The Mentalist comes back tonight with all new episodes, after another long hiatus.
And there’s no better way to enjoy the new adventures of Jane (Simon Baker) and Lisbon (Robin Tunney), than to sum up everything that happened during Season 6 so far.
Clearly, this entry contains spoilers, so be sure to have watched all the first twelve episodes before reading what follows.
Season 6 started off with Jane and Lisbon finally facing a list of just seven Red John suspects, said list revealed by Red John himself, no less, via Lorelei Martins.
The seven names were:
1 Bret Stiles
2 Gale Bertram
3 Ray Haffner
4 Reede Smith
5 Robert Kirkland
6 Sheriff Thomas McAllister
7 Brett Partridge
Throughout the first seven episodes of this season, two of them die, Brett Partridge and Robert Kirkland.
Red John even attemps to kill Lisbon, but eventually she is spared, even if Red John left his famous red smile on her face.
The final five suspects are gathered together by Jane, who thinks he’ll be able to recognize Red John by a tattoo: three dots on his left shoulder. But, to Jane’s surprise, three of the five men have the same tattoo: Sheriff McAllister, Reede Smith and Gale Bertram.
An explosion shortly after kills Bret Stiles and Ray Haffner. McAllister is dead too.
Reede Smith is injured, Bertram is on the loose. Jane reveales to the press Betram to be indeed the serial killer Red John.
Smith talks with Lisbon and Jane, and reveals all about a secret organization, named the Blake Association, its code words are Tyger,Tyger from the poem by William Blake. All the members carry the same tattoo.
Smith reveals that cops, judges, F.B.I. agents are part of this association, “Anyone in law enforcement that needs a secret covered up.” Smith says that he doesn’t know who is in charge of the association.
Red John’s a member too.
A federal judge orders to close down the CBI, since its Director is a criminal and a fugitive. All the CBI agents are therefore relieved from their active duties, with Lisbon, Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt among them.
The FBI is now in charge of the investigations, with F.B.I. supervisory Agent Dennis Abbott, from Austin, Texas.
The final and most important episode of this arc is episode eight called “Red John”, in which we finally see Jane coming face to face with the man who ruined his life by killing his wife and young daughter: Red John.
Who thought that his identity was revealed when Director Gale Bertram was accused of being Red John was mistaken. Betram dies, and during a pivotal final confrontation, we finally face the real Red John: Sheriff Thomas McAllister, who dies eventually, killed by Jane who can finally have his revenge.
After more than 10 years, in a few minutes, all the world we grew familiar with is dismantelled. The CBI is no more, Lisbon has lost her team and family, and Jane too, he in fact runs away from the US.
In episode nine, we meet all the main characters again, two years after Red John’s death.
Lisbon is working as chief police officer in Canon River, a quiet small town in Washington, Cho is now working for the FBI in Texas, Rigsby and Van Pelt run their own private security company in San Francisco.
And Jane? Jane is living his “new life” on a foreign island, far away from that “old life” that seems now gone forever.
He still keeps in touch with Lisbon though. In fact, we learn that he’s been writing to her regulary, and the letters are delivered to Lisbon via his carny friends.
And that’s how the FBI manages to find Jane’s location.
They can’t arrest him in foreign territory, though.
Abbott offers Jane a deal: the FBI is willing to drop all the charges, if he will come back and start to work for the FBI. But Jane seems to be really done with that old life.
However, the meeting with a nice woman, her words “going back doesn’t have to mean going backwards. It can mean moving on“, and the realisation of what this “new life” really is, eventually lead him to take a decision: he calls Abbott, and he tells him that he’s willing to go back with him, but on his own terms, one of them is having Lisbon back to work with him. He wants her to be there when he arrives in the US. Abbott agrees to those terms.
So Patrick Jane is back in the US. Abbott escorts him inside the FBI headquarters, where he meets first Cho and finally Lisbon.
As we learn shortly after, Abbott has a different plan for Jane. In order to have all the charges dropped, he will have to work for the FBI for at least five years. Either he accepts Abbott’s deal or he will have to face a FBI detention.
For three months Jane spends his days in the FBI’s detention suite, when finally one day Lisbon visits him (or better, she is forced to by the FBI in order to have Jane working for them), and together they work on a case with their new team, which includes the woman Jane met on the island: Special Agent Kim Fisher.
Despite the successful closing of this case, Abbott isn’t still willing to accept Jane’s terms, and decides to send him back to his detention suite. Meanwhile, he receives a letter. It’s from Jane. This letter cointains some names, some of them are blackened. Jane tells Abbott that those are all the names of the Blake Association’s members, as they were found in the hard drive that Betram had hidden in his storage unit.
Jane claims he was able to break the encryption, and that he will give all the names to Abbott only if he agrees on his terms, and only after the end of his five years’ contract with the FBI.
Abbott finally accepts Jane’s terms, all of them. Lisbon visits him and tells him that she accepted the job offer from the FBI, telling him that “It’s my life, and I’ll decide what to do with it.”
It looks like Jane and Lisbon have now settled in their new life and new work.
The last episode before the hiatus though introduces us a new enemy (or enemies). Someone is spying on the former CBI team, including people who used to work with them. Osvaldo Ardiles, who used to work for the D.A’s office in Sacramento, and was often involved in the CBI’s investigations, is found dead by Rigsby after he asked for Lisbon’s help. He confided her that he had the feeling someone was spying on him.
Who was spying on Ardiles and who killed him? Why all the former CBI team is being bugged, and, does all this have something to do with Red John and the Blake Association?
We’ll finally discover something more in tonight’s episode of The Mentalist, that airs at 10pm on CBS.
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