The real mystery here has nothing to do with Red John.

What I simply cannot understand is how a great show, in its sixth successful season, can switch from being engaging and compelling to barely-watchable bilge in the course of a two episodes.

The Mentalist has gone from being clever and enagaing to poor man's Criminal Minds knock-off. When Lisbon said "let's see how much trouble we can cause" with an amused glint in her eye I actually groaned with shame.

Shame for having been suckered into actually thinking about a TV show between episodes for six years. Shame for racing home from work some nights to catch it. And shame for wasting so much money on the box-sets.

It seems that Heller & co. had no idea, no plan, for how the Red John story arc would be resolved. They just continued to drop clever and brain-teasing clues and insights which, one assumed, would later be revealed as part of a satisfying greater truth. Now it seems that all of the clues, hints and evidence were meaningless and that there was no plan at all for the resolution of the RJ story-line.

McAllister makes no more sense as the revealed Red John than would anybody else on the list - indeed, he possibly makes the least sense. If they had picked a random member of the public to play RJ it could be no worse.

Also, the silly plot-line that steered the show towards the unveiling of Red John is reminiscent of the sort of thing school-children might come up with. Tyger-Tyger, The Blake Society, Blue Dots, pidgeons, etc.

Awful.

And, one final question, how come episode eight, the most important episode of all time, was so shabbily made, badly scripted and unimaginatively photographed?

Perhaps they have been told that this will be the last season and the recent episodes have reflected some sort of feud with the studio (or something)?

Whether it has been decided that season six is the end oif the road or not, I cannot see the show continuing as it is now. Dreadful.