The Mentalist (TV Series) The Great Red Dragon (2013) User Reviews

The Dirty Organization

[claudio_carvalho · 9/10 · 23 January 2022]

Patrick Jane survives the explosion at his home, and DNA results of the remains indicate that Thomas McAllister, Ray Haffner, and Bret Stiles died. But when Agent Reede Smith escapes wounded from assassination attempts, he decides to turn himself in to the CBI. Meanwhile Patrick Jane uses the media to announce that Gale Bertram is Red John. The FBI, led by Agent Dennis Abbott, shutdown the CBI office to investigate corruption and Lisbon and her agents are dismissed.

These last episodes of "The Mentalist" are excellent. The existence of a dirty organization among judges, agents and police officers explain how Red John was always one step ahead of the investigation. But on the other side, it will be very difficult to close Red John's storyline unless there are multiple Red Johns. Is Agent Dennis Abbott honest or part of this huge organization? Now the plot has become too complex and looking forward to see the conclusion. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil):"The Great Red Dragon"

And Where's your Badge?

[jknousak · 9/10 · 8 January 2020]

Abbott walks in, claims to be FBI, waves a piece of paper no one reviews, shows no badge and . . . closes the department? In an otherwise excellent episode, the misses here in the second last scene are major errors for a show written w/ such finesse.

Proof the showrunners and writers never mastered the Red John mythology

[CrimeDrama1 · 5/10 · 21 May 2022]

The final scene shows the CBI being shutdown by the FBI and Jane seeking refuge in what appears to be a Catholic church, but why? It adds nothing to the storyline. Are we supposed to think that Jane is seeking permission to kill Red John? You can't ask for forgiveness ahead of time. Foreshadowing (S6 E8) is likely the only reason for it but the church scene was overplayed in this episode so it felt like a time-filler. Jane walks past a woman sitting in one of the pews but if she was just an extra then it really feels like a waste of time.

I'm not happy with how most of the Red John mythology was handled. I don't think having the rest of the team detained by the FBI while Jane confronts the real Red John...finally...was a good idea. I feel that at least one team member should have been upset with Jane's selfishness with Red John and it likely would have been Lisbon but low and behold she marries Jane in the final season. A talented group of writers could have setup an elaborate trap for Red John, involving the whole team. A far cry from what this show delivered.

Perhaps the season's least bad episode - decent

[yavermbizi · 5/10 · 15 February 2022]

My overall rating of "The mentalist"'s Season 6: 2/10.

As the series approaches the conclusion of the Red John storyline, events kick into a high gear. This episode has a couple of pretty cool actiony setpieces. Lisbon in the blown-up building, finding the scattered, dazed survivors and having interactions with them, was a scene that had really cool dungeon-crawler vibes. Van Pelt&Rigsby's clash behind the clinic is also pretty rad. There are effectively 3 sides all with different goals. We're provided a sense of how Van Pelt&Rigsby compliment each other in a fight (the man goes into physical melee, his partner goes for the objective and when attacked - into ranged combat), there is a legitimate sense of confrontation (Rigsby eats a few hits in the fight, but comes out on top; and both are lucky to be alive with Cordero missing and then deciding to run away), and even the scenes leading up to it are cool. The sense of the vast conspiracy, Reede's realisation that he's outlived his usefulness and Cordero's that he'll have to through his life away to fulfil the task are all very atmospheric and well-carried moments. Bertram's walking away from the hospital as his plan is foiled, smiling back too late at an employee greeting him is another really cool scene.

Now, the entire beginning is logically questionable, as is why Cordero attempts to kidnap Reede rather than just shoot him, and the ending is kind of abrupt, illogical and poorly-done. But these are minor niggles - things will get much, much worse this season, so celebrate what you have. And what we have is a fairly decent episode, and a great climax to the Red John storyline.