The show feels as if it doesn't want to cling to RJ anymore.

I mean, even Baker himself said how tired he was of RJ in an interview at the time that episodes 1-8 were airing. He distictively said that Blue Heaven was the first episode he would be directing and he wanted to make sure that there's no mention of RJ's name in it.

There's a constant dismissal of past events in the post RJ episodes. Everything is downplayed, or brushed off in a sentence, as if it is of no importance or had any impact.

I got reminded of this during Marcus Pike's and Wiley's scene in this last episode.

Marcus asks Wiley what the relationship of Lisbon and Jane are, and as soon as Wiley gets to the wife and daughter part he gets interrupted by Marcus right before he says "murdered".

It's as if the show has abandoned its dark overbearing RJ tone for a case of the week formula.

I remember watching this show with my sister, week to week, back to back, right up till 06x08. She always were a bit frustrated with most of the "filler" episodes, aka any not involving or alluding to RJ.

This show's overarching story has always been that of Jane's revenge, a man reaching hubris and being brought down by a most tragic event. It wasn't about the week to week case per se, or Jane's life story. It was the chapter of the life of a man who after solving cases he cared nothing for, fell asleep on a matress placed in the room of his murdered wife and child, with the killer's brand still uncleaned from the wall.

That character's journey ended in episode 8, according to the writers, since RJ was apparently killed.
What followed up till now, as long as there's no end game grant design in store, must be one of the longest epilogues in TV history.

I find it sad that there are people on this site referring to others as idiots, blind, retarded or ghouls.

Those are simply called FANS guys, nothing more. Being an RJ fan means that you are a Mentalist fan. He was the character that gave the show the only thing that is missing now.

He made the protagonist's actions MATTER.