Excerpt (excludes episode summary preamble): “Gale Bertram is being hunted, and he is the head of a law enforcement agency,” notes Mentalist co-producer Jordan Harper , who wrote the episode. “Because of that, actions have to be taken.”
To drive home the seriousness of the CBI’s dismantling, Harper points out, “The scene opens with Jane’s couch being carted out, which was an idea from [director] Chris Long. That goes a tremendous distance towards underscoring that we’re not joking here.” Another telling touch came courtesy of series star Simon Baker. “During rehearsals, he had the idea of the teacup breaking. Again, these aren’t idle decisions. We are trying to send a message.”
And what about the message Jane sent Lisbon at the end, declaring his decision to give up the hunt? “He’s very clear that he’s not quitting. He’s letting go. And there’s a huge difference,” Harper stresses. Employing a martial arts analogy, the scribe says, “In Judo, there’s the idea not to always push, because while you may feel in control, you’re using your energy and that doesn’t mean you’re going to get your way. To ‘let go’ means to allow things to happen. To move with the flow.”
Meaning, maybe Red John will come to Jane, craving final closure as much as his longtime pursuer does? “I think that’s an interesting idea,” Harper allows.
Looking ahead to next Sunday’s episode, the grand finale of the CBS drama’s Red John storyline, Harper confirms that there’s “tremendous significance” to where where we last saw Jane, seated in a chapel. And as for the eventual face-off between serial killer and adversary, Harper promises it will be a battle of wits worthy of the two men.
“Both Jane and Red John have always fancied themselves as the ‘smartest guys in the room,’” he notes. “And one of them is right.”
The Mentalist: Has Red John Finally Been Revealed? Should we trust that Haffner, Stiles and McAllister are dead? We haven't seen any bodies ... Jordan Harper: I think it's always safe to say there's more to come, but I want to be very clear: That was a foot that you saw. It was not, in the world of The Mentalist, a rubber foot. There are dead people in that house, absolutely.
By the same token, is Bertram definitely Red John, or is there going to be another twist in next week's episode? Harper: You'll have to watch and see, but with The Mentalist, there's always another twist.
Will next week's episode explain what exactly happened in the explosion and the shot heard in Jane's house? Harper: It will be addressed, yeah.
Smith says that there are hundreds and possibly thousands of members of Tiger Tiger. Is this a story line that will be revisited in future episodes or seasons? Harper: Yes, absolutely. I really wanted to lay out with that scene exactly how a dirty cop who is not a Red John acolyte could come to help a serial killer. And so I wanted to do my best to paint a portrait of a conflicted man who's in over his head, which I think would be a lot of these guys in the Tiger Tiger organization. Even if they're not good people — and they are, to a man, not good people — that doesn't mean that they are serial killers. But once you're in deep, you're in deep. It's as close to a mutual trust society as a mutual distrust society in a lot of ways.
The way Smith describes it, it seems to be almost like a cult, with Red John targeting these vulnerable people. Harper: It's a different kind of vulnerability, and Red John as a master manipulator knows how to pull more than one kind of string. I always thought of the Manson family when it comes to Red John acolytes. But again, Smith is not part of the Manson family. He's part of the Rampart division. He's a bad cop. Once you've done a favor for a serial killer, what are you going to do? Come clean? You can't do that, so you've just got to keep swimming ahead.
What's Smith's motivation for confessing? Is it just that he finally realizes the game is up? Harper: I think after narrowly escaping death twice, he knows that his only chance of surviving is to give up. And not only that, I think it's also a deep relief to stop carrying secrets like that. This guy isn't just carrying one secret or two secrets. He's got a whole backpack full of really heavy secrets that he's able to dump out on the table in front of them. And I think even if he spends the rest of his life in prison, he'll feel maybe better about himself because he was able to come clean.
