The Mentalist Season 3 Episode 24

Stunning finale with Jane supposedly killing Red John.I don't think that he is dead I think the man Jane killed was just another one of RJ's accomplices.It was all to easy for Jane.We know how intelligent Red John is he would never get caught like that.Jane has definitely made a mistake by killing that man.I don't know if it has anything to do with what RJ said to Jane when he said "frame thy fearful symmetry" meaning to frame Jane.The CBI mole was also revealed as O'Loughlin which was no surprise after episode 3x18.I really thought about it and if this isn't Red John well O'Laughlin came in on 3x3 which is the Bret Stiles episode,I already think that Bret Stiles is Red John and i think that Bret sent O'Loughlin to spy on that investigation.Overall the episode was amazing with all the questions to be answered in season 4.

Excellent finale - possibly the best of the recent TV season. BUT, here's what's bothering me, plot-wise... (spoilers for finale, obviously)





We know (by his actions) that Agent O'Loughlin (Van Pelt's fiancee) was a Red John mole and thus paid the price for messing with the head of a redhead by dying... in a hail of bullets from Van Pelt and Hightower! Quite right too! (Go, Rigsby!) It's possible other characters we know are also compromised (though I think LaRoche's secret is something different) but there's no direct evidence of this only the red herrings that play with the audience in the ep.





However Patrick and Co lure their boss Betram (who they think is the bad guy) to the shopping mall to hopefully also lure out his 'boss' Red John (it's only while they wait that Patrick twigs the reasoning behind thinking Bertram was the mole is flawed). So if Bertram IS innocent, why DOES Red John turn up at all - watch closely and you even see him arrive in the background near the very beginning of the scene? He shouldn't even know about the meeting unless Patrick and Co WERE right. O'Loughlin knew nothing of the meeting, so he couldn't have got the information from him. The only reason he'd be there is if he arbitrarily tailed Jane (far too convenient) or, most likely, knows about the meeting and that only works if Jane and Co were actually right about Bertram being the mole and their plan actually worked as planned. Or if one of the remaining members of the team is ALSO a mole.





Several people I know thought that the pendant O'Loughlin gave Van Pelt must have been bugged, but that makes no sense either as there's far too much information flying around earlier which would have compromised all the heroes' plans if they were being monitored.





It's a great dramatic finale and mucho fun, but this minor quibble makes no internal logic/sense to me on closer scrutiny...

I had stopped watching this show after a few episodes in season 1. I found it too naff and corny. I have dipped into it occasionally, and caught the end of various episodes because over here it airs on Five, before Law & Order, Law & Order SVU or Law & Order: Criminal Intent - all of which I enjoy. I watched this in this episode to pass time, and because the Radio Times (TV guide) wrote that it was the end of the Red John saga. The whole Red John thing was one of the things I had found fake, because in the episodes I watched, Jane did not convince me as a bereaved husband and father. He certainly changed my opinion in this episode. I knew there would be twists and turns - and they were excellently done, but despite having read some of the reviews, the end managed to take me by surprise. I loved it. It has encouraged me to watch next season.

I bet you the real RED John is still alive, come on after all that time of searching f him do you really think he woud just give himself up t easily. Plus lets say he i dead, then what would be the point of season4, the whole reason of watchig the mentalist was that we had a target "Red John" we where going somewhere its like we had an aim. But now that he is supposedly dead, i might as well not bother watching it. On the other hand after killing the man i lovedhow he justwent over, continud to drink his tea and asked for a cheque, that was typical Patrick Jane behaviour.

I agree with Darkflame2006 and rei_vilo that this isn't the real Red John. Bringing in a never-before-seen actor and calling him Red John is too easy and takes away from the drama of the show. Using an unknown "disposable" like this guy is indeed Red John's MO.





"Who can Patrick Jane trust?" is the real central theme of the show. As of the this episode, he trusts the CBI team, finally telling them what he knows. He still doesn't trust LaRoche (what was in the plastic box?), which is probably a wise move.





It could never have been Director Bertram - he was too worried about media and not about what went on.





LaRoche certainly has some baggage, including killing the bomber and responding as he did when Jane was running off to spring the trap ("Busy boy.") My guess is that LaRoche is Red John or another one of his minions. Jane's plan did not account for the possibility that two of the five people on the list (including LaRoche) might be Red John or his puppets.





