Frankly, I think it's a little bit ridiculous to believe that Jane and Red John are the same person. Besides the fact that this is a television show, and the viewers' possible reactions to a certain plot twist or revelation are taken into consideration by the show's writers, the idea doesn't make any logical sense. The show itself is a procedural--a typical "who done it" mystery. I'm sure, at one point, the idea that Jane and Red John were one in the same crossed every one of our minds, making him, at least in my opinion, the least likely suspect. There have been constant little suggestions that Jane and Red John have similar personalities, that they could even be friends. It's little things like those that are designed to make us consider the possibility that Jane is Red John. And that would be much too easy considering the show's complexity. Ironically enough, writing Jane, the easiest of suspects, as Red John would be an extremely complicated matter. The details that would have to be revealed about each and every one of his murders and deceptions would be overwhelming and implausible--the show would lose its sense of believability. That being said, Heller himself mentioned in an interview that Jane and Red John are not the same person; it would be much too unfair to the fans that have rooted for Jane since the start of the series.

Regarding the real identity of red john: I believe that the idea is to surprise the viewers. I don't doubt that it could be any one of the more obvious suspects(excluding Lisbon and most of the CBI team, it doesn't seem very likely) but I also think it's wholly possible that it could be someone else entirely. The fun is in the speculation, the clues. It's been said that this latest season will be a big one in terms of Red John's identity, and I, for one, cannot wait to be surprised.

could cal leben be RJ? what you think?

Kirkland. He has a weird, high voice like Red John and oddly, if you watch closely his mannerisms are quit similar to Patrick's, especially his hands.  What made me believe he is Red John was Red Dawn, the 5th episode in season 5, the 100th episode of The Mentalist. This was a "special" episode where they showed how Patrick came to be a consultant for the CBI. At the end of the show Alexa Shultz, the Director of the FBI calls Minelli and tells him she has heard about the new consultant they have hired and tells him he was in a mental institution. She then asks him to keep her informed on the Red John case so she has information for her boss should he ask for it. She is in a limousine when she makes this call and when she hangs up she looks at the man across from her, who happens to be Kirkland, and says,"done." I think Shultz is the mole in the FBI feeding Red John information. So even though Kirkland has not been visible to us the viewer throughout many seasons, he was there from the beginning. There was one other instance that caught my attention.... Red Sails in the Sunset, episode 8, season 5. Patrick pretends he has been kidnapped by Lorelei and has to wreck himself into a tree to convince everybody that was what occurred. When Lisbon finds him Kirkland is with her and speaks into his radio Patrick asks who that is, as if the voice was somewhat familiar. I also think Kirkland implanted himself into this particular investigation because he does not want Lorelei out of prison. If he did he would have helped her escape. However, Patrick helped her escape and now he has a loose end that needs tied up.....because she should have come running to him as soon as she escaped. If he still had control over her she would have. That is my theory........    

I predict Red John will be Patrick Jane's identical twin. They will have been separated at birth and Patrick will be completely unaware of his existence. Of course, Patrick will be accused of being Red John but in the end the truth will come to light.    

I just can't believe that so many of you fail to write even a slightest bit of sense. I've gotta admit it - I'm obsessed with figuring out who RJ is. I re-watched complete series 2 times, and important episodes 3-4 times. The more I watch, the more I am confused. And I often come here, to read new theories, new ideas, to find some new clues and facts from you. But some stuff that was posted here . . . damn, it's just shockingly stupid. I will now go to my story.

First, about RJ . . . they've altered his voice so that you wouldn't be able to identify him by comparing voices. And yet, most of you say it's Partridge because he too has a creepy voice. RJ recites Blake's poem to PJ - Bertram does to same in front of JJ and Lisbon - and all of a sudden you think it's him. JJ tells her it's Blake, Cho later tells it's Blake - she could've connected those dots. It wasn't meant to be so obvious, get it through your skulls already. That's why this show is so awesome.

Second - the "He is ma" clue according to some of you was meant to be He is married. Or Heisman. Bravo ! Thank God there's only one guy on this planet who's married and that clue was all Jane needed to solve the mystery.

After all my closely watching, if I was forced to guess who RJ is - I couldn't even venture that guess. I wanna say Minelli just because when he suggested to GVP about Tagliaferro name - he said "Try the name in english" and not "That's ITALIAN for cut iron" . . . that caught my attention. Not likely, but because of his Italian descent and because Jane wrote about him only OLD CBI BOSS and RETIRED in his book (which is a common knowledge) in his little book of suspects, I wanna say Minelli. He didn't notice anything else important about him, like with the others. But maybe that fact rules him out. Then I found this - http://www.sheknows.com/baby-names/name/roy - and because of that, you can say it's Harken. Also unlikely, but you can't rule him out. Then I started thinking - who cuts iron ? Who smells of pine, and nails and earth ? It got me way over to Trinity killer, hammering nails in wooden boards, building those houses. But it didn't bring me back to someone in The Mentalist.

What was obvious so far in this show - there is more to the Rosalind's horrified reaction to Carter's corpse. What he said to Jane is what RJ is all about - RJ instructed him to tell those things to Jane.
There is more to Ellis Mars than meets the eye. The first card he gives to Jane, which was hand-written, has a huge impact on PJ. It triggers his reaction, he immediately starts thinking about The Tyger. Later on, Mars gives Jane another card, that one was fully printed. If he is RJ, it is a case of MPD.

What was disappointing so far in this show - when Jane enters the limo with Lorelei, he uses the rear-view mirror to look at the back. If he had turned, he would have seen that it is Wainwright and that he is already dead. Yes, Darcy didn't kill him during the shooting - he was already dead. Otherwise, he wouldn't be quiet and sitting still - he would have let Jane know that something's wrong.