Back at CBI, Rigsby and Van Pelt are just learning about the Tiger Tiger conspiracy and are at the point where they don't even know which of their work colleagues they can trust. Harper: That was one of my favorite things about this episode. The viewer has known about the Blake Association for a while now, but when you think about how quickly things change in that scene — from [Rigsby] not trusting Oscar, to walking back in an alley and seeing a cop about to execute a man, and then being able to respond to that and being involved in a life and death shootout with two law enforcement officials, to finding out that one of those law enforcement officials has the dreaded tattoo — all in the space of a couple of minutes, it really messes with their minds quite a bit.
We finally meet Rockmond Dunbar's character, and he and Jane are already not off to a good start. How will Jane react to the FBI taking over the Red John case? Harper: First of all, Rockmand Dunbar's fantastic. I was really glad that I got to introduce him to the show and to be able to create that character of Dennis Abbott. Clearly, he's a no-nonsense type of guy, but I hope it comes off right away that he is not stupid. And one thing that somebody who is not stupid does is not try and butt heads with Jane. Jane is a master bullfighter, and just trying to butt heads with him will get you turned around. I think while Abbott is very serious about what he's saying and his intent to catch Red John, Jane might not be taking him seriously yet. But this will unfold.
What should viewers take away from the final scene, where Jane leaves Lisbon at CBI and goes to the chapel? Harper: [Lisbon] tells him that she doesn't believe that he's giving up, and he makes very clear that there's a difference between giving up and letting go. And I leave that to the viewers and to the next episode to get into exactly what that means. ... It's difficult to comment on Jane's mental state in the best of times. As a Mentalist writer, there's always the challenge of trying to write somebody who is smarter than you. Therefore, you can only give a vague approximation of what is going on in his head. To answer what is actually going through his mind is pretty difficult, but it's safe to say that his brain is firing on all cylinders at this point.
For viewers who are happy to put the Red John story line to bed, what can they look forward to in the new post-Red John world? Harper: The one thing I want to make very clear is that there's no going back from this point. It's not just a Red John-less world. It is a new world. We're still finding it ourselves ... and I'm really looking forward to the audience seeing it.
Does Abbott's announcement that he's shutting down CBI have to do with the new direction? Harper: The world that we have spent six years building is crumbling, and we're going to see the remains pretty soon. In my head, this is a three-part episode and this is the middle part. The audience is going to come out of this episode with a lot of questions, but they just are going to have to wait a week and then see Red John, and I promise their minds will be blown — their socks blown off.
Perhaps literally, if the end of last week's episode was any indication. Harper: Indeed.
What was the most challenging thing to get right? The hardest part was knitting together the episode that comes before it and the episode that comes after it, at least that was the first challenge. I really saw this as the middle part of a trilogy, so I had to make sure I delivered on both those fronts. The episode basically takes place entirely at a spring, which is not the normal tempo for The Mentalist. I had a lot to get done and I wanted it to be fun to watch. There's a version of this story that could have been told with a lot of exposition and less shootouts, but I wanted to do the shootouts.
What was your favorite scene or moment to write? There are a lot of things about this episode I really, really liked. I think director Elodie Keene and our crew did a great job with the shootout with Owain [Yeoman, who plays Rigsby,] and Amanda [Righetti, who plays Van Pelt]. It was by far the most intricate action scene I had ever written and while it comes off as chaotic on the screen, it was anything but in the planning. I really enjoyed introducing Rockmond Dunbar as FBI Agent Dennis Abbott, and we will be needing him again.
This episode knocks off several Red John suspects right off the bat following last week's explosion, leaving Bertram as the person Jane, Lisbon and the rest of the CBI team believe is the culprit. Are they correct? You'll have to watch and see. I don't want to tip anything from the upcoming episode other than Jane has a lot going on in his head and he's going to have even more going on in the next episode.
