The Blacklist Refugees » Episode 5.13 - The Invisible Hand

lara1 · 2/08/2018 10:05 am

Tuxie400 wrote:
Ah lara, you and your numbers. I can see how a group of six would remind you of Kungur Six.

Yes! half of a dozen too! LOL Here are some ideas:

Dom
KR
Red
Sam (how both Red and KR knew him)
Scottie
Carla/Naomi
Fitch (had Russian ties)

Yes I know that is seven. LOL. But at least one is probably wrong, if there even is a list. But there could be seven and one went AWOL (Red). 7 is a number used a lot in the series.

Or, the Kungur Six were just missiles after all.

lara1 · 2/08/2018 10:07 am

Tuxie400 -# 140 - the other thing I was thinking is now that Garvey knows who Liz is, it has complicated his plan. Too much heat on him and his organization, if he has one, or who he is working for (if he is). That may have been a wrinkle he didn't anticipate. So its like this cat and mouse game, with Red biding his time, and Garvey biding his, for different reasons. Or maybe not.....

Last edited by lara1 (2/08/2018 10:08 am)

Eastcoast · 2/08/2018 10:08 am

BBB, I think she knew he was holding some things back.

I caught some Red Speak in him! Lol
He did not answer a few things, he went right to something else. She has learned to pick up on that dealing with Red.

In the preview Red is telling someone that 'the Apple didn't fall far from the tree, you'll see'. I think it was Dom.
I think Dom will see Liz isn't going to let go of this.

Wouldn't it be something if she was in his barn looking around? I f she sees the pictures she drew as a child she will know something is up.

Well, off to RL for a while!

Eastcoast · 2/08/2018 10:13 am

Tuxie, 140, i wondered that too. It would be something if he was Tommy Markin (I don't see how that will work if he is connected with the fire - that's too deep)
or if he was Garveys boss!!!

lara1 · 2/08/2018 10:14 am

Eastcoast:
"I caught some Red Speak in him! Lol
He did not answer a few things, he went right to something else. She has learned to pick up on that dealing with Red. "

Agreed! back to Rederina for a moment, that is what got me started thinking about it in this episode. Red and Dom very alike. And then Dom's comment to Liz about her eyes, brought me right back to what I still think was haunting, the intense close up of Red's eyes when interrogated by Kirk. Also, in Season 1, there were several scenes where the lighting was set up so that it fell in a diagonal across Red's eyes, but the rest of his face was in comparative shadow.

I think the conversation between Dom and Red on the phone had the intensity of a family conversation. That too. Of course one of my ideas is that Dom is Red's father, which idea of course has holes in it. And another reason I don't think Red is Li's father. but with Dom, something more than an "in law".

Of course, these are just my impressions and personal to me. could be way off and others will no doubt read it differently.

Eastcoast · 2/08/2018 10:17 am

Lara, if there's one thing that Garvey knows, it is that Red is someone to be contended with and He is much bigger than He is. ( he is after all Moby Dick ) that cracked me up!

He would have to be very very careful crossing Red if he doesn't want to end up like the Director or Jasper!

Eastcoast · 2/08/2018 10:18 am

And does anyone else think the cop told Liz about that rag because he figured she might try to steal it?

I had wondered about him when he first came in her apartment and was looking around. But when he told her about the rag that's when I got that funny feeling about him.

lara1 · 2/08/2018 10:23 am

One last comment for now, and that is the increasing mention of green or the color green as the episodes progress.

Last time, we had a couple of mentions of green and Red sat beneath a green lamp in Tadashi's basement
In this episode, when Red meets Willie in the diner, he is filmed with a bright green glass vase behind him, which is again that bright green, looks like a light. And Anna worked for a green energy companhy. (Also, wasn't Anna the woman who worked for the endling princess? I could have that completely wrong)

I can't remember now all of the green references, but Ive been noting them, and think The Endling, the horse farm I believe was in Ireland, and Kilgannon was another Irish connection (green being the main color associated with Ireland, well at least the Republic).

The last time I noticed a lot of green building was in the Kaplan arc last season. I don't know exactly what it means, but it is building again, or rather, maybe, never left.

Last edited by lara1 (2/08/2018 10:24 am)

Tuxie400 · 2/08/2018 10:25 am

lara1 - It is weird that Willie's last name is Wilkes and Dom is Wilkinson. I think Willie's purpose was to remind us of a cut up body, set up the accidental shooting, and to give Red info about the Nash Drug Syndicate. I'm not sure whether Dom knows details about the suitcase body or not. This plot becomes more complex with each episode. And the more I think about it, the less certain I am about anything.

