The Mentalist season finale was on last night, and holy crap!
You must definitely look away if you don’t want to have the ending ruined.
Just another buffer line for those who didn’t get it the first few times around.
Patrick Jane killed Red John! His character’s raison d’etre! A few thoughts:
First, I have no problem with the termination of the whole Red John story line. They’ve proven that the show works very well without the Red John elements, and in fact I personally was fatigued of the intermittent episodes that involved him.
Secondly, it will be very intriguing to see how they handle the consequences for Jane’s actions in the next episodes. How can he prove that the guy he shot was Red John? He can point to the fact that the guy had his own handgun as some element of mitigation, but that won’t do much for his defense. Did they have any DNA or other evidence that would help link this guy to the Red John killings?
Or, despite his knowledge of Jane’s family’s murders, was this not in fact Red John?
I’m a fan of Bradley Whitford, so it was fun to see him in this role. It kind of tipped me off that the character wouldn’t be around that long, though.
I also liked how they handled Jane’s killing, leaving some doubt as to whether he would do it or not, or whether this story line would yet again unravel.
Thanks for the thread! I hesitated to start one myself. Beautiful episode and one of the best, if not the best, season finales I have seen. It will be fun to see how the writers develop these issues.
Some nitpicks:
I caught on to the multiple room numbers before it was mentioned
I spotted Whitford before the reveal
The gun on the table was too obvious
Jane’s hand in his pocket was a giveaway.
Even with all the help the climax was fulfilling. Almost orgasmic. Catharsis.
Baker ought to get some Emmy nods for this season’s work and the writing staff continues to insert humor and fun twists almost every week.
So glad the “romance” with van Pelt is dead.
They need to do more with Cho, who is my #2 reason to watch the show, even though Tunney continues to grow her role.
Ace of a show that ought to go many more seasons. It and The Good Wife are why I continue to watch CBS.
I’m saving the DVR’ed version of this episode to watch when things get dull elsewhere.
There was one shot of Whitford in the foreground in particular that made me feel they wanted to clue everyone in that at least someone of interest was there with Jane.
Jane’s hands in his pockets was obvious, but I wasn’t sure what he had there, given that IIRC his character has expressed disdain for guns in the past. I thought that a knifing would be too gruesome for them to have Jane carry out. I hadn’t ruled out a fairly barbaric bludgeoning, though.
The shot of Red John (I agree that we may learn there’s another “real” Red John in next season’s developments – stranger things have happened and there’s no reason to close the door on a fun MacGuffin!) in the foreground across the mall from Jane was quick but not too quick. They may have had the setup so the thrill of Whitford’s phone going off would startle those who weren’t paying attention before. It wasn’t clumsy or “too big” but it wasn’t as surprising as it might have been. Same with the room numbers. The rope “take” that Jane has is fun to watch. Baker gets as much mileage out of his reactions as most working TV actors, and probably why his salary has been jumped into the top tier.
Does anybody remember him from L.A. Confidential? Much work since then but Jane is his character and one of the ones most likely to be a classical character in the decades to come.
Funny, when I first saw an ad for The Mentalist I said “It’s that guy from L.A. Confidential!” and my wife said “That’s not Guy Pearce.” adn then it turned into a series of “No, the other guy… No, the other other guy… No, the…”
So true! I almost started a thread to ask if anybody knows of another Lynn Bracken other than Basinger’s in that movie. I dreamed about a Lynn Bracken last night and woke up unable to place where the name was familiar from. Before I could get to the computer I was able to remember it, but was surprised to see how many other Lynn Brackens there must be.
Yeah, it was well-scripted, well-acted, and Bradley Whitford nailed the tricky role of Red John. I truly believed that it would be a letdown if they ever showed RJ. But Whitford played him so you could believe he was crazy, or brilliant, or both…
(By the way, he also nailed a speech in front of the protesters in his hometown of Madison, WI: “The republicans have totally underestimated the people here. We’re tough… [incredulous tone] we FISH right through the ICE!”
Yes, there’ve been a couple of very satisfying finales lately. I liked Chuck and Castle, too. And they didn’t screw up Smallville.
Great episode, but wouldn’t it be more interesting to know why the family was killed? (Or did I miss this in some episode?)
Actually, I thought all four (or five) of the suspects were guilty - and that would have been trickier to discover.