Was it particularly difficult seemingly killing three Red John suspects -- Sheriff Tom McAllister, Visualize leader Bret Stiles and FBI Agent Ray Haffner -- at the beginning of the hour? Was that always the plan? To be honest, that was one of the easiest things I had to come up with because Ken Woodruff wrote the episode before mine [titled "Fire and Brimstone"]. All I had to do was write, "Fade in. The house has blown up." I will say, less body parts made it in than were on-set that day, which was a personal regret of mine. I understand that you can't get everything out of life but there was more than a foot there. Our show isn't normally that gory but we wanted to make very clear that that was a human foot and there were dead bodies in there. Choreographing Lisbon coming into that scene and how fast her mind has to move from who survived this, did anyone survive this to Smith surviving it to thinking Smith is Red John, not knowing there were other people with tattoos, she's exactly where Jane the episode before that. And keeping track of what everybody knows and don't know in that time span was very challenging.
Jane's press conference revealing to the public the identity of Red John was a big move. What does that mean for everyone involved moving forward? One of the reasons that that is an important scene is Jane knows and as the audience quickly sees, he's exposing the leader of the CBI as a killer and that's something that will have repercussions and does in the episode. It's not something he does idly.
You touched on Abbott's entrance, with him shutting down the CBI and relieving everyone of their duties. What is Jane and Co.'s next move and what is their state of mind at the moment? These are questions that are going to be addressed very quickly in the "Red John" episode. It's a big move to have CBI shut down. It means Jane doesn't have the backstop he's always had, a veneer of law enforcement that allows him to operate in the way that Jane operates. When he loses that -- well, you can't count Jane out -- he does lose one of his best cards in his hand.
Talk about the scene between Lisbon and Jane after they find out the FBI is taking over, when Lisbon essentially tells him that he won't give up. I'm glad you picked up on that. To me, that's a big difference between quitting and letting go. The alcoholics say you gotta know the difference between the things you can change and the things you can't and you can't always force things to go the way you want but if you let go, you might be able to find other ways of making things work.
Will more information be divulged about The Blake Association? We're going to keep talking about it. Now that CBI is evidence, how do Jane, Lisbon, Van Pelt, Cho and Rigsby come back together? It's going to unfold in the next few episodes. As someone who's written on the show for a long time, it was fun to destroy parts of the world that I had helped create and have great fondness for. We have taken a monkey wrench to our show and to the world that the show lives in. Quite a bit of enjoyment came out of that.
What is the world like without CBI at its core? It's bigger. That's about all I can say, because there's a lot unfolding. It's a brave new world.
With the Red John mystery looking like it'll wrap up soon, are seeds planted for the next big arc? It's fair to say that while there is going to be a huge shift in the story after this it's not going to come out of nowhere. Everything that precedes is going to have logical antecedents in these run of episodes.
Without revealing too much, how would you characterize Jane and Bertram's encounter? I realize that this episode raises a lot of questions. Normally at the end of one of our episodes you're able to say more definitive things than I am able to say right now. Jane and Bertram will meet again. (Laughs.)
What are you hoping to explore further? We're in a whole new world now. I'm currently working on my next episode and I'm getting to do things I've never gotten to do on The Mentalist. It's nice after this many episodes to open the world up and feel like a new show.
Preview next week's episode, which you've said is the last of the "trilogy," so to speak. It's called "Red John." It's written by Bruno Heller and directed by Chris Long, one of our executive producers, and it's a big, big episode. In the history of our show, it is easily the biggest episode we've ever done. In a lot of ways I'm just setting up the table.
Question: Do you have any scoop on Lisbon from The Mentalist? –Laura Ausiello: Only that the end of the Red John storyline may — I said, may — be the best thing to ever happen to her love life. When asked if Jane and his No. 1 gal will retain have a strong bond once the dust has settled after this Sunday’s big showdown, Simon Baker says, “Absolutely — and I think even stronger.” As show boss Bruno Heller explains, Jane and Lisbon over these five-and-a-half seasons “have been so engrossed in this massive task ahead of them that they haven’t really looked at the people alongside them and… thought about what they mean to them. But now, they [will] have a chance to take a breath and think about each other in a way they haven’t before.”
