I had concluded the painting came from Rostova, ie, Katerina or whoever/whatever that is. I'm not convinced she's actually dead. But that's just me. If JB said it was Kirk then that solves it.

Lara - the thought occurred to me that Scottie could be a Rostova as well, but I think not.
 

Tatiana - so nice to see your comments!   I was confused by JB's comment that kirk sent the painting as Red clearly said a woman, and Rostova. Unless kirk did it that way to freak out Red. Maybe its something we will never know all the facts about...

Timbo59 - this is fascinating! Thanks for posting.

Being an entymology nerd, I wondered about the word 'Gnossienne'. The composer Erik Satie 'created' this word for these three pieces.

I found two fascinating "definitions" of the word. Remember that the apparent root of the word is 'gnosis' and I find it interesting that the suffix is in feminine form. This definition is fascinating in light of TBL

:gnossiennen. a moment of awareness that someone you’ve known for years still has a private and mysterious inner life, and somewhere in the hallways of their personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway leading to a wing of the house that you’ve never fully explored—an unfinished attic that will remain maddeningly unknowable to you, because ultimately neither of you has a map, or a master key, or any way of knowing exactly where you stand.   -- from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Wikipedia:
Satie's coining of the word gnossienne was one of the rare occasions when a composer used a new term to indicate a new "type" of composition. Satie used many novel names for his compositions (vexations, croquis et agaceries and so on). Ogive, for example, had been the name of an architectural element until Satie used it as the name for a composition, the Ogives. Gnossienne, however, was a word that did not exist before Satie used it as a title for a composition. The word appears to derive from gnosis. Satie was involved in gnostic sects and movements at the time that he began to compose the Gnossiennes.[1][/url] However, some published versions claim[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnossiennes#cite_note-a-1][1] that the word derives from Cretan "knossos" or "gnossus"; this interpretation supports the theory linking the Gnossiennes to the myth of Theseus, Ariadne and the Minotaur. Several archeological sites relating to that theme were famously excavated around the time that Satie composed the Gnossiennes.It is possible that Satie may have drawn inspiration for the title of these compositions from a passage in John Dryden's 1697 translation of the Aeneid, in which it is thought the word first appeared:[citation needed]
Let us the land which Heav'n appoints, explore;
Appease the winds, and seek the Gnossian shore.


 

OK, I've had some further thought on this reading through the links in Tatiana's post.

If you read through the link to gnosticism that Tatiana has included in her post, there is a section on "duality and monism".  I found that interesting to read while keeping in mind TBL.

The name "gnoissienne"  could be linked to any of the references mentioned in Tatiana's most, or even all of them.  None of them, even!  But I foud the gnostic references really interesting.

Last edited by lara1 (2/16/2017 1:35 pm)

Very interesting, Honey West. That makes the most sense of all the ideas we've heard so far.

Honey West # 68 - I like your idea of maybe Liz being the "key" to something - maybe Red's memories - maybe something else - and that's why he needs to know where she is so he can get to her when needed.  To take that a step further, is that one reason why he was so enraged when Kate spirited Liz away?  I think some of us speculated at the time that it would be bad for Red if Liz was somewhere where Red couldn't get to her, or know where she was, as she was part of his overall endgame.  And if she is a key, or somehow has a key, that might be it.

I agree with you about Katja in Monarch Douglas Bank.    I can't recall what happened to her at the end of that episode, but I did think that episode, exploring a facet of a kind of photographic memory - but more than that - recalling all sorts of details, facts, etc around a particular day, for example - was providing a clue of some sort to the overall story.

Thanks for referring back to that.

PS - and Katja at the summer palace - holding the key to some mysteries, there perhaps? 

Last edited by lara1 (2/16/2017 6:18 pm)

Just switching gears here for a moment, I was thinking about who could be after Red.

We know its someone who knows his organization, or at least, who does what.  So, the players (not necessarily the intricacies or details of the operations, but the main players - the accountant, the guy who ran his Mediterranean operations).  

So Natalie Luca says that Isabella Stone knew about her and what Natalie and Malik were doing (or that was the implication, I think,)  So who could know of Natalie?  Someone from Moldova? Someone  from Hawthorne?  I keep thinking that Hawthorne Logistics, or an affiliate of it, was in one of the earlier episodes in Season 1 or 2.  Not sure if anyone else remembers this.  It could be that I'm mis-remembering, or it was a name like Hawthorne (or Whitehall, I think that was one of their labs looking to develop the biological weapon)

I'm thinking that whoever is after Red may be connected with some of the principals from Hawthorne.  Not that I know who that is, mind you!

Honey West and Lara - I like where you're going with Liz having something in her memory that Red wants, either secreted away or to access.

Earlier in this series, I often thought that Elizabeth's scar held the key, either figuratively or literally. Could something have been embedded under the skin? But I had discarded that idea larter.

The memory thing and Katja are compelling.