Tuxie400 wrote:

2. We don't know what conclusions Dr. Nik or Pete drew from seeing the name on the match.  I don't understand what you mean by a "half match."  I don't see any reason the tooth DNA would match Spader/Red.  If Red is Katarina, there would be no match to her. 

A child has half her mother's DNA and half her father's DNA.  So if it was matched to Jennifer, it would be  a 'half match'. If you were matching Jennifer's blood to Jennifer, it would be 100% match.  I'm not a scientist though and never looked at DNA so I could be off on that, it was just a lay person's assumption. And if they matched the blood to Jennifer in CODIS and it was under one of her many names, it would come to Garvey's attention but not Tom's or his friend's.

As for why it would match Red/Spader:  If Kate planted a tooth of Red's, or if they used the Alchemist to make a tooth appear to be Red's  -either way - the DNA result would say it was Red's - without the bones actually belonging to Red.   A tooth not belonging to the corpse could have been buried with the bones, and Kate was more than capable of doing that.  One tooth that has Red's DNA doesn't prove the bones, from which they were unable to get any DNA, were Red's. It's one tooth that could've been put there to throw people off.   Even if Red is Katarina, it doesn't mean those bones were Reddington's. It just means a tooth that his DNA was found with the bones.  

It seems there are 4 possibilites.  I go back and forth between choices 3 and 4.  I absolutely do not believe Laila's Katarina is Liz's mom (1) and could believe choice (2),  but -  my opinion only -  think 3 or 4 is more likely.

1. Our Red is a fake, but Katarina (Laila) is real.  This is also the official version.

2. Our Red is a fake, Katarina is a fake, ie neither of them are who they present themselves to be.

3. Our Red is the original Red,  but Katarina (Laila) is fake.

3. Our Red is Katarina, making both of them fakes..

 

I agree Tatiana. I hope this is the last season of the Blacklist and it ends with as big a bang as it started with in Season 1.

Tuxie, there was no 'old' Reddington blood to run to see if Devry was the real Red or our Red was the real Red (other than the blood on the shirt - again begging the question, why didn't Cooper compare the blood during that episode). Running Devry's blood against the blood taken from Red when he surrendered even if it was in CODIS wouldn't have answered anything, it would just be two people saying they were Red, with blood from both taken in recent years without old blood to compare it to. So for me, Devry doesn't mean our Red's blood wasn't in CODIS, it just means Red's blood taken when he surrendered wouldn't be dispositive in figuring out if Devry was telling the truth.

I agree with you that if the bones weren't Red's that the bones alone couldn't have been all that Kate wanted Liz to see. Remember, the guy she tasked with the getting the bones to the locker also gave Tom Dom's fake name and that Red quickly killed him before he could divulge anything else to Tom. So maybe there was more to the story she hoped Liz would uncover.  I think the bones may be a giant red herring and that they may circle back to them as the show's big mystery is finally revealed.

When Liz told Cooper that Red wasn't really Reddington, but Red knew who Daniel Hutton was when Cooper asked him when he was being held hostage, that would have been the right time for Cooper to check for himself to see if this Red's DNA matched the blood on the shirt and whether or not Liz was mistaken in her belief. But apparently he never did check.  That's what I was referring to. And if Liz was written as a woman with a brain, once she told Cooper that this Red was a fake and it was no longer a secret she was keeping from him, she should've asked him to confirm the blood our Red gave upon his surrender to the FBI, and the DNA results Tom's dr got from the bones, with the blo

Happy Holidays everyone!

Emergence is not cancelled (yet). The confusion came about because unlike the other new series like Stumptown, it didn't get  offered to add episodes to the initial 13 they contracted to make so people assumed it was cancelled. But it was written as a 3 year, 13 episode per year show. The producers didn't want any additional episodes.  That being said, the numbers are really low for night-of watching (those numbers  do double in streaming though).  It probably will be canceled, it's too good for ABC television. I hope if it does it gets picked up by a streaming service or one of the cable networks and continues there where it probably has a better home anyway.   The show started with a mystery around a young girl the town's (female) police chief finds at a plane crash site (first 2 minutes of the show and on all the commercials promoting the series so that's not a spoiler).  If this was the BL, they'd go 7 years trying to figure out who the girl is. The producers tell you in Episode 3. VERY RISKY and they did lose some viewers after that.  I was tempted myself to stop watching because I wasn't interested in that type of show but decided to watch the next week just to see. And the show got more interesting and better and I realized the mystery of who the girl is just the back story of where the show went/is going.  Of course there are still bloggers out there bemoaning the fact that the know who the girl is. If I felt like commenting to them I'd steer them to the Blacklist if they want to hold onto a mystery for a long time. lol

