The Blacklist Refugees » About Mr. Kaplan,

Eastcoast · 3/01/2018 12:51 am

I was wondering something about Mr. K. Is it possible that what they said was a front so that others didn't know they had a connection? There was a man in the background when Kate spoke to Red. Maybe he did not want him to know there was a previous connection to her? He seamed to keep some things/people apart from each other. Maybe he didn't want Sam to know he had Kate spying on KR?

Her timeline in No way adds up about herself at all. I think we said before that all those details seamed like a bit much for her age. Did Red tell Liz something that we do not know yet? She said by his side for 30 years?

This would answer how she may have been helping him with Han and the other things that do not add up?

Honey West · 3/01/2018 3:09 am

I agree. In fact I believe that Red is the one who sent her to Katarina to watch over Masha and also to spy on Katarina. Or, if not spy on her, to help her with her special skills. Just what an assassin needs, a good cleaner.

lara1 · 3/01/2018 8:22 am

I have been thinking about this since last night and I know we discussed this possibility st the time.

Here’s a thought: maybe Kate was hired by Red earlier on and they never met or met infrequently. Like when Red hired Tombut they did not meet. Maybe she didnt know who he was til later on. Not sure where Red was 1990-1992 and then 1992-1994. She could have worked for him but not know at the time she may not have even known his identity at all.

Then in1994 there is new danger in Liz’s life. Why, we don’t exactly know. So “Red” appears to enlist her help, working more clisely together

I’ll have to think that over for a while.

Honey West · 3/01/2018 9:44 am

Yeah, lara1, something like that.
The "you put her in my arms as a baby" may not have been literal anyway. Could refer to Red hiring her to go to work for Katarina. Did she know him personally at that time? Or just know she worked for him. And how do we know Kate wasn’t also an operative of some sort. We don’t know that. All we really know from Requiem is Kate’s story to get herself hired by Katarina. And wouldn’t clever Katarina, the Russian spy and secret keeper have had Kate and her odd background checked out? I think she knew who sent Kate.

Tuxie400 · 3/01/2018 9:49 am

It doesn't make sense to me that she would be working for Red in 1992 but in Amarillo in 1993.

Eastcoast · 3/01/2018 9:52 am

I wondered that too guys. Maybe that is why Red told her he was not really that unknown to her as she might like to believe. That is the only way i think the timeline can fit with her.
Maybe that is why we were shown the way Tom came to work for Red. He didn't know who he was at first either. Interesting that Sam, Tom and Kate all became attached to Liz through Red one way or another.

I wonder if there is anyone else?

Eastcoast · 3/01/2018 9:56 am

It seams like Red has always been able to get ahold of someone if he needed them. She may have been on call so to speak.
Just saw your post Tuxie after I posted.

Eastcoast · 3/01/2018 9:59 am

HW, I think that some things in this show have a meaning
like that. Reminds me of Berlin cutting his hand off.

Tatiana · 3/01/2018 10:01 am

My initial reaction when watching the Kaplan episode is that Kate was already in high level intelligence/criminal world. Her litany of relevant skills to become nanny for Masha was, to say the least, highly unusual for a nanny. And her interest in dead bodies is inconsistent with being a career nanny. Just my take.

I think being a nanny was more of a cover. To what degree she was already working for Red is unclear. But she was working in that world. What kind of nanny knows how to exsanguinate the body in the garden...

The mantra "there's more than one way to tell a story" keeps going through my head as we discuss these episodes. She is likely remembering these things in a positive light. She is so angry at Red that her memories are strongly in favor of Katarina. I think she was in love with Katarina and felt defensive of her.

Tuxie400 · 3/01/2018 10:06 am

Tatiana - I agree with you that her background and skills were at odds with her nanny profession. And her knowledge of languages, more than anything, made her a top candidate to be an operative.

Tatiana · 3/01/2018 10:20 am

Tuxie400 wrote:
Tatiana - I agree with you that her background and skills were at odds with her nanny profession. And her knowledge of languages, more than anything, made her a top candidate to be an operative.

Tuxie - yes! it was her extensive knowledge of languages that was the big tip-off, I believe.

