It's been very tricky navigating this site, over the past 2 days. Everybody's talking about the leaked episode, which is totally understandable. But I personally want to wait till Sunday, to see the truth for myself. That's why it bums me out to keep reading spoilers, when I'm just looking for more theories to enjoy, as we enter the final countdown till Sunday.
Having said that, I went ahead and downloaded the leaked episode, which I plan to watch AFTER Sunday's episode. I'm very interested to see if they turn out to be one and the same.
But for what it's worth, it's actually no big deal to shoot a few extraneous scenes with spurious dialogue, in the course of shooting a tv episode. Heck, back in the 80's and 90's, adult movies used to shoot two versions: one for cable which was more toned down, and one directly for video, which was more explicit. Even today's movies often shoot more than one ending to test on audiences, before choosing the one that will be the OFFICIAL ending.
Given the phenomenal success of The Mentalist (its more recent ratings notwithstanding), I think it's personally plausible that CBS would allot Heller an extra amount of money to put together a dummy episode to fool all the piraters out there, so that when the REAL episode airs, it will be a brilliant promotional maneuver that will be the talk of the industry and The Mentalist will be back on top.
Heller always makes sure that Jane is one step ahead, and has produced some pretty brilliant episodes that showcase his genius to great effect. It doesn't seem altogether far-fetched to think that he would deliberately concoct this ruse, knowing the HUGE amount of viewers who download, then go onto Facebook and Twitter and share their views about what they watched.
But being the clever guy he is, he wouldn't make it too obvious by just putting this episode out there, willy nilly, and then leaving it. It would have to look like a mistake or a "leak" and then promptly be removed from sites, blogs, and filehosts, right away, in order to truly be received as a legitimate sneak preview of Sunday's episode.
Considering how silly your descriptions of the episode have been, it seems like a colossal stretch to accept that this is what Heller has been planning for us fans, as the finale to a saga we've been following for 6 years. While I don't discount the possibility, it seems unlikely. However, the idea that this is a decoy to frustrate illegal downloaders and use their viral reaction to propel this upcoming episode to legendary status, seems very "Jane" to me.
Even if it still turns out to be McAllister, I'll be okay if the story is wrapped up well, and the faceoff between Jane and RJ winds up being a true battle of wits and hand to hand combat, as well. However, if what y'all are describing winds up being the ACTUAL episode, then I agree that Heller should be burned at the stake. We'll all know, soon enough!