Jane will get off for the shooting because Bradley Whitford did have a gun with him so his CBI friends can claim self defense for him. Until he realizes that it wasn't Red John, Jane won't care to defend himself. (Maybe Jane will get off because Whitford over-acted so much in the role of Dan Stark last year - another form of self defense. :-) )





The new layer of pain for Jane will be realizing that (a) he didn't really kill Red John and (b) he killed a relatively "innocent" man. This should make for some interesting story lines in the future.

Great finale with a lot of material for the next season!





I don't take for granted the man killed by Patrick is the real or the only Red John. Neither do I take for granted that Craig O'Laughlin is the only mole. In both cases, there may be other ones.





All Red John's agents either are killed or commit suicide: they're disposable. Do you remember the connection between Red John and the cult leader Bert Stiles? On Season 3, Episode 3 - The Blood On His Hands, Bert Stiles gave Jane information on Red John.





The rope left at the hotel room may be long enough to climb down to lower levels (not just the one below) at the hotel. Patrick though he had the advantage, but he lost his analytical skills on that moment. So he might have been played and fooled.





And the presumed assassin killed herself to avoid leaving any clues, as the suspect was killed by J.J. LaRoche. What's the dirty secret on LaRoche box on the safe?





So next season may be really exciting, with Red John's ghost still alive!

For so long we're talking about how super-fantastic confrontation Red John-Patrick Jane would be...and now that's it.


Epic.


You may disagree..."oh, the show will be over" "the episode is bland" "wtf that guy out of the blue jumps out" "predictable been-here-done-that" "anti-climactic".


Well then I beg to differ.


This finale sums up what Jane really thinks, believes, and knows about Red John: all that murders and chaos aside, he's just a criminal. Just another psycho going apecrap.


Just...a bad guy.


And for that the punishment is simple: death. No fancy stuff, no bad guy lair, no mind games, no trick-ploy-plot....Strawberry and Cream is an epic deconstruction of all the TV tropes about ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny.


After he'd done all those cliches (which are actually enjoyable to watch), Jane just shoots Red John.


Solid 10.

Finally We saw RedJohn !! .. I don't how can i decribe my feelings about this episode , This Episode was Fantastic , the best episode in the entire series , We said before that Red John plot is what makes the show !!





I didn't imagine that an episode from the mentalist could reach this level !


That's nearly perfection , Iam glad i watched this show and this episode especially .. this was a perfect drama mixed with intense , a very well written episode , an episode that will rest in the history of tv show ! May be you think that i exaggerated a little bit , but anyway this is the best season finale this season and the mentalist is one the best show on TV right now .





Until now i can't belive that red john has been killed ! , how will be the next season ?! too many questions , we have to wait and see but the only thing i wonder , how was red john beside Patrick although Bertram was not red john assistant ? Finally i can't wait until season 4 , all i want to say now that i will remember this episode every time i watch the mentalist !

I have ever seen such an engrossing episode of any series. . I was just spell bound after watching this episode. .And Simon Baker I have never seen an actor with that kinda expressions on his face as u have. . U were just awesome. .I so desperately wanted to know who Red John was and I wasn't disappointed at all with the finale. .And what do I say about the last scene. .Only Simon Baker could have pulled that scene with such emotions and such ease. .And when Patrick Jane sat down to have his cup of tea, I was as much relieved as he was. .

One of the best episodes of The Mentalist ever, quite possibly the best ever. The moment we had been waiting three years for, the reveal of Red John and it did not disappoint as they had Bradley Whitford in the role that turned out to be more dark and sinister than deviant and mischievous.





But it was not just that amazing conversation that caused this episode to leave me speechless. We also had some great action at the hotel from the jumper and the shootout at the cabin. You had a great mystery as to who the friend of Red John's was, although anyone who has ever seen a TV show could tell you that it was going to be Craig.





Great way to close the season out. Not just the best Mentalist ever one of the best episodes of TV all year. Go out of your way to see this because the revelation did not disappoint. Great action-packed season finale tonight.

So basically everyone was tricked by everyone into doing something bad. I think. The overall story of bombs and executions wasn't very clear to me since I lost all of my braincells during the dull finale of The Mentalist. I like how Jane works but it's still not interesting enough to have such a slow story span such a long time. It could have been much bigger and more integral to the story. Instead we were offered a couple of nice moments between the two leads and some predictable twists.


