We're down to the wire now on the end of the Red John mystery, so I thought I'd take this moment to re-asses my theory in light of new evidence.
In episode five, we learned from a detective presumably hired by Red John the man has a tattoo of three dots on his left shoulder.
This seems like an easy way to narrow the suspect down to one, but unfortunately for Patrick, it turns out that three of the remaining suspects each have the tattoo.
What's the significance? Well, obviously since we saw all of them plotting together-
We can extrapolate that they're all members of the same fraternal order of corrupt police officers and public officials that we've been learning about this year. Which isn't a huge surprise, since Bertram already expressed a love for William Blake, and the organization is clearly a William Blake-themed club, what with all the Tyger, Tyger nonsense. Also, the next episode is called 'The Great Red Dragon'. So there's that.
This means that - so long as Red John did, in fact, hire that private investigator (which we have no reason to disbelieve) - then Red John is definitely a member of the fraternal order of corrupt cops. They need a better name for that thing, by the way.
So, that means it's Reede Smith, Sheriff McAllister or Bertram, right? Not necessarily. The private detective actually gave us more evidence than just the three dots. The very fact that she was hired to get close to Cho and bug his desk tells us something very important - Red John no longer has access to CBI headquarters, which used to be the easiest thing in the world for him. So we can immediately discount the possibility that Bertram would have to hire a private detective to infiltrate the building he's in charge of.
That would tend to suggest Smith or McAllister, but I'm going to throw another name into the mix - Brett Partridge. Wait, wasn't he killed in the first episode? Yes, absolutely. Except maybe not.
Let's take a moment to consider Red John's actions in the first episode of the season. He discovers that the Team has begun tracking all of the suspects' phones. So the presumable series of events are that he uses his club connections to lure Brett Partridge to an isolated location, stabbed him, then lured Lisbon there, and did not kill her.
Why was this? If Red John's aim was to to punish Patrick and prove his seriousness, why not kill Lisbon? Why kill Partridge? Generally Red John's moves have a purpose behind them, either to specifically aggrieve (or, sometimes, help) Patrick, provide assistance to one of his friends, or cover for his own crimes. Killing one of the Red John suspects and not killing Lisbon achieves none of these goals.
What it does accomplish, however, is to take everyone's eyes off of Brett Partridge. At the beginning of the season Lisbon starts tracking all the suspects. This would serve to massively limit Red John's ability to operate. So let's say he does something drastic and decides to fake his own death. That's the kind of thing Patrick might want to look into, unless there was something so distracting that he couldn't focus on anything else. Something like his most favorite person being attacked by his least favorite person.
Lisbon's been attacked by Red John and has blood all over her face. Once he finds out about this, Jane never gives Brett Partridge a second thought. Doesn't look at the body, doesn't check for evidence, nothing. This outcome could easily be predicted and planned-for.
Partridge would only need three things for this plan to work.
1 - A disciple to stun Lisbon and help him fake his injuries. He has plenty of those.
2 - To make sure cops loyal to him are the first ones on the scene to confirm his 'death'. Again, this would not be a problem, since he's the one who's deciding where the 'killing' will occur.
3 - Someone at the coroner's office to confirm his death and handle the paperwork. This one is a little trickier, but not out of reach. After all, wasn't there just a job opening at the coroner's office a year and a half ago when Red John killed this guy?
So that's my reassessed theory. It's a lot like my old theory. Am I going to convolutions to provide an explanation for how I could have been right all along in the face of all proof to the contrary? Absolutely, and when I'm proven wrong, I'll happily admit it. In any event, it's one hell of a ride.
In episode five, we learned from a detective presumably hired by Red John the man has a tattoo of three dots on his left shoulder.
What's the significance? Well, obviously since we saw all of them plotting together-
We can extrapolate that they're all members of the same fraternal order of corrupt police officers and public officials that we've been learning about this year. Which isn't a huge surprise, since Bertram already expressed a love for William Blake, and the organization is clearly a William Blake-themed club, what with all the Tyger, Tyger nonsense. Also, the next episode is called 'The Great Red Dragon'. So there's that.
This means that - so long as Red John did, in fact, hire that private investigator (which we have no reason to disbelieve) - then Red John is definitely a member of the fraternal order of corrupt cops. They need a better name for that thing, by the way.
So, that means it's Reede Smith, Sheriff McAllister or Bertram, right? Not necessarily. The private detective actually gave us more evidence than just the three dots. The very fact that she was hired to get close to Cho and bug his desk tells us something very important - Red John no longer has access to CBI headquarters, which used to be the easiest thing in the world for him. So we can immediately discount the possibility that Bertram would have to hire a private detective to infiltrate the building he's in charge of.
