Hi Friends, Well, the time has come. Will he or won't he? Will he or won't he put us out of our misery? Or will he redeem himself? ;-P As we watch the last episode of The Mentalist series tonight, I just some thoughts before the finale. Of course, they might not be part of the writer’s ideas but they came to me anyways. ;-) Just having some fun with all of it instead of getting really upset like I was and many of us were (and still are) from the Red John episode till this very day...


From Byzantium episode: APJ were the initials on the video game at the bar Jane went to and normally we don’t see Jane drinking beer at bars. When and why did they show him there alone with only the bartender there? We normally see him drinking his tea alone, at a crime scene or with a colleague. Well, then we watch the bartender try to take his keys because he’s had too much to drink. She tells him he can sleep it off there and even says he can have coffee in the morning. But Jane wants to leave and he does leave. But we don’t see him driving or anything like that. Then all of a sudden they go to him laying in a field in his suit. It mad me wonder...if all along an accident is what caused his wife and daughter to die and he was ejected from the car into the field. That’s why he doesn’t know where he is when “Abbott” asks him. It could have been him driving or his wife driving. Either way, that could be why he ended up in the mental institution--because maybe he was driving and he couldn’t take the guilt. So part of his psyche created “Red John” to have some way to process the traumatic occurrence. Just a thought...Maybe that’s why in “Devil’s Cherry” Charlotte says she’s sick of hearing about Red John because she knows that Jane is just making up Red John and he doesn’t actually exist...it’s just a device to process his family’s deaths.
 


Also, when Jane is reading the book “The Daughter of Time” in the beginning of Season 7, that book has the main character in the hospital and this could symbolize that Jane is in the hospital either after the possible car accident OR after he possibly overdoses on Belladonna tea at the end of “Devil’s Cherry” OR after the explosion at his house in Malibu during season 6.
Human faces are of interest to the main character in this book--(it could symbolize the RJ smiley face?) and it says in wikipedia that the main character “prides himself on being able to read a person’s character from their appearance.” It also says that with this help of other friends and acquaintances (could be Lisbon, Rigsby, Cho..etc...) he investigates historical characters like King Richard III who seems kind, gentle and wise to him, but everyone else seems certain that he’s a murderer.” That could symbolize Jane. It says in the book that the main character tests out his theories on the doctors and nurses in the hospital who attend to him. This reminded me of the feel to the episode “Devil’s Cherry” where Lisbon, Cho, Jane and Charlotte are in the diamond cutter’s place and how the characters interact there. For example: When Lisbon says to Charlotte it’s nice to meet you and Jane lashes out with My daughter is dead! and then Cho and LIsbon say, Here he goes again. (or something to that effect). It’s almost as if Charlotte is alive and Jane doesn’t realize it. Anyways, the nurses and doctors in the book, could be the characters in The Mentalist and how Jane figures out all the cases. But he’s really in the hospital. Wikipedia basically says, At the end of the book, the main character with the help of an American researcher (working in the British museum) come to the conclusion that Richard III being a murderer was a “fabrication of propoganda” and it was all not true.
And the notes we saw written by “Red John” and Jane seemed to have similarities. Jane’s list written in CAPS in his little notebook compared with the yellow post it note left on Sophie’s refrigerator looked very similar to me. I mean knowing how Bruno Heller loves to screw with his audience, he could be Red John! Just tricking the viewers the whole time about Jane even losing his family! That’s how psychO not psychiC, I think Heller is. 




Could symbolize that there was no Red John in The Mentalist and that maybe even the smiley face was just something Jane remembered from his daughter’s drawings. At this point, who knows. Even tonight however they choose to “end” The Mentalist, we will probably never really know.


Hey I always thought Red John was Ray Haffner...and I still do, based on how well I think Reed Diamond was at being a fantastic and exciting Red John. I thought he made a fantastic Red John! And even how when Craig O’Laughlin shot Lisbon and then said to VanPelt, “Sorry about this Grace” it reminded me of how in Lisbon’s dream where the CBI office was filled with dead bodies and smiley faces...when Haffner said to Lisbon, “Sorry about this Teresa.” That gave me the chills and made me think Haffner was RJ. 


I always found it intriguing about the Ray Haffner connection, Bret Styles, Visualize & RJ. 
And also the "Blind" connection to the story. Bach music being Red John’s theme and Bach being blind. Then Rosalind being blind and being Red John’s girlfriend. And also how the German writer “Raimund Pretzel” having the “Sebastian Haffner” pen name and that making up Raymond Haffner...could be an indication to Ray being Red John. And also Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 also know as Haffner’s symphony could be some kind of clue.  Not sure how, but it was fun thinking about it.



But, if Heller really wanted to pull a “Keyser Soze” on us, then from my perspective, Rigsby would have been Red John. Rigsby was there from the very beginning which would make a great RJ to have worked with Jane from the beginning. And they wrote Rigsby as being the last person you’d expect while still being a main character. If Heller ended it on that note it would be so awesome. But I don’t know if he has the guts. Based on the excellence of the first 5 seasons, I think he could do it, but will he? Eh...probably not. Then again, he could surprise us. Funny thing is I had dream last night that Rigsby was Red John. I rewatched the Mentalist from the perspective of purposely watching it as each different character being Red John. Rigsby was the most exciting for me anyways, to think of as being Red John because he’s so unlikely to be such a sadistic killer and he’s so likable as a character, almost nerdy and naive at times in a lovable way. But to watch it thinking it’s all an act...that is pretty creepy and very Red John-ish. And my dream last night was SO REAL.


Anyways, just some last thoughts before the finale. It sure has been a fun and thought-provoking 7 years of The Mentalist. It’s been an honor to share theories with you guys on the WIRJ board. Thank you. Hope it’s an amazing ending and if it’s not...we still have our fan fiction to comfort us and give us the endings we each wanted. We deserve to have an exciting ending to this fantastic series! But I'm sure we've all gotten used to disappointment. Then again, is there a glimmer of hope?