggest force at work
would have been whether or not there was a random cancellation, aka the end of
season 3. As other people
have pointed out, in the episode where Jane shot a man in the mall who claimed
to be Red John, our suspected advocate to this serial killer was Craig
O’Laughlin. We’ve always
seen that Red John was a step ahead of Jane, who himself was a step ahead of
everyone else. The assassin
walks into Bertram’s room after riding the elevator up a few extra
floors. This puts the
initial focus on Bertram, who as Red John would be a step ahead… knowing that
Jane would read into the rope clue but not get it right away. This serves to buy O’Laughlin time to
kill Hightower before being found out and redirecting the focus off of the real
Red John (Bertram). Then
Bertram was able to leave the mall where Jane’s suspicions were placed on yet
another person. His concern
was on several things at that moment, and Bertram was just in the way of him
trying to save Lisbon, who was guarding Hightower and in danger of O’Laughlin
showing up. He also did not
want to lose sight of the man he later suspected and shot. Looking back on that episode now,
Bertram played everything perfectly, he looked convincingly unwilling to go to
the mall with Jane, like he was thinking it through, and then when the plan
hatched in his mind to place a fake Red John and further push focus off of himself,
he said ok and joined Jane.
I believe strongly that the show was given second life after this episode was
filmed and our initial showdown in the mall was going to be Bertram and
Jane. Upon being extended
for more seasons, it was easy enough to place another man in the mall to be
shot, proving to the audience that Jane will really one day shoot Red John (he
has the stones to do it… at one point he thought he had done it).
I have to note that Bruno Heller was quoted saying several things. He said he had to convince Simon Baker
to do a show for 6 seasons upon hiring him as our Mentalist, meaning that the
plan was always 6 seasons for Red John. If
the end of season 3 was our final showdown, it would have only been because of
possible cancellation and the need to close the story… and really that episode
was awesome and I would have been happy with that particular conclusion. Another thing Heller said is that we
can trust the list of 7 suspects, meaning our Red John is on that list. If you crosscheck that list of 7 with
the list of 5 suspects from the end of season 3 there is only 1 common
name. The season 3 list
doesn’t imply Red John, but it does imply someone working for Red John at the
least. He also said that
Red John killed Brett Partridge, so this is a good time to go into that.
Red John aka Roy Tagliaferro… aka Brett Partridge? I say possible, if his death was faked
then yet a second alias of our serial killer has disappeared. This doesn’t mean that the man we know
as Brett Partridge is gone, just that Bruno Heller wants to be cryptic and not
have to admit the death was faked, so he can say it in a way that can be
interpreted as the name being killed off. It would make for an exciting ending,
but we’re being led to believe that Red John was in the room with the other 4
suspects and Patrick Jane at the end of Fire and Brimstone. Ray
Haffner was supposedly ruled out last episode as well by not having a tattoo,
but I saw it posted that the lady who identified the tattoo might have seen a
fake one on Ray Haffner’s arm at the gym. If I remember correctly, when we see
him lifting weights, he’s in a muscle shirt, implying that he typically works
out that way, and I can’t think of another moment when he would have made that
tattoo visible to the private investigator. Ray Haffner, however, seems to have
only recently come into money, and Red John has way too many resources at his
disposal to have ever not been well off. Haffner is stated saying something
along the lines of “I’ve got money now that my private surveillance company has
taken off.” It can also be
deduced that his startup money came from visualize and in very recent years
after Jane had him basically booted out of the CBI, and I think this discredits
him as Red John from previous years.
There are a few things I want to clear up, you
don’t have to agree:
1) Even
though we know Red John speaks softly, it would be too obvious of a clue to let
us hear Red John and compare his voice to the actors/suspects. From what I can hear, Simon Baker has
done his voice as well as the actor who plays Brett Partridge. Red John had to have a voice… and at
the time of his first appearance, Bruno Heller has basically confirmed that
nobody but he himself knew who Red John would be until recently, and even then
only those that needed to know.
2) If
I remember correctly, the recording from the psychiatrist only said that Red
John had a phobia… it didn’t say acrophobia, arachnophobia, or acarophobia,
people got that from Lisbon saying she said he was afraid of heights and saying
that acrophobia sounds like the other 2… these are red herrings, the initial
clue did not specify a phobia.
3) Red
John has to have 2 different personalities, if he showed himself as the
soft-spoken serial killer in his regular day to day life, he would have already
been found. When we see
Reede Smith’s temper, we can’t consider that a rule out, although I believe he
is only acting as a close advocate and wants to help protect Red John’s
identity when he starts to draw his gun on Jane. Red John would have a more confident
less revealing way out than firing at Jane and the other suspects who don’t
know who he is… in fact… he apparently brought a bomb, unless that was Jane’s
doing which would explain his final walk around his house before the suspects
showed up.
4) Along
the same lines as my third point, we never had to see who Jane shook hands
with, if he put them in his book of suspects, I can guarandamntee you he shook
their hand and believes they match (well enough) any physical description that
was given at least to the point that he couldn’t rule them out.
5) Just
because Brett Stiles is old doesn’t mean he wasn’t at the farm all those years
ago. If you’ve ever been to
a farm, there are typically older men who own everything and younger men who do
all the work, and as the leader of visualize, he would have been there anyway,
so his age is irrelevant. The
rest of them could be argued as young enough at the time, and since Jane had
them on the list, he must have believed so too.
6) I
know everything is saying that the moment when Reede Smith and the van driver
both say Tyger Tyger to each other is really corny, and I thought so at first…
but after reading around on this sight, someone mentioned that Tyger Tyger
might be something people in the group say when what they did was for the
greater good. Most of them
are law enforcement, if not all of them, so Reede Smith (who is noted as a good
agent who never does anything wrong) may be saying it sarcastically which would
have the same meaning as if you were sighing and saying it as though you were
contemplating if you really believed it was for the greater good. This gives that moment more meaning
and in my opinion takes away the corny factor at least to some degree. It also makes that moment have actual
meaning, and in that case it would mean that Kirkland was getting too close and
would provide Jane with information that would get him closer to Red John
faster. Any member of the
organization would believe that protecting Red John was for the greater good
because what he is doing transcends our version of reality. It helps to go back and look at the
moments when people, including Red John, say Tyger Tyger, and apply the
“greater good” concept.
Anyway, like I said, I believe Bertram is our guy. I think the fact that we’ve gone
through several CBI directors so quickly but have been able to hold onto
Bertram shows that the Tyger Tyger powers that be pulled some strings and were
able to push him into a close position to Jane where he could surveil Jane
himself. The secret
organization clarifies a lot of suspicions of how Red John can operate and move
around so easily, provided he is part of it or in charge of it. If he is part of it, it helps to
explain why he never seems to be caught even though several of his suspects are
so close to death when Jane shows up that he can’t have gotten very far, (ie:
the lady in the Red Tattoo who just so happens to hold on long enough to
whisper to Jane and then die… if she was in that bad of condition, Red John
would have to be closeby.) I’ve
made this long enough… if you took the time to read it, thank you! I can’t wait to hear what holes people
can poke in all of this.
