The Blacklist Refugees » Blacklist - Episode 4.11

lara1 · 1/21/2017 12:56 am

Eastcoast - my bad. I should have posted it to the Spader /Fallon page to start with, I'm glad you remembered we had that one! Its all kind of connected anyhow I guess, as we've all been worried about Red and where his state of mind is leading him......and talking on the episode pages about it..

Big Badd Bazzer · 1/21/2017 10:58 am

Outside of plot-line the most noticeable aspect was how diminished the roles for Aram, Samar, Donald & Harold were this week.
Show-runners know they have a problem with so many talents in the cast - not to mention Lahti, Glen Littlehands, Deirdre Pannabaker, Mr. Kaplan, etc.
It was virtually impossible to keep them all happy (or more importantly employed) without a spin-off for Ryan Eggold, Famke, etc.
Wonder whether they'll divide the Post Office 4 into various camps w/ Samar & Aram staying with TBL while Harold & Ressler are used exclusively on Redemption.
POINTS TO PONDER!

lara1 · 1/21/2017 11:14 am

BBB - good point about utilizing all of the cast, I think this is hard to do. I do think now that the Kirk saga is over (where the Post Office really only had cameos in each episode), there will be more focus on the PO folks, alternating from episode to episode. I think it would be great if someone unknown from the PO (i.e. unexpected) popped up in Redemption, hopefully with a twist. But I guess it would need to be picked up as an ongoing series in order for that to happen? Still they could somehow work in a teaser to that effect, so that they could go one way or the other, should Redemption be picked up as a series, or not.

Edited to add: Since Halycon is kind of like a alternate/mirror image of the Post Office (each PO character has its counterpart in Halycon), I think it would be ingruiging how they could work in someone from the "real" PO into the alternate one....

Last edited by lara1 (1/21/2017 11:16 am)

lara1 · 1/21/2017 12:42 pm

For those wondering about why/how Liz could be undercover so quickly and why she was sent in rather than someone else (Samar, for example), here are some tweets from the writer of the episode, that Aly blacklist posted (thanks Aly). And for me of course I loved the idea of "ghost of Christmas past" which resonates on more than one level with me re Red's story.

https://alyblacklist.tumblr.com/post/156174608491/for-those-wondering-how-liz-could-be-recognized

I think that some of the other "Non logical" elements of the episodes sometimes are there just to further the overall arc of the story - or to provide another clue - but I think it is hard to suspend disbelief at times....just IMO of course.....

Last edited by lara1 (1/21/2017 12:47 pm)

IowaWatcher · 1/21/2017 12:57 pm

I'm late to the party -- it's been crazy at work this week.

I'll toss this thought into the mix, since it's different from anything posted so far: perhaps a decision was made to return to the "original" story arc, one created before MB got pregnant, and in order for that to work, Liz needed to be reinstated.

Once the writers got Liz reinstated, in order to lay the groundwork to get the story back into the original arc, this episode needed to air at this point, and as Lara pointed out (and as was said in the link), Liz had to be the one undercover so certain elements and themes would work.

That's what makes the most sense to me at this point, and I could be wrong! And I forgot who said this, but -- yes -- I agree there are a lot of parallels to Season 1.

Once I got my disbelief suspended, I liked many aspects of the episode. Liz does make a good bad azz, and MB's acting was excellent. My biggest problem now was the episode seems out of place, especially given all of the loose ends, mentioned earlier by others. But I'll stick with it.

As for Red's "new war," I wonder if Mr. Kaplan is behind it somehow. She does know a lot about Red's affairs, but I don't know if she's mad at him enough to try to bring down his empire. I do think they killed off Berlin much too soon. He was a better foe than Kirk. The show needs a major antagonist, one worthy of Red's talents.

Great comments, everyone!

Honey West · 1/21/2017 2:18 pm

Hi IowaWatcher! I tend to agree with much of what you said. I've been reading a lot of ratings-related articles lately and TBL has never had the ratings it did in season 1. Then again, season 1 was laying the groundwork for everything else and it was all new. Now we have come to expect certain things and I would imagine that it's a little harder for them to keep some aspects fresh and a couple of steps ahead of Us all the time. They know where they are going and have always said that how quickly they get there is very dependent on how long they are on the air. I don't doubt that how ever long that is that we will get the complete story. I just hope that they are given the time to finish it properly. I suspect they have plans in place for all contingencies, though.

