lara1 #2 - On Kaplan's reflection, maybe the rocks and leaves in the water just make it look like there are other faces there. We know she has identity issues. Her name really isn't Mr. Kaplan. I wonder if she will tell her rescuer her real name.

Tuxie400 #1: I also felt like Mr. Kaplan's face looked worse in the reflection in the water. I wondered if maybe she was hallucinating a bit about her past injury that she and Red had just talked about. Or if she felt a death foreshadow of some kind. At any rate, it was creepy.

Mirrors: 

Mr. Kaplan's reflection in the water. - Several thoughts: she saw her face partially as it was before her "head was split open"; she realized how badly she was injured; she saw a different face than who she is; she saw an amalgam of several different people in her reflection. I did not think she saw the man, but I'll have to re-watch

Mirrors in other art media:

"The Lady from Shanghai" - this is marvelous!
https://youtu.be/yUYLMSHvb6A

"Citizen Kane" the mirror scene in the movie "Citizen Kane" - after going on a rampage, he clings to the snow globe, Rosebud. He slowly walks through a corridor of mirrors which fractures his image into multiple images, reflecting his fragented and broken life.

Impressionist art - focuses on reflection and light and color. Frequently depicts water/reflections and mirrors.

 

 

Tatiana  - Excellent ways to describe what she saw!

 

Oops, I meant for my Hitchcock referenced post to end up here. Let me see if I can move it.

Couldn't figure out how to move it so deleted it and hopefully here it is:

Ah, Tatiana and lara1, Strangers on a Train, what a great movie! In college I took a class called The Films of Alfred Hitchcock and that was one that we studied. We discussed and dissected the films a lot like we do here.   another great one if you've never seen it is Shadow of a Doubt. I don't remember how many films we studied but it was an entire semester and we did about one a week. North by Northwest was one of them. I got the Mr Kaplan reference right away as someone's nod to a favorite film. A couple of years ago I finally visited Mt Rushmore and all I could think about was Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint scrambling around on the faces.

But, getting back to subject of mirrors and reflections and doubles. Definitely something going on here as well. One of Hitchcock's greatest visuals is the Strangers murder shown as being reflected in the victim's eyeglasses. And later in The Birds one of the schoolgirls loses her glasses in an attack and they are broken. Hitchcock's films are also full of mistaken identities and doppelgängers. In The Blacklist it may be more a case of switched identities, rather than mistaken. I am very interested in seeing where they take some of these things that they seem to be laying the groundwork for.

Last edited by Honey West (10/15/2016 1:27 pm)

deadskie13 wrote:

I'm five seconds away from passing out, and I haven't had time to properly delve into this interesting theory, but I did notice something not too long ago, and that is this:  

In The Artax Network, Dom's cup is a checkered pattern coffee mug, with edging at the bottom, and he's sitting with Red, discussing the loss of Lizzy.  In Esteban, Red is sitting at a table, consuming a beverage from the same mug, discussing with said Blacklister, the prospects of finding Lizzy.  And so the mug is a kind of mirrored bookend, of sorts.  

I don't imagine it would factor too terribly much into the grand scheme of things--only that it was a nice little detail.  (And I only noticed the mug, because I have the same one sitting in my cabinet.)  ^-^

It also kind of mirrors nicely, the way in which Cooper and Tom met in the same Chinese restaurant that Red's opium den was on the other side of, in season 3.  Because you have Cooper and Tom confronting reality and plotting to save Liz towards the start of the season--and then later on, you have Red on the other side of the wall, doing his best to ditch reality, as the realization of Elizabeth's death sets in.

I suspect there's a lot of little instances like the noted above.  Just quick snippets that don't necessarily mean anything grand, but overall add to this kind of cyclical mirror-type deal.  

deadskie13 - really good observations.  And yes, the mirrors again, 2 sides of same image sort of.  I bet that in my next re-watch of the series (probably not till summer, LOL) I will see all sorts of "mirroring" now that I'm looking for it.

And I'm going to check out the mug.  Reason being, firstly I love to go back and look at what others noticed and I didn't; and, when I first looked at the St. Nicholas icon on the wall in Red's apartment, I thought the robe St. Nicholas was wearing was a checkerboard -pattern  it does looks like that form a distance.  When you look closer, you realize that it is a pattern of black crosses on a white background.  .And, Dom as well as Red having the mug, and maybe "Domi-nick" for Dom's name

And I just made another reference from "Nick" to Red - his chess and checkers mentions throughout the series....

Last edited by lara1 (10/25/2016 12:55 am)

deadskie13 #14: That is a really interesting comparison. 

I really agree....I loved Leonard Caul. I was thrilled when he came back around and was assisting Red. I hope he does return. 

Last edited by Tabasko (10/26/2016 6:07 am)