Apparently I'm not the only one pondering the "life after Red John" scenario or weather Jane killed the real Red John or merely one of his cronies. OK, here's what I think...Red John is actually a secret group consisting of a handful of highly influential sickos. While I certainly feel that Jane killed the man who slaughtered his wife and child, there are other "Red John" members who are equally culpable in these murders, and their all their other perversions. That's why getting rid of Red John doesn't really alter the look and feel of the show next season.
Here is an interesting article:
Fully Story (very good summary BTW)
..."So is that it? Is the Red John mystery over? I don’t think so. Red John leaves behind a lot of mysteries that need to be resolved, all of them nifty opportunities for story. Who was this man? How was he able to pull of his intricate, elaborate crimes? How did he convince his lackeys to do the things they did, even willfully, joyfully killing themselves? (See: The lady assassin that threw herself out of the hotel window in last night’s episode.) Did Red John leave behind deadly contingency plans in the event of his demise?
I could see the early episodes of season 4 exploring many of these questions, with Patrick Jane helping Lisbon from behind bars, playing Hannibal Lecter (minus the serial killing cannibalism) to her Clarice Starling. Then again, maybe not. Because the bigger question is this: Was Bradley Whitford playing the real Red John, or was he playing a man posing as Red John? My guess is that next year will pivot on a disagreement between Patrick and Lisbon about the answer. One will be convinced that Red John is dead; the other won’t. It would be a nice role reversal if Lisbon is the one who becomes the obsessed conspiracy theorist fixated with the notion that Patrick put down the wrong man. She’ll succeed, and Patrick, humbled and wracked with guilt, will have to deal with the fact that he murdered an “innocent” — “innocent” insofar as Whitford’s character would be revealed to be a man just like him, a tragic victim of Red John’s evil, warped and manipulated into acting in an evil manner himself. And so it will go that when Patrick meets the real Red John — most likely in the final episode of the series — he’ll have the chance at a do-over. Will our hero once again choose bloody vengeance, or will he choose a different, better path for himself?
Those are my thoughts. Yours? Do you think the true Red John was exposed? If not, who do you think it could be?"
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