Sorry I don't see it, but anything is possible with makeup.   I'm just not convinced they cast Lotte because she looks or looked like James.  But  I won't stop you!  Its as good a idea as any!  

I promised all of you a theory, or more specifically, substantiation for a theory. I already showed it to Tuxie, but wanted to share it with the group as a whole. I haven't had a chance to edit and complete. There was far more I wanted to say so I will fill out as I have time.


This is not edited properly, nor have I adequately noted specific episodes, scenes, dialogue to substantiate each. You may immediately know which one is referenced. I have way more ideas that I haven’t started writing about, ideas to substantiate or explain inconsistencies in the Redarina theory.
I’ve been thinking about this theory a lot. Well actually, I think obsessing is a more accurate word. I’ve actually figured out a reasonable way to explain Carla, Harold, Dom and several others although I have no answers for  Red’s roommate nor can I adequately explain the fingerprints matching to his FBI records. (We could assume that either his prints were switched in evidence, more than plausible, or that in some way the prints were transferred to Redarina - I say this only because Red cut off the thumbs of the frozen man to get into the bank box, so that is an episode which shows how someone could use someone else’s body as identifiers - oh, also the episode in which Kaplan removes a man’s eye for retinal identification so that her hire can get into archived FBI files to get Red’s immunity agreement)
And it doesn’t explain the full extent of Red’s burns on his shoulder and back. However we only see Katarina’s injuries from the fire through Kaplan’s memories. I believe Kate says to Katarina, “You’re hurt” so it’s very possible the injuries were much worse than what we saw in Kaplan’s memories. Keep in mind that we have frequently heard that memories are evasive, fuzzy, incomplete (what was Red;s quote from last week’s episode?) And regarding Liz’s memories of the fire, at one point he dismisses them as the memories of a small child. So we know at face value that Kaplan says to Katarina, you are hurt and we know her sweater is torn, so it’s possible that in reality it was much worse.
Gender reassignment/Hiding in plain sight
I. Red’s relationship with Dom
Red acquiesces to Dom, who is grouchy and overbearing
Very close, knew each other from long ago, intimate


Sorry I didn’t turn out to be the person you wanted me to be


Intense anger on Dom’s part towards Red, why? ‘Selfish prick’


