One Partridge-advocate made an interesting point saying we degrade actual clues to red herrings too easily. I want to clarify why that is NOT the case. Each suspect has his red herrings, meant to mislead the viewer. I will summon a few.
1) Partridge: his voice; his admiration of bloodworks.
2) Kirkland: Do I know you? - No, but I know you; the twin-story.
3) Bertram: I am many things to many people; 666; his secret Tiger club.
4) Haffner: Lisbon's dream; the spider.
5) McAllister: Call me Tom; fear of heights, Tiger club.
6) Smith: The Red Is Me; Tiger club.
7) Stiles: the red face-painting during his ceremony, the mindreading on Grace.
Ofcourse, there are a whole bunch more of them that have been found during the years. But you have to look trough them. And focus on what happens story-wise. Personaly I could only find some real clues on Haffner's side:
- Lisbon tells Jane Haffner (ex-FBI) is good at wiretapping -> Lisbon calls to LaRoche about Sally Carter -> Haffner is busy and agitated, not interested in the case anymore -> Sally Carter is found dead, just in time, with fake suicide note comfirming Timothy Carter as Red John -> Haffner thought coast was clear after Jane shot (a fake) RJ, now he realises he celebrated too early -> he knowingly falls for Jane's trick and gets the hell out of his environment.
- Three Red Barn murders -> Haffner wants to discuss business with Lisbon -> in fact he is more interested in the case and the names on Coopers archivelist from 1988 -> he's not contented yet because the mother and her daughter are only accused of one Red Barn murder instead of three -> he uses his client-alibi -> Lisbon is starting to suspect he was not only Visualize but also personaly involved.
- A nurse asks about Carmen Lee -> Jane out of the blue makes a call to Sophie Miller -> later on Haffner walks in with a lot of Red John questions.
- Lisbon asks Cooper where Haffner is, not his habit to leave without proper goodbye -> Cooper tells he's at a client (alibi again) -> the spy gets murdered, just in time
- Looked like a clue, but cannot been included as such because it can be a coinsidence + not important enough story-wise: RJ drinks thee with his left hand, Haffner makes a call with his left hand. Not enough to be named a clue so let's keep it on a herring for now. Same thing with the 'Heisman'-theory. Even the real RJ has his apparent deceptions - it would strike too much if he didn't.
So, a red herring is an event standing on his own (oneliner, coded name, description, fobies, interviews with makers/actors) without story-wise relevance, while a clue is an essential continuation-part of the tale.
Other clues:
- The pidgeons, linked to Partridge's dead and to Lisbon's happy memory.
- Jane returning on Partridge, Red John returning on Jane
- Partridge misspeaking about Lorelei (plausible he helped RJ, not for sure)
- Kirkland's three coffees for two (still unclear)
- etc.
So I hope you can see the difference :) Ofcourse, there can be room for discussion whether an occurence is relevant enough to be called a clue or not.