Thanks for the link, lara1, I will try to read it sometime today. Another storm is blowing in and I need to use today to batten down the hatches again. I think our drought is over, at least for now.

IowaWatcher · 1/21/2017 8:49 pm

The ratings concern me as well, Honey West. I wish they would move the show back to Monday and start tying up some of the loose ends. I think both actions would increase the ratings. If they need filler, there are enough loopy characters that they could get some funny sub-plots going. Certainly Tom is a lot more interesting when he's off being a spy, and there's more they could do with Glen, et al.

Yes, I think your drought is over for the moment. Given all the flooding in wine country, I probably better put a few bottles of Merlot in my cellar while they are still available at an affordable price.

Last edited by IowaWatcher (1/21/2017 8:50 pm)

Harry · 1/22/2017 1:25 pm

From Harry, returning from self-imposed exile to re-join other "refugees" from BSG -
I had stopped watching TBL for a while after it seemed the showrunners eroded the cornerstones of what made the show so enjoyable, e.g., the "Robin Hood and his Merry Men" vibe with Red and his staunchly loyal sidekicks (as Red himself once said, "value loyalty above all else" was a valuable lesson he'd learned as a boy working a summer job for a carpet installer, Albert Something-or-Other). I was disappointed that the meek but hilarious character of Mr. Vargas was transformed into a traitor for unexplained reasons and quickly dispatched, but that was partly because I'd miss the comic relief Pee-Wee (Paul Reubens) provided, e.g., scolding the neglectful dog owner and fainting at the sight of blood.
But then, to have Mr. Kaplan betray her "Dearie" by engineering the fake Liz death, surely knowing it would devastate him, seemed so out of character for her. When episode summaries revealed that Red would shoot Mr. Kaplan in the face, I couldn't bear to watch that episode and the three or four that followed. (The whole baby story line didn't help - the back-and-forth kidnapping, rescuing, and re-kidnapping of Agnes like a shuttlecock did not thrill me.)
I also missed the early days when we could count on a Red "fish story", Red "quip of the week", and Red recounting one of his adventures in some exotic locale.
I couldn't understand why the showrunners would get away from what made the show so great.

Yet, after a while - with the valuable insight and ideas from all of you - it made more sense to focus on the enjoyable aspects of the show, and appreciate the really good episodes, even if they weren't as frequent as they used to be. (It surely must be a challenge for writers to consistently come up with fresh ideas and sharp dialogue for so many episodes per season, considering the time and budget constraints.)
I thought "Cape May" was fabulous (admittedly because it was Red-centric and featured Lotte Verbeek as the hallucinated ghost of Katerina), and made me realize it's unrealistic to expect the show to hit a home run every episode.
Sorry for the (unintended) long-winded digression...
I meant to direct my comments to "The Harem", and your observations about it:
-- Lisa Dale Jones # 7: I too wondered about Liz going "undercover" when her face had been plastered all over the news, first as a wanted fugitive/spy/(framed) terrorist/murderer, and more recently as a pardoned, reinstated FBI agent. In fact, I thought she looked great - and unrecognizable enough - in her initial "disguise" as hotel employee checking the mini-bar; for me at least, sticking with the glasses and pulled-back hairdo the rest of the episode would have sufficed to make it unnecessary to "suspend disbelief."
Tuxie400 # 20: Just wanted to chime in to tell you that I appreciate that you used the correct figure of speech, "close to the vest." These days, so many people get it wrong and write "close to the chest."
____ # ? (Sorry; can't go back to find Name & #): About Red not correcting Liz's assumption (near the end) that Red had killed Emma: My take on it was that Red was essentially protecting Emma and the new life he'd provided for her: The FBI was rounding up all of The Harem members for prosecution, but wouldn't search for Emma if Liz came back with the retrieved Witness Protection list and reported that Emma had been "terminated" by Red.
I also felt that allowing Emma to "get out" and financing a new life for her was an effective counterpoint to the (mis-)conception that Red manipulates women by making them feel like "the center of the universe" only to use them to advance his own selfish agendas. Besides, though Red is a "bad man", he generally does not kill innocents or inflict disproportionate harm. Killing Emma would've been out of character.
Finally: Red's revelation that his personal motive for bringing the "case of the week" to the FBI was to protect "Kate's" - I mean "Mr. Kaplan's" sister - was interesting. I'm not sure if it was intended to rehabilitate his character, demonstrate he's feeling remorseful about faux-executing Mr. Kaplan, or just foreshadow her imminent return.