I doubt it will take long to sort things out in the first episode next season - cell phone number, fingerprints, who knows what Red John had in his possession or his house…they can wrap this up in short order and move on with other shows and plots.
The way Jane said “wait a second” before unloading was chilling. I honestly didn’t expect him to do it. Plus, he always has his hand in his pocket, so that didn’t tip me off. And the expectation has always been that Lisbon would be there when Jane finally caught Red John and would try to convince him not to kill him.
There are a lot of ways the show can go from here, such as:
It may not have been the real Red John.
That would be pretty harsh if Red John manipulated Jane into killing someone else. On the other hand, it is hard to believe they would really kill off the main antagonist already.
There could be multiple people calling themselves Red John.
Jane might have killed “his” Red John, the one who killed his family, but there are others out there. I’m not sure how he would react to that.
Red John may not have been the leader.
How does Red John get so many helpers? It’s as if he has his own cult. But we already have a mysterious cult on the show with an enigmatic leader played by Malcolm McDowell. Is that cult providing the helpers?
I missed it. Why are we convinced this was Red John? The reason I ask is that the only two people Red John has ever let go were the lady who believes she is a real psychic and Jane. Psychic lady is openly in love with Jane and I think she is Red John because of a dissociative disorder and killed Jane’s family to have Jane to herself. And she is really smart and really crazy. Is it possible that Bradley was framed by this lady or her Red John personality?
I have little doubt that the writers and Heller have considered this possibility and variations on the theme. I also suspect their attention to fan feedback is very keen and that they will use that input to direct their choices. I found it amusing that one of the voting pages ( CBS Shows - Popular Primetime, Daytime, Late Night & Classics ) had the highest percentage of guesses for the boyfriend/fiance being the bad guy. Whether they used that sort of feedback earlier is anybody’s guess, but it would at least support the idea. Notice who was third high!
At the level of the content of the show, Whitford’s character said he was Red John and gave a compelling description of how Jane’s wife and child smelled when he killed them. It convinced Jane.
At a meta level, I just don’t think the shows creators would run the risk of having a character who killed the wrong man. As Baker described in an interview, it’s plenty dark for a network show to have their protagonist be a killer as they appear to have. I think it would just be too much to have him be a killer who killed the wrong person.
Not that that wouldn’t be really interesting, in my opinion, just too risky.
So much unresolved. How did Red John get all these people to do his bidding? Why did he kill Janes family? If he was just a psycho, how did he get that kin d of loyalty ?
That was a real “Holy Crap!” season finale! I agree that Simon Baker should win awards for his work in this show. I also agree that Cho is the second reason I watch it - I adore his, “Just the facts, ma’am” with a slight twist personality.
Red John has outplayed Jane every step of the way; I had a sick feeling all through that scene that he was outplaying him again, and I think we’ll see that he indeed has. I wonder too how Red John has so many followers and how the psychic woman fits in.
Was Red John kind of a Dread Pirate Roberts, do you suppose?
The more I think about the difficulty of accepting RJ as the evil Svengali who could inspire/provoke such blind obedience from those who have died in his service, especially the jumping assassin, the more I want to question the casting of Whitford for the role, brief as it has been. He just seems a little too “nice” for that aspect of RJ. Crazy, yes. But Jim Jones? Hitler? Osama? I have trouble with it.
That might prove to be a red herring after all, if the creators want to go in the direction of the “wrong Red John” concept.
I haven’t followed tge show that closely but I have been catching most of the recent episodes so I don’t know the whole Red John story but I was so glad when Jane shot him and sat down to finish his tea. I don’t think he’ll be in too much trouble over it, the other guy did have a gun, there were a lot of people around so he waited until he was in range enough not to risk any bystanders.
The thing that bugged me the most was Lisbon not having her phone on her. She was with someone in protective custody, she might have needed to call for help. Also, they would want to hear if Jane’s plan had worked. If they just wanted to create tension then just don’t have the phone ring until she’s walking toward the door. Also, same thing for hot redhead*, she was on duty, they were waiting to hear if Jane’s plan worked and Cromartie* may be an ex but he’s also a co-worker.
*Sorry, I don’t remember their names.
What’s up with the actor playing LaRouche, he appears to have nystagmus (the horizontal motion of his eyes). It’s rather distracting and I noticed they often shot him so as not to linger on his face. I realize it’s probably not something the actor can control but I’m curious what causes it. In animals it’s usually a sequlae to a head trauma or stroke.