‘The Mentalist’ season 6, episode 8: Questions with ‘Red John,’ Brett Partridge, and more

Red John -

We’ve had quite the time over the past 24 hours reading all sorts of theories and speculation on “The Mentalist” next week, and what has to be the most interesting part of the show over the course of its six-season history. What happens when you have been on the air this long is that ultimately, everyone starts to understandably come up with their own theories and reactions to most of the characters.

Right now, we want to start off by talking about the Brett Partridge rumors that are still out there. Why does this speculation exist in the first place right now? The easy way to look at it is as follows: It seems much to easy to think that Gale Bertram is automatically Red John, just because he is the only suspect that is either not dead or has not seemingly ruled themselves out … unless you believe that Thomas McAllister is also not dead.

But the truth here is that we never really saw visual proof of both Partride or McAllister are actually dead, given that we did not see their faces attached to a dead body. They could still be out there, but if one of them really is Red John, there better be a good reason why this twist happened at the last minute. The best argument that we suppose a Partridge fan could make in the narrative is that he faked his own death to Lisbon early this season, knowing that he was going to be found out pretty soo otherwise, and has since been forced to do some dirty work taking out other suspects in order to continue to keep his ID a secret.

Just in case you want one final tease for the pivotal episode next week, just take a look at the comment that episode writer / co-producer Jordan Harper made to TV Guide after the fact regarding the future of the show:

“[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.”

Want to read more news related to Red John? Then click here to see the full preview for the episode. Meanwhile, we of course want to hear your latest thoughts / predictions on the subject below.

Photo: CBS

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