The Mentalist" in a nutshell: It's all an ILLUSION (read: VISUAL LIES) that chains Patrick Jane to his past.
Dr. Linus Wagner: Everything you told me, Mr. Jane, is total fiction, isn't it?
Jane: From the INCEPTION
Patrick Jane Sees Dead People
Jane is forced to face his ghosts in "Red Rover" on the 9th anniversary of the deaths of his wife and daughter. A major theme of The Mentalist is the need to break our chains to the past if we are to move on in life. Breaking Jane's chains is the theme of "Red Rover," an homage to "The 6th Sense" and "Ghost," as both deal with the loss of a loved one and the need to break the chains if one is to move on. In the opening scene Jane meets a young girl named Haley, who tells Jane that a man told her to ask him "if Jane gives up." Haley then shows Jane the RJ symbol in her hand. In Jane's mind Haley is an image of Jane's deceased daughter and her name the writer's shout-out to the "6th Sense" Haley Joel Osment, who played the troubled, isolated boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and an equally troubled psychologist Bruce Willis who tries to help him. Like Bruce's character, Jane reserves a table for himself and the departed and drinks three blood Red Marys, one for each life he destroyed. Does Jane have BLOOD ON HIS HANDS? In the end the psychologist realizes he is a ghost and that he has to break his chains to the past and cross over.
See B.S. The murder of the week in "Red Rover" involves a brilliant liar Ben Marx who even fools Jane who confuses him with (*I an Breit Ler). Marx murders a co-worker at RF Victor by burying him alive in a metal grave after he discovers irregularities in company accounts. This, of course, is the plot of "Ghost:" Patrick Swayze (Sam) discovers a major discrepancy in a bank account and confides in his good friend and colleague, Carl, who offers to investigate the matter, but Sam decides to investigate it himself. Soon afterward, Sam is killed and his ghost arises from his dead body. Like Patrick Swayze, Patrick Jane thinks turnabout is fair play as he forces the killer to confess to his crime or die in his own coffin. Jane crosses over to the Bright Light.
"Red Rover" -- Breaking Jane's Chains
The goal of the children's game is for the person called to run to the other line and break the opposing team's chain (formed by the linking of hands). If the person called fails to break the chain, this player joins that team. However, if the player successfully breaks the chain, this player may select either of the two "links" broken by the successful run, and take them to join his team. In the final scene Jane breaks his chains to CBI by forcing his boss to make a run at him. Interestingly, Wainwright cannot break the chain of Cho and Rigsby. It remains to be seen if Jane has moved on or if he had a guilt-induced break with reality--or what's left of his reality-- and crossed over to the dark side (cue the foreshadowing in the elevator.)
Total FICTIONAL Recall
To most viewers with half a REVIEW BRAIN Jane appears to be a Sherlock Homes super-sleuth character but in reality is a mental patient who suffers from paranoid delusions due to feelings of extreme guilt in the deaths of his wife and child who were burned as he was (CBI = intensive burn care?) in a horrific car accident when he failed to stop at a BLINKING RED LIGHT- hence the RJ symbol - while he was driving intoxicated and spends his days watching TV shows, which generate his ideas for the delusional episodes. "Red John" is Jane's imaginary alter-ego, the Professor Moriarty-type character in a "Tommy Westphall" imaginary world like "St. Elsewhere" and "Life on (red planet) Mars" that is the dream state of Jane. Note: Jane's eggshell blue car - a vintage 1972 Citroen DS 20 that Warner Bros., producer of "The Mentalist" for CBS, had in its inventory. It was used in the 2008 movie "Speed Racer." For "The Mentalist," the car was shipped from Germany and painted eggshell blue (it was originally red).
Red Face to Face
Mentalist in a Box
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Drink Scotch Whiskey all night long and die behind the wheel
The Man with Two Names -- Red John's alias is ROY Tagliaferro (read: "cut iron"). The ROY CUT IRON anagrams are "court irony" and "you r citron." How ironic that Jane, the court jester who arrives at the crime scene in his Citroen, a master reader of how others' emotions control them, was a prisoner of his IRON-ic chains to the past. Until Jane leaves his old life behind, The Mentalist is on the mental list, a prisoner of his own device.
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