The accidental shooting keeps rattling around in my brain. That's what I think is connected to the suitcase body. We had Ressler accidentally killing Hitchins and Liz accidentally killing Navarro. What if Red accidentally killed whoever the suitcase skeleton is? But maybe not at all. Another week with no solid clues at all about that suitcase body.

2/08/2018 10:33 am

I've been thinking what Garvey could want from Red. He talked about harnessing Red's power back when Tom was alive, but he isn't making big attempts at it now. I think Garvey has figured out even more in the year or so since then and has decided to go bigger. I was thinking back to how Red said that KR took secrets with her, and even if she is dead and in the suitcase, Garvey could suspect that Red has those secrets and other sensitive information from KR that if it were exposed to certain parties would put an even bigger target on Red (and likely Liz, since Garvey has made a connection).

If she's alive (my pet theory), Red protecting/hiding her is a big thing. She could be sought out to be killed or to turn over those secrets to other parties. Or Red could be keeping her prisoner to prevent her from rejoining the spy world. And if she is indeed on the island, I'd be over the moon.

lara1 · 2/08/2018 10:33 am

Tuxie400 - agree with you about Willie. the scene within a scene would be an interesting tie with the suitcase body.

And I absolutely agree that the plot is getting more complex. we have more answers, or do we? as there are many more questions! haha

That's an interesting observation about the accidental shootings. And remember, Liz supposedly accidentally shot her father. So an accidental shooting may be involved here.

I was also thinking last night whether Red is in part living under an alias because of what happened to his family. Maybe that was the result of an accidental shooting, and payback from whomever. some parallels to the willie story also. maybe!

Tuxie400 · 2/08/2018 10:36 am

Eastcoast wrote:
And does anyone else think the cop told Liz about that rag because he figured she might try to steal it?

I had wondered about him when he first came in her apartment and was looking around. But when he told her about the rag that's when I got that funny feeling about him.

Eastcoast - I hadn't thought of that, but it could be. Detective Singleton was the one who told her where to find members of the Nash Drug Syndicate, and that took led her to Navarro. So maybe Singleton thought Liz or Reddington would retrieve the evidence. In Abraham Stern, I kept wondering why Red didn't just have Coco the dog guy get his penny. He already had an inside man in the evidence department.

Big Badd Bazzer · 2/08/2018 10:36 am

It just dawned on me that Red might have Mr. T (detective on Liz like a dog on a bone) under his thumb. Red's tentacles seem to extend into far-reaching places - many unexpected......

Tuxie400 · 2/08/2018 10:37 am

Redismycopilot - Thanks for the link to the marshal's fugitive stuff.

IowaWatcher · 2/08/2018 12:35 pm

Lots and lots of good stuff on this thread -- have to go back to work this afternoon, so I don't have time to comment on all of the good points individually, but there's certainly a lot of chew on for the next two weeks!

My little addition: what if Dom is actually the father of the "fake" (Russian) Red, and the imposter is Liz's real father. The bones in the suitcase belong to the "real" Red, who is not her father. KR is alive but well hidden from Red.

I'm making myself dizzy.

More after I've re-watched this episode.

Honey West · 2/08/2018 4:17 pm

lara1 wrote:
Honey West wrote:
I haven’t read the discussion yet but all I can say is Oleander is Dom!

That, and I think, even more than before, that Red is still up,to his neck in the spy biz and unless they definitively tell us the bones belong to Katarina, then she is still alive. And living on Reds secret getaway island.
hi HoneyWest. I think I remember you suggesting a while back that Red may be holding KR prisoner in some way, either with her approval (as in hiding/protecting her) or not.

This has got me thinking - about that comment back in Season 3 where Red said he's now not sure he knows whatever happened to Katerina. And I was thinking, all these people telling Red to tell Liz the truth, she deserves to know. What could it be? It has to be family related. Some of us thought at one time or another thet Liz had special powers.

We've seen how Kirk had an illness and KR writing that Masha was spared because it could not be inherited through the female genetic line. Just a stretch - but what if KR had some kind of illness that ultimately lead to her being locked away? And Liz may have it too. It could be something rare that hasn't manifested yet. I don't know, there's nothing that really points to that in the storyline. Only possible clues around it. But it would be something that Liz deserved to know.

