@huisclothes nailed everything, everything I was thinking and then some was said by her so I'll spare the ramble but basically she showed everything about Lorelei and why it's more complicated with her and not just an issue of being a serial killer. She is a master manipulator, you can literally SEE the Red John influence on her. You couldn't see that with other friends, thats why they concealed their identities. She goes through the pendelum of emotions with Jane, and yes, there's something there with him and her and Bruno acknowledged that. It won't be a relationship, there both there to manipulate each other, but they enjoy each other's company. Its a more complicated friends with benefits kind of thing. And the thing is, we don't even know the half of it, there's going to be alot more twists and turns with it and her, that law enforcement mole and Visualize are the three keys to the Red John storyline. Lorelei is signed on for 3 more episodes, thats alot.
it's just interesting she went all the way to the bottom of the dumps as a prostitute. Most in well off families who have big problems still try at some job or something and can usually fetch some position through family or their status. They don't let themselves degrade into the position Lorelei has. So in that sense, I can see why she is looked at differently. But still, I think it's a bit much to put her on a different tier of assain than RJ's other friends. Her mother clearly had a nastiness to her, as would any family that lies about something like a sister. Those with the most money and power can be the most cunning and damaging to kids if they themselves are vile. One thing that is interesting I want to know; how long after Red John killed her sister did she approach Lorelei? And why did he kill the sister? Opportunity? We still don't know RJ's real motives for doing what he does, killing as he so desires.
I still think people are overzealous towards Lorelei, mostly because the show has set it up so that she'd look so devilish and show no signs of character. My main point in that ramble was this, think about all the damaged people there are in this world, if someone as charming as Red John came about, offered them something different, something with a bad side but exciting, how many would take it? RJ is the master manipulator, nobody initially signs up for all this, its only through years of development they become what they are. Nobody signs up to murder their fiancee. The one thing different about Lorelei though is all these CBI agents at least worked, became something, and had respectable positions. Lorelei was in the dumps working in Vegas despite coming from such a rich family. Now, like I said before, rich doesn't mean better, it often means more manipulative, powerful, arrogant and full of egos. And all that clearly got to Lorelei with the sister fascade, it's just interesting she went all the way to the bottom of the dumps as a prostitute. Most in well off families who have big problems still try at some job or something. They don't let themselves degrade into the position Lorelei has. So in that sense, I can see why she is looked at differently. But still, I think it's a bit much to put her on a different tier of assain than RJ's other friends. Her mother clearly had a nastiness to her, as would any family that lies about something like a sister. One thing that is interesting I want to know; how long after Red John killed her sister did she approach Lorelei? And why did he kill the sister? Opportunity? We still don't know RJ's real motives for doing what he does, killing as he so desires.
do you think its possible, that random individual with talent but clear problems of the past, could get on board with a criminal so manipulative? And then its only in hindsight, only later on, do they realize its someone as powerful and dangerous as RJ. But by then, they are already on the conversion process. At first, this only looked like a sketchy person with an interesting perspective, perhaps not that different than a friend who is deep into the drug trade industry. That's what RJ is, there's nothing about him that suggests the most dangerous killer in California. And he certainly doesn't lead you on that way for a long time when you join him at first. So I'm not sure I distinguish the degree of evilness with any of these characters based on their background. Because its quite easy for anybody with a troubled past to get associated with Red John. And its only years into the process that you realize what your doing and what you become. Nobody comes in open to the idea of murdering their fiancee.
Really, ultimately think about this, all it takes is one person to cause someone to become like this. One, particuarly, one as charming, manipulative and powerful as RJ. Ask yourself; is it possible if Lorelei never met RJ she would have never been a criminal? Her mother clearly would have still had an issue with her, but that's an entirely separate issue. And ask yourself this, think about all the people with troubled childhoods and adolescence. Nothing criminal, just troubled childhood. Heck, some of them have grown up very good at somethings and worked. (these accomplices don't get jobs in law enforcement bumming on their couch their whole life). But if they were doubting themselves and everything, and had been for years, and ran into someone as manipulative as RJ, someone as powerful, who surely didn't off the bat didn't get them to succumb to him by openly telling them they'd be assasains and criminals to the degree they are, do you think its possible, that random individual with talent but clear problems of the past, could get on board with a criminal so manipulative? And then its only in hindsight, only later on, do they realize its someone as powerful and dangerous as RJ. But by then, they are already on the conversion process. At first, this only looked like a sketchy person with an interesting perspective, perhaps not that different than a friend who is deep into the drug trade industry. That's what RJ is, there's nothing about him that suggests the most dangerous killer in California. And he certainly doesn't lead you on that way for a long time when you join him at first.