Question: Is there anything you can tell us about The Mentalist and life after Red John for Jane? —Shena Ausiello: Actually, there’s something I can tell you and there’s also something I can show you. First, I can tell you that there will be a significant time jump between the Red John finale this Sunday and the beginning of Mentalist 2.0 on Dec. 1. Now, let me show you what the the new woman in Jane’s life — the mysterious Kim Fischer (played by series regular Emily Swallow) — will look like when she first appears in the aforementioned Dec. 1 episode. Check out the exclusive image below and then hit the comments with answers to these two questions: Why have we heard so little about who this woman is? Who do you think she is?
Am I going to be satisfied by the Red John reveal on The Mentalist? — Kenny ADAM: I was! As you might have already guessed, there are still some very cool twists to play out before Jane's final showdown with Red John. And while Jane has often been outsmarted by his archenemy, this time, Jane is definitely one step ahead. Most importantly, Sunday's episode leaves a lot of questions for the show to answer in the post-Red John era.
(And surprisingly, what to do with the now-defunct CBI crew isn't the most pressing.)
I fear that many people are going to begin to imagine a romance between her and Patrick. But if she is a special agent of the FBI, she can be only really very important for the continuation of the "career" of the PJ and not sentimentally !
Message edited by Evy - Wednesday, 20-Nov-13, 4:34 PM
I think she looks a lot like Van Pe;t and we know she is leaving along with Rigsby as has been announced. Interesting that she is on the beach, perhaps looking for Jane in his exile.
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From InsideTV: http://insidetv.ew.com/2013....2 I know you can’t say A LOT about The Mentalist. But you gotta give me something on the Red John ep! — Tyler The EPs were not joking when they promised closure. You definitely get that. But, in perfect Mentalist form, the episode still ends with quite the big question mark. And the award for vaguest scoop goes to…
'Mentalist' wraps its brain around Red John story The central driving plot will be solved and the series will jump ahead.
Since CBS drama The Mentalist began in 2008, California Bureau of Investigation consultant Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) has been fixated on finding Red John, the serial killer who murdered his wife and daughter. On Sunday (10 p.m. ET/PT), he gets his wish.
Although the Red John story has been central to Jane's character and the series, creator Bruno Heller wanted to bring it to a conclusion before the show's own ending in order to examine how its resolution would affect Jane. In the Dec. 1 episode, the sixth-season drama will jump ahead two years to look at Jane and his CBI colleagues in the aftermath of Red John and the dissolution of the law-enforcement agency.
The Red John story "has been the anchor of the show and, when I say anchor, I mean it in both senses of the word," Heller says. "It's been an absolutely necessary (device for) stability,but it's also been something that has held Jane in thrall and made him a darker and more driven and more ambivalent character than he would be otherwise. Now that anchor has slipped its moorings," he says. "We wanted to see what Jane is like without this burden," and the mentalist is definitely "happier" and "free to think about what to do with the rest of his life." Even love is a possibility.
Australian actor Simon Baker, who plays Jane, calls the decision to end the Red John story and jump ahead in time "a bold and risky thing to do," especially during the middle of a season. "I think that makes it fun and interesting."
Viewers have gotten to play along, as Jane has been whittling down a suspect list that started at seven.
Last week, the focus shifted to CBI director Gale Bertram (Michael Gaston), the subject of an intense manhunt as tonight's episode opens.
"I thought the list was a great idea," Baker says. "For the first time, there was something tangible. It's just a process of elimination in some way or another. After vamping for so long and giving tidbits of information and then (having) fantastical theories all over the place, to then have something that tangible was very clever."
That solution to the murder mystery comes as the CBI Sacramento office is dismantled, after the discovery that it has been infiltrated by a corrupt secret society of California law enforcement officials that includes the serial killer.
"It was really strange to shoot all of that stuff. It felt enormously like we were at the end. That set is gone. We've got a completely new set now," Baker says. Combined with the Red John conclusion, "It's very clear that we're striking the whole thing and starting again."
