Big Badd Bazzer wrote:

If the writers are on the ball they could write a liturgy of episodes concerning WHY this imposter became Raymond Reddington. The fact the primary character is an imposter is no longer relevant to the show's success - but what a glorious opportunity for good writers.
ie. Imagine if TBL writer's room consisted of Toni Morrsin, Aaron Sorkin, Arthur Miller, Norman Mailer

BBB, if we had that level of writing, I would hazard to guess, those writers would not be working for television as they would be highly restricted. What I've heard about being a writer for TBL is that it's extremely hard because of the tight restrictions and requirements the producers put on the writing. I think they are oftentimes working in the dark with no idea what the goal is. That would be tough.
Even so, the writing on TBL is far superior to any of the pablum to which we are subjected on regular network series. I cannot even stand to watch much else than TBL, the rest is so predictable, so vacuous and insipid. 

Tatiana wrote:

Big Badd Bazzer wrote:

If the writers are on the ball they could write a liturgy of episodes concerning WHY this imposter became Raymond Reddington. The fact the primary character is an imposter is no longer relevant to the show's success - but what a glorious opportunity for good writers.
ie. Imagine if TBL writer's room consisted of Toni Morrsin, Aaron Sorkin, Arthur Miller, Norman Mailer

BBB, if we had that level of writing, I would hazard to guess, those writers would not be working for television as they would be highly restricted. What I've heard about being a writer for TBL is that it's extremely hard because of the tight restrictions and requirements the producers put on the writing. I think they are oftentimes working in the dark with no idea what the goal is. That would be tough.
Even so, the writing on TBL is far superior to any of the pablum to which we are subjected on regular network series. I cannot even stand to watch much else than TBL, the rest is so predictable, so vacuous and insipid. 

 
Yes, in comparison to other TV drama Blacklist is top or near top of the list. Person of Interest is my gold standard for writing (and almost everything else) but in current TV here's the closest writing to TBL:

1. The Good Doctor
2. New Amsterdam
3. Ransom (Canadian show)

Tuxie400 wrote:

Did anybody else think it was weird that Minister D was using really old communications equipment: the manual typewriter, the reel to reel tape recorders, and other equipment that looked like it dated to the 60s and 70s?

When I was rewatching this, I noticed there was a black, rotary telephone dating back to the early 1940s. And his switchboard system looked like it might have been from the 40s too!  So weird and archaic!

Tuxie400 wrote:

Eastcoast said, "The fire night conversation doesn't make a lot of sense now that we heard all this."

None of these things make sense in light of the 12-7-90 tape:

The fire night conversation
The timeline that's been laid out before
Red telling Liz her parents loved each other and Katarina followed her when she was taken but wanted all three to be a family.

That's why I think there's some subterfuge going on with that phone call. My first thought when I heard it was that something about it was fishy, but I didn't know what. After rewatching and reading the lines from the script, I;m wondering if Katarina knew Fitch's line was being monitored by the Cabal and she was feeding this information to the Cabal for some reason.  Fitch's side of the conversation sounds believable, but Katarina sometimes sounds like she's reading froma  script, and I think Lotte Verbeek is a better actress than that.

Remember that Fitch was the one who masterminded and ordered the creation of the blackmail file on the fulcrum. Leonard Caul said Fitch did that because he was being "cut out of the loop" with the Cabal. Fitch was likely planning on using the blackmail file himself as leverage if the Cabal got out of hand or if he felt his own life was in danger. What if Loving was monitoring Fitch's phone calls back then for the Cabal, and somehow Katarina knew about it.  The phone call sets up the Christmas disappearance of RR, even though he's been a dead man for about a year. It plants the idea that RR has the fulcrum and upon his death the information will be released, therefore assuring the insurance policy that the Cabal will want to keep RR alive.

Red has always said what went down was very complicated. He reinforces the idea that what Katarina did was complicated in the final episode scene featuring Liz and Red.

 
Don’t forget it was Fitch who also masterminded the Kursk thing and put the blame on Red. It seems to me they are all playing multi sided games then and now. No wonder Red loves chess.

And yes, I also got the idea that Katarina was speaking as though it was a rehearsed or careful call on her end. And since the whole episode was about wiretapping and eavesdropping why wouldn’t that be, too? I like the idea that Fitch was helping to set up the Fulcrum as a threat. Fitch knew all along that whether Red actually had it or not was irrelevant because Red would not have been able to get the information out of it. Red knew about getting the various parts of it, but without Leonard Caul, it was useless. Now, we don’t know, but he might have eventually found Caul on his own, but Fitch's predicament speeded things up. But he still made Red have to go to that apartment in St Petersburg, get the phone number, and he still wasn’t sure who would be on the other end when he made the call.

Lots to ponder.

Honey West - The eavesdropping setup was sort of reminiscent of the pneumatic tubes!

Tuxie400 wrote:

Tuxie400 wrote:

Did anybody else think it was weird that Minister D was using really old communications equipment: the manual typewriter, the reel to reel tape recorders, and other equipment that looked like it dated to the 60s and 70s?

When I was rewatching this, I noticed there was a black, rotary telephone dating back to the early 1940s. And his switchboard system looked like it might have been from the 40s too!  So weird and archaic!

 
Yes!  

One reason for all of the "archaic" equipment is that not only does it work and gets the job done, but it’s almost impossible to hack into using "modern" technology. Anything older and they’d be using smoke signals and carrier pigeons.

Honey West wrote:

Anything older and they’d be using smoke signals and carrier pigeons.

Tuxie400 wrote:

Honey West wrote:

Anything older and they’d be using smoke signals and carrier pigeons.

 

You got that right Tuxie!  Lol 

IowaWatcher wrote:

I still think Fitch was Naomi's/Carla's father (Jennifer's Grandfather) and that he knew everything that was going on.

 
I like that idea, Iowa Watcher. I remember you saying it before and sort of tucked it away. It made sense with Fitch telling Ray that he always liked him, even though he was a pain in his neck. I will have to revisit those episodes, because one thing is true, RR has been an imposter from the very beginning, so all of those scenes were written in that context, even though we the audience didn’t know it.