Some ( there are too many and my fingers are sore from typing) of the BRUNO HELLER SPOILERS in one place just incase people didn't read them like me. Also I like to make lists too JANE. Suck on that.
"The Red John story is going to be moving at a very fast pace with no vamping, no tricks. Well, there'll be tricks, but we won't be fooling the audience or messing with them," Heller said. "
Read Heller's assessment of each Suspect:
:Brett Stiles (Malcolm McDowell): "He's certainly a frontrunner, partly because it's Malcolm McDowell," Heller quips of the recurring guest star, who plays the leader of the Visualize cult. (Not to mention his history of insanity.) "He has the money, he has the resources, and he certainly has the kind of single-minded temperament and lust for power that you would expect to have from someone like Red John," Heller notes.
Gale Bertram (Michael Gaston): As the CBI director, Bertram is certainly in an ideal position to carry out the Red John killings. "[Being] well-placed inside a law enforcement organization, gives him a lot of power," Heller says. "He has admitted that he is a duplicitous and a manipulative person already. We know he can play two sides of the same issue very well. He's certainly got the intellect for it. Whether he has the depth of evil required of this guy, that remains to be seen." Will Jane and Lisbon be able to keep their suspicions about their boss secret this season?
Bob Kirkland (Kevin Corrigan): The Homeland Security agent is "a dark horse," according to Heller. "If you were a betting man, he'd be an outside shot I think, but a good dark horse. He is probably the most mysterious of the candidates, and that makes him suspicious. His behavior sometimes, even what we've seen of his behavior, is inexplicable and even murderous. So, if he ain't Red John, he's certainly one weird cat.
"Ray Haffner (Reed Diamond): Heller characterizes former CBI supervisor and cult member Ray Haffner as "the sort of Richard Gere-as-villain type. Smiling, charming. Maybe seems a little too shallow to be a serial killer, or too light. ... With Haffner, he always seems smiling and cheery but there always seems to be a dark cloud behind that smile. That, more than anything, would be what made me suspicious of him.
Reede Smith (Drew Powell): Reed certainly has a temper, but does that make him a killer? "He doesn't even try to hide his anger. He's clearly a man with issues," Heller admits. "The question is, Red John is obviously a very, very intelligent person. What would be a better place to hide your real sort of psychopathic anger than behind a mask of anger? Probably most people are expecting Red John to be a calm, cool, collected type of person. If you were Red John and you wanted to disguise yourself, then you would certainly disguise yourself as the kind of red-faced, angry kind of guy that he can be
."Thomas McAllister (Xander Berkeley): "Again, he's well-placed as a law enforcement official," Heller says of Sheriff McAllister. "He, like Kirkland, has a lot of mystery in his past that makes it difficult to judge. He's a dark horse candidate. He's not a Top 3. He hasn't displayed any signs of madness or anger or homicidal tendencies. So, there's no handle on which Jane can put his suspicions — which in itself is suspicious
."Brett Partridge (Jack Plotnick): "You've always got to be suspicious of the nerds," Heller cautions. "He's both a slightly embittered soul and a very intelligent person. Someone who feels they've been underestimated, underrated and mistreated by the world. Demographically, he's right there where a profiler would say, 'Yeah.'" As far as his career choice as a forensic investigator, "That's exactly the kind of job that a serial killer would want to take up. That's exactly the interests that a serial killer would have. [But] he always appears slightly weedy. Is he concealing strength or is he really that flaccid a person? It's hard to tell."
The Red John story has been a huge part of the series from the start. As seasons went on, how much of the journey changed?
No, the story played out from the start and is climaxing as was planned. I would say that though it's like life. Every year, it adds complications. Life happens, and if you try to tell the story of your life when you're 20, it's actually quite a simple story to tell. But by the time you're 40, there are things that have happened to you that you've forgotten and you can't really explain. It's not so much that our conception of the Red John story changed; the more weight it accumulates, the more you have to explain. This is more of a technical challenge for the writing. You want to bring people along with the story that gets more and more complex — not because we want to complicate it, but because it has more and more detail. The one thing you can't do, or the one thing I refuse or try not to do, is the "As you know, Jane" lines to have people catch up. It's both become deeper, richer and more complex, and at the same time harder to tell, but much more real, frankly. When you start a show like this, the story you're describing is a vague dream of the future. Now, like real life, for the actors and everyone involved, they've been chasing Red John for all these years so they've accumulated a certain amount of world experience and weight about them, which makes it much more fun.
When the list of seven Red John suspects was revealed last season, did you find it a particular challenge to navigate that now that there is a finite number of people viewers will be honing in on?Yeah, it's not so much a challenge. It's scary because you're doing this very long, elaborate — if it was a joke, you're coming to a punchline and here's the punchline. Or it's a magic trick and you could produce a rabbit out of a hat, that rabbit better be a damn good rabbit. That punchline better be bloody funny. Same thing with this kind of mystery revelation. So yeah, big challenge. The only way you can do it is just to do it. We're committed to telling as exciting and interesting and fun a story as we can. You just have to go ahead and do it. It's sort of like karaoke or stripping. You have to get up and start undoing the buttons.
