NOTE: Please be advised that English is not my first language.
The Mentalist ended its season six with a tagline "True love has found a way." If you remember, Bruno Heller said he wrote "Blue Bird" as a series finale. The whole episode was about love and what are you willing to do to show it. The Mentalist 2.0 has been the journey of Jane and Lisbon, a journey to understand who they really are and what they really want. From the very beginning of the episode, Patrick Jane still asks to Cho - and more to himself - if Lisbon is really leaving. He thinks she knows her well and she won't make such a big move... the truth is, Jane's dening the fact Lisbon is leaving because he'afraid to come face to face with his feelings for her. Despite this, Jane cleverly manages to solve a crime involving young students and come back to the FBI building, ready for another case. Lisbon is forced to postpone her departure when a cold case brings her and Jane to Miami: there's a letter written by the killer and they need to know who wrote it. As the two are the guests in the Blue Bird Inn, Jane is clearly happy to spend some quite time with her "more than friend" Teresa. Just to remind her how great are those two when they work together, a long walk to the beach is the key to solve the cold case. Lisbon is happy she's decrypted the mysterious code on the letter; it's clear she learned from her mastermind (Jane) how a serial killer's mind works.
Like Jane, also Lisbon is living her fairytale when she look at the beautiful room Jane has booked for her - including three amazing dresses. Lisbon is touched by his move, she calls him and thanks him for the kind gesture. Jane answers at the phone like a teenager with a crush on a girl - he's happy, you can read on his face. But the fairytale goes wrong when Lisbon finds out Jane has booked the room one week earlier, so before the letter came to the FBI - this leads Lisbon to the conclusion that Jane wrote the letter, not the killer. Lisbon thinks he's a horrible person because he made everything possible to postpone her departure by letting her stay on a cold murder case. As a 'mature response', Lisbon throws a glass of water in Jane's face - they're acting like two kids who are afraid to tell each other that they're in love. Abbott and Cho have been the watchers for all the time; while Abbott has been pushing hard Jane and Lisbon to talk about their feelings, Cho still hasn't realized what's going on between them. Come on, Cho! You've been working with them for almost 12 years and you've never noticed anything! Lisbon makes the impossible move and prepares to pack up her things to go to the airport. Jane has one last chance to apologize with her, but he fails.
With those words, Lisbon put Jane in the condition of thinking about who he really is: he's always being a con man, acting like a clown in kinda way, pretending it's ok to stage a play just to solve a murder case. Lisbon feels used: remember in episode 6.09 he made her come in Austin to join the FBI, otherwise he wouldn't have accepted Abbott's condition to work. That's the breaking point when Lisbon decided to call a cab, go to the airport and call Pike to tell him she accepted her proposal - Pike's reaction was awful... what kind of man reacts like that like if he just won a football game? Anything but romantic. Jane thinks he's lost Lisbon forever, until he gets a visit from two lovers - from the cold case - who make Jane opens his eyes:
"I was a coward- blind, stupid coward. I was so filled with fear and self-hatred that I destroyed the best thing that ever happened to me. By the time I realized my mistake, it was too late. She was gone." There comes the realization everyone was waiting for - but it can't be easy, right? When the two women Fischer and Cho had interviewed before for the case, Jane does everything he can to manage the situation, because the first rule is: keep calm and text "SOZ" to your boss. Abbott and Cho can arrest the women and release the men, and let Jane go to the airport to stop Lisbon. Poor Cho, he seems to be the voice of that fandom who doesn't want Jane and Lisbon to be together. "They're like brother and sister." But anyone is free to think what they want, right?
In a romantic effort to talk to her (and in a scene that reminds me the series finale of Friends, where Ross did the impossible to stop Rachel from leaving), Jane manages to get abroad the plane where Lisbon is and makes one of the most romantic love declarations: "I forgot how to act like a human being, and I play games, I lie and I trick people to avoid the truth of how I feel. The idea of letting anyone close to me is terrifying for obvious reasons but the truth Teresa is that I can't imagine waking up knowing that I won't see you. The truth is I love you. You can't imagine how good it is to say it out loud and it scares me, but it's the truth of what I feel. [...] I love you, Teresa. And it makes me happy to be able to say that to you. I love her. That woman in B12, I love her." For Jane is a huge step, he's shaken, he's come out of the closet and it scares him being honest; but he's realized he may have lost the woman he loves forever. On the other side, Lisbon has mixed feelings, she's embarassed, she's touched, she cries like she never did before. The old woman next to her is right, every woman in that plane is green with envy. Next morning, we learn Abbott had to persuade TSA to let Jane in custody. There, he receives a surprising visit: Lisbon. She got off the plane and he can't be more happy than that - he even tells her she isn't going to DC anymore, like if he needs to hear that from her. But also Lisbon needs to hear again those words Jane said to her, because last time he told that he loves her (The Crimson Hat, season 4), he pretended he couldn't remember. Back then, it was a different time. Jane had Red John and he needed to get to him, so he couldn't let his true feelings come out. We assume he's been kept what he feels for a very long time. When Jane is about to answer, he leans on Lisbon and kisses her. The quick sweet kisses are seen by the security guard who has to make them stop, and I thought "Come on, man, they've been waiting like 12 years for this!"Then, the frame freezes on their happy faces. Jane stopped being a con man, he took his clown face off and start being a human being by embracing life - the same life Lisbon gave to him when 12 years ago found him a home at the CBI, and the same woman who saved him from the mask he was wearing by showing him his true colors - The Mentalist 2.0 was an explotion of colors in every title.
Does this episode make a perfect series finale too? Have you been waiting for Jane and Lisbon finally get together? Share your comments below, and thanks for reading us, see ya next year with the seventh season of The Mentalist!