Unless of course KR is on the island, if she is, of her own free will. Lots of keys to boxes in this show!!

I thought that maybe she was being hidden or protected because she was in a vegetative state or something possibly caused by whatever "went wrong" that Dom referenced and that many of us have felt was the incident that set off Red's current lifestyle and away from that promising Navy career. He probably had the opportunity to let things lie and just walk away, but chose the path of revenge and darkness that he warned Ressler about in Mako Tanida.

As for Liz, I still think that Katarina’s pregnancy was no mistake and that Red was manipulated into getting together with her in order to have that special child. Perhaps they were both warrior gene carriers or super warriors? Maybe there was a psychological or physiological defect that could be passed along with the desirable qualities and Katarina had it and they worry that it could happen to Liz and that’s why she should be told? Who knows. They did all kinds of weird stuff during the Cold War on both sides. And we know the CIA was after Dom, too. Was it because he was a "Russian operative" or something to do with MKUlttra?

I was also thinking it was interesting that Kate’s final message, via Dennison to Tom, was to "find Oleander" and that when Red thought things could end badly he told a Dom to find Liz. Dom/Oleander is clearly a key part of the puzzle.

Tuxie400 · 2/08/2018 4:44 pm

Here's another wild theory I'm going to throw out. I've been thinking all season about Red's cons and how grifters fit into the picture. What if Red as counterintelligence was running a group pretending to be Soviet spies for the purpose of spreading disinformation and outing spies on both sides of the Cold War? It would explain how Sam knew both Raymond and Katarina. The Bethesda apartment was possibly staged as their operations base, and they recorded the people they met with their with the spy clock. This idea also fits with the Ilyas Surkov episode about a group masquerading as a government entity.

I still believe Katarina grew up mostly in the U.S, based on the Take 12 game and other items in her trunks. Dom lived in that brown house with the blue door prior to the fire in 1989 because it was in Masha's drawing. So that stuff about coming to the U.S. after the end of the Cold War is BS. I think Dom as Oleander was either a fake operative or a double agent.

lara1 · 2/08/2018 6:18 pm

Tuxie400 -

"I still believe Katarina grew up mostly in the U.S, based on the Take 12 game and other items in her trunks. Dom lived in that brown house with the blue door prior to the fire in 1989 because it was in Masha's drawing. So that stuff about coming to the U.S. after the end of the Cold War is BS. I think Dom as Oleander was either a fake operative or a double agent."

I also think Dom was in the US prior to 1989 given the toys in the garage, particularly the Bronx Zoo box, but I think he may have been in England first. I remember reading somewhere that Take 12 was a UK version of a US game, I can't remember which one. But I still think it was before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. I didn't catch whether Cooper said he came to the US after the Cold War or not. He said Oleander was a Soviet operative during the Cold War. but that could have meant 1950s-early 1960s, or even mid 60s-late sixties and could have brought Katerina's things with them.

It could also be that he was some kind of double operative or something else was up with the CIA or even MI-5, where Red also has contacts. So the "CIA file" story may not be completely true. I tend to think it is though, but I do agree that something else was going on.

I guess we'll have to stay tuned! LOL

Last edited by lara1 (2/08/2018 6:18 pm)

lara1 · 2/08/2018 6:31 pm

Tuxie400 - when do you think Masha was at Dom's house? Which drawing has the blue door - the one in the fire, or the one in Dom's garage? Since she was mainly at the Summer Palace (did that have a blue door possibly?)

Although now that I think of it, maybe Dom wasn't at that house prior to 1989. didn't he kind of describe it as the place that he crawled to, in order to escape, so no one could find him? its possible he lived somewhere else, in the US, but then moved. Makes sense he would take KR's things with him, like they were still in storage in his basement or whatever, and he took them with him. No one seems to know where he is, so it makes sense he wasn't at his current house prior to 1989. AT least to me. But in the US, yes.

I feel like this is starting to get confusing again, LOL.

Tuxie400 · 2/08/2018 6:35 pm

This week's Red Time Warp moment. He said he has some old VHS tapes in a storage locker:

a bunch of Laurel and Hardy's (1920s-1940s)
Singing in the Rain (1952) and the most interesting
The Conversation, a 1974 thriller starring Gene Hackman as Harry Caul, a surveillance expert who faces a moral dilemma when his recordings reveal a potential murder. By the way, Hackman's office is enclosed in wire mesh in the corner of a much larger warehouse. lara1 - I thought you appreciate the fencing aspect.