Throughout its entire seven-season run, The Mentalist was always about love. It may seem like an incredibly clichéd statement, and some readers may find the notion completely ridiculous for a show that started with a man’s family being brutally murdered and him then searching for murderous revenge for five-and-a-half of the show’s seven season. However, it is true. The Mentalist is and has always been about this often used, universal theme.
More specifically, The Mentalist is about love in all its forms. The love Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) found in his new family at the CBI (and then the FBI). The young love that blossomed between Wayne Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) and Grace Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti) from the very beginning, and then again between Jason Wylie (Joe Adler) and Michelle Vega (Josie Loren) in the final season. The love and friendship between Jane and Dennis Abbott (Rockmond Dunbar), born out of a mutual trust. The love Red John’s followers felt both from and towards the vicious serial killer, as he offered them that crucial thing we all look for, which was largely missing from their lives. Even the weird, twisted obsession Red John himself had with Jane, once described by Bret Stiles (Malcolm McDowell) as “a form of love” in the Season 3 episode “The Blood on His Hands.” Heck, the series finale’s serial killer Lazarus (Aubrey Deeker) was driven by familial ties to his late father, also a serial killer. And, of course, more so than anything else, The Mentalist has been about the loss of love through Jane’s family being taken away from him, and his ultimate journey to learning to live without fear and find his way back to living once more; this redemption coming in the form of Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney). The composer of The Mentalist’s score Blake Neely echoed this in a tweet, as he stated, “Believe that life is worth living. That’s what it was always about to me,” referencing the theme he created for Jane back in 2008, which is titled “Believe.”
The Mentalist has always been about light coming out of darkness, from Jane lying under a bloody smiley face in the “Pilot” to Kimball Cho (Tim Kang) calling Lisbon a “slutty elf” in the series finale “White Orchids.” It’s even reflected in Red John’s own motto – there’s no light without darkness, life without death. It is clear in the character of Jane more than anyone else, as he is joyful and alive in the face of death – both of his family and the murders he solves in every episode – though with his past this has its limits.
The Mentalist has also always been more concerned with human nature than anything else. This can be seen in the crime solving, much more interested in the subtleties of human behavior than evidence under a microscope, something that has always set it aside from other procedurals. The other supporting characters display the same attitude, providing humor and grace in the face of the everyday morbidity of their jobs. Even Red John – the wicked witch of this world – was ultimately defeated due to very human character flaws: his extreme hubris (the same mistake Jane made in getting his family murdered) and an irrational fear of birds. A sociopath he may have been – but just like Jane, he was a human being.
Perhaps the biggest reflection of these themes though, was how the storyline developed organically. Instead of being pigeonholed (no pun intended) by an original master plan (see: HIMYM), those who ran the show saw the characters and their story developing in real time and adjusted accordingly. Producers/showrunners Bruno Heller and Tom Szentgyorgyi have openly admitted that the original plan was to end the show with Jane catching Red John, but this did not stifle them. Once it became clear that this was not the ending the show needed, nothing else mattered.
There have been a few articles this week claiming that The Mentalist should’ve ended with the death of Red John. That couldn’t be more wrong, and this is coming from one of the biggest fans of the Red John myth-arc you will find. But I’m a fan of The Mentalist and its core characters first and foremost, and ending the show without following what eventually became clear as the natural conclusion would’ve been wrong. Not showing how Jane would ultimately move on beyond the dark cloud that had consumed him for so long would have gone against what the show had always been saying to us: in the face of everything, no matter what, do not be afraid to live.
In The Mentalist‘s Season 1 finale, “Red John’s Footsteps,” Lisbon says to Jane, “I think you choose life,” and as it turns out, that’s exactly what he did. As Jane sat smiling, with Lisbon (his new wife) in his arms and their child now growing inside her, The Mentalist bowed out true to itself and the message it had given from its first episode through its final one. At least, that’s what I believe.
[Photo via CBS]
Related: CBS
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