The Mentalist Revealed Red John's Identity Twice, but Only Gun Fans Noticed
Red John was The Mentalist’s main enigma, but the show revealed him twice before the final resolution. You just had to know your way around guns to realize it.
Summary:
- In Season 2, Red John used a Beretta 92FS to save Patrick Jane from his assailants.
- In Season 6, the true Red John culprit was shown carrying the same weapon twice.
- This detail revealed Red John’s real identity but went unnoticed by the audience.
Red John, the mysterious serial killer who’s been tormenting Patrick Jane for years, was the ultimate enigma of The Mentalist. Always two steps ahead of Jane and the CBI, always taunting and teasing, this brilliant sociopath claimed many lives in his never-ending quest for egomaniac satisfaction — and no one knew who he was.
Apart from the show’s creators, of course. But to their honor, they gave us direct hints in Season 6. Those hints went largely unnoticed until one fan recently pointed them out; turns out, you had to be a gun enthusiast to realize what went down.
How Did The Mentalist Spoil Red John’s Identity?
For six seasons, Patrick Jane has been trying to catch Red John to avenge his wife and daughter. But the first time he got really close to the serial killer went down in the most anticlimactic fashion possible: Jane got captured by two amateurs trying to record a real murder, and Red John swooped in to save his archnemesis.
That happened in Season 2’s finale. Red John used a gun with a silencer to take out Jane’s wannabe killers — or, as a gun enthusiast would have said, he used a Beretta 92FS with a silencer which (much later) proved to be his weapon of choice.
As Reddit user _dark__matter__ pointed out, the same gun was later shown twice in Sheriff McAllister’s hands. In Season 6’s Wedding in Red, McAllister wields the same Beretta and once again saves Jane using it on the church rooftop. At that point, neither the viewers nor Jane are convinced that the Sheriff is Red John.
Six episodes later, however, when Jane brings all of his potential Red Johns into one room and makes them surrender their weapons, we watch Sheriff McAllister give up his gun — the very same Beretta 92FS, once again. Every other person on Jane’s list is either unarmed (Bret Stiles) or has a Glock (Bertram, Smith, and Haffner).
Why Didn’t Red John’s Gun Help Jane Catch Him?
Seeing how the only other The Mentalist character who carried a Beretta 92 was Sam Bosco who, at that point, was long dead at the hands of Red John’s mole assassin, we could say that the gun Sheriff McAllister packed was evidence enough. However, it didn’t give Jane any clues — why, you may ask?
During his first encounter with Red John in the Season 2 finale, Jane was tied to a chair facing the wrong way. Unlike us, the viewers, he never saw the weapon Red John used, so this crucial bit of evidence was unavailable to him throughout the rest of the show. If Jane caught a glimpse of the Beretta, it would have been Game Over.
The very fact that Sheriff McAllister was using the same weapon four seasons later only highlights The Mentalist’s care for detail and serves as a wink to the most attentive viewers. A sharp gun enthusiast who (somehow!) cared to remember Red John’s gun from four seasons ago could deduce the truth earlier than others.
Either way, it’s a cool little detail that goes to show how many subtle Easter eggs have still not been discovered in The Mentalist. Now, we just need the truth about how Red John managed to learn Jane’s final list of suspects in advance.
Source: Reddit