I'm not necessairly a believer either than those from rich families who become criminals automatically should be suspected as much more flawed, deserving of punishment and less innocent. It's often at those families where such criminals are breeded where there's the most amount of manipulation, arrogance, ego, and reasons to be either a) taken advantage of b) not properly allowed to prosper and have their potential fulfilled or realized(this happens alot in rich families). This clearly happened with Lorelei at many levels with her sister. Its not fair to say, well the only thing wrong with her was lying about her sister, while other characters had constant physical abuse on top of it. Any act, one that drains on you psychologically and emotionally like that, under such manipulation and expectations from a mother who clearly had some flaws, can destroy a child growing up even if they get to have the best house in the neighborhood.
of falling for someone, someone with other interests and other ideals. They have to have some interests and desires that make them normal. Most assain's don't relate as well with people as these friends do, particuarly to the point that no one in law enforcement would suspect them. This notion that all these RJ friends were inherently flawed from the start I don't agree with. I've always been someone who thinks if put in the appropriate context from the start, or even later on in their life, anybody can become anything, for better or worse. The resentment for Lorelei in particular seems to stem from a)her deviousness is the most recent to be uncovered b) she has directly affected Jane and tried to c) we've had a parent directly put the blame on her and embarrass Lisbon when she suggested the mother take some of the blame.
I'm basically on board with what @windowshopper is saying. You can easily manipulate facts, change perspectives to make any prisoner look far more docile and humanize them. You could say O'Laughlin legitimately loved Van Pelt, worked for the CBI and helped them because he had an interest not just because of the RJ factor, but in the end didn't know what to do and went with the safest thing for him which was stay on RJ's side(hell he even saved his fiancee's wife last season). You could probably turn things to make Rebecca look far more personable, after all nobody in the CBI would have ever expected her, she seemed so nice, tame and was clearly manipulated by RJ into thinking they were lovers. Alot of RJ's friends have jobs that aren't suspecting of criminal backgrounds. Sure, it's to gain an upperhand on law enforcement, but not every criminal would do this. You have to have someone who has some notion of wanting to be with the police, of falling for someone, someone with other interests and other ideals. They have to have some interests and desires that make them normal. Most assain's don't relate as well with people as these friends do, particuarly to the point that no one in law enforcement would suspect them. This notion that all these RJ friends were inherently flawed from the start I don't agree with.
@euterpe: Thats really logical and of course I didn't really think of it that much of course, but they could have made that clearer. I still think there was something behind the scenes as to why Minelli and his significance giving him the list totally faded away and why Jane never acted on that list(at least say what the problem with this list is or the circumstances behind it). But yeah, it's not that big of a deal, it was just really odd I remember two years ago seeing it.
Also just a quick thing which I talked about earlier, the show hasn't shown much in terms of bringing back old characters to play featured roles(LaRoche and Minelli were brought back this year but really they were just cameos). If this trend keeps up, and I'm guessing it does, then that has to influence who your Red John suspects are. They just haven't brought back characters from years past to play major roles and I highly doubt they'd have someone such as Mashburn being RJ without him being in the show for 3 years. It's an issue of just being able to negotiate contracts with these actors to come back also. So keep that in mind with these RJ theories, old characters, unless they come back its going to be hard for them to be RJ. The one character who keeps coming back though for years? Brent Stiles. And yes, he raises lots of suspicion, there's no doubt he's part of the RJ storyline.
@huisclothes: Yes, this was a pretty blatant problem with the plot. Maybe I'm missing something, I'd have to watch the episode with Minelli closer to really tell, but this is also something I wondered. You needed two lists, why? Did Minelli not come through? That would have been fine but there was no word about that and he kind of disappeared? Perhaps they anticipated having Minelli back later in the season but couldn't negotiate anything with him. What's weird is that as soon as Jane got this list we never saw any reaction from him, we never saw him act on it, it was just oh i have it now. That only adds to my conspiracy theory that the show wanted to bring on Minelli later in the year but couldn't so they just tried to bury that part of the storyline. Again, a conspiracy and it's not true, but something went wrong with that part of the story and it wasn't intentional.
