The Mentalist News
The Mentalist Quotes
Jane: This is Red John. Lisbon: How can you tell? Jane: Because when it's him I can feel it.The Mentalist Clips
The Mentalist Pics
Jane: This is Red John. Lisbon: How can you tell? Jane: Because when it's him I can feel it.
January 26th, 2013 12:38 AM
@rationalgal. i watched throwing fire again pretty recently. i got the feeling that jane's father was mostly happy to have fathered a goldmine and interested in keeping him under his thumb as long as possible. he was part stage parent, part jailer. i didn't pick up that he missed his wife but he did wear the ring. mostly he spent his time mocking patrick for anything that expressed his innate goodness. (supports lisbon saying "that's not him" in fugue in red.) patrick was his father's mark. i know someone brought up that his striped pants might allude to prison garb. actually carnival barkers traditionally wore striped pants -- see billy bigelow in the musical, carousel, to see the 19th century jane senior. also, a page or two back i did wonder if, considering the time frame, the jane boys' carnival set up near the red barn. so i agree with your hmmmm.
January 26th, 2013 12:28 AM
Rationalgal I have to disagree with you about Stiles. He could not get me to jump in the sack with him. It would take more then brainwashing to get me to do that. I can't see Lorelei jumping in the sack with stiles and then with Jane! They are way to different!
January 26th, 2013 12:22 AM
bonaduz,I was like you when I found this site. I couldn't believe there were people out there that liked the show as much as I did. I was drawn to the mystery of the Red John storyline,the comedy and then the characters. I love the big discussions we get into. They are a lot of fun! I have never watched another show that made me think this much. Most shows just spoon feed you they what they want you to know. This show makes you earn the right to be a member. I mean devoted viewer! Wait! What? I hope I'm not becoming a Red John recruit unknowingly! Just kidding! I think a lot of viewers want their answers right away, like fast food. I think everyone in here likes the slow methodical twists and turns of a good mystery. I think I might have to go to series counseling when this is done!
January 26th, 2013 12:21 AM
I love to try to solve mysteries and The Mentalist has given me more to work with than I know what to do with. It's not just the characters but the underlying philosophies that inform their actions. Different for all of them and messes up every theory one way or another. Great writing! Great story concept! Eventally one theory has to take in all of the factors. No doubt the piece of the puzzle that will do that hasn't been offered yet. Many suspects can be eliminated, tho they may play a role. It has to be someone with the qualifications. That leaves out, for example, the CBI parking lot attendant. Also Jane's father, tho he may be indirectly involved. I think a lot of people are involved in some way, but who is the REAL Red John? So far, Stiles fits the qualifications. That's as far as I can go.
January 25th, 2013 11:07 PM
GREAT stuff from all of you. I'm really glad I found this site! huisclothes, b&w&r, rationalgal, watcher, anitraward1 and everybody else has put so mutch thought and time into this show, it's incredible! Every time I log in, I learn something new and exciting about the characters - specially Lorelei at the moment. Can't wait for the rest of the season! I also love to read how people think different, because everybody has a different background and therefore different believes and a different "rucksack" to carry! Awsome! I'm also positively surprised, that everybody's comment is appreciatet, nobody talks down to another person or makes remarks about spelling/grammar mistakes and that questions from us "beginners" are answerd seriously - thanks! I feel right at home with this crazy (in a fun way) bunch here! Anywhere else (in my real life) I can't even mention the Mentalist anymore!(rolling eyes, sighs, weird looks)lol! So - keep it coming, please! :-)
January 25th, 2013 10:55 PM
@rationalgal i love your observation about all the red john jack & jills. a lot of fun to think about.
if jane suspects brett stiles, i guess they'll have to start laying the pipe to make that work for the audience. which means they'll have to lay multiple pipes that lead us to other people to keep us guessing until the end. i haven't come up with one cohesive argument for who red john is. and i'm asking them to come up with several all woven together. hope they can pull it off. and once again, please don't let them have to. still have fingers and toes crossed for season six.