Anyway, I know that's thread drift, I am going to pick up my comments on the show on the hiatus thread where I think the show discussion is continuing until March (?).

 

BBB- I agree with everything you wrote. POI is my all time favorite TV show. I had such high hopes for BL after the first season but the past few years it's gone down hill each season, with each season being worse than the one before it. At this point I think it's wasting my time.  Like others, I think I'll wait to hear when it's cancelled and then watch the last few episodes live on TV and . read the recaps on the other episodes until then so I'm not too much out of the loop. I hate to wish a show cancelled because so many people's livelihoods depend on working on a show, but until it is cancelled they're going to be leading us around and around to fill the time. So no thanks.

One thing I wanted to point out that has me still leaning towards the Fakearina theme. When Liz told Katarina it was all her fault that people were looking for her again and when asked said it was because she was looking for her mother, the expression on  Fakearina's face was very telling -  Liz has just given Fakearina the angle she needs to manipulate her.   Laila Robins did an amazing job. If you are rewatching, watch that scene and watch what she does. Fakearina seized that revelation and used it, playing up the 'mother daughter loving reunion', to get Liz to dance to her tune.

I also think the showrunners are trying really hard to get the audience to believe in Fakearina so that when the truth comes out, the audience continues to support Liz.  If it were very obvious to everyone but Liz the audience would think she's too stupid or too trusting, etc. But if the audience believes it too, it makes Liz believing it more forgiveable, after all, how can you blame Liz for falling for it if you, the viewer, fell for it too.

For anyone looking for a great show to watch during the hiatus, look for Emergence. It's a new show on ABC this year. It's also on winter break but it's past episodes are available for streaming. It's my new favorite show and watching how those showrunners work with

Tuxie, I think the knowledge that Liz killed her father was new to Katarina and was some of the story she got out of Ilya: that Red was dead (we heard him say that) and he probably at some point said Liz shot him.   When she kidnapped him in Paris she thought he was THE Raymond Reddington.  A lot of this is the show runners changing stream mid-season with a new direction they want to go.  I don't recall how Liz knew about the Townsend Directive either, I agree with HW, probably in a deleted scene or a continuity error (which there is no excuse for).

I'm still not convinced this is her mother, as a matter of fact, I'm more convinced that it's not.  I have nothing else to add, except it's good that for me it's not coming back until March because if it was continuing next week I'd stop watching. Maybe by March I'll change my mind.

BBB - does it seem unfair to you like it does to me that the TV masterpiece of POI was cancelled after 5 seasons and BL is chugging away with a retread of the same story told 3 or 4 times already and keeps getting renewed? there is no justice in TV land...She loves him, she hates him, she loves him, she hates him, she aligns with Tom and Kate against him, she goes back to him, she aligns with Kurt against him, she goes back to him, she aligns with Jennifer against him, she goes back to him, now she aligns with Fakearina against him????  ENOUGH. Like I said, I'm done.

There are 3 interviews given by the Johns that are full of spoilers so rather than post them here or the links room, I'll give them a thread in spoilers.   They discuss what's coming the last half of this season.  No surprises to any of us who've watched season 1-7, you've seen it all before (see my above paragraph). But it is spoiled so that's why I'll post them there.