That is, until the end. Because holy mofo did that ending rock. The standoff in the safe house was pretty fantastic enough, what with the children up stairs and the shooting of your own fiancee. But that wasn't even the final trick. The quiet conversation in the middle of a mall was. I had to read afterwards that the story was a serieslong one that probably meant more to the fans than to anyone else. But for me it worked as well. The uncertainty of what was going to happen, the pressure of a hundred people walking around. It was simply stellar. Not to mention the description of how he killed his family. That was just plain brutal. No wonder that the fans stuck by Jane as he shot the murderer of his family in public. And as the shopping people ran away, Jane sat down, asked for the check and waited until the mall cops came to arrest him. This is how you do endings.

Finally got his revenge and now we can move on to something new!!! Patrick has been on a long journey and this year they have avoided the entire Red John case it seems like... (well after the first few). Now Patrick can move on. I loved how he shoots him, then asks for his check. CLASSIC JANE! Everyone needs to watch this episode.

The BEST episode ever written, not only for this series, but for all the series so far. Simon Baker is just an excellent actor and knows how to make you understand how much Patrick hurts; he is a perfect fit for this character. I never expected that Patrick would have his revenge on Red John so soon; based of course on other series which choose to have the main plot extended in several seasons so that the audience will not lose interest and they keep on making money… Nice turn of events. As zurimov quoted, "EPIC" just describes it right.

The best episode of mentalist ever and the best episode of television I can remember I still have goosebumps. Most show's finales a lot of the time just try to set up for the next season but this finale was great Jane finally got his revenge and it is still the third season cant wait to see where the show goes next. Sorry if I spoiled it but you shouldn't read the review before watching the episode. I don't know how some people gave this episode less than a 10 it was amazing. I don't know why my review has to be 100 words min. If you've already seen the episode why would you want to read a review this long and if you haven't seen the episode go watch it.

Jane was more than likely 'setup'.





First off, i'd just like to say that this is the best episode of the Mentalist so far and the acting, the emotions and the mind games were of the highest quality i've come to expect from this show.





Now i'd like to go onto analyzing the final scene from this episode.





In regards to the whole Jane killing Red John thing, i just don't buy it.





I believe that guy was just one more accomplice of Red John, sent in as a test to see if Jane would get so blinded with rage when confronted with what he thought to be the real Red John that he would kill the wrong man and he did.





Perhaps Red John even wanted his direct opposite to take a walk in his shoes, feel what it is like to take another life.





What a lot of people haven't through through is that the guy at the end could of easily been told the intimate personal details of Janes family by Red John himself.





Also there is no way in hell Red John would just give up his life of crime to pursue a more enlightened life to help the world, yeah right, pull the other one.





The show has has always portrayed him to be a very clever calculating killer with a love for mind games, not a nut case like the guy Jane shot tonight.





Red john has always appreciated Jane as he considers him a worthy opponent in the war of good vs evil, light vs dark, (as mentioned in the Tiger Tiger poem).





For me this episode is about driving home character development on Janes part and it's going to be a devastating one!





The authorities will most definitely not let Jane get away with gunning down a man in the middle of a mall (even if he claims it was self defense).





He will most likely be punished in some fashion or another for the crime either with a short prison sentence or more likely re-admitted to a mental institution for a time.





I suspect the next season will start off with Jane having spent his time (what ever it may be) and Red John springing up again, setting up the game once more for Jane to play (even more ferociously this time as he has been outwitted once again by his mortal enemy).





The reasons why i believe Red Johns death is a trick is because the whole show is based on playing mind games with both the people in it and us the viewers.





This show is basically all about good vs evil, light vs dark, Jane vs Red John, they are always trying to get the best of one another 2 equally matched opponents playing a game of chess.





Jane sometimes likes to think he is a few steps a head and Red John continues to show him otherwise.





Red John is what professor Moriarty was to Sherlock Holmes and will not go down so easily, nor will his identity be a complete unknown person as this guy was tonight





The odds are it will be someone we know or have known for a very long time (from as early as season 1) and when we do find out who it is, we are suppose to to be stunned that they were under our noses the whole time.