Rank: Recurring Character
January 25th, 2013 8:26 PM
@rationalgal: I love these theories your throwing out there, they are alot of fun and take a lot of time clearly and really make us think, and I'm not sure if your just creating deep theories for fun and excitement sake or if your trying to find the most likely candidates since you said your dying to find RJ. But if its the later, Jane's dad and Brett Stiles aren't Red John:) Jane's Dad is way too deep(its a great ex of fans like us looking way too much into the show and over thinking things which by the way is totally fine and the best) and Stiles is WAY to obvious(oh we bring the first guy on the show who says he knows something about RJ, lets just make him RJ). Really, Red John is going to be someone we have no evidence for right now, because that's how the show has set up the plot. Maybe in 2 months, we can make a more educated guess, but if theres one thing we know about this show, what you see isn't what you get.
January 25th, 2013 7:35 PM
(continued) I think Jane suspects as much and is playing it cool to lead Stlles into a trap he can't escape. At least this seems to add up the sparse facts we do have. It's even believable, given that powerful criminal/religious/political organizations/cults do exist in the world and they do get their brainwashed/gullible/trusting memebers to do terrible things. Just not as fun to watch as on The Mentalist.
January 25th, 2013 7:29 PM
@b&w&r thanks for that.
January 25th, 2013 7:29 PM
Continued from below). Now for the accomplices - the many Red Johns. Every one has a woman companion for what it's worth. Rosalind Harker had RJ Roy Tagliaferro, who killed the morgue attendant, after which Rosalind was shown playing the piano with bloody hands. Sally Carter had RJ Timothy Carter and would have helped him kill that girl on the bed if Jane hadn't shot him at the mall. Rebecca had RJ Anonymous CBI Security Guard, whom she greeted with big smiles as he approached and poisoned her. Kristina Frye had RJ Killer of Film Makers sending Kristina's fond "Roll Tide" greetings when Jane was Saran-wrapped to the chair. Lorelei had RJ Limo voice at end of season 4. Did I forget any? I doubt that Stiles was any one of them. He doesn't weild the knife. He's the man behind the curtain, pulling the strings. Why? Like all such killers, just because he can and it make him feel powerful. The Red Johns we see are all brainwashed minions playing their assigned parts. I think Jane suspects a
January 25th, 2013 7:20 PM
back to lorelei and how the writers have taken us (or at least me) on an emotional ride showing her different dimensions. it would be amazing if they embarked on the same path with red john and started to dimensionalize him more. we know he's a prideful man. literate. accomplished. can display self-control. sexually active. soft-spoken. charismatic. playful. craves attention. enjoys games. if they started to do more with him. my head would explode. and that would be excellent. i think that's the journey the red barn will begin to take us on. doesn't mean i don't want patrick to boil him in oil in the end.
but if i were bruno, i'd challenge the writers to make us feel more conflicted about him. great assignment. has to be something better than "the fuhrer loved children." but that's just me. i always vote for maximum head explosions.
January 25th, 2013 7:15 PM
Since I am obsessed with figuring out who Red John is and especially how he operates, I will try again with this scenario: Red John is Bret Stiles and he has accomplices who act for him. He denies knowing who RJ is but he's dissembling because he means RJ could be many people. An operation like RJ's needs to be large, wealthy, and influential to do all the controlling and infiltrating. That is Visualize, a global network, a brainwashing cult with a smarmy philosophy that appeals to people needing some transcendental comfort even though it's pure b.s. Jane said Stiles never wields the knife himself but has others do his dirty work. Stiles has a history of very likely arranging a murder. The woman on his board who committed murder slapped Stiles and cursed him for making her the person she had become. (continued)
Rank: Recurring Character
January 25th, 2013 7:12 PM
@huisclothes nailed everything, everything I was thinking and then some was said by her so I'll spare the ramble but basically she showed everything about Lorelei and why it's more complicated with her and not just an issue of being a serial killer. She is a master manipulator, you can literally SEE the Red John influence on her. You couldn't see that with other friends, thats why they concealed their identities. She goes through the pendelum of emotions with Jane, and yes, there's something there with him and her and Bruno acknowledged that. It won't be a relationship, there both there to manipulate each other, but they enjoy each other's company. Its a more complicated friends with benefits kind of thing. And the thing is, we don't even know the half of it, there's going to be alot more twists and turns with it and her, that law enforcement mole and Visualize are the three keys to the Red John storyline. Lorelei is signed on for 3 more episodes, thats alot.
