The Blacklist Refugees » Season 5 Fall/Winter Hiatus Discussions

Tuxie400 · 2/28/2018 3:17 pm

Tatiana - I originally had a reference to the Sir Crispin Crandall thumb in my earlier post. I guess I deleted it when my sentence became unwieldy and forgot to add it at the end. Anyhow, we know Red won't hesitate to use body parts when necessary to keep Liz safe.

lara1 · 2/28/2018 4:14 pm

Tuxie400 - that is fascinating. You come up with such interesting facts! I never get those kind of results with my google searches, LOL

Well that is fascinating, and of course ties right in with all of the head imagery and facial stuff and my eye observations....as in only the "eyes" may be the original face.

Not sure if that quite lines up with Dembe's line of "what you did to Katerina", it would almost be the reverse, ie if KR's face was super-implanted onto Red's. - but I can't see a need for that....

getting away from KR for the moment - except was Red's face perhaps irretrievably burned in the fire - and he has the face of the "real" Reddington who was killed? Is that why "Red" looks so different to Carla? That would be a really gruesome twist - and that would gross out anyone I think, including Liz.....either way.

With the fingerprints, yeah that is a condundrum, but I have never thought the prints in the FBI file to be "real" as in the "real" RR. They were ordered by someone with the initials AF (Fitch?) in March 1989, I believe, if I remember correctly - but that was before the fire. And the left hand and right hand were sourced from different technologies which is odd....I would need to check that, its in the Liz Keen dossier.

Fascinating ideas though....if a tad out there and gruesome......but weirdly, does tie in with the story somewhat.....

Last edited by lara1 (2/28/2018 4:18 pm)

lara1 · 2/28/2018 4:16 pm

Also - I think there is more than one episode where a thumb of someone else is used for access, unless I'm mis-remembering that. Wasn't that in the Architect as well, or another episode?

lara1 · 2/28/2018 7:17 pm

So I re-watched 5.13 today (the INVISIBLE hand) and the digging up of the corpses at the toxic site reminded me of Kaplan and the corpses.....and Red says early in the ep how he loved ghost stories when he was young and mentions walking corpses.

HMMMMM

oh - so, KR was deemed a ghost. so is she a walking ghost and a walking corpse?

Last edited by lara1 (2/28/2018 7:18 pm)

lara1 · 2/28/2018 7:19 pm

and - anyone figure out a potential link to Star Wars in all of this?

Tatiana · 2/28/2018 7:19 pm

lara1 wrote:
So I re-watched 5.13 today (the INVISIBLE hand) and the digging up of the corpses at the toxic site reminded me of Kaplan and the corpses.....and Red says early in the ep how he loved ghost stories when he was young and mentions walking corpses.

HMMMMM

oh - so, KR was deemed a ghost. so is she a walking ghost and a walking corpse?

OHHHHHHHHHH wowowowow!!!

Eastcoast · 2/28/2018 7:50 pm

lara1 wrote:
and - anyone figure out a potential link to Star Wars in all of this?

Maybe it is a hint that there is a little sci-fi in this.... lol

Colleen · 3/01/2018 8:02 pm

Eastcoast wrote:
lara1 wrote:
and - anyone figure out a potential link to Star Wars in all of this?
Maybe it is a hint that there is a little sci-fi in this.... lol

Hi everyone! Finally caught up with reading the Redrina and Hiatus discussions. Absolutely fascinating and fun to read!

As for Star Wars, some parallels are:

Theme of good vs. evil

Good kids (Luke and Leia who are twins) have an evil dad (Darth Vader) but don't know it until they become adults - Luke was told his dad died (his dad "died" when he became Darth Vader)

Evil dad redeems himself in the end (by saving his child and dying in the process)

Darth Vader officially became full blown evil Darth Vader in a fire (molten lava counts as fire, right?)

Son has his hand cut off by his dad (bit more extreme than Liz's scar) - since we're on the topic of severed body parts - Wujing had a severed hand at the episode's beginning

I think Red mentioned psychologist Carl Jung - Star Wars draws heavily on Jung's theories

Someone could write a really cool term paper or even thesis comparing The Blacklist and Star Wars.

Eastcoast · 3/02/2018 12:36 am

Hello Colleen, Nice to see you were able to catch up!

Very nice parallels to Star Wars.
When I heard him mention Jung I was laughing and thinking about our personalities we did a while back. That was a lot of fun!

Tuxie400 · 3/02/2018 10:57 am

Colleen - Great stuff on the Star Wars/BL comparisons! Don't forget Berlin cut off his own hand.