CBS supported Heller's proposal to end the Red John story, which has been so central that the color, in various forms, has been woven into episode titles throughout its run.
"In Bruno's version, we realize Patrick Jane is bigger than Red John," says Glenn Geller, CBS' programming chief . "There's much more to the story of The Mentalist than just the hunt for Red John. We really get to see the aftermath and what happens to Jane."
When The Mentalist jumps ahead, the former CBI team members will be scattered, with Lisbon in San Francisco, Rigsby and Van Pelt in northern California and Cho in Austin, the home base of the FBI agent (Rockmond Dunbar, who will become a series regular) assigned to shut down the CBI. Jane is out of the country.
Jane "wants nothing to do with his old life at all. (Lisbon) has made a new life for herself, (but) after two years she finds she's thinking about Jane all the time." Heller says. Their investigations will continue but in "a world of higher stakes and bigger strategies. They won't just be solving crimes in California."
Baker, who directs the Dec. 1 episode, says viewers will see changes in Jane. "It's a coming of age in a way," he says. "It redefines the relationship between Jane and Lisbon (Robin Tunney) in a real and adult way."
No decision has been made regarding The Mentalist's future beyond this season — ratings are down, and CBS needs slots to launch new series — but Baker and Heller say there are plenty of stories to tell in the post-Red John era.
"I think that is going to fall on our writers, if they can come up with stuff that's interesting and if we continue to move forward. That's a challenge. I think they're pretty keen to meet that challenge," Baker says. "We'll give it our best shot."
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From USAToday interview (this part is whithout spoiler) No decision has been made regarding The Mentalist's future beyond this season — ratings are down, and CBS needs slots to launch new series — but Baker and Heller say there are plenty of stories to tell in the post-Red John era.
"I think that is going to fall on our writers, if they can come up with stuff that's interesting and if we continue to move forward. That's a challenge. I think they're pretty keen to meet that challenge," Baker says. "We'll give it our best shot."
Things are clear about the future of TM : WAIT and SEE !!
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The Hollywood Reporter - Bruno & Simon interview Episode 6.07 SPOILERS
'Mentalist' EP Bruno Heller, Simon Baker Preview the End of the Red John Era Before the Red John arc -- introduced when the show debuted in 2008 -- comes to an end Sunday, the series creator and star discuss the long road to get to this point. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-fe....-658385
The Red John arc is wrapping up on The Mentalist.
By the end of last week's episode, Patrick Jane's list of seven Red John suspects had been whittled down to one name: California Bureau of Investigation Director Gale Bertram. After Jane publicly announced at a press conference that the CBI head was a killer, the FBI -- led by Special Agent Dennis Abbott -- shut down the CBI as a result. If the head of CBI was corrupt, who's to say there aren't more moles? More important, is Bertram Red John?
Sunday's episode, simply titled "Red John," marks the culmination of a series-long journey for Jane, as he comes face to face with the serial killer who murdered his wife and child. For creator/executive producer Bruno Heller, having the Red John case wrap up midseason was a conscious choice.
"Very early on, there were people who were saying in the first season, 'Are you going to find Red John at the end of the first year? Or the second year?' It's a question people have been asking and one we've been asking in the writers' room from very early on," Heller told reporters on a conference call earlier this week. "There was no functional, formal protocol moment where we said, 'OK, when this happens, we will set about closing off that chapter.' "
Instead, Heller compared the decision to close the Red John chapter to "a marriage or any kind of partnership."
"How long is Red John driving the story forward and at what point does it become an anchor?" he elaborated. "It just seems like this was the right time. Ultimately that's a subjective choice. It just seemed like, from a storytelling point of view and from the audience's point of view, it was time to move the story forward. The best way to move the story forward in a way that is exciting to the audience is to move it forward much faster than they think it's going to move."
Heller noted that "there were always three or four possibilities" for Red John, saying that there wasn't an "aha" moment when he and the writers honed in on the ultimate Red John identity. "It seems like the natural correct choice," he added, revealing the actor was notified about his character's Red John identity "at the very last moment and he was thrilled."