Red acquiesces to Dom, who is grouchy and overbearing
“Sorry I didn’t turn out to be the person you wanted me to be”
Intense anger on Dom’s part towards Red, why? ‘Selfish prick’
Red acquiesces to Dom, who is grouchy and overbearing
I think if we look at the Djinn we can see a sort of reverse parallel to Dom/Red. In the Djinn, the father forces the child/son to, I don’t remember exactly how Red said it, but something like mutilate his body against his will and forced to live that way. The father believes he is doing the right thing for his child. The child/son/daughter is beyond rageful that his own father would do such a thing.
I couldn’t figure out Dom’s deep anger at Red because although we see him treating Red as though he was a close relative, he’s very bitter toward Red.  I think it’s a reverse of the Djinn: it is the parent who is ‘rageful’ against the child/son/daughter for ‘mutilating’ her body and becoming a completely different person, not the person, probably spy, Dom wanted Katarina to be, a woman.
We know Dom is Oleander so we can assume that Katarina worked with him and that would mean he knew she was a honey pot and, we assume, he was fine with that. What kind of father would be proud of this or want this for his daughter? Unless he was also part of the Soviet system and would do anything to preserve it.
Red talks about being young and arrogant, to Dom, and how he royally screwed things up as a result.  Reddington kidnapped the girl and bright her to the states, to a townhome. Katarina and some group of people (kgb, double agents? Dom?) Came to the house with a plan, probably a plan to get the girl, get the fulcrum, and somehow do away with Reddington. In their argument that night the man says to her (about the fulcrum) it’s the only thing keeping me alive. Those are the exact words Red/Redarina uses in Luther Braxton when he and Liz are in the boiler room trying to survive, he tells Liz of the fulcrum, it was the only thing that kept me alive (what he said to Katarina on fire night).
So Katarina is the most amazing spy around so much so that she’s considered to be a myth, not actually real, then she had some pretty big.expectations of her abilities. Her weakness? Reddington, and the child they conceived. Red tells Liz when Katarina became pregnant she thought about aborting it, but chose not to. Instead, the instant the baby was born she felt nothing less than that her child was a blessing.
Reddington was her assignment but she became ‘weak’ and fell in love with him. Well, maybe not love, she said to Kaplan it was frivolous. Still, it was not strictly an assignment. And she became pregnant with his child, a vulnerability. She thought about aborting it, that would be the ‘logical thing’ to do. But she was weak because of her feelings for him.
So when Reddington took Masha/Elizabeth, this was her weakest point. She had tried to break it off with him. His taking the child to the states meant she might be outed.  Katarina, the shining star of soviet intelligence, was losing her grip.
So she set up a plan and got her people gathered. She went after Reddington like she would have gone after anyone who crossed her in her work. Her plan was arrogant, she succeeded at everything. But this plan went wrong.  Terribly wrong. And that was her shame. She had to sacrifice the woman to save the child. She had to kill herself because she was death to the child. She killed herself to become Reddington. It was a Hobson choice. “In a choice between ethics and life I always chose life” Raymond told Cooper.
Dom became bitterly disappointed in Katarina because of her failure. He ended up dragging himself to this place in the woods, alone, isolated, ‘you call this living?!”  The comment Red makes about missing the C minor on the piano is about Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor. Most Americans recognize this concerto because Eric Carmen made it into a pop song in 1975 called “All by Myself”. Completely summarizes what Dom feels.
Since Katarina has determined she is death to her child, and she is highly resourceful, she decides to kill herself by changing her identity so she can live in plain sight. But it’s a Hobson’s choice, she must die to her self in order to save the child, thereby completely severing her relationship with her own daughter and denying her motherhood. 
 
Red makes a remark (in recent episodes I think) about making a choice between ethics and life. Red immediately responds he would chose life each time. In this way, it supports further that Katarina would chose to suicide by changing her identity so that she can still life.
II. Red’s relationship with Carla
Red cares deeply about Carla
Carla is initially very bitter/angry at Red
Jennifer is her daughter
Carla: it’s more complicated, but I suspect that after Reddington died either at the fire or sometime during the following year up to December 1990. Carla probably knew about Katarina and Elizabeth. Raymond was away for long stretches so if Raymond did die in the fire, there was reason to believe he was away on a job. The FBI likely knew Reddington died in that fire, or he was severely injured. He was a liability either way because of the fulcrum and the FBI would have manipulated the story to their advantage. Why the 10 months? Maybe he was in a coma and hadn’t actually died but Katarina thought he had.
Here is where the episode, “The Harem” helps substantiate a theory that in the 10-12 months following the fire I believe Katarina was able to befriend Carla or earn her trust through the sisterhood of women to let her know what happened and how to keep her safe. Elizabeth was already safe with Sam.
In those 10 months the FBI came after Carla and tried to implicate her in the theft of the fulcrum, they froze her assets, they pursued her, it was awful. Until the FBI decided they needed to make a story as to why Reddington disappeared (so maybe they didn’t know he was dead) and within less than 24 hours, Carla and her daughter were places in WITSEC in Philly.
I believe Katarina approached Carla, told her of her plan, told her of Raymond’s death, promised to keep her safe. Carla agreed to keep silent about the relationship and silent about Elizabeth.
The harem, a sisterhood, a corollary for Carla and redarina interaction
Lord Baltimore - of Carla Red says to Frank, she’s more like a ??? Distanced? Sister to me….makes even more sense if it’s actually Katarina, are they actually sisters? That would be really weird, but I think it’s more like sisters of the sisterhood of women.
Red has an uncanny way of understanding women. Only a woman would understand womenn
KATARINA Russian nesting dolls,  in time capsule, apartment, elsewhere.
Russian nesting dolls, like a mother giving birth to her daughter from a woman to a woman. And so in changing her identity she was able to break the cycle so that her daughter would not have to live like her, severed from love and true intimacy. Having a ‘normal’ life.
She wanted her daughter to be safe from being coerced into a life like hers using sex to achieve a goal rather than live.
Explains why Kate says, I loved you to Katarina,  Dearie, to Red. I don’t think they were lovers, but I do believe Kate loved Katarina and maybe was ‘in love’ with her.
Explains 30 years employment, when you put her in my arms as a baby.
Quiet time between Christmas 1989 to Christmas 1990 Carla says they kept questioning her, froze her assets. She had a house,  a dog.
Red has particular compassion for children and women, particularly those who are abused. These are typically female attributes. He has an uncanny sensitivity and awareness not usually attributed to men.Was she abused? Did Dom and other men hin her life abuse her? Push her into using her body for work?
Episode, Berlin corrolary of Liz’s relationship to Red as his child
Zoe rejects wants to get away from her father permanently and even when she is able to be reunited with him, she refiuses.
Prints, tatoos, it’s him, 1994 papers
Graduatied by 24
Floriana campos says “there is no work more meaningful than being a mother”
Red - “how does the devil in you contend with the angel? I would kicked her out years ago.” A man would have said, “I would have kicked him out years ago”