That ladies and gentlemen is what you call a twist ending and a popular one tv shows like this like to pull off many years down the line in the final episodes.





No decent tv series sets up a villain as tenacious and masterful as Red John just to capture or kill him off so easily only 3 seasons in, no this type of character is built up for the whole duration of the show (usually 7+ seasons in depending on how much material they have to keep the show going, Monk went for 9 seasons).





Besides there is so much more Jane needs to learn before the show ends, Jane is a good guy (and now he has shot someone / committed cold blooded murder through wraith) he is now the bad guy (not in the eyes of us the viewers but in the eyes of his team, especially Lisbon) and this needs to be rectified before the shows end.





Lisbon is going to be so disappointed with Jane and it will show, he is going to have to look straight into her eyes and see the pain and disgust she is feeling for him.





I think this is going to hit Jane hard and he is going to have to atone for what he has done and eventually learn from this mistake Red John so effortlessly led him to perform. I could of course be completely wrong and things are exactly as they seem and Red John is captured/shot/dead/what ever but i don't see why the writers would voluntarily do this.





Red john is the whole point of the mentalist, the main story ark, he is also Janes lesson to learn by the end of the series





To learn to forgive and move on with his life with the help of Lisbon and start again and not waste anymore of his life to pain and suffering any more than he has already done.





This series storyline has a very similar structure to Monk, Monk spent 9 seasons hunting down his wifes killer, solving cases in-between, and then he finally catches him in the last episode and refuses to kill him despite wanting to for the whole 9 years the series ran for.





And that's pretty much what formula this tv show is following, all the murders and crimes in between that the CBI solve because of Janes assistance are just filler episodes to the main Red John story.





If there is no Red John, there is no show, the whole reason why Jane joined CBI was to get closer to Red John without him, no more crimes will be solved by his genius intellect we have come to love and adore.





Basically, we're talking about the end of the show.





I could of course be completely wrong and everything is as it appears to be, but if this is the case, where will this show go from here exactly?





No i believe the Red John story will continue and there will be a few more seasons a head of us that will give Jane the opportunity to become the better man.





And when it does, he will catch his killer and he won't pull the trigger this time.





That's the peaceful ending i want to see the character of Patrick Jane acting out, not this one of wraith and vengeance (he doesn't deserve that and i don't think the writers are going to allow it either).





Anyway, very rarely does a show make me want to review an episode but this show is certainly one of them.





Roll on season 4!

I can't help having my doubts as to whether this is a season finale or a series finale. TV networks have done it to us before, and will probably do it again. The only thing I can think of is that maybe he will be given consideration for his emotional state at the time, the reason for the crime, and maybe his work at CBI.


The only other thing I can think of is--he manipulated his way out of jail before, and I'd be willing to bet he could do it again, and disappear, only to use his talents in quiet, out of the way places all across the country.


I guess we'll have to wait and see.


One of my favorite writers wrote once that evil isn't passionate, it is bland. That is the essence of Red John. When you hear about him, he is sort of the Darth Vader of the show, but, as with Darth Vader, once his mask is removed, so to speak, he is just this nondescript looking (and acting)man.

Ordinarily I'd be against double episodes for procedural dramas. The extra forty minutes of screen time is almost certain to be devoted to useless forensics that no one cares for, or a murder mystery lacking any sense of mystery at all. The Mentalist however, delivered quite a bit more than that. Bringing everything full circle, the season three finale of The Mentalist delivered some of the best moments of the season and by far the best individual moment of the entire series. Part one of the double bill served really only to set up everything that was to come after it. The episode followed the CBI as they investigated a robbery at a money transfer business turned suicide bombing at a gas station. Astute as ever, Patrick quickly discovered that the robber was in fact forced into his predicament by an external force - the person in control of the bomb that he was strapped to. When the investigation revealed that the robber's true target was not money, but secure information from the transfer business, the team then follow a lead that lands Lisbon strapped to a bomb herself. Lisbon and Patrick are then forced into retrieving the information for the man behind the trigger. Seeming to go along with the bomber's plan, Patrick outsmarts him after figuring out who he is - the attendant at the gas station - leading himself and Lisbon into a face-to-face with the man who holds their fate in his hands. Naturally, all ends well for Patrick and Lisbon, but as the suspect is being taken away by LaRoche, he is shot and killed whilst trying to escape. When the team is checking through the information their now dead suspect desired - a list of names - they discover that one of the people on the list has been found tortured and killed. When they head off to investigate the scene, they discover that the man is of particular importance to them, as he is related to their former boss/suspected killer Madeline Hightower. Piecing together the events of the day, Patrick works out that Red John is the man pulling the strings and is searching for Hightower to silence her about the murder she is suspected of. The episode ends with Patrick heading home and being confronted by a more than frustrated Hightower. As part two of the finale begins, Patrick is given two days by Hightower to clear her name before she turns herself in to fight the case in court.





