Deadkei13 - I too have a question mark over Naomi, mainly because of the other "fake" deaths.  But then, they pointedly showed Naomi's grave along with Sam, Diane Fowler, etc. so that got me thinking that it was true.  And by grouping her with the others, the implication is that Red killed her.  But I need to re-watch that sequence.

lara1 wrote:

Deadkei13 - I too have a question mark over Naomi, mainly because of the other "fake" deaths.  But then, they pointedly showed Naomi's grave along with Sam, Diane Fowler, etc. so that got me thinking that it was true.  And by grouping her with the others, the implication is that Red killed her.  But I need to re-watch that sequence.

I wonder if they didn't group Naomi with others that we know are dead to thwart the idea that her death is fake. I don't think Red was personally responsible for her death because he was so confused when Jennifer brought him to the cemetery. To me, he really seemed to think Garvey likely gave the bones to Naomi. Have you rewatched the episode where that stuff happened?

My suspects for who killed Naomi:

1. A random shooter
2. Frank or his girlfriend
3. Someone who was trying to help Red keep his secret: Dembe, some unknown "insider," Dom?
4. Someone who was trying to hurt Red: Kaplan

 

Last edited by Tuxie400 (5/22/2018 9:51 am)

Eastcoast wrote:

I started my re-watch and I decided to do it differently this time.  I would recommend that everyone try this one thing.  I wanted to watch it with a timeline in mind to see if my ideas would be the same or different. 
​So I watched The Requiem first. This way I had the background before he turned himself in. 
I watched the parts with her as a child and the part just before Red turns himself in. 
 

That's a good approach. I need to re-watch. When Requiem first came out, I was very doubtful that Mr. Kaplan's memory was reliable. But maybe it is. Looking forward to your comments!

I agree: I think Frank or his girlfriend killed Naomi. I don't think Red was directly responsible for that
death.

I wonder if the "ultimate truth" is which side he is on: US or Russia? He may have been pretending
to be a double agent when that wasn't the truth at all.

I wish they would get back to the spy stuff. It was more interesting than the bag of bones.

I hope that if they drag this story arc of "Who is Red?" out for an entire season that they make it more interesting than the bag of bones.  There are only so many mysterious  references to 'truth' and 'secret' that can go on before it gets dreary, especially between people who both know the whole story.   Frankly I'd rather we get the answer as to who he is by mid-season and have more time to explore the why he did this and the potential fall out of the truth of his real identity coming to life.  What would be interesting would be if Liz were able to accept Red once she learns the truth and doesn't go through with the plan to destroy him and Jennifer ends up becoming the next big bad because she does want to go through with it.  I imagine it depends on if they have prospects for a 7th season.  Otherwise, they'll probably play out the Liz destroys Red scenario or Red willingly takes himself out of the picture for her sake. 

Last edited by Brittany (5/22/2018 11:28 am)

Brittany wrote:

I hope that if they drag this story arc of "Who is Red?" out for an entire season that they make it more interesting than the bag of bones.  There are only so many mysterious  references to 'truth' and 'secret' that can go on before it gets dreary, especially between people who both know the whole story.   Frankly I'd rather we get the answer as to who he is by mid-season and have more time to explore the why he did this and the potential fall out of the truth of his real identity coming to life.  What would be interesting would be if Liz were able to accept Red once she learns the truth and doesn't go through with the plan to destroy him and Jennifer ends up becoming the next big bad because she does want to go through with it.  I imagine it depends on if they have prospects for a 7th season.  Otherwise, they'll probably play out the Liz destroys Red scenario or Red willingly takes himself out of the picture for her sake. 

I definitely agree!  And I think Liz vs. Red is not a very conductive ending.  I mean we already saw Kaplan vs. Red--which was equal parts amazing and heartbreaking--so I really don't want to go down that road, again. 

I would be interested in seeing what kind of secrets Jennifer has, though.  Figure at first, I thought she was just an innocent player, more or less, who wasn't even aware that she was in some kind of game--but then at the end, working with Elizabeth, she came across as quite more seasoned, if that makes any sense?  I don't know.  I can't quite pinpoint it yet, but I feel like there could be a lot more to Jennifer.

Here's my attempt at solving the Blacklist riddle, brought to you as dialogue between Red and Mr. Kaplan before they moved RealRed's bones.  I'm not a writer so it's kind of cheeky, it just seemed the easiest way to get the story out. FR - fakeRed ;  MK - Mr Kaplan.    Obviously this is just one theory.  But for me it makes all the puzzle pieces fit. Sorry it's so long, it's a convoluted (yet simple) story.   

