The 'Mentalist' ties the knot

As The Mentalist nears its end, the darkness of serial killer Red John is in Patrick Jane's past, replaced by the brightness of a future with law-enforcement colleague Teresa Lisbon.

The CBS drama, airing its two-hour finale Wednesday (8 p.m. ET/PT), took a sharp turn in the middle of last season as fake psychic-turned-observant investigator Jane (Simon Baker) killed Red John, who had murdered Jane's wife and daughter. The series then jumped ahead two years and moved its base from California to Texas.

When a studio chief first suggested concluding the long-running Red John story, "it took me a while to get my head around that," says series creator Bruno Heller (Gotham). "I had felt that when we got there that was the end of the story, but I realized that — not to get into pretentious analogies — after the Trojan Wars, Ulysses has to come home. And the story of coming home is as great a story as the adventure itself."

The series essentially reinvented itself after Red John, Baker says, posing "a tricky set of circumstances."

"I feel like the transition into the FBI in Austin and that regeneration of the show was reasonably successful," says Baker, who initially had doubts about it..

The Mentalist, thought to be a goner at the end of last season, got a surprise reprieve — a 13-episode seventh season — which allowed time to bring Jane and Lisbon (Robin Tunney) together without it seeming too forced, Heller says.

Changes included the departure of two main characters, Wayne Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) and Grace Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti).

"I think ultimately it worked out well," Tunney says of the changes, which separated Lisbon and Jane. "That was sort of the impetus for the relationship turning romantic, realizing how much you miss the other person in their absence."

The finale will feature the couple's wedding, in a scene that Tunney calls "beautiful."

Baker felt a "simmering chemistry" between Jane and Lisbon fairly early in its run. "It sort of vacillated between sibling rivalry and confidante and mutual affection."

The wedding-related scenes made for "a lovely day," says Baker, who initially had "a bit of a bristling reaction" to the idea. "It seemed so TV cliche to have a wedding. So, I was pretty prescriptive on how we should do it, to have it more of an intimate thing and not in a church and to have it more thrown together."

The post-Red John run "has been a wonderful gift," Heller says. "There's a lightness to the episodes and a sunshine after the clouds."