Star Simon Baker admitted that the journey for him the past five-and-a-half seasons has been "strange."
"There's reasons and things you sign on for on that show and there's very important elements to the character that you make a connection with immediately. A lot of those things were laid to rest in this episode," Baker said on the conference call. "It did feel incredibly personal to me. I've always been very invested in what my character does and how he reacts to his personal story, which is the Red John story...."
There have been many surprises throughout the years, and there may be a few more on Sunday.
"If you think you know what's happening and you think you know where it's going, you may be wrong," Heller hinted.
As for what The Mentalist may look like following Sunday's episode, Heller assured that though things are changing for Jane, Lisbon and company, there will still be aspects of the show that will remain the same. (He told the USA Today in a piece published Wednesday that the Dec. 1 episode, directed by Baker, picks up two years later.)
"It's going to be the same show to some degree," Heller promised, "but it's going to be a show with less darkness at the edges and more freedom to roam."
Message edited by DS_Pallas - Thursday, 21-Nov-13, 5:40 PM
After six years of waiting to find out Red John’s identity, the time is almost here. This Sunday’s episode of The Mentalist will finally give us the answer we’ve all been dying to know. And as we’re inching closer to the big reveal, creator and executive producer Bruno Heller and Patrick Jane himself, Simon Baker, took part in a conference call to answer some of our burning questions about the “Red John” episode and the future of the show post-Red John.
Part of that conversation will be shared after the episode airs so as to avoid spoilers, so make sure to come back to TV Equals for more this Sunday November 24th, but for now here is something to tie you over until then.
On what Bruno Heller can tease about the episode “If you think you know what’s happening and you know where it’s going, you might be wrong and you should watch this episode to find out.”
On when he figured out Red John’s identity Bruno Heller explained, “It kind of just emerged over the last couple of years. There was always 3 or 4 possibilities and it just happened really. It seemed like the natural correct choice.”
On how are things going to evolve from there for Patrick Jane Heller described Patrick Jane as “this tragic figure who has found the evil grail he has been chasing all these years years.” He added that the question remains, “what does that do to him as a person? Can he begin a new life and what kind of life does he want for himself? How will he define himself now that that part of his life is over?”
On whether Patrick Jane might have some kind of love life Heller teased, “He might.”
On the Lisbon and Jane relationship and bond Baker shared that their bond would be “even stronger.” And Heller added that, “they’ve been so engrossed in this massive task ahead of them but they haven’t looked around and looked at the people alongside of them and thought about who those people are and what they mean to them,’ he continued, “and now jane and Lisbon have a chance to take a breath and think about a each other in a way that they haven’t before.”
On why they decided to reveal Red John’s identity now Heller described the making of the decision like “a marriage or kind of partnership.” He explained, “How long is Red John driving the story and at what point does it become an anchor,” he added “and it just seemed like this was the right time.”
Baker added, “these last 5-6 months we’ve been working on the show it’s been really exciting for me, it felt like I’ve had this enthusiasm that I had in the first season because it’s new and fresh from week to week and it’s going somewhere. Because sometimes the frustration for me as an actor is that we’re not going anywhere, not moving forward and with this we’re definitely going somewhere and the stakes are high and it gives me something to do that I can really get my teeth into.”
Don’t forget to tune in this Sunday, November 24th and watch The Mentalist “Red John” episode at 10pm on CBS, then make sure to come back to TV Equals for even more from the discussion with Bruno Heller and Simon Baker.
The Mentalist's Simon Baker on Ending the Red John Arc: "There's a Level of Disappointment"
Patrick Jane isn't the only person who's eager to bring his decade-long hunt for Red John to a close on The Mentalist. Simon Baker says the conclusion of the story line, after Sunday's final showdown, is a relief for him as well.
