The Blacklist Refugees » Summer 2017 Discussion

lara1 · 9/02/2017 3:44 pm

Tuxie400. Yes....and maybe they are all in fact the same...

Eastcoast · 9/04/2017 4:48 pm

I can't find it, but someone was talking about the girls hair color. I think it was Lara? My hair changed color when I was little. It would get a lot of blonde in it from the summer. It still does.

Eastcoast · 9/04/2017 4:54 pm

The other thing I wanted to ask is can anyone remember any other episodes that had Flashes in them?
We always focus on the fire. But are there any other episodes that show flashes about anything that we might not have paid attention to with subjects not related to the fire? We know about the Berlin episode and the one where she has the flash backs after Sam dies.
It's just food for thought as we re-watch the shows.

Last edited by Eastcoast (9/04/2017 4:55 pm)

lara1 · 9/04/2017 8:45 pm

Hi Eastcoast #222, yes I made some comments about hair color. I get that hair gets lighter in the summer. But the deleted scene with young Kirk takes place in the winter and I think the bubble girl scenes take place in the fall (bubble girl is wearing a sweater in each - though that could have been because they needed to film a summer scene in the fall LOL). But for me its just as much about the texture of the hair - coarser and wavier. The photos of Liz in the swing and the one that Kirk has show a girl with smooth, straight dark brown hair, and that is how Liz remembers herself as well in the Summer Palace memory (and that in and of itself is interesting I think).

But then there is Liz herself whom we have seen a lot with straight dark brown hair. But we've also seen her with wavy blond hair and her hair has been wavier and lighter in what we have seen in Season 4 and 5 - which is intriguing, at least to me LOL.

I do feel that there is something to it though I cannot figure out what it is. My vague theory is two different girls possibly sisters. But its anyone's guess LOL.

Last edited by lara1 (9/04/2017 8:46 pm)

lara1 · 9/04/2017 8:49 pm

Eastcoast #223 - in terms of flashbacks I think the only things we have seen are the fire memories from both Red and Liz, I can't recall anything else except Red's Christmas story which was really his version he tells of that Christmas.

Flashes of light - that's an interesting idea. The only thing like that I recall is when Red shoots Kaplan, that scene played out against the strong light is something like that. But there may be others. Will have look out. Good thought.

Honey West · 9/04/2017 10:02 pm

lara1 wrote:
Hi Eastcoast #222, yes I made some comments about hair color. I get that hair gets lighter in the summer. But the deleted scene with young Kirk takes place in the winter and I think the bubble girl scenes take place in the fall (bubble girl is wearing a sweater in each - though that could have been because they needed to film a summer scene in the fall LOL). But for me its just as much about the texture of the hair - coarser and wavier. The photos of Liz in the swing and the one that Kirk has show a girl with smooth, straight dark brown hair, and that is how Liz remembers herself as well in the Summer Palace memory (and that in and of itself is interesting I think).

But then there is Liz herself whom we have seen a lot with straight dark brown hair. But we've also seen her with wavy blond hair and her hair has been wavier and lighter in what we have seen in Season 4 and 5 - which is intriguing, at least to me LOL.

I do feel that there is something to it though I cannot figure out what it is. My vague theory is two different girls possibly sisters. But its anyone's guess LOL.

lara1, it also brings up the question of how can Liz remember herself if her memory was wiped? Although I suspect her memories were altered, not wiped, and maybe even replaced with other memories. Do you suppose it's possible that she could be remembering someone else's memories?

Eastcoast · 9/05/2017 12:42 am

I thought i remembered Jb say in an interview a while back that they were just doing the best they could with getting the girls to look close to the first one? He said some had grown too much and some of the kids they had in mind had other engagements. It could have been a red herring.... It wouldn't be the first time.

But I do think there is another girl or 2 in there somewhere!

Last edited by Eastcoast (9/05/2017 12:44 am)

Eastcoast · 9/05/2017 1:19 am

HW, in Braxton 2 when Liz started laughing, the Dr. said she was probably having a tangent memory which is replacing a bad memory with a good one. So I was thinking it was only replaced.

One of my thoughts about fire night that i think we all have is that her memory must have been wiped out before mr.k went back to Sam's and they replaced or rearranged them.

I think Sam was possibly the one she called daddy and that is why she ran to him without any hesitation when he called her Lizzy. She was using Masha when Mr k left her there and Sam was her dad to her after that.

It may have been unrealistic to totally remove the memory of the fire with the burn she had. She also said she had terrible nightmares and she remembers the music from the music box. I think Red allowed some memories to remain.
I think they replaced it with playing outside etc... and a similar idea of her rescued from her room without all the drama.
I was thinking about the scar. She told Beth the story of it making her brave.
Since the scar probably bothered her I was thinking they told her that so it wouldn't bother her so bad.

