well this is the worst ending to a storyline i have ever seen in my life. i have waited years for the reveal of RJ through countless twists and turns, a fake RJ dying, the list of 7 with many awful suspects on (smith especially) but still i stuck on hoping the ending would give me the satisfaction of a 'perfect ending' (a la Breaking Bad)  But what we got instead was one of the nastiest serial killers of the 21st century foiled by a pigeon, and then ringing 911 for help..
Not only this but none of the questions that needed to be answered have been... (he is mar. physical description. how the list was acquired. physical description. Rosalind Harker etc.)
From now on i will be acting as if the mentalist was ended after season 3, as strawberries and cream was a perfect finale to Red John.

Many of the theories i have seen on here are so much better than what i have seen from the Red John episode, but my if i could have ended it, it would have been Partridge as RJ with a major personality reveal just like Tommy Olds in Flame Red back in season 1 with flashbacks on explanations to the many unsolved answers.