Edit (?) - I meant to include in my long digression another reason for taking a "glass half-full" approach to TBL: It consistently features talented, veteran NY stage and screen talent, and casts other actors and actresses who are often overlooked because of misguided "ageism" prevalent in Hollywood. For example, as someone else previously commented, it was great to see character actor Leon Rippy (Mr. K's rescuer/captor) again, so many years after his memorable role in Star Trek the Next Generation as a 20th century party animal revived from suspended animation centuries later; and as the Army General in "Stargate", starring James Spader.

Harry · 1/22/2017 2:26 pm

Additional comment, and a few questions about "The Harem":
First, after all of the criticism about Liz's gullibility when she's supposed to be a trained profiler, it was commendable that this episode attempted to show how her ability to "read" people and predict their behaviors and actions earned her a place in The Harem.
I was a little confused about two things. Perhaps one/some of you caught something I missed and can explain it:
-- I thought the ringleader of The Harem (Jill Hennessy?) shot the tied-up guy in the chair who vouched for Liz because she concluded the guy must have cut a deal with the Feds or something. If that was the case, wouldn't that cast suspicion on Liz herself?
-- I didn't know what to make of the ringleader's romantic advances toward Liz in the ladies room; she essentially told Liz that lotalty to the her organization included assent to her overtures. So wouldn't a dedicated undercover operative either feign reciprocal interest, or at least com up with a polite rebuff, like she already had a girlfriend; or put her off with the promise of getting cozy in a private, luxurious setting more appropriate than a public bathroom? I can understand that having Megan Boone plant a kiss on a guest actress might come across as gratuitous, but with so much at stake in an undercover operation, an agent might be expected to "take one for the team."
At first, I thought that scene was going to show parallels between Liz and her mom - the notoriously seductive Russian honeypot [ is that the term?] who ensnared Red, Kirk, and who knows who else.
If that scene was only intended to show Emma helping Liz out of a tough spot, I'm not sure why they didn't have Emma intrude before Liz gave the ringleader cause to question her "loyalty."
Last question: How is it that Liz convinced The Harem to grant her "membership application " so quickly, without a background check or test run? Liz's explanation for refusing the order to shoot the tied-up guy was reasonable enough, but was there some other "test" given that she passed ?

lara1 · 1/22/2017 2:28 pm

LDJones wrote:
Could she be ballet girl? What's her background?

Who is Emma?

LD Jones, I have been pondering this since you first made this observation while watching the episode. I think there is definitely a chance that she could be "ballet girl" - listed below - though one of the issues is that we don't yet know who ballet girl was to Red. However, I do think that even if she is not ballet girl, I think she is entwined somehow in Red's deeper past. How we don't yet know - but there are some interesting "clues".

1. Emma's surname is "Knightly" - there is that royal reference again.
2. I reckon that Emma is around 40 - which would make her the right age to be "ballet girl", who I think, based on what we know was about/around 10 in 1987 - unless the ballet school program and Red's "memory" of the child dancing were not directly connected, but I don't think that's probable; she has a son who is a junior in boarding school so I'm guessing he is around 16;
3. When we first meet Emma, her hair is up on the top of her head in a bun, as was ballet girl; throughout most of the episode, her hair is up in a bun or ponytail; its in a very tight bun again in the last scene with her talk with Red
4. At one point, Emma dons a "ballet like" top - its sheer and floaty and to the knees and ties at the side of the waist in a soft bow. OK its not formal ballet wear but I don't think the show would be the obvious and it would kind of look ridiculous if it was - this gives the idea of ballet garb;
5. As LD Jones pointed out while viewing the episode, Emma's "profile" is very much like Red's - even the nose in profile is similar. I looked at this while she is in the car driving with Liz - and at the end, while Emma is talking to Red, there are several long shots of them in profile. OK she's not Red's identical twin, but was this actress purposely cast with that in mind? Also both Red and Emma are wearing matching colors there - grey and black. OK a stretch and I would not mention it if not for the other items, but maybe just an added clue;