I'm tired and not sure if I got that out the way I wanted to..
I have other thoughts about that fire night and when i get them sorted out I will share. It is just very twisted.🤤

Last edited by Eastcoast (9/05/2017 1:24 am)

Tuxie400 · 9/05/2017 9:06 am

Eastcoast - The hair color changes on Young Liz do bother me. Children with dark brown hair normally always have dark brown hair. No amount of sun ever lightened my younger sister's dark hair. I started out with very light brown hair that would turn golden blonde in the summers until I was about five. Even in the Luther Braxton fire memories, the hair on the girl in the red nightgown changes. That startling first image when the girl's eyes blink open has much tighter and more uniform curls than the girl Liz talks to in the closet. When red nightgown girl runs down the hall, there is even less curl to the hair.

I've even started thinking Liz's wig in Season 1 was noticeable and there for a purpose. But I don't know why.

Honey West - It would be beyond what I could believe if someone else's memories had been implanted in Liz or Red. But all movie projects Jon Bokenkamp has worked on prior to The Blacklist always had a twist ending, sometimes multiple twists. I don't rule anything out until the end.

lara1 · 9/05/2017 10:09 pm

HoneyWest #226 - TBL frequently pushes the boundaries of fringe and near fringe science - CRISPR was just in the news two weeks ago. So its possible that Liz has someone else's memories. I agree with Tuxie400 that the idea is kind of out there - but we are talking about her memories being totally messed up 25 years ago then partially re-remembered under hypnosis and drugs, and lets not forget what happened to Ressler when they made him think an entirely different reality was true when he nearly shot Hitchens in her lake house.....

But - it was never entirely clear to me whether only the memory of the fire was erased or more than that. Liz has said several times that she had no memory of her mother whatsoever and the only memory of her father was what she could remember of the fire. Yet, HW, you are right - how did she remember her mother at Summer Palace, and , I am thinking, even hallucinate when reading her letters - and that KR looks different from the one pushing her on the swing.....There's no indication that Liz has ever seen another photo of her. So its a mystery.

Eastcoast, its possible the casting of Masha in the scene with young Kirk was affected by the child actress that they could find for the role. But I still find it amazing that she resembles bubble girl in the way that she does.....and the checkered hat she is wearing. Something is up. But what who knows! LOL

Tuxie400 - I do agree about the fire memories and the hair. Its the same actress yet the hair length and texture and even color seems to shift all over the place.

Last edited by lara1 (9/05/2017 10:15 pm)

Honey West · 9/06/2017 12:08 am

lara1, I still think the real reason that the swing photo had Katarina's face blown out was because they had yet to cast the role, so it allowed them to do it later when and if they decided to actually show us Katarina. I think they always intended to show her, but this let them not commit to someone who might not be available when they finally needed her.

And I'd really like to know what Krilov did to Liz two years ago! Did he "readjust" her planted memories or remove something new that she had uncovered, perhaps from Velov?

Last edited by Honey West (9/06/2017 12:11 am)

lara1 · 9/06/2017 4:48 pm

HW #231, agree on the photo. And yet they did not cast a blonde actress....I actually wonder whether "mysterious woman" in Cape May was initially meant to be KR at all or simply Red's subconscious.....he doesn't know her name after all. Or equally ti does fit the Rederina theory.....but I digress.

I got to thinking about the film The Prestige the other day as well as all of the magic references in the series and how some of them overlap. I'll do a post on it when I have time later in the week. But I got to thinking....magic and The Prestige both use/used doubles in various ways, including mirror images. What if what we are seeing are two Reds? (You might say one is enough, LOL though on the other hand maybe one is never enough!! ) It would explain some of the inconsistencies in what Red says about some things-the Christmas story and what he says to Tom and others about children and losing children, for one, are inconsistent.

Last edited by lara1 (9/06/2017 4:50 pm)

lara1 · 9/06/2017 8:35 pm

I just read an interesting theory about Red on the Blacklist Exposed site. Its interesting, to me, because parts of it have been discussed separately here by some of us (the idea that Red could be a relative, maybe Katerian's brother; that Dom really is Red's father; that Red took on the persona of the real Reddington, etc) but not quite put together the way the author of the theory has put it together.

Tuxie400 - I was intrigued to read about the eyes in that theory! LOL. Whether that is it or not, I still think that something is up with why they keep showing those eerie eye close ups.

What's interesting to think about in the theory, which again we have put together in pieces here but not the same way, is that by Red disappearing for self-protection and re-appearing as real Reddington, gives an answer to how Kate could say that he put Liz in her arms as a baby yet we saw Kate only meet "Red" years later when he hired her once he was a criminal. I don't believe she knew who he really was then but must have learned later on, or she would not have made the comment about when he put liz in her arms.

there are holes in the theory of course but what is new. It also talks about there being two Raymonds - which someone here has said - maybe it was Colleen who pointed out that all of the main characters have had more than one character with their name, except for Raymond. And there must be a second Raymond.

Last edited by lara1 (9/06/2017 8:36 pm)

lara1 · 9/08/2017 10:23 pm

Just for fun, I enlarged one of the still photos from the deleted scenes with Masha and young Kirk. Its the shot where Kirk is crouching down to Masha's level, his back to the camera and Masha kind of has her fingers extended towards him.