"This last five, six months that we've been working on the show, it's been really exciting for me," Baker said on a conference call this week. "It's felt like I've had the sort of enthusiasm that I had in the first season because it's new and fresh from week to week and it's going somewhere. Sometimes the frustration for me as an actor is that we're not going anywhere, not moving forward. In this, we're definitely going somewhere, and the stakes are high and it gives me something to do that I can really get my teeth into."
As Jane has worked to narrow down the Red John suspects at the start of this season, Baker says he tried to keep himself in the dark as well. "I didn't have any theories at all," Baker admits. "Actually, I made a point to not read too far ahead on a lot of these episodes, the first six or seven. I would read the outlines, but I didn't really want to read scripts too far in advance, because I didn't want to get ahead of myself."
Still, after five and a half years of tracking Red John, Baker says it was somewhat of a letdown to finally come face-to-face with the mysterious killer, and that he felt a sense of loss after filming Jane's final showdown with his enemy. "I always felt what was scary was the fact that it could be the guy that you see every day on your way to work that's watering his lawn two blocks away ... the everyday guy that is a serial killer," Baker says. "So when we found out it was who it was — I think, ultimately with anything like this, there's a level of disappointment. When there's mystery, you paint the picture in your head of what it's going to be, and particularly when it's a mystery that holds you under water for so long, the mystery of who it is is mythical. The truth is, it's just a person."
After Sunday's installment, The Mentalist will jump ahead two years, so the immediate aftermath of Jane's final confrontation with Red John will have already been dealt with. But questions about where Jane (and the show) will go moving forward still loom large.
"What this fresh version of this show is about is what happens afterwards," creator Bruno Heller said on the same conference call. "In a very real sense, Jane is a happier person. A weight has been taken off his shoulders, and to that degree a weight has been taken off the show. So, it's going to be the same show to some degree, but it's going to be a show with less darkness at the edges, and more freedom to roam. Jane has more freedom and more of a sense of possibility and liberty."
With that in mind, Baker says he's still trying to work out how to play Jane in a post-Red John world. "To be honest, it's been strange," Baker says. "It's been really strange, because whatever happens in the course of the series, there's reasons that you sign on to that show for, and there's very important elements to the character that you make a connection with immediately. And a lot of those things were laid to rest in this episode. So it did feel incredibly personal to me. I've always been very invested in what my character does and how he reacts to his personal story, which is the Red John story."
But Jane's character isn't the only one who's thrown for a loop. The time-jump reveals that his former CBI comrades are scattered around the country after their agency was shut down, with Lisbon (Robin Tunney) in San Francisco, Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) and Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti) in northern California, and Cho (Tim Kang) in Austin with FBI agent Dennis Abbott (new series regular Rockmond Dunbar).
"It's a little like they're the children of divorce," Heller says of the disbanded CBI crew. "They've been enthralled with somebody else's mission, and now that mission is gone. They were in a world that they didn't choose and now they're in a world that is changing around them, again not of their own volition. So what this is going to be for these characters is a process of growing up. They're leaving home. Jane has big questions to answer about what he's going to do with himself, and Lisbon, Van Pelt, Cho and Rigsby also have to make those choices."
What remains to be seen is whether viewers will stick with The Mentalist after the Red John story line is wrapped up. Baker, who directed the first post-Red John episode, airing Dec. 1, said he was adamant that the name "Red John" not even be uttered in the hour. "We've said, 'Red John' about four million times, and three million times in the last seven episodes, I think," Baker quips. "It's really nice to have a good, clean, fresh cut from that and not mention Red John for a while at all, and have Jane not even speak of him."
Heller is also confident about the decision to put the Red John story line to bed once and for all. "It's kind of like a marriage or any kind of partnership," he says. "How long is Red John driving the story forward, and at what point does it become an anchor — in both sense of the words an anchor? It just seemed like this was the right time. ... It felt very much to all of us like that chapter of the story was done.
"I think it's going to be a great show after Red John," Heller adds. "And then it's up to the audience to decide whether they like it or not."
