I was watching one of the promos for the new season and saw Liz in a dress that was black with a red rose floral pattern.  That was interesting to me because they are styling her hair to look like bubble girl, and in the home movie, the woman with bubble girl is wearing a floral print dress, as I think is bubble girl, and when Liz sees herself in the Summer Palace memory, she is also wearing a floral dress.

Why do I mention this?  Well one of the things I noticed in Requiem is that we don't see Kr wearing anything floaty or floral.  quite the opposite.  I think I noted at the time that she wore a lot of things with stripes - including in the scene in the motel when she brings Liz back from the fire in the house.  I don't know what stripes mean, but KR really did like them.

So to me the KR, floaty dress woman, bubble girl and Liz memory with the dark hair don't add up.  I still don't know what it could be, but my gut still thinks there were two girls and maybe the identities were swapped for some reason.  That could be totally wrong.  But to me it still doesn't add up.......

(A little nod to Rederina here.....those symbols - the slanted lines under Reds picture in the opening montage....kind of like stripes.....though I think someone - was it Colleen or Tuxie400 had found out something interesting about that symbol recently - I can't recall what It was LOL, but I found it interesting at the time....)

The other thing I noticed in the extended promo...I froze the shot of Cooper cutting that little piece of shirt from what was in the Reddington evidence box...he seems to cut a piece from the edge of the blood stain....which is lighter in color.....not the center of the stain which is very dark red.  But who knows really if that means anything......LOL

I have really liked what I see in the promos so far.  Red's humor to me takes us back to the lighter parts of Seasons 1 and 2.  Like that scene where he soaks the cigar in alcohol and places it in the mouth of an adversary, then says something like, the suspense is killing me and then just shoots him.  And his various (failed) attempts at humoring Liz......maybe now will be successful!  ha

Its Reds great sense of humor....and Spader does that so very, very well.  So I think I'm going to really enjoy the first part of the season!




 

I remember checking into what year the human genome project was when they aired the Alchemist episode because the man had been part of it after falsifying his medical degree.  I know the Alchemist's abilities have been brought up numerous times when talking about imposter theory, but my understanding from watching that episode was that it was used to stage the deaths of criminals.  The people died shortly after the fake DNA was administered to them because eventually their body would have reproduced their own blood cells again (they tested one of the dead's bone marrow for true DNA identification), thus ridding itself of the fake DNA after a while.  I never had the impression it was something that could be maintained in a living person for long. 

I agree about the father/daughter relationship making the show interesting.  They are such an interesting dynamic and to have their relationship defined makes it even better.  I enjoy how Megan Boone said that Liz now has to take care of her "pesky dad" because he is pretty pesky.   I'm looking forward to seeing them attempt to navigate the father/daughter relationship and how Liz copes with the lure of the dark side while trying to hang on to her FBI side. 

Honey West wrote:

My current thinking about why use thirty year old evidence for the DNA test is that if they used a current sample it probably wouldn't show anything conclusive. Thirty year old DNA would be "pure". Cooper has known Reddington for many years. Since he was in charge of collecting evidence from the Seaduke incident it is likely that the man he knew as Raymond Reddington thirty years ago is the same Raymond Reddington he knows now. In the world of The Blacklist we have even had a lister who specialized in altering DNA evidence to help hide people. So the only way Cooper could be sure to get unadulterated DNA evidence was to go to the old evidence sample from the bloodstained clothing and run the test without Reddington being able to manipulate the results. Red was too busy dealing with Kate, so this was probably Coopers best chance to get a true result for Liz. I suspect that Liz's DNA test from the scotch glass would have shown he was not her father. Red would have either had them altered or else he might have had his own DNA disguised in recent years.

I little research shows that the first DNA evidence admitted as evidence in court wasn't done until 1987. The human genome wasn't finished being sequenced until 2004. So the sort of sci-fi type of genetic manipulation that might be used to hide someone's identity wouldn't have existed thirty years ago. So really about the only way that Red is not Liz's father is if the DNA test is a false positive (extremely rare) or if Red had an identical twin brother who was really Liz's father.

In any case, I think the whole father/daughter thing is going to make the show even more interesting going forward.

Agree with all the DNA comments and some of what we have seen has involved temporary changes.  I still think though that DNA plays into the story in some way - maybe not the way anyone has envisioned, and maybe not involving Red.  For me, there has just been too much emphasis on genetic changing and DNA manipulation throughout the series.  I think that at least one episode in each season has focused on DNA/genetic manipulation.  There was also in Frederick Barnes, I believe, he did something with genetics so that the murdered family could be "read" as his own family while his own plan was to basically kidnap his own family.  Although that whole scene reminded me more of Red's Christmas Eve story.

In Braxton, Aram even describes a gene that is central to the "memory extinction" process - and that gene seems to also have some link to some level of DNA process (though I didn't understand the science when I first researched it, LOL).  I think when I did my re-watch notes genetics was mentioned in most episodes in Season 2 and as for Season 4 - we know about that!  LOL

My own view seems to lean towards the "shirt DNA" being accurate - as in whoever had that shirt (probably Reddington) is Liz's father.  The question for me still is, who is Red?    I also wonder whether that scene was introduced in part to inform us that while Cooper may have been involved in Reddington's assignments, or at least a few of them, he may not have worked with Reddington directly, as in, in person.  He seems to have been running or helping to run the Seaduke assignment from afar.  

Although I think the father/daughter dynamic will be fun. "Pesky Dad" - LOL.  Red certainly is a pesky Dad.  
 

