Cho's statement below is at the crux of "Fugue in Red." Is Patrick Jane a better man because his family was brutally murdered? Certainly Cho believes it's true and it's hard to argue. 

Cho: Don't take this the wrong way but the death of Jane's family made him a better person. | permalink

Prior to those tragic events, Jane was an egotistical conman. He took people's money under the ruse of speaking to their dead loved ones. He duped desperate lonely folks by telling them the lies they wanted to hear and Jane was good at it.

How good? As Teresa said, he did a cold read on her that would have been very convincing if Lisbon hadn't known better and it was based on only vague memories and her minute body language. Patrick Jane has a talent for reading people and before his family was killed, he certainly wasn't using it for good.

Does that make him a bad man? It definitely gives him some seriously unlikable qualities, but I'm with Lisbon. I believe there's a better part to Jane, that he is more than his many flaws. That he's also the man his wife and daughter knew and loved. 

As much as the murder of his family pushed Jane out of his corrupt lifestyle, it also pushed him into a darkness that haunts him to this day. The only people he probably ever truly loved are dead. His driving force is to kill the man who made that happen and Patrick Jane has killed once trying to attain that goal.

But in the middle of all of that darkness he found an unexpected friend.

Lisbon: Jane needs something to hold on to and we're going to give it to him. | permalink

Teresa Lisbon believes the best in Patrick Jane. That doesn't mean she's naive. She knows he's a conman. She knows what he's capable of but she sees the good with the bad and she's not about to give up on him. Lisbon has hope that someday, Jane will find some peace and in that hope she's given him a home at the CBI and a far superior way of using his talents.

The other intriguing question that comes from Cho and Jane's conversation concerns Jane's feelings about his CBI colleagues. Does he like them? 

I'm with Cho on this one. I don't think he dislikes them but I also think he could walk away from the team in a minute and never look back. All but Lisbon.

Jane can walk away from Lisbon but she's left her mark. She may be his one true friend. That's why he teases her, pushes her buttons, and subtlety looks after her. 

Jane needs a friend and Lisbon isn't walking away, even when he asks her to. Even when he pleads "I'm happy now.  Just let me be happy." Ouch. How that must have hurt.

That's what made that final scene so difficult to watch. It's the pain on Teresa's face as she walks her friend through the house full of ghosts, knowing that once he walks through that door his imaginary happiness will disappear forever.

But she knows that when those horrible images come rushing back, he shouldn't be alone and that he'll never find true happiness living a lie.

Who is Patrick Jane? Teresa Lisbon believes he's a better man. Do you?

C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.