@rationalgal: Mashburn is a popular one. It was interesting Jane had him in his book. The thing is, he's too charming, too bubbly, outgoing, eloquent, talkative, you name the adjective, for me. Plus that would be SO EASY AND OBVIOUS. Really, the first person who has a real liveliness and enjoys being a murder suspect, that's who your gonna make Red John? For something more specific, remember what Masburn told Jane back in season 2 "if I did murder someone, I would make the body vanish, just like that. I wouldn't leave it out there". He's not the type who would take pleasure out of cutting people, the process of death, and leaving them out there. He's far too clean, far too much of a pretty boy for that style. Also, he hasn't been on the show since 2010, the show is asking readers to connect the lines from along time ago if they want him in the plot. But he is quite interesting isnt he?
Cute face but we'd need something really substantial to have reason to believe he's an RJ type(although that could easily come in an episode it doesn't take much to create suspicion). I will say this though, Ardiles is quite the talker, he sure can manipulate, in theory, if something came out that gave us suspicion that maybe he was on RJs side I could see perhaps reason to believe there's a slight chance he's one of his friends. Lisbon got dirt on him in the last episode, that's probably just a coincidence picking him, but who knows....although we're reaching here. Ardiles really looked concerned about the dirt she could get on him, he gave up those sealed documents so easily which was kind of surprising. But again, this is just coming up with theories for fantasy sake.
@KM: I remember thinking about Ardiles a little bit. The way he acts just gives you that vibe you got with O'Laughlin, he has that aura about him that he's a bad boy, someone with an ego. There are alot of things about him that remind me of O'Laughlin. It's very intriguing and remember he was on the list of 5 in the season finale that was on the Todd Johnson murder case and suspect of being an RJ friend. But really, there's no reason to believe he's Red John. First off, Red John doesn't want Jane in prison, what good would that do for him, it would ruin all his fun, so why would he be the one DAing the case against Jane? Also remember what he told Jane in an episode last year, "this person won't get away with murder like you". There's no way RJ would go out of his way to remind Jane about his murder, that's not what RJ is about he wouldn't see that as murder and reason for prison. Also, it was RJ who set up the situation, he made Carter the bait. Cute face but we'd need something really substantial to have reason to believe he's an RJ type(although that could easily come in an episode it doesn't take much to create suspicion).
@huisclothes: Yeah the anniversary and Lisbon pondering her future are linked, the more this is about Lisbon pondering her future, the worse it is for us. Shows don't have characters ask these types of questions when the show is running on all cylinders, it's usually the opposite and signals such. But we'll see. Anyway to finish my other thought, we still don't have one big question answered and unfortunately I don't think we'll ever get a good answer: Where was RJ and that limo going to take Jane? Why, where, what, how, anything? What was the plan? I can't imagine it was to kill Jane, he's far too valuable for RJ, but they had already punished him with wanting to cut off his fingers, what was going to happen? I feel like we should be able to read something into this, but what?
But why did RJ get rid of him? Just a situational thing, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time? I don't buy that. Was it perhaps because Wainwright didn't really value Jane and thought his antics outweighed what he contributed so he punished him for that(for those who think RJ is attracted to Jane this might not be unreasonable)? I see that as unlikely. To me, it came down to this, Wainwright interferred with Jane's life, had him fired, basically that's what set up his ruse, and most of all tried to take over the Red John case and really delve into it. As we Saw in season 2 with Bosco and Rebecca's rampage, that's not something RJ tolerates. The case, it has to be in Jane's hand, you have to give him the position and opportunity to do his thing, that's what amuses RJ, that's what makes this game fun for him. He has to be the one seeking RJ and there can't be any limits on his seeking.
Getting back to a discussion earlier, I have a hard time really judging Wainwright. All year I was convinced there was some Red John plot or connection with him. It turns out there was but for a long time everything seemed set up for him to be a Red John minion--he just seemed too uptight, earnest and professional for something not to be up. It clouded my judgment of him. The fact that it seems like he was really genuine is a hard idea to accept, it took a while after the opener(even after the finale I still held out an idea that we found out Wainwright had a secret past that tied to RJ). Looking back now, he did have a rod up his ass and as others's said, it was all about the CBI and their interests with him. He never quite tolerated the idea that Jane's value closing cases should be enough to put up with his semantics, the sacrifice @huisclothes described well with the 90 yr old model.
