Honey West wrote:

I’m with you, Eastcoast. I was ready for some Cabal shenanigans at the very least.

Curious to hear what you think of The Stranger. I lean towards him being Ilya. And they were either childhood friends or related somehow. The truck comment. I haven’t ruled out them all being part of some Cold War plotting, either.

But, whatever, I am looking forward to a season seven with, hopefully, lots of spy stuff. I love it when they go there!

My feeling was The Stranger was Ilya.  For those who don't believe Red is Katarina, and I still do, perhaps Ilya, Katarina, and Red were all raised together as children as part of a Soviet program to produce super spies with warrior genes.
 

Hello Everyone! I hope you are all well.

As usual I'm weeks behind in reading posts, including for the season finale, but wanted to mention a few things before I forgot them. Please forgive me if I post things that were already discussed.

I absolutely loved, loved, loved this episode. Six seasons completed and The Blacklist still excites, surprises, and intrigues. I didn't have a chance this season to read many spoilers, so the final scene in Paris blew me away.

The finale seemed to be an homage to The Manchurian Candidate, complete with an oil painting of Abe Lincoln in the background of a scene in the White House. In Manchurian Candidate (the original movie starting Frank Sinatra), Abe Lincoln paintings or busts repeatedly appeared to contrast Lincoln's honesty with communist traitor/spies.

I always wondered if The Blacklist's repeated use of the American flag was the same idea. Every episode has at least one American flag, some placed in odd spots or brief shots so for me it's become a game to find them. Reminds me of the pineapples in Psych :-)

Anyway, we've discussed before how The Blacklist parallels The Manchurian Candidate. Now I want to rewatch the movie.

Other interesting things: Agnes didn't remember Red. It's normal for a child to forget very early memories. But of all the possibilities that the writers could have scripted for Agnes to say, the writers chose to highlight that she didn't remember him (ok, and that he's funny looking, which was cute). Made me think of how Elizabeth doesn't remember much of her early childhood because of her memory was wiped.

Elizabeth wanted princess stuff for Agnes' return home.  There were one or two times in recent episodes where "princess" popped up, but I'll have to recheck my notes...

The stranger referred to Raymond by Raymond, not Red, not Reddington, not Ilya, not any other alias. The writers could have easily had the stanger not call him anything during their conversations, but they chose Raymond. Maybe that's a clue, especially since they're childhood friends and both know Dom.

So much to think about. We're going to be busy sleuthing and theorizing during this break between seasons :-)

Colleen - I did think it was strange that Agnes didn't remember Red at all. The show said Red kept her for the 10 months Liz was in a coma.  But I guess children younger than 4 really don't remember much. I'm surprised she remembers Liz.

Tuxie400 wrote:

BBB - About Panabaker - I thought it was implied she was the person at Homeland Security that Red had on his payroll.  If she is, I'm not sure how honest that really makes her.

Could very well be. If that's the case Panabaker has done a superlative job evading detection!
 

Children don't generally remember much from birth to 4, primarily because they're so busy learning how to do things like sit up, talk, walk, ABCs and 123s. It's a very busy time of life!

Manchurian Candidate for sure. "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."

The one thing I am sure of is this Katarina, whoever she is or whatever she represents, will emerge the new Raymond Reddington. I don't know how. But that last scene was visually impactful:
She is walking to the left of screen, he follows her, she turns around, kiss, injects him, he falls to the ground and is carried away. She stoops down to pick up his fedora off the sidewalk. She holds it between her two fingers next to her trench coat, just like Red did. But the important thing is that she it walking in the direction from which came Red. She is walking to the right of screen.
Why is this important?
First, diagonals imply action or movement. Second, Westerners are oriented from left to right. We see moving across the screen to the right as going toward something, we see moving across the screen to left as going away from something.
So this Katarina is replacing Red. 
Not just because she knocks him out but because she has him removed, she now possesses the Reddington Icon, the fedora, and she moves from left to right, from dark to light, from Katarina to Red. From past to present,

At least, that's what I saw 

Last edited by Tatiana (5/20/2019 8:55 pm)

Tatiana wrote:

