Before season four of The Mentalist, producer Bruno Heller promised surprises, and a “reset.” He felt that last season was “almost serialized,” and wanted to make the individual episodes at least as important as the overall plotline. While he has done that to some extent, the introduction of Agent Darcy of the FBI has reestablished the serialization factor, and the Red John plotline is heating up going into the last part of season four.
One thing we can guess is that, with the renewal of the show for yet another season, the Red John saga won’t be ending anytime soon. Since CBS never seemed to renew The Mentalist until the current season has finished production, Heller is usually faced with three options. He can continue as though he is confident they will be renewed, and have a typical season-ender. He can also do what he did last year: come up with an ending that would work just great as a series finale, but leave himself “wiggle room” for a following season.
The only other option would be to produce two endings for the last show, and go with whatever is appropriate by the end of the season: a cliffhanger or a series finale. If we were to hazard a guess, it would be another “death of Red John” kind of episode with wiggle room, just like last year, but Heller did allude to some swerves this year.
So, we are once again left with speculation about who is really Red John, and where the show is going with storylines. Here are some observations, questions, and possibilities.
1. Agent Darcy (Catherine Dent) will probably get killed.
FBI Agent Darcy
As we saw in the episode “Blinking Red Light,” Red John doesn’t suffer insults wisely, nor does he allow anyone who really fixates on him to live, with the notable exception of Patrick Jane (Simon Baker). He demonstrated to Jane that he was capable of killing Darcy whenever he wants, but for some reason he didn’t. As the show progresses, though, and Darcy is inserting herself firmly into the middle, something has got to give.
Our guess is that, as Darcy gets closer to the truth, Red John sees her as a liability and gets rid of her. There is a possibility that he makes it look like Jane did it, but it is more likely that she dies a signature Red John death. We are guessing it happens in the last or second-to-last episode of the season.
2. Is Red John getting help from high places?
Gale Bertram
In the first episode, we saw that every potential witness who could expose the framing of Patrick Jane died, and that the deaths were not signature Red John killings. One of the immediate suspects is Director Gale Bertram (Michael Gaston). Bertram went to great lengths to try and take Jane down for the killing of the fake Red John, and broke up Lisbon’s (Robin Tunney)team out of spite after he was suspected as possibly being Red John.
Also, Red John’s resources seem endless, and he seems to know everything about everyone. Our guess is that he has a lot of people in his “debt” through the usual crime drama essentials such as blackmail and the threat of killing their relatives. Since he did have an FBI agent doing his bidding in season three, it isn’t out of the question for anyone to be on his “payroll” at this point.
An existing although unlikely possibility is that Red John is an outsider or fringe character we haven’t seen much of. Of the fringe characters, Brett Partridge is one who a lot of observers seem to think has potential. His name hasn’t even been mentioned on screen, and Jane characterized him as a ghoul and someone who likes his job too much.
Partridge would be a viable candidate, because he is into gore and is apparently a loner. Both of these would set up nicely for Red John. The main problem is that he would appear to have the least resources of all of the candidates, so I would put his chances as 1 out of 20.
As for an outsider, that is how everyone else would do it. It would be an easy plotline. Some corrupt and powerful outsider who has the resources to pay off whoever he wants and hide behind his money ultimately turns out to be Red John. Somehow, though, this just doesn’t sound right. Rich people usually aren’t serial killers because they can’t be bothered with all of the dirty work. We will put the chances of it being a rich outsider at 1 out of 10.
It could be a standard generic psychopath, too, but this also seems too easy for the creative staff of this series. The Mentalist is no ordinary series, and Red John is no ordinary killer. As we should soon find out, he was able to make the gun of the person Jane shot vanish in the middle of the chaos of his arrest. I would put the chances of a traditional psychopath being responsible at 1 out of 20.
We can probably deduce that Red John had a serious trauma in his or her life that made him or her start killing. We can also deduce that Red John is extremely intelligent, extremely motivated, and that he or she has a compulsive personality that would make that person stand out. The standard profile of the movie or TV serial killer who goes home to his parents’ basement and never talks to anyone doesn’t apply here.
I think it is someone who is in the cast as a regular or a recurring character. We will eventually find out, but when that happens probably depends on how long CBS keeps renewing them. The last episode of season 3 was perfect. If the show had ended, Red John was dead. Since they got renewed, Red John can be alive again. But a gambit like this one only works once, and Bruno Heller knows it.
Grab your popcorn and make sure you’re home on September 22. The ride is just beginning.
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