Interview excerpts lifted from ET online with smart-ass remarks from yours truly
Heller: It was very much designed as an encore, a curtain call for the show and the audience. You don’t come out for the encore and do death metal or dark stuff.
Quitthat: Unless you are Cannibal Corpse. Can you imagine the look on the faces of their fans at the concert hearing the band play "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" or "Sound Of Music" with accordions and fully dressed like polka yodelers? Mentalist was dark, should have ended dark, in order to stay true to itself.

Tunney: Fans of TV shows are so committed to the characters and to the story. When you do something that’s drastic like this, bringing two characters together after six years of knowing them platonically, they can turn on you really easily.
Quitthat: You don't say!?

Tunney: It’s our best version of a romantic comedy with some crime thrown in. 
It’s for the fans. 
Quitthat: Why do I feel the sudden urge to quote Lloyd Christmas? "Auffiderschnitzel"

Tunney: There’s nothing more frustrating than being committed to something for seven years and they don’t give you definitive endings.
Quitthat: Ditto. Are you sure, you're not psychic?

ETO: Do you foresee 10 years down the line, a Mentalist 2.0?
Heller: Absolutely, it’s a date. We’ll all be there in 10 years. 
Quitthat: Dream on, buddy. As the saying goes; it's not done till the fat lady sings. 
Here is the 2.0 version of the saying; Once the boss, kick-ass strong female character is reduced to a housewife, you know it's done... like the bun in the oven.

Thank You WHO IS RED JOHN? It's was great pleasure reading and sharing theories here with intelligent and creative, like-minded, true fans of the show, like yourself. 

P.S. Mr. Heller I'm keeping my Brett Partridge vote as a small token of middle finger to you. I hope you don't mind it.

Now if someone wanted to make a really awesome spin-off, take Abbott, who is moving to DC, and White Collar's Peter Burke (who contemplated moving to DC in the series) and make a show about them.

Red John is Dead. It was McAllister. It is what it is. 

All Heller had to do was make Lazarus the Real Red John--instead of that actor/character, plug in Haffner/Reed D. (Man I would have been so elated!)  And/or plug in Styles...Rigsby or anyone else you guys here @ WIRJ thought would work. Plug in Red John's son (whomever that may have been), show a few flashbacks and have Jane kill him or RJ. That would have been such a thrilling surprise and would've given RJ'ers their satisfying and well-deserved finale. It would've given Jisbon'ers their happy E too with the wedding and baby-on-the-way. That's all he had to freaking do. Yeah, we will all hold onto our own theories and endings because almost anything else would've been better than how he ended S6.8. And now with how he ended the series finale, we will all hold our own and each others much better theories even dearer and closer to our hearts. Part I could've been the RJ reveal and flashbacks, and half of Part II could've been catch him and kill him...and the end half of Part II could've been the wedding/baby reveal. Why was that so hard for you, Heller?! Why was it so freaking hard for you to give answers to your own clues? I'm estimating probably half of us have already become better writers than he is. What sucks is that the first 5 1/2 years were fantastic and then he wimped out with the last ones. Now we all just have to join together, form a writing group, get a network to sign us and we can show him how it's supposed to be done! lol Wishful thinking? Probably...but maybe not. I mean hey, if he can end the series like this and get away with it, then anything is possible. ;-P 

It was not the final ending I had hoped for or not the ending I wanted.  They should have ended with at least 3 different alternative endings like the movie CLUE.  I also will not watch any more TV shows that are created/written by Bruno Heller.  Rest in peace-the cast of The Mentalist.

    For five seasons this show was constructed and written with thought and meaning in the smallest of details.  Everything had its place and had a purpose and as we watched we felt like we were a part of something special. Sure there were things that maybe seemed out of place at the time but they were there for a reason, we assumed. It was like watching a master carpenter working on a beautiful piece of furniture or a great painter working on a masterpiece.  Every motion had a deeper meaning and it was up to us to be involved and ponder what could be next.   Then the last 2 seasons.....  No meaning... no purpose... no direction,  but yet we still tried to find the meaning or the purpose in what we watched.     To me the master carpenter that took 5 yrs to construct a beautiful table and just as it was almost done ready to lay the magnificent top to finish an heirloom decided to run down to Home Depot for a piece of plywood and nail it on for the top and go all done...  Or Imagine the painter who has labored for 5 yrs with every brush stroke and just about to complete a masterpiece like the Mona Lisa and looks down sees a box of crayons and decides to draw a smiley face and go all done.  WTF did I just watch.

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