VANESSA CRUZ - prototype of Fire Night

A trip to Cruz’ mother’s house lays out the reasoning behind it all: Vanessa was married to a man named Fernando who was accused of insider trading and then jumped off the George Washington Bridge. But Vanessa always maintained his innocence, and the Post Office team figures out that Cruz is going after people who were involved in the insider trading that Fernando was accused of. When they go back to talk to Mr. Conway in prison, he reveals that there was a group of people who arranged the insider trade, and they all agreed to pin it on Fernando, and when Fernando figured out that they were framing him, he was killed. Everyone who had a part in framing Fernando has been taken care of by Vanessa except one…

Knowing that her jig is up, Vanessa is sitting in an airport, likely on her way to a life of no longer murdering people in bathtubs, when a dashing Mr. Kaplan sits down across from her. He tells Vanessa that her employer is a longtime admirer of her handiwork; she can either run and hide from her newly discovered trail of crimes, or she can accept help. These two seem like a dangerous combination.

“[Reddington] has a moral code. I don’t like it, but at least I know what it is, and it does not include lying to me.” Lizzie, what are you talking about?!

Theories on why Mr. Reddington, criminal mastermind, needs Ms. Cruz, a master framer of criminals, on his team?
Vanessa Cruz fakes her death then sets out ot seek revenge for her husband’s death.
She couldn’t kill the woman she was having an affair with because she discovered she actually had feelings for him. 

Tatiana, They are interesting thoughts.  

I had thought KR was hurt in the fire but nothing like what we see on his back.  That was melted skin.  Her shirt would have been melted on her back to get those kind of scars.  I also do not think she would have been able to travel freely like that.  The smell from that is noticeable and the infection would have overtaken her.  That is not to say the burns were not later.  

​As far as him knowing a lot about women, I do not think that is unordinary for him.  He is smart and thinks things out in a logical manner.  He is like an actuary.  
He might have sisters?  If not he had a mother he seams to have cherished the way he spoke of her over that grave.  
​It is a lot to digest.  I think one main problem I have is knowing he was searched (everywhere) when he turned himself in. I think that is self explanatory. lol


 

I hope they can play fair Tuxie.  So far this is the only group I have seen that doesn't flip out when someone has a different thought.  I think it's pretty much all on the table until something comes up and proven otherwise.  And then it is on to the next theory. Lol

I used to be in a BL FB group but got our after a couple of months.  So toxic. I’ve noticed there are groups for the specific different theories but I haven’t joined any.  Like Eastcoast said, this group is the only one I feel is mature and rational when it comes to discussing and debating the different theories.  I wonder if here is much in-theory fighting on the separate groups?