FR: Kate, there's something I need to tell you. I am not Raymond Reddington and we need to move the real Raymond Reddington's bones immediately or Masha will be in great danger.
MK: what? whoa!  Who are you?
FR: I am a Russian spy who worked for a Spetnatz mastermind named Oleander. He ran a village in Russia that trained Russian agents to step into the lives of Americans and impersonate them and take over their lives in America without anyone being the wiser.  I was trained to impersonate Raymond Reddington so that I could steal the fulcrum from the Cabal and have them think it was Raymond who did it.  I was supposed to steal the fulcrum as Reddington, leave enough of an evidence trail to eventually lead back to him, and then kill him.  It wasn't a long term assignment, I was supposed to get in and get out. I used Katarina and her knowledge of Reddington to get background on him but she never knew my intent was to impersonate her lover.  Reddington started out as one of her assignments but it got personal for her and she couldn't or wouldn't follow through so it was handed to me instead. Oleander was especially not happy with her affair and hoped this would finally put an end to it.  I knew Katarina well, she and I were old Russian childhood friends who grew up together, as was Sam, who was also in the Oleander program and had settled in the USA years before my operation began.
MK: Sam is a russian spy too? Who is this Oleander person?
FR:  Oleander is not important anymore, he's not a threat, forget I mentioned him.  And yes, Sam is a russian as well.  An old friend of both Katarina and myself.  I left behind a wife and child in Russia, who were killed in revenge, but I am getting ahead of myself.    Let's get back to that night.  With some plastic surgery and excellent make up and prosthetics I had succesfully become Raymond Reddington and I did steal the fulcrum posing as him.  I was supposed to kill the real Raymond and leave it at that so that when the Cabal eventually put it all together as to who took it and blamed him, he'd be dead and they'd have no where to look for the fulcrum. But Katarina found out what I did, and she was furious at me that I used her and furious at Oleander for sending me on the mission in the first place. She had developed real feelings for Reddington and begged me to spare his life.  It was when she told me Reddington, and not her husband Alexander, was the father of Masha that she had me convinced to go along with her pleas to let him live.
MK: I suspected Raymond Reddington may have been Masha's father.
FR: Meanwhile the real Raymond found out  the fulcrum was stolen and thought Katarina had stolen it using information he gave her and so he came to Russia, to where he knew she was staying to find it and get it back from her. Instead he found me, an impersonator who looked just like him. He was quite shocked, as you can imagine, and we had a huge fight, he knocked me unconscious but didn't kill me. He wanted to leave me alive to turn into the cabal to inform them of this imposter program the russians had. He stole back the fulcrum intending to turn it and me over to the Cabal, and he took Masha with him as well, partly out of hatred for what he assumed was Katarina's betrayal and duplicity, unaware that Katarina had no part in my operation and had real feelings for him, even stopped me from killing him,  and partly because he knew she was his child.  As fate would have it,  Katarina had gone out for just a few minutes to cool off after we had had another fight over what I did to her and Reddington by impersonating him to steal the fulcrum.   If Katarina had been home none of this would have happened.
MK: what happened next?
FR: when Katarina came back and found me unconscious on the floor and Masha missing, at first she thought that it was Alexander who had recently discovered her affair with Reddington and wanted his daughter back. But when I came to and told her it was Reddington, that he was taking Masha to America and that he stole the fulcrum, we both panicked.  We knew Oleander would be furious that we lost the fulcrum, that I didn't kill Reddington when I had the chance, that I told Katarina that it was Oleander himself who hatched the plot, turning Katarina against him.  And more importantly we knew the Russians would never forgive any of us for our screw up.  Mine for letting Reddington live and letting him see me, jeopardizing the entire impersonation program, and letting him recover the fulcrum. Hers for interfering with my operation and having me spare Reddington's life.  And of course she wanted her baby back. So we got together with a few other spies we trusted and followed Reddington back to the USA to get back Masha and to retrieve the fulcrum once and for all.
MK: I remember that night.
FR: Yes, and as you know things got terribly out of hand. Masha ended up shooting Reddington and I, already in a weakened state from my first run in with Reddington, and really I should never been allowed to fly with the massive concussion I had, was easily overpowered again.   Katarina could only pull one body out of that house before the firetrucks got there and she decided that pulling Reddington's body out of the house to protect anyone from finding out Masha killed him was more important than saving me, who I'm sure she blamed for everything going sidewise. She knew I wasn't going to die, she could hear the sirens approaching the house.  "Tell them you're reddington, do it for masha" she said, actually commanded, to me as she left the house.   
MK: and you did.