 

For me, the reason everything was so muddy is because the showrunners' focus was not on telling a story to the viewers in a clear and revealing way, it was how they could fill an episode with a story that doesn't  reveal anything (so they can stretch the reveal out for as long as possible) and how every line could have a double/ambiguous meaning. It takes a lot of work to be 'cute' with the words so that you can keep the secret going, but it doesn't make for good television.   What did we actually learn tonight?  That Dom and Ilya were in Belgrade with "Katarina". We knew that.  That she didn't die that night as was expected. We knew that. She had a family she lost, we knew that, we learn it's a man (was he her husband?).  That Dom did it to protect Masha. We knew that. We didn't really learn anything other than the plan was a bomb and that her significant other died in her place.  We basically learned nothing new about who this woman is and it's still open as to whether or not she's Dom's daughter Katarina.  If she's not (which I believe but I respect the other view too), they dragged out that reveal for another week and didn't give us anything firm to prove or disprove. Liz finally wakes up but only because she sees a picture of Maddy as a fraud, the fact that she lied about the men in the park meant nothing to Liz.  Liz is still a piss poor profiler. And still a spoiled brat when it comes to dealing with Red. Nothing new at all in this episode. There may have been a sentence or two hinting about who Red is, and why Ilya is protecting him. That went by too fast and will need a rewatch. I thought while watching it was hinting towards Redarina.  If there was any new info on Red's identity, that will be the only new info we got tonight.

OK - Tuxie, don't read this!


Liz is so incredibly dumb. She discovers Maddy is a fake - I don't know if the file gave her original name as Katarina, I doubt it because she was using a different name before she became "Maddy", but somehow Liz makes the (wrong - if this is a fake Katarina) connection.  Was she really going to shoot her in the kitchen with Agnes in bed in the next room?  She didn't even close the door all the way. Is she trying to give Agnes the same type of memories she had as a child?  What is wrong with her? It couldn't wait until she was alone with Maddy? She couldn't tell Red or the rest of the team who all want her to be safe and would do anything to make sure she stays that way? She had to handle it on her own? She's no better than Red, but she's worse - she's petty. Yes Red is keeping secrets, he's keeping them to protect her. She's keeping hers to be vindictive.   The preview for next week is so predictable as to be laughable. Of course Maddy/fake Katrina is going to get over on her. At least it won't happen in the last minute of the show so there's that...

I give this episode a C. It's a muddled mess. The only redeeming parts are the small snippets of Belgrade we were shown, which of course didn't give any definitive answers, and can be looked at two ways so as to keep the Redarina theory alive.
 

I agree BBB, dialogue was hard to follow.  Tuxie that must be so frustrating for you, this was a mythology heavy episode. Hopefully you'll be able to watch it tomorrow via your app or NBC's page.  Do you want us to not discuss it until you watch?  Otherwise there are going to be a lot of spoilers for you.
 

Honey West wrote:

I agree, too many fake people or potentially fake people. I was so glad that Ilya turned out to be Ilya!

But he didn't!  Red was supposed to be Ilya and the Stranger was introduced as such (a stranger). We here on this board all thought he was Ilya but that was not the way it was written or how the general audience was supposed to view him. We just (jadely) saw through the ruse right from the start.

Honey West wrote:

Plus, I always go back to the Pilot, and Red telling Liz that she was abandoned by a father who was a career criminal and a mother who died of weakness and shame. If you go by that, then KR cannot be the real KR that we have today. So, does this go back to the idea that KR was actually several different women who worked under that name?

I agree, the Pilot should be canon but I'm not sure JB is going to stick with that cannon even though he should. After all did Liz get the scar at 4 or at 14. That was never resolved.

I agree there are many different women who have gone under that name after Liz's mom walked into the sea.  I believe this Katarina was hired to be Katarina for Belgrade and apparently the mission didn't go according to plan, although Red told Dom he (Dom) betrayed her, so maybe it did go as planned by Dom but not as presented to current Katarina.

This writers of the show are a one trick pony. Present someone as someone they're not, then go as many episodes as the network will allow to stretch out the reveal.  Red was Red, then he wasn't, then he was Ilya, then he wasn't.  Tom was a loving husband until he wasn't, until he was a spy working for Berlin, until he was dead, until he was revealed to be alive captive in a boat, until he was a spy hired by Red who worked for the Major, until he was Scotty's son, until he was finally dead.  The Stranger was a nobody until he was Ilya. I'm rather sure this Katarina will be someone else.  And I won't be too shocked if the final reveal is that Liz isn't even