January 25th, 2013 7:02 PM
This discussion shows what's so exceptional about the series. In none other that I know of can the characters be analyzed like this. There just is never enough to go on to even start. I watched Throwing Fire again for a closer look at Jane's father. Yes, he wears his wedding ring, although his wife is long gone (assumed dead - maybe died in childbirth, since Jane never mentions her). He reminds Boy Wonder Jane that he raised him. He seemed like a man who deeply missed his wife, wanted to do right by his son but didn't know how other than to teach him in a clumsy well meaning way to face the reality of what life offers whether one likes it or not. (The year for the episode was, I think, 1986. Isn't that what The Red Barn goes back to? Hmmmm.) Jane seemed to like learning to be a con artist except for scamming a dying young girl. That was over the line for him and has defined his character a lot since then.
January 25th, 2013 7:01 PM
interesting little tidbit. zuleika robinson, who was on homeland with guest star on the mentalist as a scientist studying murderers from a biological point of view.
January 25th, 2013 5:21 PM
cont'd from below. then scared, yelling for patrick's protection. in red sails in the sunset, she was caustic. she treated patrick like he was a doofus. at the ocean, she was thoughtful, then huddled with him. there was intimacy, maybe a melting of the ice and a realization of what he did for her. in the car driving north, she was insightful and pithy. called patrick on his act and backed him off it. then she starts having fun. seems playful and easygoing. then she beats him - furious and hurt that he broke her trust. then touched and surprised at his understanding with a soupçon of sexual attraction. she's complicated. i don't just sit there thinking "she's a killer." where's the entertainment in that? we like stories because of where they take us. they made me care about a killer. where would i get that except in fiction? volker sucked because all i thought was, "he's a killer."
January 25th, 2013 5:05 PM
back to lorelei. i don't think art (i include tv) exists to make moral points. i enjoy how the writers have manipulated me. i went from warily liking her and being a bit jealous because she slept with him, to seeing her as a cool customer enjoying f--king with jane's head. then i see that eye dropper of humanity when she tells patrick his boyish hopefulness is adorable and tells the palooka to only beat him a little. makes me feel she appreciates what i appreciate. then when she apologizes about the finger, i see her empathizing w/patrick and perhaps taking a big risk by expressing such a feeling where red john could find out. when we next see her with lisbon and jane, she has a cult member quality (a la visualize members in custody) but enjoys rattling lisbon's cage about having sex with patrick. the first real interrogation session finds her powerful, running the show with patrick. cont'd above
January 25th, 2013 4:50 PM
@watcher. yes. lorelei was playing a role. don't think she was necessarily a waitress or a prostitute. she could have had a job or career since it sounds like she was 30-ish when she met red john. since we know she comes from sacramento and red john is based in california, they went to las vegas because that's where jane was. always thought it was weird that jane went to nevada and not lake tahoe which offers similar pastimes but in california. we do know, however, that red john traveled to vegas to kill jacqueline sandoval.
small point. how could the cbi have any jurisdiction in las vegas? the first season episode, red-handed, shows the cops working out where a severed hand lies, nevada or california, in order to determine who gets the case. the feds can go anywhere. red john's crimes (and the team's faux crimes) crossed state lines.