Last edited by lara1 (9/17/2017 12:20 pm)

Honey West wrote:

I think that Liz's realization of the relationship will probably make her more aware of why she does things that she might otherwise have a problem dealing with. Now she knows why and I think it will free her up to deal with more external things than with her internal conflicts. She knows what she's dealing with now, sort of like getting a definitive diagnosis of what's ailing you, I guess. 

I loved the pesky dad comment from Megan. Too funny! He is a pest! Shows up in your house unannounced, eats your food, drinks your wine, kneecaps you...

Yes, lara1, totally agree. DNA Shirt Man is Liz's father. But who is Raymond Reddington? I want to know more about HIS family.

 

I was thinking that too. I like the way you put that.  A diagnosis of what has been ailing her. 😉

She said pesky dad a few times.  You can tell in the clips she seams a bit different towards him. Like it is new to her and she has a bit of respect that she didn't have before.   I think it is good acting on her part.

Eastcoast wrote:

 

I was thinking that too. I like the way you put that.  A diagnosis of what has been ailing her. 😉

She said pesky dad a few times.  You can tell in the clips she seams a bit different towards him. Like it is new to her and she has a bit of respect that she didn't have before.   I think it is good acting on her part.

 
I think it gives her a better understanding of why he's been doing what he's been doing. She might recall his words about a certain confluence of events/conditions that had come together that necessitated his personal entrance into her life (end of Leonard Caul and I'm paraphrasing). We still don't know exactly what he was referring to, although it probably involved Tom's role. Tom killed that Russian guy, probably on orders from Red, maybe? Was the Russian coming after Liz? And was that what made Red act?

I think Megan Boone does a terrific job playing Elizabeth Keen. And they've done a great job of showing her evolution from sort of naive-but-not-really into preparing us to accept that she is really the daughter of a notorious criminal mastermind. If they had come right out and done that in season one, we probably wouldn't have swallowed it or stuck with the story for four years.

So I'm thinking a bit more about #273.  What if, the bones themselves are very old (they do look like it) but were more recently recovered from somewhere else then buried in the suitcase?  Maybe to prevent someone else from finding them, something came up, or someone was newly looking for them?  hmmm

I'm not so sure the bones were buried. At least not directly in the earth. What's left of the skin looks dried. But not mummified. I mentioned once before that I had to build a prop corpse that had been kept inside a barrel of brandy for years. The skeleton reminds me of that. My corpse had more skin on it, though, and it was in one piece, not cut up. One of my first thoughts about suitcase skeleton was what if the person had had an accident with a propeller? Would they be cut up or just mangled? (The crazy things we think about for this show LOL!) maybe I should research boating accidents.

So I got to thinking some more about the bones in the suitcase and whether they could be a child.

And I started to think again about Flora Segunda, the second child - and could those bones be the first daughter, the first, real "Masha", - and also had the following thoughts:

Near the finale of Season 4, when Red digs up the box from Dom's barn, he says to Dom something like:  "Masha-she's alive.  We lost her once, I'm not going to lose her again."  So think about that.  How exactly did they lose her?  Well, if they lost the "original" Masha.  Unless backing out of her life meant losing her.  Or Red could have been referring to Liz's "fake death" but I don't think so - his use of "we" - I don't know, it seemed to allude to something, an experience, that Dom and he once shared.  Just food for thought.  An interesting remark, in my view.  

Also - Red's words echoed those of Ressler to Cooper back in Season 3 - "Liz' she's alive...."  Liz faked her death.  Also, her death was faked earlier in the season.  And, fake deaths have been kind of a them of TBL.
Well, what if someone tried to "Fake" the "death" of little Masha, in order to save her, protect her, and something went wrong?  

Taking this one step further - what if Red, or someone else, orchestrated her "kidnapping" - maybe that was what the American's abduction of Masha was all about - or maybe it was later - in order to put into effect some kind of plot - maybe to save her, maybe to extort something - information perhaps, perhaps the fulcrum.  Or Maybe something like with Hans.  And it all went wrong.  And that is what is in the suitcase.

Then again, I don't know why someone discovering the bones in either of these scenarios would pose a threat to Liz.  And I am thinking that the bones being discovered would be a big issue.    Maybe they substituted another child for Masha and someone was about to discover that "real" Masha was still alive, and that put current day Masha/Liz in danger.  

Then again the bones could be KR.  When Kaplan went to dig up the suitcase, and she said  "I'm sorry, Katarina" - she wasn't looking up or straight ahead, but down at the ground.  As though addressing the ground, or what we then found out was in the ground.  The question would then be, why would someone about to discover KR's skeleton pose a grave risk to Liz?

Just my wild ramblings, food for thought.  Ideas, anyone?

 

Last edited by lara1 (9/21/2017 11:38 pm)

Hw,  I remember it being brought up before by someone but can't remember who? I don't think we discussed it in length.

Lara1, I went to that scene the other night and hit rewind a few times and watched it as I did with some others and it just seams like it would be KR to me.  I just couldnt see any other reason to have a K on the tree and for her to say her name.  She spoke as if she were speaking to an old and dear friend, someone she knew well.  Most people do not like disturbing the dead and will often say they are sorry when they dig them up. 
If you go to google and pull up some scenes of people being exhumed on the news,
( or just take my word for it ) you will see this is something people tend to say when doing that.  I had remembered seeing before in cases where you will see the police, family etc... saying how sorry they are for having to do this. 
I also looked up medical devices that can be inside people.
So much metal I see in that suitcase I wondered if they could have had something placed in them surgically? 
That lead me to look up pics of bone ash to see what's left behind when people are cremated.
I have learned it is big business to scrap the metal left behind...

I had one more thing but can't remember It?   
I will probably get half asleep then it will hit me.

Last edited by Eastcoast (9/22/2017 1:52 am)