The Mentalist: Red John's Rules (5x22)

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh my God yes. This episode killed it. It was great! You know why? Because it was dramatic, but it wasn't overbearing. I honestly didn't know if I could take another angst-filled finale, and this one was actually pretty funny.

Yeah, I know. Funny?  You wouldn't think that would be good for this show, especially for the finale, but it struck just the right chord. The episode was larger mythology based (it was about Red John, in other words) which is important for finales. But more than that it was about Jane and Lisbon, and their friendship. Ultimately, that's where the heart of the show rests, even if the plot is going off in other directions all the time.

Despite the fact that we now have a list of seven names, the episode didn't actually make me want to jump off a cliff with emotions. It was a... relaxing and revealing forty two-ish minutes of television, and I enjoyed that a lot. It subverted my expectations, which can sometimes be nice, especially for a show that doesn't often surprise me.

So, Jane makes this list of seven names as Red John suspects, and then right around the same time someone turns up dead, and it looks like it's Red John's work. Upon investigation, Jane discovers he actually has a connection to this girl from his childhood, and he ends up reconnecting with some Carny folks while on the case.

The Carny characters are always really fun to see, since they give us rare insight into Jane's past. I actually thought they were a tad underutilized here, but there were a lot of things going on, so I can forgive that.

Jane was clever as always with his different tricks to catch the killer, and as always it is lovely to see the team's trust in him. It's quite the contrast to the earlier seasons and I like that the show lets itself grow in this way.

There was the obligatory Rigsby and Cho scene, where Rigsby tries to casually bring up his renewed relationship with Van Pelt, and Cho just tells him that he obviously already knows. Cho cracks me up every time.

So, like I was saying earlier, this episode is pretty funny. The main reason for that is all the banter between Jane and Lisbon. Jane refused to give over the list to Lisbon easily, citing his lack of belief in her ability to keep a poker face around the suspects. They continued to tease and taunt one another, but shining through it all was their unconditional trust in one another. Jane wants to catch and kill Red John more than anything, but he has learned to trust Lisbon along the way.

There was also the moment where one of the Carny men - apparently a "real" psychic - says something shocking to Lisbon: "You're a little in love with him, eh?" And he was talking about Jane! And then, get this, later the two of them are talking about the guy, and Jane brushes the whole thing off, but Lisbon seems worried, like he was a bit creepy in how accurate he was being. Like he was something to worry about. Like he was telling the truth. Jesus, is Lisbon in love with Jane? Is this, like, a canon thing now? I really want the two of them to have a real conversation about it soon. Please and thank you.

Then of course there's Red John's message to Jane, via Lorelei. Now, I have some mixed feelings about this. Apparently Red John is able to quite literally read Jane's mind, in that he killed the girl from Jane's childhood just to harm a happy memory. And he has the list of seven names - the exact same seven names that Jane had written down. We've had lots of evidence that Red John is capable of some sort of mind control in the past, but this was quite a leap.

Really, I cannot possible judge this shocking revelation without knowing how it resolves itself. If they have a good explanation for this... if Red John turns out to be someone who hits that mark between surprising and yet inevitable... if there's a reason why Red John seems to be in Jane's head, and it makes sense, and it all comes together... then holy shit.

But it's equally likely that the explanation will be of the Battlestar Galactica ilk, and that would be more than disappointing (I'm referring to the finale of BSG, not the series as a whole, which is mostly brilliant... but it has a horrendous finale that tries to wrap up everything with a pretty bow and ruins it in the process). 

So, the scene with Lorelei's video message is... well, it's leaving me skeptical. I cannot quite see how they're going to pull this off, but if they do, I'll be very impressed.

As a season, this one wasn't as strong as the past ones have been. It had some strong moments and some weak ones, and I'm getting tired of the annoying half-hints about Jane and Lisbon. But, I'm still looking forward to figuring out how they plan to resolve all of this!

8.5/10