Spoiler Alert!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again, unless you have seen 6x08 Red John, or unless you want to be spoiled, then turn away now!


Ok so on the good chance that this wasn't some elaborate punking scenario, and what we saw was in fact The titular Red John episode in it's mostly finished, but still slightly raw form, then we need to look at it in a different light here. Let me see if I can help you guys, and gals put the pieces together. 

Absolute Red John questions that need to be answered. (in the order from most needed to least needed.)

1.Who is he? (which suspect is he)
2.How was he able to stay ahead of Jane all this time? 
3.Why does he have so many people at his beckon call? 
4.What if any is his relationship with Visualize?  
5.Why did he kill Partridge?
6.What the hell happened in Jane's house really?
7.What about that friggin creepy voice?  

We need to look at this Red John/Blake Association reveal/capture as a trilogy of episodes starting with

"Fire and Brimstone"

As we know from Red Tattoo, Red John (or one of his minions) has a triple dot tattoo on his left upper arm. This leads Jane to call a meeting at his former home with all the 5 living suspects. What we don't know at this point is that the Tattoo is a symbol of the Blake Association (we have a good idea, but it has yet to be confirmed). We have 3 descriptions of Red John at this point. 1. Rosalind Harkers 5+ year old description, 2. Sofie Miller's description, and 3. He has this mysterious tattoo. 

 Ok so Jane gets them all to come to his house, and he states that one of them is Red John. Everyone acts like they think it is preposterous. Bret Stiles even laughs his ass off (Remember this for later). So Jane tells them to remove their shirts, and show their left arm. McAllister is the first to reveal a tattoo, and Jane is about to pounce, but Bret Stiles stops him and tells him to look around. We then see Smith, and bertram sporting ink too. (in Hindsight Bret Stiles has been protecting kim all this time you see) Stiles has been keeping Jane from Red John, even when they are sitting next to each other. Another funny thing in hindsight is; Red John sits close to both Jane (his nemesis) and Stiles (his protector and confidant) Symbolically it fits. Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer. So anyway back to it...

So Jane separated the 3 inked suspects, and is about to apparently ask them each to look him in the eye. He will probably go on to ask each one individually if he killed his family. Being a mentalist he will know who is lying, but before that can get done POW! then BOOM!

"The Great Red Dragon" 

Lisbon runs into the house to find Smith waking up and he has a tattoo, she thinks he is RJ, so she shoots him, when he pulls his gun. He runs. She finds Bertram and doesn't realize he too has the tat, so she tell him Smith is Red John. This gives him a reason to run off "after him" (of course hindsight shows he was like phew, I gotta get outta here before they see my tat also!) Lisbon tends to Jane. 

We later see Bertram trying to kill Jane (hindsight reveals this was to protect the secret of the Blake Association, and his personal involvement in it. Not because he just wanted to kill Jane.) Before he can do si, Lisbon shows up just in time to prevent it. This makes Bertram seem strange to her, and gets him running scared. Bertran is still in survival mode, and wants to shut this thing down before it shuts him down. He orders BA to take out Smith. The team figures out that Stiles, and Hafner, and McAllister are dead blown beyond recognition. they also figure out that Smith will have to go to a doctor of some sort. They catch up with Smith but not before BA does first. Jane figures it all out once he wakes up and tells lisbon that Bertram has the tattoo as well. Jane calls and warns Rigsby. This leads to the capture of a Blake cop. Fast Forward to Smith's capture...

So Jane questions Smith, and he says he is in an organization called the Blake association blah blah blah. They cover-up each other's nasty little vises and illegal habits. No one knows who is the leader, you just get the call and do what you're told or else. Red John is in this organization. Patrick knows Bertram is a higher up in the BA, but he also knows he is not RJ at this point. He figures one of the dead guys is, and it is probably McAllister. He tells the press that Bertram is Red John, so that he can 1-Get Bertram caught, 2-Occupy the authorities while he smoke the real RJ out., and 3-Publicise the Blake Organization. This leads us to...


Now I am gonna take a minute to address some of the important Red John questions before I get started, because some of them have either been answered already at this point, or alluded to/inferred.     

Here they are again so as to remind you:
1.Who is he? (which suspect is he)
2.How was he able to stay ahead of Jane all this time? 
3.Why does he have so many people at his beckon call? 
4.What if any is his relationship with Visualize?  
5.Why did he kill Partridge?
6.What the hell happened in Jane's house really?
7.What about that friggin creepy voice? 