I tried to see clues in Emma's house but didn't, though I will watch that scene with Liz in the kitchen again. However, I think the prescription bottles on the kitchen table were another clue of sorts. It reminded me of Dom's prescriptions that he kept in the middle of the table in his cabin. I think those bottles were placed there on purpose - in Emma's house, they could have been on a bathroom shelf, a kitchen shelf, the kitchen counter etc., yet there they were front and center on the table. And why have them at all? They showed that stress was taking a toll on Emma but that could have been relayed in a different way. So I wonder if there is some connnection with Dom - whom some of us have theorized spent time in the UK given his use of the term "nappies" etc.

So my thoughts are that Emma could be ballerina girl - though we don't know ballerina girl's connection to Red - or if not, she is somehow linked to his past and all the events of the late 1980s. I don't think she is Red's long lost daughter (if there even is one!) only because I don't think he treats her as a daughter. But I think he has some long connection with her (whether or not she knows it), as he just let her go, let her out and set up a new life for her. His statement "all you had to do was ask" reminded me of the several times he has said similar to Liz - saying that if she wants him (Red) out of her life , all she has to do is say so and he'll leave. Its just the mirror image of that - if Emma wanted to leave all she had to do was ask...hmmmm

Of course this is all just my opinion - anyone else have any thoughts or notice anything I maybe didn't?

Last edited by lara1 (1/22/2017 2:56 pm)

lara1 · 1/22/2017 2:40 pm

Who is Waging the New War on Red?

OK after viewing the episode again, I think that there are some clues that Kaplan may be involved. I'm not saying that she is the bad guy, but she could be giving him info, or maybe she's otherwise behind the scenes. I'm not sure I really want it to be Kaplan, but here are some interesting things to ponder:

1. At the beginning of the episode, when Zach, Red's accountant, is late, Red is annoyed and Zach says to Red "trouble with the missus"...."you know how it is" or words to that effect
2. At the end of the episode, when Abe gives Red the news that Zach has had a heart attack, that term is used again - Abe says "the missus said he had a heart attack" or words to that effect. So in both the opening and closing of the episode, the word "missus" is spoken directly to Red. Link to Kaplan as Red's other half?
3. I caught two references to ghosts in the dialog in the episode - there may be more - Red says to the cruise line director that one of the things he could be shipping are "ghost guns".....when speaking of the strip club owner (forget his name) someone says that he got "spooked" by the robbery. I keep being reminded of the final shot of Kaplan on the ground after she has been shot, as the lyrics about "I will never be set free as long as I'm a ghost you can't see." play....was that foreshadowing?

I actually think its a bit obvious to be Kaplan but then again maybe she re-appears to thwart the new big bad, we won't know till we see it!

Also - the guy who took the cruise line out from under Red - "Baldur" means "Prince".

All just my thoughts of course!

Last edited by lara1 (1/22/2017 2:44 pm)

lara1 · 1/22/2017 3:11 pm

lara1 wrote:
LDJones wrote:
Could she be ballet girl? What's her background?
Who is Emma?

LD Jones, I have been pondering this since you first made this observation while watching the episode. I think there is definitely a chance that she could be "ballet girl" - listed below - though one of the issues is that we don't yet know who ballet girl was to Red. However, I do think that even if she is not ballet girl, I think she is entwined somehow in Red's deeper past. How we don't yet know - but there are some interesting "clues".