How do you think the Red John reveal will be received?Oooh, you know what, going back to the jumping up and taking your clothes off, you don't worry about [that]. (Laughs.) I hope they like it. I hope people are satisfied and hope it's a great, fun conclusion to that particular aspect of the show. But you can only do your best and put it out there. I know that everyone here is happy and pleased. Sometimes you're forced to hate the conclusions or the wrapping things up in silly, absurd ways or in fact — naming no shows — it turns out they didn't have any idea how they were going to end the show or what the secret was or why there were polar bears. We have the answers and it's very important to us, for those people who have been following us from the start, to revealnot in a series of cryptic moments that leave a lot of questions begged. We're going to tell the story and explain who Red John is and what happened and what is going to happen as clearly as possible because the audience deserves that.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Obviously, you started off the season big by killing off one of the suspects right away. Tell me about the decision to kill Partridge first.
BRUNO HELLER: It wasn’t my decision; it was Red John’s decision. And it’s part of a much larger, dastardly plan that will reveal itself over the next few episodes. This is a good question. This is the first time I’ve been asked this question, but it’s a very good point. Why DID he kill Partridge? What possible reason could he have for that? A very good reason will be revealed down the line. So it’s both a fun way to start the season and embedded in that scene is a big clue to the identity of Red John that will pay off big time later.
Well, he did whisper ‘Tiger’ before dying.
Yes, he did. And that’s another clue that will have big ramifications later on. These next few episodes, essentially the first episodes of this season, all have those kinds of revelations and clues and hints and big steps forward in the mystery. And all will be revealed
I have to admit, Partridge was my No. 1 suspect. So after he died, I thought to myself, ‘Of course he’s going to go first!’
That’s the thing. Everyone has different No. 1 suspects, which is good. That’s one of those things as a writer; you can spend a lot of time weighing which one people think is the likely suspect. That’s very much a subjective choice. I know that are a lot of people out there who think Jane is Red John still.…even though you’ve said explicitly he’s not!
I know. They don’t necessarily have to believe me, I suppose. I’ve never denied that it was Lisbon. So I suppose it could be Lisbon.
For you, as a writer, was it ever going to be someone else first?
No. Because like I say, as convoluted and as elaborate as the plotting might appear, you have to know exactly what you’re doing way before you do it. So things might seem mysterious or too complicated to work out what the hell is going on, but as these episodes unfold, the story will unfold itself in a clean and clear fashion. It was very important that Partridge die at this point in the story. It’s not just — he didn’t just kill him as an act-out.
Can we expect more deaths among the suspects?
Yeah, you can expect more deaths of suspects; I think I can say that without giving too much away. It’s not a Seven Little Indians thing, where one drops dead every week. But part of Red John’s plan involves bad intentions toward the other suspects on that list. It’s not a good list to be on.
What I found interesting was that you brought the rest of the team into the fold so quickly. Tell me about that decision.
Well, because, we’re getting to the point right now where they’re getting so close to Red John that the cracks between John and Lisbon and how they like to operate are becoming much clearer. When Red John was an abstract target, Lisbon could put up with Jane’s very different moral universe. Now that they’re getting closer, it’s exactly that kind of issue that’s going to cause conflict between them. Jane’s obsessive secrecy is very much in conflict with Lisbon’s professional and personal desire to keep things above board and honest. She needs and wants the help and support of the team because she feels uncomfortable freelancing — because she’s not a freelancer, she’s a cop. And Jane has the freedom to do whatever he wants but she has to think about the law. So partly for that reason, and partly because….up until this point, Red John has been able to pull all kinds of tricks on Jane but he’s always been able to work out how a particular trick was done and how Red John got the better of him. But here, Jane has no idea how it’s possible Red John got that list, and it raises the terrible prospect in the back of his mind that maybe Red John is a psychic. Maybe Jane has been wrong his whole life. In which case, his whole set of beliefs have been thrown into question and Lisbon — seeing that in Jane — is a little spooked because she’s never seen Jane genuinely stymied and genuinely unable to workout what the hell is going on. So she feels she has to take the initiative and take control of the situation. As you see it, it ends up to be the right decision in the moment but the wrong decision by the end of the episode.
Preview the next episode.
That story continues. I’ll tell you, one of the outstanding questions for Jane leftover from last season is how the hell did Red John get into his head and know about that young woman who died who was a child in Jane’s childhood. How did he do that? That question is going to be answered. But at the same time, every week we’re still telling a closed whodunit story which is solved every week. So it’s as much that story as the other story.
Bertram taunts Jane and Lisbon about getting close to Red John and says coyly, "I am many things to many people." That exchange certainly casts a lot of suspicion on Bertram.
Heller: Yes, it does. He's a very suspicious character, and those suspicions are not without foundation. [But] they're not necessarily the foundation that we think they are. One of the things that is going to be revealed in these next few episodes is that there is a whole lot more going wrong in California law enforcement than simply Red John. And Bertram is both a prime suspect as Red John, but also deeply involved in that other plot.
So his motivations for sending Lisbon and Jane away may have nothing to do with Red John?