Well that girl's hair is blonde. Like really blond - darker and lighter blond. Also the individual squares that make a kind of checkered pattern on Masha's hat in that scene in close up look like each one could be a sailboat - alternating lines of green and blue sailboats. maybe.

lara1 · 9/08/2017 10:29 pm

hmmm. So little Masha with her Dad Kirk has virtually blonde hair. Kirk is blonde. Liz remembers herself as having dark brown hair at the Summer Palace. It still doesn't all add up to me. Was that blonde girl really Masha and Kirk's daughter after all.....but then why did Kirk have a photo of "masha" with dark hair. were there two daughters/girls....the bedroom in Summer Palace had two of a lot of things. and did something happen to one. Then again its a deleted scene. But what the heck, surely they could have found a child with brown hair, they do searches all of the time for children with the required attributes. then again its a deleted scene. ugh. LOL

Eastcoast · 9/11/2017 10:26 am

I dont have all my notes in front of me, but on my rewatch of season 4 I finally got a good pic of the toe tag on the body in the Requiem. It is 2/4/1993.
I wish they had paid as much attention to the dates of stuff as we have. The one from the newspaper was after 2000!

Also got the date of birth on her fake ID. It was 1/19/1953.

Last edited by Eastcoast (9/11/2017 10:27 am)

Eastcoast · 9/11/2017 10:45 am

Lara1, just wanted to let you and everyone know the there is a gif on Alyblacklist's page of the fire and the scene I am talking about where he touched her wrist. I think it's on the right side. She must have been reading our mind! Yea!

9/11/2017 12:46 pm

There is frequently discussion about Carla and Jennifer, the reference to a family and what happened to them by Diane Fowler in season 1, the story he told Madeline Pratt, and the ballerina girl. I'm sure it has been discussed at length somewhere in the crowd, but I thought I would toss my theories into the ring.

When Diane Fowler mentioned family, I think the natural assumption was to leap to wife/child, but I've questioned whether the family mentioned could have been Red's parents, possibly siblings. Perhaps they were killed? He talks about his mother being dead when he stands over the open grave with Aram ('first my mother, then the others'). I've often wondered if something happened to his family when he was younger (maybe early in the Navy or just out of high school?) that led him into Navy intelligence.

I've been of the opinion that story he told Madeline Pratt was a mixture of truth of his own life while married to Carla and fiction/a separate incident. I don't think his wife/daughter were murdered, but possibly he found that scene for someone else (perhaps other family members as mentioned in my previous theory). I think he used some of it because he needed the details, but the rest was used to manipulate Madeline.

Ballerina girl has generally been speculated to be his daughter (presumably with Carla). But as we later learn, Carla is 4 years younger than Red and this paper he is holding says it took place in 1987. The girl was probably between 8-10 years old (by my guess, but I suck at guessing ages). Carla would have been jail bait to have a child with Red that young. It could mean Jennifer isn't his biological daughter, but that he adopted her. It could mean that the girl wasn't his daughter, but possibly a much younger sister. I've also considered that the writers could have screwed up the timeline. James Spader was cast so late prior to filming the pilot that I think the timeline gets wonky in season 1 at times (because it seems like the character initially was going to be older). Perhaps this was just a screw up they hoped no one notices? Perhaps we'll find out one day.

lara1 · 9/11/2017 10:47 pm

Hi Brittany, welcome! You'll see that we have a lot of theories /ideas here that we bat around, one of my particular favorites is the linkage between Red and Christmas. You'll see some specific theory discussions detailed under "Theories".

My own view is that all theories are still out there and viable, the crazy and good thing about this show is that none can as yet be completely ruled out nor any proved definitively. We'll just have to keep watching and learning! As well as discussing them here of course! LOL

Of late I have come to think more and more about how TBL may be a deception. I've been thinking about all of the references to magic and its components; and the similarities of some of the TBL themes to those of The Prestige. Not that TBL is derived from that story but for me it kind of underscores the magic connection. The essence of magic is that the magician distracts you with something that is "reality" the that you focus on while the trick is done and at the end you think the trick really did something whereas it did not - you only thought it did, it was an illusion. Just what the deception is with TBL I'm not sure yet, but there is something that is not what it seems, IMO.

Also of late I've been thinking why we were given such blatant references to bubble girl (Elise) and ballerina girl (Emma) in Season 4. I for one was expecting some sort of reveal - not that I think that Elise is the real bubble girl nor Emma the real ballerina girl (though they might be!) bur just that we'd get some more clues or pieces to those stories. Maybe we did but we haven't yet recognized those clues for what they were.....

interesting thoughts on Red's "family". I guess I'm still of the view that it was his primary family because the various episodes in Season 1 - most seem to have some piece that relates back to, and culminates in the episode where Red tells that story to Maddie. parable of the farmer etc. I wrote about it somewhere during my re-watch last summer. But anything is possible. The story to Maddie may be true, false or partly true. My own view is that its comprised of parts of two stories but what do I know! ha.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts as Season 5 gets underway!

Last edited by lara1 (9/11/2017 10:47 pm)

Eastcoast · 9/12/2017 2:48 am

I Also wanted to mention this inconsistency, Kate's licence has No restrictions on it! Haha,
It's issue date is 4-1-16 from Amarillo Tx.