So, pretty much everybody agrees that RJ revveal episode was a failure.  To me, this whole season was after the first few episodes.)  But you know what, in certain aspects, it was a great comedy, perhaps intended:

RJ cuts off
PJ to boast if his accomplishments and the grandeur.  He built a large
secret society, full of members from all different walks of life, cops
included, all ready to die for him at a moment's notice. 

And then, who is his backup?  An old church lady with a potato peeler!

Now you can now enjoy the show better...

If McAllister had an ear plug in then the concussion bomb wouldn't knock him out - he may have had it in one ear and remember he was expecting the blast.



Cheers

Nothing would please me more than McAllister's not the real
villain. There is however a fact that is very strong evidence for the opposite.
PJ killed again! And to be precise, we should say that he killed two people.

Ok, the audience would gladly tolerate the righteous kill of the beast, that
caused Jane so much suffering and loss. But how many times? Timothy Carter was
murdered for nothing. Yeah, he was evil, he was a criminal and a kidnapper. But
was he Red John? Actually not!

In episode 8 of the last season Jane killed again. This time the real Red John.
Believe it or not, the stupid sheriff is the real one. It's about the silly
voice, it's about the close view of Simon Baker in the very moment of the Red
John's end, when to be fair Baker made another great performance, it's about
the murder of the Red John's associate.

The majority of people have a sense of justice. We all know, that the criminals
deserve to be punished. The writers know that and they can not afford
themselves let the main protagonist kill people just for nothing. Ultimately we
can tolerate the vengeance, but not indiscriminate and unjustified murders.


The whole 8th episode
was not another misdirection, it was just bad written and directed. I just hope
for the rest of the season, that Bruno Heller will give us a strong and
plausible mind twist, that will rock us. A lot. I know he can do it.

At least show us in flashbacks what a sadistic and unscrupulous psychopath
McAllister was.


After all, Patrick Jane got his satisfaction.We just want to get ours!

I thought that the reveal upon the first time that I watched the episode was pretty crummy. But as I look at it later and watch it again, I realized that it was a pretty nice way to end things. When Jane suffocates RJ at the end, I thought that was a bad way to end the first time, but the second time I watched I realized that he had made RJ apologize for his mistakes, but saying im sorry doesnt cut the lives he took.

So Red John had thousands of followers.... if that encrypted list is BA members, there's no way it even listed 1/10 of the members.  Also RJ had followers who were not BA members (outside of law enforcement) such as Lorelei Martins and Todd Johnson.  Its not believable if they caught or killed everyone even in 2 years.  When RJ died, did everything just crumble?  Regardless, they are still RJ followers out there and they would want revenge against Patrick. 

Most of us following the show thought the reveal of Red John would be like Murder on the Orient Express.  In that story a trainload of apparently unrelated people contributed to the killing of the bad guy (who needed killing).  A very complicated scenario was woven into a tight believable clever story.  This isn't what Mentalist fans got.  Instead of Agatha Christy, we got something more like Larry McMurtry.  It caused much frustration, got us off balance, and left us wanting something more.I disagree with everyone that thought Sheriff McAllister was an unlikely Red John suspect who was chosen at the last minute.  If you recall, in Season 1 Episode 2 when he first appeared, the CBI set a trap to expose a killer by using Van Pelt as bait.  The sheriff showed up, but talked his way out of it.  Patrick eventually trapped the couple as the real killers and the sheriff was dropped from consideration.  I remember thinking that if the sheriff really was Red John, the way Patrick embarrassed him with the rock, paper, scissors could bring serious retaliation later.  However, just like CBI, I got distracted and forgot about him as a suspect.  Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, what better job could he have to hide his activities?Just think - CBI was within a whisker of catching him, but he slipped away.  Along similar lines, this is one reason that I think the lady in the chapel will become a major player in the story.Hopefully Bruno Heller hasn't used up his bag of tricks, so I'm going to keep watching.

Just a few thoughts - I suspected McAllister was Red John as soon as I saw the list, but I was not satisfied with the reveal. However, the fact that none of the evidence - nor was heading anywhere according to Heller - was elaborated upon means that it is entirely possible to warp the facts to fit any of the suspects, or any of the other characters.
I could create a theory that Red John was any of Jane's suspects, Mashburn. Virgil, Rigsby, Jane... and so forth, using the facts we have to support them.

As a thought for the list, is it not plausible that, as soon as Red John learned that Jane possessed the knowledge they had met, he followed the same way of thinking as Jane. We know that effectively everyone was keeping tabs on him, so it is possible McAllister could've kept himself informed of the people Jane met. Thusly, he could've eliminated people that had alibis, etc - my solution to Red John's knowledge of the list is simply that he deduced it.