Honey West wrote:

We’re very proud of our little group!

 
You should be! We all should!  

Tuxie- hopefully that group works out well.  It's terrible that you can't post things here without people saying terrible things elsewhere.   I do love closed or secret facebook groups.  But not everyone has or wants to participate on Facebook. 

Tatiana wrote:

Fellow Refugeers  I love being your friends and that all of you have been respectful, mature, yet open-minded!

Three lovely women who are also good friends started us out with, appropriately named, "The Blacklist Support Group". They closely monitored posts and gently but firmly and with a whole bunch of warm mirth kept the group on track.

When all three of them faced serious real life challenges, they chose to shut down the original group, but we begged them to somehow keep this open. Tabasko, wonderful woman that she is, helped us set up this group and Honey West and I are moderators.

Do you know how great it is to hear you all say that we remain respectful yet engaging? :-)

I think we have some of the most creative, resourceful, intelligent, and punny die-hard Blacklist fans on the ethernet and you have no idea how when life is tough, this group has been a wonderful diversion, and I think that's true for many of us.

There were and are a few things that we follow as guidelnes:
Be nice, have fun, no fiction, no shipping, no outside issues (ie. politics, etc) stay positive about the show and the actors, and encourage one another. I love this group! And you all are the best!

As for Rederina, there's plenty to support the theory. I had noticed that you weren't posting as much Tuxie, but I hadn't realized the extent to which you were being harassed from others because of your posts here. 

We had wanted the ability to have private discussion boards, however, the only way to get that is to pay. I love y'all but .... 

Please always feel free to send a private message to either myself or to Honey West. She's been pretty busy too but know that we are here to provide an environment of friendliness and free of conflict.

It's kind of interesting, now that I think of it, but we had a surge of 'new' members in the past month, I don't even remember how many. But many of them appeared to be trolls. Unless I feel certain they are valid, I will ban or delete such members. 

So keep posting friends! And keep in mind the guidelines that keep this a fun and friendly place to have some fun with our favorite show!

Thanks for keeping this outlet open for us to continue to discuss.  

Tatiana and Honey West - You both do a great job moderating, and I do understand that making the group private comes with a pricetag. I will continue to post here about general Blacklist stuff. And, if the season finale/bones reveal opens the door further for Redarina, I won't be able to resist posting something about it here. In general, I have less time to post about Blacklist this time of year because I have a daylily sales business, and I've been busy digging and shipping plants for the past four weeks.

Tuxie- I've also wondered how the transgender community would feel about the Redarina scenario.  Not being a member of said group, I can't say either way and wouldn't presume to tell anyone how to feel.  But for me, I agree that the scenario could speak to her skills as a spy and also to a mother's willingness to protect her child at any cost.  Thinking back on that scene in the Endling, Red talked about how he hoped that if given the same scenario he could be as brave. In the mindset of Redarina, it could be that while Katarina Rostova the identity died in 1990, the person hadn't.  It's one thing to be willing to lay down your life, but to actually pull the trigger would be another story.  And considering JB's discussions in the past that Red is not a good person and shouldn't be thought as such, it reminds me of what Liz says about Katarina back in season 3 (I think), about everyone who talks about her mother as such a horrible person.  KR wasn't a good person from what we've seen in the past.  She was willing to kill Kaplan in Requiem after she witnessed the attack in the kitchen and only stopped because she saw that she was useful.   The connection to Dom and his willingness to allow this person who obviously isn't RR into his life and put in charge of protecting his granddaughter is what makes me feel like this is the more likely path.  That, and Red only ever speaks of KR's perspective on things (her love for Liz's father, her anxiety over her pregnancy, the seeming knowledge of what KR did on her first date with Rostov). 

I can't believe this is the boat I'm in now.  Where's the booze? lol 🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