1. Emma's surname is "Knightly" - there is that royal reference again.
2. I reckon that Emma is around 40 - which would make her the right age to be "ballet girl", who I think, based on what we know was about/around 10 in 1987 - unless the ballet school program and Red's "memory" of the child dancing were not directly connected, but I don't think that's probable; she has a son who is a junior in boarding school so I'm guessing he is around 16;
3. When we first meet Emma, her hair is up on the top of her head in a bun, as was ballet girl; throughout most of the episode, her hair is up in a bun or ponytail; its in a very tight bun again in the last scene with her talk with Red
4. At one point, Emma dons a "ballet like" top - its sheer and floaty and to the knees and ties at the side of the waist in a soft bow. OK its not formal ballet wear but I don't think the show would be the obvious and it would kind of look ridiculous if it was - this gives the idea of ballet garb;
5. As LD Jones pointed out while viewing the episode, Emma's "profile" is very much like Red's - even the nose in profile is similar. I looked at this while she is in the car driving with Liz - and at the end, while Emma is talking to Red, there are several long shots of them in profile. OK she's not Red's identical twin, but was this actress purposely cast with that in mind? Also both Red and Emma are wearing matching colors there - grey and black. OK a stretch and I would not mention it if not for the other items, but maybe just an added clue;

I tried to see clues in Emma's house but didn't, though I will watch that scene with Liz in the kitchen again. However, I think the prescription bottles on the kitchen table were another clue of sorts. It reminded me of Dom's prescriptions that he kept in the middle of the table in his cabin. I think those bottles were placed there on purpose - in Emma's house, they could have been on a bathroom shelf, a kitchen shelf, the kitchen counter etc., yet there they were front and center on the table. And why have them at all? They showed that stress was taking a toll on Emma but that could have been relayed in a different way. So I wonder if there is some connnection with Dom - whom some of us have theorized spent time in the UK given his use of the term "nappies" etc.

So my thoughts are that Emma could be ballerina girl - though we don't know ballerina girl's connection to Red - or if not, she is somehow linked to his past and all the events of the late 1980s. I don't think she is Red's long lost daughter (if there even is one!) only because I don't think he treats her as a daughter. But I think he has some long connection with her (whether or not she knows it), as he just let her go, let her out and set up a new life for her. His statement "all you had to do was ask" reminded me of the several times he has said similar to Liz - saying that if she wants him (Red) out of her life , all she has to do is say so and he'll leave. Its just the mirror image of that - if Emma wanted to leave all she had to do was ask...hmmmm

Of course this is all just my opinion - anyone else have any thoughts or notice anything I maybe didn't?

OK back to my post above, I just thought of another ballet girl clue - the "ballet like garb" I mention in #4 above, is black and white; when Emma and Liz talk in the hotel bar before the "heist", Emma is wearing a black and white dress, in fact throughout the episode I think she is wearing black and white - this bugged me as I knew it meant something and - well Swan Lake, black swan and white swan. Hmmmmm

I don't know what to make of her wearing black to meet up with Red though....was she ballerina girl, or the black swan, mirror type image to ballet girl. Just some more food for thought

Harry - welcome! I have to run out now, so can't reply but liked reading your post!

Last edited by lara1 (1/22/2017 3:14 pm)

Honey West · 1/22/2017 5:43 pm

Welcome back, Harry. Very good observations. And your digression was interesting.

I think Liz's role as a profiler and psychologist will prove to be important to the overall story of Liz and Red. We see that he is someone who sort of skates along a psychological edge. He can do good things one minute and yet is capable of cold blooded murder the next. This has to take a toll on his psyche, and maybe we are seeing that beginning to show itself. He even said to Liz's attacker that every time he kills someone a part of him is lost. He told Liz that only she could save him and that she was how he could find his way home. Perhaps her psychological background will play a part in that beyond how they are actually related.

I really think that the reason for repeating "Mato" this week is to show the events leading up to Red shooting Kate before she probably reappears.

My take on the advances in the restroom scene is that it's more than romance, it is a dominance thing.
I think the Harem let Liz in because they needed to move quickly to get that list and her manipulation skills were what they needed right then. And probably Emma helped get her a quick pass, since she worked for Red. And speaking of Red, I also thought that he seemed curiously unconcerned about Liz's safety.

Big Badd Bazzer · 1/22/2017 8:57 pm

Honey West #73 - Red probably didn't realize Margot Rochet had evolved into a killer - that was clear when she drilled the witness in the chest after suspecting he cut a deal with authorities! Didn't kill Liz cuz she #1 was attracted to her and #2 - she assumed Liz didn't have much to do with the deal.