@anitraward1: very interesting stuff, definitely beyond the realms of how I think. I agree with @huisclothes that the promo wasn't anything riveting--it appears to be another episode, but like I said earlier, I think the subtle details, the little bits of information come across this episode are going to be important later in the year. The Visualize-Red John connection by itself doesn't have to come across as a huge splash and generate waves but this could be the foundation of laying information for some far more adventurous and dramatic events later in the season. I'd be surprised if we come away from this weekend's episode not thinking it was important, if nothing else they are celebrating the 10 year anniversary for Lisbon, that's got to be symbolic and there might be a reason there doing that now(although we probably won't realize what it was until after the fact)
That's also why I never really bought Lisbon's morals influencing Jane, it's the other way around as we're seeing, Jane influencing Lisbon. Jane ultimately is in control of what he needs to be, he knows this, he knows when a RJ break happens he has the freedom to do what he needs to. He knows he can blackmail and manipulate his way out of trouble and if he gets fired, if it accomplishes something or if he has to sacrifice something he's not willing to, I don't think he really cares. So lets see I guess how far, how cunning he is willing to go with this investigation of Stiles and Visualize. Like we said before, weirdly he hasn't really interrogated Stiles much, but unless there's something else going on(and there might be easily Stiles is a powerful man), I don't think we have reason to believe Jane won't. The killer instinct is as there as it has ever been.
All along it was one of those things where Wainwright was never really sold Jane was worth the trouble and Jane never really had much tolerance for some young hot shot coming in and trying to interfere on the freedom he has at the CBI. Now, @rationalgal does raise something interesting: we all like to talk about how Jane has matured, how he shows more emotion and compassion, but really, the proof is in the pudding and last season he broke Lisbon's heart, put the team through hell, ruined his 9 yr cellabacy and put himself through such hell you could see(which only tells you how much hell he put everyone else through). And yeah, really what remorse was there? He's still hellbent on Lorelei, playing her games and hasn't really eased up on Lisbon or anybody else. What's the most compassion we saw, him holding Lisbon's hand? Not exactly super convincing
ill chime in here a little, Wainwright and Jane close? HOW? I really think Jane has absolutely no remorse for him dying. First off, the last real thing Jane said to Wainwright is "you're a pathetic little boy". And that was in the moment, but I think there was a lot of Jane's true feelings of Wainwright coming out. He never respected him, earlier in the episode he told him if you interrogate the little girl I'll hurt you badly. He almost was just amused by Wainwright and his eager beaver try hard mentality. He never respected him. Wainwright also never really respected Jane, Jane went too far but Wainwright also went in sensitive mode and fired him at the first spot and had no intention on bringing him back post suspension after Jane pulled off one of his antics(yeah it was a bit much but it wasn't anything to extreme for Jane)
So I was looking at the upcoming schedule, after this episode there is only 1 episode until March 3rd. And in March we go off on a streak with 4 straight weeks of episodes(that is very rare for any show on CBS), that leads me to believe there building up a storyline for March that will have major ramifications. I think what there doing with the Red Barn this weekend is laying the ground by giving us a background on how Red John connects to Visualize and adding some info to the mystery behind Visualize. And then in March, I think we see a story built around that which will provide us alot of information about a) Red John b) the direction of this show and where its heading.
Red John as a group in theory would make sense but the way the show has approached the issue, making it so personal about Red John and making it an issue of knowing what he is personally at that individual level and the way Bruno talks about RJ, there has to be one main guy driving it all. Ive always thought that the actual Red John was someone we haven't seen in the show(there just aren't enough characters we see with any regularity that it would add intrigue). But if this show is down to what's now its final 12 episodes, considering how little has been done with the case, I can't see how they introduce a new character now, integrate it into the plot and make him RJ. So I guess it has to be someone we've seen, but like we've said, there's just nobody we can really speculate on or feel good about.
Really there two angles this RJ storyline will come down to a) Visualize: The show has kept an aura of mystery and intrigue about this for 2+yrs now for a reason. There's something big here; what we don't really know, but we can start to imagine what it is after this week's episode. b) What Bruno said in the opener about RJ's friend in the FBI and how the show will bring a bunch of characters and we won't know who's RJ's friend. That idea, which hasn't really been developed this year, with those FBI agents like Mancini and Schultz and perhaps Homeland's Kirland, is going to tie into the RJ plot in some way just like 2 years ago with CBI mole, that I can guraantee. And keep an eye out for the aftermath of Brenda and her status as a mole, I think it's possible the show just casts it aside(which would be a mistake) but if they don't, that's something really juicy potentially.
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The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
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The Red Barn
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker
The Mentalist Review: The Hunt for Volker