January 25th, 2013 3:39 PM
@Entwife - I agree. I think she was just there to watch Jane and eventually approach him. She told Jane that RJ could give him a new identity, money, a job if he wants one. Sounds like RJ's friends don't necessarily need a regular job. They probably do whatever is helpful to RJ. She may have been doing something completely different for Red John before Jane went to Vegas, then RJ moved her there to get close to Jane. Kind of like a company relocating an employee to another office and job if they have a need. I wonder if Red John provides a dental plan. :-)
January 25th, 2013 3:26 PM
@Mimi - She was acting. She had a role to play - nice, caring, understanding - so she played it. Then she revealed her real self in the interrogation room. I think she was playing Jane at times after he broke her out of prison- she alternated between being angry and trying to lure him in. She is in a vulnerable position and needs allies and it benefits her if Jane likes her. She may have kissed him to make him care about her. Or maybe it was gratitude for letting her go. Or maybe she is genuinely attracted to him. Even killers can be genuinely attracted to people or occasionally feel grateful (they are still human beings with emotions)- but they are still killers.
January 25th, 2013 3:17 PM
@BW&R - I don't put her in a different tier than RJ's other friends. I think she is exactly the same as the others. All of them should be locked up forever. Lorelei and the rest of them chose to work for rj- nobody forced them. I don't care if they were damaged. I would be shocked if they weren't - well adjusted people generally don't become serial killers or their accomplices. Did anybody expect Lorelei to have Ward and June Cleaver or Cliff and Clair Huxtable for parents? Whether they knew what they were getting into or not at the beginning is irrelevant. But I think they must have. RJ is well publicized.
January 25th, 2013 2:42 PM
While Lorelei was perhaps acting the role of a prostitute and that was certainly my initial impression of her, it may be that she was only there surveilling Jane for Red John. Jane certainly had no money to pay her and she knew it. A prostitute who wasn't bringing in business for her manager with multiple liaisons would be in big trouble. Also a woman acting as a prostitute in a bar which most likely was territory to its own manager and hooker would be in big trouble. So maybe she was acting as a simple bar fly, waiting for an opportunity to open Red John's transaction with Patrick Jane.
January 25th, 2013 2:09 PM
I think it's weird because when they meet at the bar and when they kiss in the motel room she seems genuienly nice and caring. then you see the difference when she's in the questioning room, it's so blunt.
and I think it's a bit ambiguous when Jane picks her up in the desert and they spend the day together, then she kisses him, why does she do that? I mean she wanted to kill him a few weeks prior to that and then what game is she playing? jane has already sussed her out so..
Rank: Recurring Character
January 25th, 2013 2:00 PM
it's just interesting she went all the way to the bottom of the dumps as a prostitute. Most in well off families who have big problems still try at some job or something and can usually fetch some position through family or their status. They don't let themselves degrade into the position Lorelei has. So in that sense, I can see why she is looked at differently. But still, I think it's a bit much to put her on a different tier of assain than RJ's other friends. Her mother clearly had a nastiness to her, as would any family that lies about something like a sister. Those with the most money and power can be the most cunning and damaging to kids if they themselves are vile. One thing that is interesting I want to know; how long after Red John killed her sister did she approach Lorelei? And why did he kill the sister? Opportunity? We still don't know RJ's real motives for doing what he does, killing as he so desires.
Rank: Recurring Character
January 25th, 2013 1:59 PM
I still think people are overzealous towards Lorelei, mostly because the show has set it up so that she'd look so devilish and show no signs of character. My main point in that ramble was this, think about all the damaged people there are in this world, if someone as charming as Red John came about, offered them something different, something with a bad side but exciting, how many would take it? RJ is the master manipulator, nobody initially signs up for all this, its only through years of development they become what they are. Nobody signs up to murder their fiancee. The one thing different about Lorelei though is all these CBI agents at least worked, became something, and had respectable positions. Lorelei was in the dumps working in Vegas despite coming from such a rich family. Now, like I said before, rich doesn't mean better, it often means more manipulative, powerful, arrogant and full of egos. And all that clearly got to Lorelei with the sister fascade, it's just interesting she