The one thing I am sure of is this Katarina, whoever she is or whatever she represents, will emerge the new Raymond Reddington. I don't know how. But that last scene was visually impactful:
She is walking to the left of screen, he follows her, she turns around, kiss, injects him, he falls to the ground and is carried away. She stoops down to pick up his fedora off the sidewalk. She holds it between her two fingers next to her trench coat, just like Red did. But the important thing is that she it walking in the direction from which came Red. She is walking to the right of screen.
Why is this important?
First, diagonals imply action or movement. Second, Westerners are oriented from left to right. We see moving across the screen to the right as going toward something, we see moving across the screen to left as going away from something.
So this Katarina is replacing Red. 
Not just because she knocks him out but because she has him removed, she now possesses the Reddington Icon, the fedora, and she moves from left to right, from dark to light, from Katarina to Red. From past to present,

At least, that's what I saw 

Ooh, I love this analysis of the symbolism!  How will Katarina Version 2.0 replace Red?  That's something to think about over the break.  
 

Wow! That's cool, Tuxie!

Yes, I'm glad they're back to the spy stuff.

Random thought: I suspect the stuff about the president/cabal got rewritten at the last minute for some reason. I didn't really like "the president hit two people" either. It feels like they needed something to close that arc quickly. Maybe they didn't want to go with the cabal story right now or -- Maybe! -- someone had a brainstorm of a better way to approach season 7, so they brought in KR in the present day.

I'm not complaining. I'm sure the reasoning will be clearer when we see all of season 7, but it did feel really abrupt to me.

As for Agnes, I don't know what's going on there. We really don't know what happened while Liz was in a coma. Red might've told Liz he was with Agnes, but she might've really been with someone else. I suspect the writers are either leaving that open or have another storyline that they may introduce later.

I love this show, but I think they should wrap it up in season 7, putting all of their energy into some great storytelling and also introducing a few new quirky characters. Red needs a cleaner! Someone efficient but weird!

If you haven't noticed I tend to stay away from the over-arching questions of where to go with the arc, the main characters, etc. TBL has become famous for unresolved answers to mostly unresolved questions.

But I have discovered a GIFT . . .

The following song by Valerie Broussard would be incredible as The Blacklist them. Its called "TROUBLE" so one would think of being "Raymond's Theme". NO?

I think not - the most dangerous character on S7 of TBL will no doubt be Liz. I think "TROUBLE" suits her (and the show) to a T. Let me know what you think? We've got a few months before episodes resume . . . .

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Valerie+Broussard+Trouble+Vimeo&&view=detail&mid=2773D542D16DFAC5A7462773D542D16DFAC5A746&&FORM=VRDGAR

Tatiana wrote:

IowaWatcher wrote:

Random thought: I suspect the stuff about the president/cabal got rewritten at the last minute for some reason. I didn't really like "the president hit two people" either. It feels like they needed something to close that arc quickly. Maybe they didn't want to go with the cabal story right now or -- Maybe! -- someone had a brainstorm of a better way to approach season 7, so they brought in KR in the present day.

I'm not complaining. I'm sure the reasoning will be clearer when we see all of season 7, but it did feel really abrupt to me.

I love this show, but I think they should wrap it up in season 7, putting all of their energy into some great storytelling and also introducing a few new quirky characters. Red needs a cleaner! Someone efficient but weird!

Not a random thought! I had the same impression. I was very disappointed in this finale with regard to the arc for the season, which was supposed to be some kind of extraordinary evil/bad cabal like force that was going to take down America. And it all ended up being essentially a marital disagreement (really when you boil it down). There were no global players, there was no grand conspiracy, there was no national threat. There was just a politician trying to buy his election. Pfft. 

And I strongly agree, they need to put this to bed by next season. Yes, it's a serial/procedural but one of the things people like about that is the predictability: same characters, same set, same or similar outcome. This show doesn't do that really. And there's an overreaching arc which we may have got a few clues on recently, but those could go anywhere.

I think all of fandom will be very disappointed if they don't resolve a majority of those questions.

 
Yes, put this to bed!  I was wondering if they will start the season with this, or will they be talking about it as put behind them.

I like that song, BBB! It really fits.