I KNEW 4.16 was going to be Dembe Zuma!
So who is the Enemy? Kate or Katarina? Or Dom? LOL!

Tatiana - sounds like an "american" name....Yes, many faces.  Or were there 2 Katarinas?  (heh heh).  LOL just joking!    (Maybe....)

Honey West - Yes, we thought it would be Dembe Zuma. And it looks like Aram will be the one who gets kidnapped.

Hisham pretty much confirms it!Tweets 

 ​
Jeesh you all know how to dig!

(Episodes 4.16 and 4.17 names and summaries)

Aly @AlyB1223
Sounds like Dembe's got some explaining to do....but I still have faith he's doing the right thing.
@HISHAMTAWFIQ @AmirArison #TheBlacklist

I think the fact that Dembe kidnaps Aram (which I think some of us predicted!  heck we are good sometimes, LOL)  is another thing that leads toward Dembe being innocent of the posioning, or cooking up the scheme with Red but now in danger because Red doesn't remember that.  I'm starting to think a little less it is a plan conceited by Red and Dembe, and a little more that someone else just poisoned the Scotch.  If Red was under surveillance someone could have discovered the flat and just broke in.

I guess Red no longer has the clock with the spy camera in it.  It would be strange in my view if he did not have the flat under surveillance, given he keeps his "secrets" there (whatever those are) and that, exactly, someone who had him under surveillance could have discovered it.

Of course the other option is that someone figured out Red's Scotch source and just switched the bottles at source.  

Or was it just a complicated poison that was not administered in the Scotch per se, but "activated" by the chemical reaction of indgesting Scotch?

Liz's commet that it had to have been delivered via a strong alcohol spirit rather than wine was curious.  So maybe the poisong was in something else but the Scotch activated it.  I don't know how likely that is, but I guess its out there as a possibility.  

Last edited by lara1 (3/28/2017 11:04 am)

lara1 wrote:

I think the fact that Dembe kidnaps Aram (which I think some of us predicted!  heck we are good sometimes, LOL)  is another thing that leads toward Dembe being innocent of the posioning...

Liz's commet that it had to have been delivered via a strong alcohol spirit rather than wine was curious.  So maybe the poisong was in something else but the Scotch activated it.  I don't know how likely that is, but I guess its out there as a possibility.  

I love being part of this discussion board because by your collective wisdom I feel so much smarter! 

As TPBL had mentioned, the 4.16 and 4.17 titles would be spoilers and they're right.
Dembe did not intentionally poison Red, or if he did, it was part of a plan to extract Aram from the Task Force. It is possible (although not probable) that Red colluded with Dembe and Dembe would need to take the lead to find out who was attacking Red's empire. They've discovered, so far, that the source of the attacks are through the Dark Web and all electronic, so they may be following that as a lead.

If Aram is extracted from the Post Office then Dembe can 'force' him to work for Red. Inside the Post Office, especially with the recent admonitions from Cooper, any investigation into Red's attackers has been stopped or compromised.

Aram's loyalty to Red and his newly discovered latent fighting talents indicate that Aram will go far to help.

WAIT! What if this is exactly as we'd thought?!

Red is building his TEAM!?  He has to. The FBI is no longer working for him. But he can pull resources off the FBI to work for him. Is this why TBL tweeted this this morning: 

The winds of change are blowing. We have a feeling everything is about to get very interesting. #TheBlacklist 

Tatiana #12 - I like your idea that this may have been a plan to extract Aram from the task force.

It would serve two purposes:  first, to extract Aram to help. I remember that when Red recently needed Aram's help Aram was unavailable because Cooper had sent Aram on a mission that Red that was ill-advised and Red did desperately need his help to track down the payments to Stone.  Instead he (Red) was forced to eat a bit of humble pie, so to speak, by his having to go direct to the banker to get the info (and therefore also further expose his vulnerability).  That must have been kind of a last resort for Red.

The second purpose would be to set up Dembe as the "bad guy" and therefore no repercussions back to  Red for kidnapping or using Aram for his own purposes, vs if it were clear that Red had orchestrated the "kidnap".

Maybe Red has an inkling that somehow the powers that be that are pulling Cooper's strings may be behind the attacks, so trying to solve it with Aram's obvious help would both give Red that help without protests or denials from Cooper and maybe not tip off the powers behind the attacks.  It could also set up Dembe as the "bad guy" for the same purpose - to throw off the real "bad guys" who are after Red.  (In other words, it sets up that Red thinks Dembe is the guilty party and Dembe is being pursued by Red and gone AWOL as a result.)

Just some meandering thoughts!  I guess that was more than two!  As usual the plot can take one of many turns! LOL

They need to be careful though because if the task force goes after Dembe things could get messy or even lethal.

Although I guess that wouldn't explain Dembe taking a "calculated risk", unless that refers back to Red not remembering that they hatched a plan together.  I read somewhere that poisons can affect memory weeks or even months after an attack, depending on the poison....

Last edited by lara1 (3/28/2017 1:25 pm)

Excellent thinking re Aram being extracted from the Post Office so he can work on Red's team. Whoever has been getting into Red,s business seems to have been using cyber means to do it. He has to fight fire with Fire and we have already seen that Aram is the best there is. However, as pointed out he has been hamstrung by the powers above Harold clamping down on their aid to Reddington. We've all noticed that Harold has been particularly and unusually harsh towards Red lately. Calling him selfish and that they won't get into his personal wars, etc. I am thinking that Harold's sudden change of heart about helping him has maybe been a code way of telling Red that there's a mole and that everything they say in the PO is being listened to by an enemy. Using task force resources openly is now dangerous and out of the question. Look how Elise was able to gain entry via Aram's laptop? Now is she still part of it? I guess we'll find out soon enough. But it makes sense to have Dembe supposedly on the outs with Red in a big way and then enlist/kidnap Aram to help out.

Yes! Good job my fellow sleuths! The pieces are fitting together better now as to why Red could probably really be behind his own poisoning. Terrific smokescreen, but "what if something goes wrong?" And it almost did. I wonder if the memory loss was not supposed to be so bad and also that maybe that first inhaler was supposed to reverse the effects but somehow got switched. Maybe that doctor, who seemed "not right" really wasn't right? Hmmm the plot thickens!  

Honey West - Nemec - If you get back to the chess theory - One who does not speak "check."

Honey West #16 - I like your idea that Cooper giving Red the "cold shoulder" and making a loud fuss in the Post Office is his way of signaling something to Red.  Remember when Red asked him something like, since when, or why do you care about appeasing them (the powers that be)? and Cooper just gave him a look and said nothing.....

Also like your idea about the inhaler - I am a bit fixated about that thing!  There were just so many close ups of inhalers....well I guess we will see!