The fun then well and truly begins as Patrick and Lisbon bring the rest of the team in on the information that they have about Hightower - that she is innocent and that Red John's accomplice inside the CBI is someone else. Knowing that the only remaining candidates for the accomplice position are those that were on LaRoche's list of possible suspects (as well as LaRoche himself) before Hightower was framed, the team then works to get ahold of the information. After bluffing his way into getting the list of names from LaRoche, containing on it the names of: the CBI director, the CBI press secretary, the assistant DA and Grace's fiance Craig, Patrick proceeds to put a fairly simple but brilliant plan into place to find out who the insider is. Knowing that Red John wants Hightower dead, the team casually lets each suspect know of a separate fake location for her - several different rooms in the same hotel - hoping that Red John will send a killer. Depending on where the killer shows up, the team will then know who the inside man is, so when their surveillance shows an assassin entering the room mentioned to the CBI director, the team thinks that they have their man. Before they can question the assassin, she leaps to her death.





Creating a trap to lure out Red John, Patrick then tells Bertram that Hightower wants to meet up with him in a local mall. When Bertram seems not at all nervous about the situation, Patrick reassesses what happened with the assassin and realizes that she had intended to enter a different room via Bertram's - the one that they mentioned to Grace's fiance O'Laughlin. Unfortunately for the team, Grace had already come clean to O'Laughlin about Bertram's involvement when she thought he was the inside man and subsequently had taken him directly to where they were hiding Hightower. As Patrick calls Lisbon to warn her there is a fairly hearty exchange of gunfire and ultimately the good guys prevail. Seeing an opportunity to rub the victory in Red John's face, Patrick has Lisbon pick up O'Laughlin's cell phone and redial Red John with the news of his death. As Lisbon makes the call, the phone of a man sitting just across from Patrick in the mall rings; the man of course being Red John. Patrick and his nemesis (played perfectly by Bradley Whitford) then proceed to converse as Red John holds a gun on Patrick. Red John reveals his intentions to quit the killing business whilst Patrick vows murderous revenge - something that Red John advises him to quit as well. As the serial killer walks away Patrick demands proof that he is indeed the real man, and when he provides details that only his wife's killer could know, Patrick shoots him in the chest with a gun that he had hidden in his pocket. Seemingly unaffected by his violent revenge, Patrick then sits down and takes a drink whilst he waits to be arrested.





To say I was surprised by "Strawberries and Cream" would be quite an understatement. Although The Mentalist has consistently hung all other procedurals out to dry in my eyes, the thought of a double episode seemed just a bit too much for the show to handle. It took the crux of the entire series and brought it front and center in a fantastic scene between Simon Baker and Bradley Whitford, and when Patrick actually took his revenge, I was stunned. At several points in the three season run of the show thus far, Patrick has mentioned that he is only using the CBI to get his revenge. Now that he has achieved it, where is the show going? Will Patrick somehow get off the hook for killing the man that took everything from him, or will season four see our hero behind bars? Even if he gets away with it, what will be the new long running arc of the show? There are questions in abundance after that finale, but for the time being, we shall just have to deal with the memory of how good it was.

Wow! I just read Darkflame2006's review. I have to admit....I hope he or she is right and Red John is someone we all know. I always thought it was someone the team knew. I was just so HAPPY that Patrick finally got his vengence. I know I would have shot the guy!! It would be better for him to be able to "turn in" Red John. This is will interesting to see if he's alive. Remember when Malcome McDowell's character said that Red John was more powerful then Patrick could ever imagine. It's true....the character that was supposed to be RJ didn't seem that "impressive"


We will all see....