That would tend to suggest Smith or McAllister, but I'm going to throw another name into the mix - Brett Partridge. Wait, wasn't he killed in the first episode? Yes, absolutely. Except maybe not.
Let's take a moment to consider Red John's actions in the first episode of the season. He discovers that the Team has begun tracking all of the suspects' phones. So the presumable series of events are that he uses his club connections to lure Brett Partridge to an isolated location, stabbed him, then lured Lisbon there, and did not kill her.
Why was this? If Red John's aim was to to punish Patrick and prove his seriousness, why not kill Lisbon? Why kill Partridge? Generally Red John's moves have a purpose behind them, either to specifically aggrieve (or, sometimes, help) Patrick, provide assistance to one of his friends, or cover for his own crimes. Killing one of the Red John suspects and not killing Lisbon achieves none of these goals.
What it does accomplish, however, is to take everyone's eyes off of Brett Partridge. At the beginning of the season Lisbon starts tracking all the suspects. This would serve to massively limit Red John's ability to operate. So let's say he does something drastic and decides to fake his own death. That's the kind of thing Patrick might want to look into, unless there was something so distracting that he couldn't focus on anything else. Something like his most favorite person being attacked by his least favorite person.
Lisbon's been attacked by Red John and has blood all over her face. Once he finds out about this, Jane never gives Brett Partridge a second thought. Doesn't look at the body, doesn't check for evidence, nothing. This outcome could easily be predicted and planned-for.
Partridge would only need three things for this plan to work.
1 - A disciple to stun Lisbon and help him fake his injuries. He has plenty of those.
2 - To make sure cops loyal to him are the first ones on the scene to confirm his 'death'. Again, this would not be a problem, since he's the one who's deciding where the 'killing' will occur.
3 - Someone at the coroner's office to confirm his death and handle the paperwork. This one is a little trickier, but not out of reach. After all, wasn't there just a job opening at the coroner's office a year and a half ago when Red John killed this guy?
So that's my reassessed theory. It's a lot like my old theory. Am I going to convolutions to provide an explanation for how I could have been right all along in the face of all proof to the contrary? Absolutely, and when I'm proven wrong, I'll happily admit it. In any event, it's one hell of a ride.
4 comments:
I like your theory, there is one thing that upsets me though. The creators already confirmed that he is really dead - does that mean they lied? They have been reassuring us that they are not lying, and that they aren't doing whacky twists.
Part of the excitement for me, was the clues being left by the creator, a sort of teaser that, right down to the wire you still can't figure it out, even while we eliminate them down to a select few all the while teasing you the entire time because we KNOW you liked [dead guy] as a red john!
No doubt partridge would be a fantastic (arguably the best) red john. Unfortunately, since claiming his death, it would completely ruin the show (6 years worth), if they say "we fibbed about that one thing!!!"
Ah, I didn't know that they'd confirmed his death (I try not to read anything about shows that may spoil things) - so it's fair to say that my theory is definitely wrong, and it looks like the Sheriff or Smith goes back to being the prime suspect!
I've got to say, though, while I don't think they'd lie about something like this, if they did lie, I'd completely understand it. After all, if someone asks you if a character is really dead, and you say anything but yes, you're kind of giving huge things away.
We are aware that Red John likes to have assistances to help him out and even do his dirty work.
We are also aware that he likes to talk to Partick on the telephone.
So which out of the 7 suspects is indeed red john and who are his assistants?..it could anyone of the 7.
But from all of the phone calls red john has had with Patrick ..Brett Partrige is the one who sounds more like red john from the telephone calls.
But how can he, he is dead? He got killed off in the first ep of season 6. As we know red john likes to have assistants so it would be quite easy to have someone else grab Lisbon and make her unconscious ..
Who could have been red johns assistant in that incident,we'll as we saw in the last episode In the end season it's pretty high probability it is Bob Kirkland. We saw him brake into the room to check out research at the end of season 5.
Both these characters are in the police organisations structure and both characters display elements of damaged personalities. For example insecurity, self doubt ,suspicious, reactive and are defensive.
Another theory to put out there is if red john likes to get others to do his work for him then he could have easily got partridge to do the phone calls as Red John.
But the pattern seems to appear to be case that when partridge speaks to Patrick in person, we hear red john speaking on the telephone.. Stefan, Australia.
Thanks for the post and effort. Please keep sharing more of these. I’d like to see more posts like this.
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