IowaWatcher · 3/03/2018 10:39 am

I'm a spoil sport, I know! However, I'm chalking up a lot of the ill-fitting details to writing continuity problems.
I don't think Mr. Kaplan was ever supposed to have had that major of a role, but that's how it worked out when Tom was kept alive, so they came up with her back-story on the fly, so some there are some things that don't work.

It would be nice if at the end of the season, the show runners would come clean about that, especially if there are some missing pieces, which I expect there will be.

I miss Mr. Kaplan! I'm sorry they have to kill her off.

3/03/2018 10:52 am

IowaWatcher wrote:
I'm a spoil sport, I know! However, I'm chalking up a lot of the ill-fitting details to writing continuity problems.
I don't think Mr. Kaplan was ever supposed to have had that major of a role, but that's how it worked out when Tom was kept alive, so they came up with her back-story on the fly, so some there are some things that don't work.

It would be nice if at the end of the season, the show runners would come clean about that, especially if there are some missing pieces, which I expect there will be.

I miss Mr. Kaplan! I'm sorry they have to kill her off.

Same here, Iowawatcher. I know they've said Kaplan wasn't supposed to have a huge role in the beginning and they evolved her story as they show went on. They knew she would be the big bad going into season 4 (when she made that comment about Liz being put into her arms as a baby), but like you I think there is likely some shoddy reviewing of the scripts as they were written. I think everyone was stretched thin in season 4, even the ones not working on Redemption, because the Jons were busy between the two shows and some of the writers and producers left to go over to it and it was distracting.

But like Honey west, I also think Kaplan could have just been meaning that she worked for Red in a fashion because he was Katarina's lover and Liz's father, even if he may not have physically put her in Kaplan's arms, he still trusted her with his child. Katarina may have talked to him about Kaplan while considering whether to hire her, and she likely knew that if he didn't trust her to take care of his child that he would have intervened.

lara1 · 3/03/2018 3:16 pm

It was interesting to me that Kate didn't flinch when she went into the kitchen to see KR struggling with the potential assassin. And she didn't bat an eye when she kicked the knife to KR and basically watched her slit the guys' throat (or however she killed him). And she knew precisely how to bury the body and ex-sanguinate the body in the garden. Yeah she knew about bodies and corpses but to me it rang like she had done it before. And her nanny experience was either a cover story or she'd been busy as the nanny to what seemed like diplomatic families abroad. So I don't think we have the full story. I think they gave us a big piece with that episode, but only a piece.

Last edited by lara1 (3/03/2018 3:17 pm)

Tuxie400 · 3/03/2018 3:24 pm

From a writing standpoint, I can't imagine that they'll ever go back to Kaplan's backstory. We might see her in brief flashback like we saw Newton Phillips, but I just don't see them filling in anything else about her before her hiring as Liz's nanny.

Tatiana · 3/03/2018 3:55 pm

I'm not so sure they 'messed' up with the Mr. Kaplan storyline and the statements: you put her in my arms as a baby. In my mind, Red and Kaplan knew each other. I think this whole thing is very complicated, but there's so much back story. I'm convinced we will never know all of the story. Red tells Liz "I'm never going to tell you everything" and I think that's a cue to us. I think there will still be puzzles even after the filming ends.

Be that as it may, I suspect there were a lot of people who worked together, sometimes without even knowing each other, or never having met one another, from a long time ago, 30 years ago and beyond. I hope we get some of that back story. But if not, when it's all over it can be fodder for fan-fic.

lara1 · 3/03/2018 5:07 pm

I agree they are not going to re-hash all of Kaplan's backstory nor even necessary do flashbacks, but it could be alluded to or even tied up in a sentence or two. I think Oleander may be a connecting thread. But maybe not.

Tuxie400 · 3/03/2018 5:11 pm

lara1 - I hadn't thought that they might reveal some things about Kaplan in connection with Oleander. But that is a possibility.

3/03/2018 5:17 pm

I really hope we see Kaplan in flashbacks. Either younger or older. Both would be preferable. If she turns out to have been an operative or if she was exactly what we saw on screen, I would be fine with either.

Eastcoast · 3/03/2018 5:46 pm

They should do something in flashbacks. I think we all were talking about the way she was so calm before when it happened. That we thought she was a plant by someone. It is just too much for a nanny, lol