2, 3, and 4. are all answered, and will be confirmed in the Red John episode.(keep reading and I will explain.) 1, 5, 6, and 7 will soon be answered in the Red John episode. 

OK so here we go:

"Red John"

So we pick up right after the shutdown of the CBI. Lisbon comes in to find an empty space, all the rest of the team show up. Abbott wants to know where Jane is at. He is upstairs sleeping. Bertram is still running scared. He has Cordero with him to help him out if he needs it. He gives Jane a wake-up call. He tells Jane that he knows who this is and that he doesn't need to use the funny voice anymore. (Hindsight shows that what is really happening is that Bertram has been told by the Blake Association to continue the charade of being Red John so as to lure Jane to a place where he can kill him.) Jane agrees, and is playing along. Jane meets lisbon, gets her gun, gets caught by the FBI the team hold a stand-off to get him away yadda yadda he gets to the church that he told Bertram to meet him at (Unbeknownst to Bertram Jane visited the church already and placed a gun under the pew.) So Cordero frisks Jane gets the gun (misses the pigeon because he found a gun, and was satisfied the search was over he stopped frisking after he found the gun. This was why Patrick got the gun from Lisbon in the first place A prop) Goes into the church has a talk with Bertram. Bertram says that he isn't Red John, and that he doesn't know who red John is, but that in the blake association there are no loose ends. He intends to kill Jane. Cordero then shoots and kills Bertram right as red John walks in. McAllister! Red John gets all explanatory and wants to be recognized for his work out then comes the silly ass creepy voice just to have a little fun. Jane tells him how much of a monster he is, and that he had delusions of grandeur. Red John laugh and say Delusions? "I am the Blake Association. I have all these people who will do whatever I ask that is grandeur" Alright I need to stop here and say that this is where question 1,2,3 and 7 are answered and confirmed. Red John's identity is confirmed, He was able to stay ahead of Jane all this time due to him being the leader of the BA, and having Bertram reporting to him, and most probably having the entire CBI bugged, and he has so many followers because they are all tyger tyger BA. He even used the Red John creepy voice for a line or two. Check!

Now for 4, 5, and 6 What is his connection to visualize? This one take a bit of reading between the lines, but it is there if you just look. It also goes along with 5, and 6. Remember Bertram said Blake association doesn't like loose ends. Also remember Stiles knew who Red John was. Red John was at the barn all those years ago. Stiles was playing coy when he laughed at Jane to put him off the scent. Stile proactively stopped Jane from shooting McAllister in the house It was Stiles that said "No Wait!" in the house. Speaking of in the house; Why was there a shot and then later a bang? Well the shot wasn't a gun, but a percussion/stun grenade. Smith threw it while Jane was looking back, and Stiles yelled "NO WAIT!!!" It knocked everyone out cold. McAllister went to his car got out the extra body,(Provided by Partridge previously) moved Bertram away from the blast zone, Moved Jane away too, and bombed the $hit out of the place. This effectively killed off Stiles, and Hafner, left another body that would be matched to McAllister also thanks to Partridge's previous help, and sent Bertram running form the CBI. Red John was scot free. His Visualize connection was severed with the death of Stiles, he's already tied up the Partridge loose end, and now all he had to do was make it look like Jane and Bertram shot each other. Jane got Red John. end of story.  As you see now all 6 of those most important questions regarding Red John were answered.

McAllister fits Rosalind's description for the most part. He is right at 6 ft tall. He has short straight hair, He is not muscular, but not soft either. I can only guess if he has strong hands. He would smell of pine and nails since he likes to hunt in the woods a lot. He also fits Sofie Miller's description of being a good whistler, being middle aged (anywhere from 45-55) Self possessed, has lots of friends, but no family, has a phobia, lied about said phobia as she surmised, but definitely has one (birds or pigeons in particular). His Sheriff personal was a dumb hick sheriff, and even his voice had that redneck drawl. but his real voice was of a more educated sounding person, and then of course there is the RJ voice. 

Anyway I just figured that if this does turn out to be the real episode as I believe it will be, then at least you can now rest a little easier knowing most of the Red John persona was lived up to. I know it was still sort of lame, and that Red John was a sniveling whining scaredy cat when it came to his actual death. That just goes to show that it was all an act of a delusional self centered sociopathic person with a low self image that needs to feel more powerful than he ultimately really is. He told Jane back in season 4 when Jane told him to go to hell: "Now Patric, we both know that there is no hell, You and I both know that I will not be punished when I die..." Well it seems to me he was afraid of something after all. 

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.