I agree Tatiana. I hope this is the last season of the Blacklist and it ends with as big a bang as it started with in Season 1.

Tuxie, there was no 'old' Reddington blood to run to see if Devry was the real Red or our Red was the real Red (other than the blood on the shirt - again begging the question, why didn't Cooper compare the blood during that episode). Running Devry's blood against the blood taken from Red when he surrendered even if it was in CODIS wouldn't have answered anything, it would just be two people saying they were Red, with blood from both taken in recent years without old blood to compare it to. So for me, Devry doesn't mean our Red's blood wasn't in CODIS, it just means Red's blood taken when he surrendered wouldn't be dispositive in figuring out if Devry was telling the truth.

I agree with you that if the bones weren't Red's that the bones alone couldn't have been all that Kate wanted Liz to see. Remember, the guy she tasked with the getting the bones to the locker also gave Tom Dom's fake name and that Red quickly killed him before he could divulge anything else to Tom. So maybe there was more to the story she hoped Liz would uncover.  I think the bones may be a giant red herring and that they may circle back to them as the show's big mystery is finally revealed.

When Liz told Cooper that Red wasn't really Reddington, but Red knew who Daniel Hutton was when Cooper asked him when he was being held hostage, that would have been the right time for Cooper to check for himself to see if this Red's DNA matched the blood on the shirt and whether or not Liz was mistaken in her belief. But apparently he never did check.  That's what I was referring to. And if Liz was written as a woman with a brain, once she told Cooper that this Red was a fake and it was no longer a secret she was keeping from him, she should've asked him to confirm the blood our Red gave upon his surrender to the FBI, and the DNA results Tom's dr got from the bones, with the blood on the shirt.  (I'm sure Jack Bauer or Agent Scully or Harold Finch, or anyone on NCSI,  etc would've done that right out of the gate. )

I see the possibility that Garvey put Jennifer's dna into CODIS and that was the match made, but how would Tom's dr friend make the connection to Red, especially if one of her fake names were used?  And it would only be a half match, a familial match, and this seemed to be a 100% match. I think the match came up Raymond Reddington. And if it did, it makes zero sense. Because original Red's blood was not in CODIS. So it had to match our Red's sample, and our Red is alive, so it's a mislead.  Especially because it was a tooth and not the bones. That to me is a huge clue.

Honey West, at the end of Anslo Garrick 2, Cooper said to Diane Fowler: "He was there. Lab tests confirm the blood was Reddington's."  I could be wrong, but I don't think they needed a lab to check type - that's a test they could take on the spot.  I have a vague memory of doing a typing test in a science lab in high school, but that was so many moons ago I could be be remembering wrong!  Also I don't think the FBI lab would confirm identity on blood type alone if they had his DNA from when he surrendered.  I think with the right lab equipment, with no waiting in line for your turn (which is the usual delay with commercial labs), DNA tests can be run pretty quickly so I think this is talking about a DNA match.  I think they took his DNA when he surrendered and they matched the blood on the floor to that DNA.  Whether that DNA was entered into CODIS though is open. If Cooper didn't put it into CODIS, it could be that Julian Gale entered it into CODIS after he found all the bodies Kaplan left for him to see if there was evidentiary blood from Red on any of the corpses. (if the DNA was in an FBI computer data bank).   I agree with you that Kate had a back up plan that was more than just the bones. That they were just a piece of what she hoped to show Liz.

(see this blog post from 2009 that says it DNA comparisons can be done in 24 hours, but he says soon it will done in as short as 4 hours, and that was 11 years ago:  https://intrensic.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-does-dna-testing-take-so-long.html )

Last edited by KathyN (1/17/2020 9:18 pm)

Honey West wrote:

I always thought that the blood in the warehouse was probably matched to Red using type rather than DNA. I don't think they could test the DNA that quickly, but he has a somewhat uncommon blood type, as they showed in part 1 of AG in the box with Ressler. Besides saving Ressler's life, it also made that blood match plausible. 

Tuxie, I have always thought that the bones were Kate's backup plan in case she died before she could show Liz the truth. I think she had something else planned, but then things went wrong. And, of course, we would never know what she was planning to show Liz. I think it was something besides the bones, but I don't know what.