But even more disappointing is the fact that Stiles told Jane that he knows more than he or RJ could imagine and he even gives him a location where they find Kristina - and Jane is not pursuing him to tell everything he knows about RJ. That's the greatest error in this show. He could easily find out who RJ is, but he let's Stiles of the hook like nothing was said. RJ is connected to Visualize, but he's not Stiles.

I'm looking forward to this next episode, which is about RJ and Visualize. Finally we will get some new facts and clues. And with Volker arrested, I believe his bargaining chip will be RJ info. They created him this late in the show not without a reason. He is a big player and he will turn out to be very important. I hope he is not RJ, that would be really lame. But I am sure he knows things.

At the very end of this post, I would like to send my best to my biggest fan here - FJ !  :)

it is clear that red john is gonna someone that we dont expect. i know it would sound weird, but it will be someone with basically the same dangerous personality as Benjamin Marx. i also think that osvaldo ardiles has a lot of secrets, regarding the farling case, that we will soon know more about. other characters to take into account. bob kirkland and Susan Darcy.

I'll start just by saying that I'm not going to pretend that i know who RJ is.  I'm just going to spitball a bunch of ideas/theories and see what you guys think.
Do you guys make anything of the last episode seeming to put an emphasis on Patrick urging Lisbon to "bend the rules"?  It seemed to me like they were trying to make that be something important for the future.  Like maybe Patrick is gradually going to try and get Lisbon to break more and more rules so that they can catch RJ or something.  Maybe it didn't mean anything, but it just seemed like they were trying to highlight that.

My thoughts on Kirkland:  I have a feeling that Kirkland will be one of those guys who will be thought of as a bad guy until the very end when we find out that he is an integral  part of catching Red John and helping Patrick.  I think he will be very secretive, they'll make him seem like he is plotting against Patrick, but then he turns out to be a friend who was only trying to keep up with the investigation and help Patrick, but had to be secretive so that Red John wouldn't find out...or somewhere along those lines...

My thoughts on Mashburn:  Obviously, a lot of Mashburn's traits line up with Red John (money, manipulation, intelligence, connections, some personality traits...).  A couple of things bother me with Mashburn being Red John though.  I think Mashburn is a little too obvious to be RJ, first of all.  Secondly, Lorelei wondered why Patrick and RJ didn't become fast friends, but Patrick and Mashburn have spent a decent amount of time together and had fun together, so that seems a little off...Another thing that would bother me about Mashburn being RJ is just that I don't think the actor playing Mashburn can really pull off being a "bad guy" if you can understand what I'm saying...He just doesn't seem like the serial killer type.  Now, you could say that my reasoning would make him a great RJ because you don't suspect somebody like that to be a killer, but still, i just wouldn't like it.

My thoughts on Stiles:  Bret Stiles, I think, is a perfect "bad guy" unlike Mashburn's character...Unfortunately, I think that he is also wayyy to obvious of a pick to be RJ.  Maybe I'm looking too much into it by thinking these guys are obvious, but I don't know.   I liked somebody else's theory that maybe RJ is a visualize member and that Bret has seen his video confessions about killing.  I think that would be a good storyline, and it doesn't seem too obvious.

Thoughts on Patrick:  Before finding this website, I had thought about "what if RJ is Patrick"?  I've gone through many scenarios of how it could be him...A few are possible, but I would HATE if Patrick turned out to be RJ, so I hope its not him...One thing I was just thinking about was:  what if Patrick really was RJ and Kirkland knew about it, and thats why they had the whole handshake/"I know YOU" thing because Kirkland KNOWS that Patrick is RJ, but still hasn't got enough evidence...and so while all of the fans think that Patrick is hunting Kirkland as RJ, it turns out that Kirkland is actually hunting Patrick because HE is the real RJ...I don't actually think that will be the case, but I just thought I'd throw that out there...

Max Winter:  I think that Max Winter could be a good choice for RJ.  He can definitely pull of the "is he good or bad" thing because that's what his character on the show "Heroes" was.  He was trying to do good, but a lot of the time, he did more bad than good...You didn't really know what to think of him.  I think he can definitely pull off being a bad guy, he's not toooo obvious, and there are tangible facts that can point to him being RJ (wedding ring, marksman, smart, manipulative, probably has the money to do all of it, etc)...Max is definitely one of the few people who I wouldn't be disappointed with being Red John.

Women:  forgive me if this sounds sexist or whatever, but I don't think that Red John is a woman, so I wont analyze any of them as possible RJ's, but I will say that I'm sure there are a few women characters that we know who will turn out to be RJ accomplices.  Grace Van Pelt is definitely a possible RJ helper along with Darcy and Brenda (the red heads)

Brett Partridge:  ehhhhh...I don't know what to think of Partridge...I think the whole "blood spatter serial killer" belongs to Dexter and that would be kind of lame is RJ was the same thing.  He could definitely be linked to RJ, but I tend to think that he is not the actual RJ.

Bertram:  Can't really see RJ being Bertram...a pawn of RJ, maybe, but not RJ himself...he seems a little too weak to be RJ.  I can definitely see Bertram as being somebody who doesn't want to help RJ, but has no choice sort of thing, like a helpless pawn....

Laroche:  I would be a little disappointed if JJ was Red John...I just can't picture a man of that size running down women and killing them the way RJ does...

Cho/Rigsby:  Can't really see either of them being RJ...neither of their characters really seem like they could pull it off...I don't think it would make for a good story or be that clever if it was one of them...I think they're both really trying to help.

All that being said...My best guess would probably be that Max Winter is Red John
What do you guys think about all of my ideas?

By the way, is anybody else as disappointed with season 5 as I am?  Every week I keep thinking "ok, this week is going to mean something and talk about RJ, but then every week I end up disappointed..."