Heller: He might be a good guy with a secret agenda, or he might be a bad guy with a secret agenda.
Was it a good move for Lisbon to tell Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti) about the Red John suspects?
Heller: It was both the right move and the wrong move. She's a cop and she has to do what a cop would do. When Jane seems to be unable to work out what to do next, just as Red John's revelation about the list is shocking for Jane, Jane's shock is shocking to Lisbon. So she falls back on her training and protocol and procedure. And it starts to open up a fissure between Jane and Lisbon, because the closer they get to Red John, the more the fundamental differences between them become clear. As long as Red John was a sort of theoretical target, the differences in the way they go about their business could be papered over. But now we're getting to a point where Lisbon's moral code and her professional code, and Jane's willingness to do any damn thing required, comes to a crunch.
As Jane and Lisbon get closer to solving the mystery of Red John, what effect does the case have on their personal relationship?
Heller: They start imagining what life would be like after Red John, and a great deal of the buried emotions between them are coming out. They've always been very much in a brother and sister relationship. But they're not brother and sister. Both of them are discovering feelings about the other one that they didn't really know they had, because there's been this overarching mission that they're both on that has masked that. Now those feelings are starting to bubble up to the surface. Especially for Lisbon ... now that she's looking to the future and can visualize a world in which they're not chasing Red John together, she's looking at the prospect of finding Red John but losing Jane. Because clearly after Red John is captured, Jane is not going to be wandering around Sacramento solving homicides. He was there long enough to do this job, so now things are going to be different. Although she can't articulate it to herself, she's beginning to feel the pangs of separation. Jane himself is going to get glimmers of his old self back, his old life, and that brings up the same issues for him.
Lisbon tells Jane he seems like he doesn't know what to do next. Knowing Red John has the list of seven names seems to have really shaken him up.
Heller: Every time Red John has fooled him or tricked him before, Jane has been able to work out, at least in theory, if not in practice, how it was done. Jane is a magician himself, and magicians pride themselves on knowing how tricks work. There's no such thing as magic. It's a trick. But here's a trick that's been played on him that he simply can not work out how he did it. And that really does throw him for a loop, because in his arrogance and pride, Jane has ... never contemplated the notion that this guy could be that much smarter than him. And it raises the issue that Lisbon raises that Jane dismisses as strongly as he can. ... Maybe he is psychic. What if Red John is the real deal? That's kind of a mind-blower for Jane, and he really doesn't want to grapple with that. But he has to, because how the hell did he do that otherwise? That's what confronts Jane and that's what sort of paralyzes him, to a degree.Photos: TV's unsexiest sex scenes
“If you are following the hunt for Red John, then you have to watch every episode in the first run,” says executive producer/showrunner Bruno Heller. “Not that you can’t miss one and still understand it, but every episode is stepping forward. Clues are revealed. Revelations are made. Big ones!”
If and when Red John is captured and/or killed, what will Jane and Lisbon’s relationship be like afterward?
“Their relationship was one born in crisis,” Heller says. “That means it is hard for either of them to imagine what their relationship could and would be after the event — in the calm after the storm. I think both of them are going to start thinking of the other one in ways that they never have before. What do they mean to each other personally, as opposed to they have always had this mission and now the mission is gone? So after that, they have the luxury of thinking of each other as people, as a man and a woman. I don’t want to use the word love, because that implies romance, but there is a lot of love between them. Now they have to find out what kind of love that is.”
Is that why it is rumored they are leaving the series? (VP and Rigbsy)
“What I can say about that is this season there are major changes happening in the CBI [California Bureau of Investigation], and in the personal lives of the whole team, because the hunt for Red John is reaching its climax,” Heller says. “The stakes change, life circumstances change. Analogous to the relationship between Lisbon and Jane, the CBI is thrown into turmoil and it throws all those individuals into turmoil, so Rigsby, Van Pelt and Cho [Tim Kang] are forced to find new ways to be in the world.”
Once the Red John story is over, will there be a new big arc?
“Yes, there will be,” says Heller. “The new arc will be personal. Red John is personal but he is a personality that can’t be touched because you are looking for him. Jane has been cramped in the way that he is obsessed with someone that he can’t engage with. So when we move forward, the personal struggles in the show will be tense and more immediate, because it is not going to be about a mysterious serial killer that you can’t get a hold of.
What was your reaction when you found out who Red John is?
“It is hard for me to answer that because I have been thinking about that for at least a year,” Baker tells xfinityTV. “When someone sets a goal, and that goal becomes their purpose, and it is the spine of their life that drives them, and suddenly they obtain that goal, I am obsessed with the idea of then what happens to that person if that is what drives you. I haven’t been focused on who it is necessarily. I do think about who is Red John, and, for me, Red John is the beast inside Patrick Jane’s psyche.”
Where does Jane actually live? He has the house he doesn't go to, he sleeps a lot on the couch, but where does he shower?
“I was in a hotel room once,” Baker says. “Actually, that was written as a house and I went, ‘No.’ He is transient. That is the whole thing from when his wife and child were killed, The life that he had was finished and his life became a totally different thing.”