Yes, the blood match would have been to type. No DNA involved.

Whether the bones were Kate's main plan or a backup, the result was that Liz betrayed Red by having him put in prison.  Kate just didn't count on Liz flip flopping back.

 

As much as I would like to see The Blacklist end this season, I'm sensing that we will get an 8th season. Spader wants one, and the ratings have not dropped that much since last year.  I think NBC will renew the show for Season 8 and bill it as the final season.

And speaking of implants and mind bending, I did watch the Denzel Washington version of The Manchurian Candidate again yesterday. Now I just need to watch the Frank Sinatra original again.

Tuxie400 wrote:

2. We don't know what conclusions Dr. Nik or Pete drew from seeing the name on the match.  I don't understand what you mean by a "half match."  I don't see any reason the tooth DNA would match Spader/Red.  If Red is Katarina, there would be no match to her. 

A child has half her mother's DNA and half her father's DNA.  So if it was matched to Jennifer, it would be  a 'half match'. If you were matching Jennifer's blood to Jennifer, it would be 100% match.  I'm not a scientist though and never looked at DNA so I could be off on that, it was just a lay person's assumption. And if they matched the blood to Jennifer in CODIS and it was under one of her many names, it would come to Garvey's attention but not Tom's or his friend's.

As for why it would match Red/Spader:  If Kate planted a tooth of Red's, or if they used the Alchemist to make a tooth appear to be Red's  -either way - the DNA result would say it was Red's - without the bones actually belonging to Red.   A tooth not belonging to the corpse could have been buried with the bones, and Kate was more than capable of doing that.  One tooth that has Red's DNA doesn't prove the bones, from which they were unable to get any DNA, were Red's. It's one tooth that could've been put there to throw people off.   Even if Red is Katarina, it doesn't mean those bones were Reddington's. It just means a tooth that his DNA was found with the bones.  

It seems there are 4 possibilites.  I go back and forth between choices 3 and 4.  I absolutely do not believe Laila's Katarina is Liz's mom (1) and could believe choice (2),  but -  my opinion only -  think 3 or 4 is more likely.

1. Our Red is a fake, but Katarina (Laila) is real.  This is also the official version.

2. Our Red is a fake, Katarina is a fake, ie neither of them are who they present themselves to be.

3. Our Red is the original Red,  but Katarina (Laila) is fake.

3. Our Red is Katarina, making both of them fakes..

 

Yes, Honey West, DNA is not what we learned back in high school. With gene sequencing they've learned quite a bit more than the simple, although breakthrough, Mendelian genetic punnett square.
I find that very interesting because no one ever thought genetics was anything but black and white, but it turns out the genes that are expressed are affected by something called alleles; this is how a child of blond parents could have a child with dark hair or a child of blue eyed parents could have dark colored eyes. I am certainly no geneticist, but I find it fascinating. Look up epigenetics if you want to learn more.

I say this because if they are going with the story that Red was once Katarina, that change too would point to something we have always seen as black and white: there's male and there's female and nothing else in between. But Katarina becoming Red would be a third thing, a new way.
 
Just more random thoughts before drinking coffee. Beware.

Tatiana wrote:

 Just more random thoughts before drinking coffee. Beware.

LOL!!!!

And  yes, DNA is not as simple as it was when we first learned about it. Even the FBI had to update the requirements for CODIS and NDIS a couple of years ago for DNA IDs. But even with those databases available, it still took using the commercial DNA testing companies to find bad guys like the East Area Rapist/Golden State Killer by linking the crime scene DNA to a close relative in those systems. So I guess the way that worked was that his crime scene DNA was in CODIS as a John Doe and they must have put that into the commercial database(s), found hits from relatives in the system and used good old-fashioned detective work to try to put a name to the John Doe DNA in CODIS? That's still a lot of sifting and matching. Amazing they can do that.

Honey West - I'm glad we finally got a return date. Have fun in Jamaica!  I wish I were going.

I love reading about DNA.  Here is an interesting and fun  tidbit that a lot of people don't know. I hope I say this the right way.
  When 2 biological brothers marry 2 biological sisters their children share the same amount of DNA as a half sibling instead of the amount shared by Regular cousins.
They are called Double Cousins.