Seeing Red
TV SPOTLIGHT Patrick Jane’s hunt for the killer Red John takes an unexpected twist
Obsession can be a dangerous thing, but it can also make for great TV.
As The Mentalist wraps up its fifth season, Patrick Jane’s all-consuming need to capture — and kill — the man who murdered his wife and daughter is still the force that drives the series, and it’s really kept viewers hooked. Jane and the CBI team are beginning to close in on some serious clues when the season finale of The Mentalist airs Sunday, May 5, on CBS.
Jane—played to perfection by the dapper and suave Aussie, Simon Baker—has faced dangerous situations and impossible odds over the past five seasons. As he hunts for the serial killer known only as Red John, Jane maintains somewhat of a symbiotic relationship with the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI). In exchange for a place on the frontlines of the Red John investigation, Jane uses his extraordinary observational skills to help the CBI solve murder cases.
The hunt for Red John has taken some surprising turns since the show began in 2008. At the end of Season 3, Patrick Jane killed a man (played by Bradley Whitford of The West Wing) he was sure was Red John. Though the man was a murderer, it seems Red John is still at large, and the hunt has continued. This season, the search has seen some progress. After capturing the bewitching Lorelei Martins, one of Red John’s henchmen, Jane learns that he has, in fact, shaken hands with Red John. This narrows the field significantly, specially since Jane’s memory is razor sharp. The Season 5 finale promises even more Red John revelations.
In an interview with TV Guide, Tom Szentgyorgyi, one of the show’s producers, stated that “the finale is going to pay that off in a way that will completely change the hunt for Red John. We are going to know some very specific things about who he might be.”
But don’t expect to meet the mystery man any time soon. Before the start of Season 5, series creator Bruno Heller told Entertainment Weekly that he had “two seasons or so” before the ultimate Red John reveal. “The trick,” Heller said, “is going to be—and this is coming—bringing the audience along and making them second guess themselves and ask, ‘Is that him? Is that him?’”
When the show made the jump last fall from Thursday night to Sunday night, some fans worried that The Mentalist would be cancelled before the Red John storyline could be wrapped up. Not to worry, though, Heller has thought of that, too.
“It’s the job of myself and everybody else on this show to keep it working as well as it does to ensure we get that final arc,” explained Heller. “A show that’s been running this long with the degree of success it’s had, we’ll know well in advance of that sort of outcome and we’ll adjust accordingly. I’m not concerned about that.”
It looks as if the hunt will continue for at least another year, as the show has been picked up for a sixth season. It’s not only fans who will be rejoicing over this news; Simon Baker, who inked a $30-million deal with Warner Bros. last year and scored himself a producing credit on the show, will be relieved to be returning.
Baker was no stranger to television before he began work on The Mentalist. Like many of Hollywood’s most famous Australians (Heath Ledger, Chris Hemsworth, Naomi Watts and Guy Pearce to name just a few), Baker spent some time early in his career working on the Australian soap Home and Away. After breaking onto the American scene, he landed his first American television show when he helmed CBS’s The Guardian (2001), in which he played a lawyer whose hard and fast lifestyle has landed him community service.
Expect more drama and big reveals from the season finale of The Mentalist, airing Sunday, May 5, on CBS.