I've been thinking about the Red character since I've always viewed him as Liz's mentor, as well as her protector. I think his personality is the perfect blending of Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader. He has the wisdom and empathy of Obi Wan and the ruthlessness of Vader. I thought about Liz too. She's more than Princess Leia. Her personality combrines traits of Leia, Luke and Han Solo. Like Luke, Liz is an idealist driven by her values. But she is also an action-oriented risk-taker like Han. Leia and Liz are both gun-wielding strong-willed women with a lot of compassion and courage.

I read recently that Bokenkamp once talked in an interview about being a Star Wars fan, but I haven't been able to find that interview.

Last edited by Tuxie400 (3/02/2018 12:12 pm)

Tuxie400 · 3/02/2018 12:14 pm

Another Star Wars idea I had was this thing with Liz not liking to be called Sweetheart. In the first Star Wars movie, Han at the beginning was always calling Leia sweetheart - but not in a good way. I think she called him out on it too.

Tatiana · 3/02/2018 12:21 pm

good point, re: 'sweetheart' Tuxie. Here's a link in which Bokenkamp remembers what an impact Star Wars had on him as a very young child:

http://www.kearneyhub.com/news/local/jon-bokenkamp-arts-entertainment/article_b398bca8-9aed-11e2-93e5-0019bb2963f4.html

Tuxie400 · 3/02/2018 2:16 pm

Tatiana - Thanks for the link. It sounds like Bokenkamp has been in love with Star Wars since he was 4, and it did inspire him to become a little movie maker.

Tatiana · 3/03/2018 9:03 am

So we had a planned sleep over and an additional child for a total of 4 10 year olds. They were up until 11:30 and up at 6.30 this am.

They are going to be crabby this afternoon. Of course I will be crabby all day.

(Worst part is I'm letting them use my laptop!)

Tuxie400 · 3/03/2018 9:15 am

Tatiana - I think you were lucky to get them to bed by 11:30. I think everyone will need an afternoon nap.

3/03/2018 10:03 am

That’s more than I sleep on a normal night. Lol. I don’t need much sleep to function. Good luck.

Tatiana · 3/03/2018 10:12 am

Brittany wrote:
That’s more than I sleep on a normal night. Lol. I don’t need much sleep to function. Good luck.

You're one of those unusual people who can regularly get by on 5-6 hours of sleep? Fortunate.

When I was younger I was able to do that for many years, but then I turned 40, got married, gave birth to twins, bought a retail business, worked 7 days a week.... and now I'm a stay at home mom and I'm exhausted all the time! LOL!

The girls don't know what to do and keep sitting around saying, "what do you want to do" "I don't know" and then they start bugging the boys who are engrossed in games.

It's a good day to surf the net, re-watch TBL, and find some alternate theories. I found a doozy yesterday, I'll have to get back to it. Sometimes you read theories and then discover it crosses the line into fan fiction and I just don't care for that. Hope you all are having a great Saturday!!!

Tuxie400 · 3/03/2018 10:27 am

Colleen said, "I think Red mentioned psychologist Carl Jung - Star Wars draws heavily on Jung's theories"

Yes, Red mentions Jung in the Raleigh Sinclair episode. I thought he had before since we discussed Jung's archetypes and the shadow self on the BSG forum once, but I couldn't find Jung's name mentioned in previous seasons. Anyway, one of the books Red mentions to Sinclair is The Wizard of Earthsea. That book is totally about Jung's theory of the shadow self but couched in a children's tale about a young wizard in a magical land. Ged, the boy wizard, is attacked by his own shadow self, and continued to be stalked by this shadow creature until he finally confronts it and integrates it back within himself. Jung defined the shadow self as the dark side of our personality. I've always viewed TBL as Liz's journey to discover her shadow self, confront it, and integrate it back within her self to form a balanced personality. Red, like Darth Vader, represents the evil of the shadow side. But both Red and Vader, when we get to know their whole stories, are not pure evil at all.

Last edited by Tuxie400 (3/03/2018 10:48 am)

Tuxie400 · 3/03/2018 10:30 am

Tatiana - There are a lot of wild Blacklist theories developing now. I wonder if it's because we haven't gotten any reveals in such a long time.

3/03/2018 10:44 am

Tatiana-yes, I am. It is fortunate for me, though I imagine my caffeine habit helps it along. ;)

In reference to Jung, he referred to shame as the "swampland of the soul". Shame is an emotion that I have always attributed to Red. I imagine him trudging through this seemingly endless swamp, trying to find dry land again.