Tuxie400 · 1/23/2017 12:31 am

lara1 - Knightly and Baldur meaning prince! The royal references just keep on coming. I wanted to let the royal idea go, but now I think it's still in play.

Harry - Welcome! You make some good points about the episode. I don't really have any answers for the questions you raised.

lara1 · 1/23/2017 12:41 am

Following on from my post in #72 above, I found a gif of ballerina girl and there is definitely a resemblance to Emma. You could make the argument that it is Emma, IMO, the facial features are so similar. (I tried to paste it in here but can't get it to work)

Not saying that Emma is ballerina girl, but its a possibility, or that she has a connection to ballerina girl.

(I think I am now in danger of replacing my piano obsession (haven't seen many of those lately!) with a ballerina girl obsession LOL!)

lara1 · 1/23/2017 12:48 am

HI Harry

Good to see another person intrigued by the ideas and theories we bounce around here!

I'm not a moderator but I do post a lot!

In answer to your question on why Margot shot the guy in the chair, I don't think it was a loyalty suspicion because the Feds released his brother. My take on it was that she shot him for an outstanding issue over something he did, or failed to do, "in Majorica".. Reminded me of when Red has done similar. That's my thought on it anyway.

On the Margot/Liz scene I agree with HW that it was a dominance thing. And I also think that it was to show the audience that Emma could in fact be trusted as she had Liz's back in that scene (although I don't think Liz needed her help, therefore it was to show us that Emma could be trusted) Just my two cents!

Harry · 1/24/2017 8:37 am

Lara1 #71, para. 3:
I did not know until I read your post that when Red shot Mr. Kaplan, Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" was playing in the background (ie, "And I will never be set free, as long as I'm a ghost you can't see"). [ As I've confessed, I could not bear to watch Red pump bullets into Mr. K's head, so I never watched that episode. ]
I recall that when Red shot Dianne Fowler and ruined her pretty white satin nightgown, Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown" was playing in the background ("I can see her lying there in a satin dress, in a room where you do, what you don't confess. Sundown, you'd better take care, if I find you've been sneakin 'round my my backstair"). Mr. K came on the scene to clean up the mess.
Either the showrunners (like me) are Gordon Lightfoot fans, or if in a future episode we hear Gordon L's voice start singing the opening bars of "Early Morning Rain" or "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", maybe we should expect the scene to conclude with an execution.

Tuxie400 · 1/24/2017 11:13 am

Harry - Yes, Gordon Lightfoot songs don't bode well for people talking with Red - especially older women.

lara1 · 1/24/2017 3:57 pm

Harry wrote:
Lara1 #71, para. 3:
I did not know until I read your post that when Red shot Mr. Kaplan, Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" was playing in the background (ie, "And I will never be set free, as long as I'm a ghost you can't see"). [ As I've confessed, I could not bear to watch Red pump bullets into Mr. K's head, so I never watched that episode. ]
I recall that when Red shot Dianne Fowler and ruined her pretty white satin nightgown, Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown" was playing in the background ("I can see her lying there in a satin dress, in a room where you do, what you don't confess. Sundown, you'd better take care, if I find you've been sneakin 'round my my backstair"). Mr. K came on the scene to clean up the mess.
Either the showrunners (like me) are Gordon Lightfoot fans, or if in a future episode we hear Gordon L's voice start singing the opening bars of "Early Morning Rain" or "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", maybe we should expect the scene to conclude with an execution.

Harry, I also thought that tying the two Gordon Lightfoot songs kind of tied together our (the viewer's) experiences with Kaplan - when Red kills Diane Fowler, that's the episode where we the audience see an extended interaction between Red and Kaplan for the first time - we know they are close. then, the ending of it.

Per the NBC schedule, the "Mate" episode is being re-run this Thurs in the Blacklist 10PM time slot. You still may not be able to watch the end when Red shoots Kaplan, but, as these things go, although upsetting the entire scene I thought was very well done. For me, while I'm not looking forward to seeing that scene again, I think it will be interesting to re-watch the rest of the episode for "clues" now that we know what has happened. Just my opinion of course.