FR: Yes. When the rescuers pulled me out, I looked enough like Reddington and could feel the burnt flesh on my face that would further mask my appearance, and blaming myself for the entire fiasco - not killing him when I was ordered to, letting him get the fulcrum, letting him kidnap Masha, and feeling responsible for Masha murdering her father - I did as she said.    Carla figured it out almost immediately when they brought me home.  I had burns over the back of my body, some on my face as well, but she knew.  I told her that the people who put me there would kill her real husband (she didn't know he was already dead), her and her child if she didn't go along with me, and so she did. Meanwhile, after a few months, Reddington's message to the cabal turned up. I didn't know he left one, but he had and it was lost for a while but it did make its way to the Cabal.   The message was that he found an impersonator of his living in Russia who had stolen the fulcrum.  They put two and two together, and realized I was the fake Reddington as I had never revealed the fake to them after I recovered.  And now they were coming for me.  I knew Carla and Jennifer's lives were in danger so I immediately abandoned them.  Meanwhile my real family was killed  - I don't know by whom.  The Russians? the Cabal? To this day I don't know what happened to them.   And now they are going to dig up Reddingon's bones and let the world know I am an imposter.  I can't let that happen.  If they dig up those bones, the forensics of the angle of the gun shot will show he was shot by someone very very short, only fitting a child, and Masha's life will be ruined. I need you to go with me and dig up the bones and move them. Sam knows where they are, he helped Katarina bury them before she disappeared.  Will you help me?
MK - yes, but what about the Cabal. How will you keep Masha safe now?
FR - I will tell them I have the fulcrum. I will tell them if they leave me alone, and leave Masha alone, I will keep their secret for them, but if they ever betray me, I will leave a safeguard in place to release it to the world.  
MK - but do you even have the fulcrum?
FR - no, but they don't know that. And that is what is going to keep me and Masha alive.   It was my fault Reddington kidnapped her in the first place, it was my fault that night turned out the way it did. It is my fault she murdered her own father.  She is my responsibility and I will watch out for her for as long as I am alive.  I owe that to Katarina and I owe it Masha.
~~~~
That puts all the puzzle pieces together for me in my own mind without FakeRed being Katarina. I am not discounting the Redorina theory, I'm just presenting an alternate one.  And if this is the story, FakeRed can either be a childhood friend of Katarina's, or her brother. If he is her brother, he never disclosed that, or that Oleander was her/theirfather, to Mr. Kaplan.    What he did to Katarina that he was afraid Liz wouldn't forgive him for was go behind her back to frame Raymond who Katarina loved so much she went off her own mission (to target him) to save him; and one of the many reasons Dom was so mad at him was because he let her know it was Dom who gave him that mission, causing a rift between Dom and Katarina in her last days and making her feel she couldn't go back to him when everything fell apart.  Kaplan apologized to Katarina for digging up the bones and planning to let Liz know that her father really was dead and the FakeRed was actually a fake because it was Katarina who gave Red the order to continue being the fake.  A great final, final twist would be if Katarina has been alive all this time; watching FakeRed and Liz, and Mr. Kaplan, and Dom, and Sam, and the cabal, and Carla, through the years.

PS - Obviously I have too much time on my hands.  

 

And via Twitter I see blacklistdeclassified.net has a great list of season 5 unanswered questions going.

I think my story fits all the unanswered questions on that site but it may need some tweaking.  I think if Sam was a russian spy, leaving Masha with him would have been too dangerous. So maybe he was someone they met on a mission, after all he was a conman and grifter. Maybe they befriended him and only those two knew him so that's why Katarina chose him to leave the baby with.  I think that's need rethinking.

But meanwhile a reference to the episode Lady Ambrosia on that site with the questions had me digging out my dvd and rewatching it.   MIND BLOWN.  I think Katarina showed up in that episode!   If you can rewatch it, definitely watch it again.  The actress who plays the Russian who gives Red the glastnost file - could she actually be Katarina?  Look how similar she is to Lotte Verbeek in appearance.  Too much of a coincidence.  Her name is Jelena Stupljanin.  (scroll down to next post, I figured out how to post pictures of both of them)

Here's the dialogue between them.  And who is Nikolai? Could that be FakeRed's real identity? Were they just talking in 3rd person as part of their spy training to maintain cover or do they both consider Nikolai to be "dead" now that he has so fully morphed into Raymond Reddington?  In the discussion about her daughter they're talking about a little girl named Anya who was kidnapped and saved by Red at the end of the episode. But in typical Blacklist fashion, could this conversation be a double entrendre? Are they also in subtext talking about Masha?  Has Katarina been alive this whole time, has Red known where to find her?  Has she really stayed out of Liz's and Dom's life?  There's so much potential in storytelling here, this alone could take up a whole season

- I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important.
- How did you find me?
- What you endured, most people never recover from. I doubt I would have. But you've turned it into a calling. Nikolai would be proud.
- I never blamed him for what happened. He blamed himself.
- The Glasnost files-- there's something in them I need to see.
- That was another life.
- One of the bravest men I ever knew was deaf- [snip..a long Red story] The Glasnost files.
- I said no.
- What if I could give you answers about your daughter? Would that change your mind?
- The only thing that could change my mind is you bringing her back. But since that's not possible, the answer is no.


 

Last edited by KathyN (5/23/2018 3:35 pm)

I found that scene on youtube, between the russian woman who had Katarina's file and Red.  I'm thinking now I should not have snipped out his story about his deaf cellmate who was signing "my wife, my daughter, my life". Watch her expressions.  I think this episode was a major hint but at the time we didn't know what Katarina looked like and at least I overlooked it. Maybe back then there was discussion about who she was on the other boards (?).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9zg4S-GHew

to compare her to young Katarina, you can see her on youtube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19KwzDqPbcs

or here, and in this clip it is clear Masha was stolen from their home in Canada, not Russia. In my theory, it's FakeRed's fault she was taken, so FakeRed had to have been there too.  Katarina said she was stolen from the 'campus'.  Was she in school? Was FakeRed her bodyguard there? Is that where he ran into RealRed? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSEeJUVKL8E