Hi everyone! When I heard Anthony Pepe say in the podcast interview that there is a book about gender reassignment surgery in Red's flat, my jaw hit the floor! I immediately paused the podcast, went to Leonard Caul (on the Netflix app on my iPad), turned the brightness up high and paused nearly every shot of that apartment.....and did not see anything like that. I did see one book called Operative Surgery but nothing about gender reassignment surgery. Has anyone actually found it???
That's a pretty major claim for that guy to make without being able to prove it. Surely, he'd know us super fans would immediately go check!  Honestly if a book about that exact subject was in Red's apartment, that would seal the deal for me regarding Rederina. Why would Red even have a book about that topic?!? But I'm not seeing it at all.
Unfortunately, I can't seem to take screenshots of paused Netflix screens on my iPad. The resulting photo shows up blank/black. I could always pause it and then use my phone to photograph my iPad screen but so far there's nothing to bother posting here.

If he's going to start the podcast interview with a flat out lie, then I'm not too sure I care to listen to the rest of what he has to say. At least, I won't take it too seriously, that's for sure. I mean, changing "Operative Surgery" to "gender reassignment surgery" is quite a stretch!

Last edited by JackPow (7/14/2017 12:01 pm)

Hi Everyone!

Good point JackPow#121  Here is the best I came up with - and some of them are a stretch:
1) Anthony Pepe was joking
2) The book is non-English and so is the title
3) We can't actually see the book even though it is on the shelf. 
4) The book isn't shown in Leonard Caul, but in another episode.  Maybe Quon Zhang, Gregory Devry, or Apothecary?
5) I haven't heard the podcast - did Pepe say the book was in Red's flat or merely on Red's bookshelf? There were books in Red's cabin (where he took Carla).
6) The Operative Surgery book contains a chapter on gender reassignment surgery.  Any chance you can see the book's author on its spine? Then we could google the book for its contents.
7) TPTB wanted to give us a tough puzzle so we'd survive the long wait for Season 5 to begin.  If so, we are up for the challenge LOL.

Last but not least, although I'm nearly positive the comic books don't have any scenes in Red's apartment, the lunatic in me will check anyway. 

Colleen - "the lunatic in me will check anyway".    HAHA! That's why I love this forum! I love knowing there are other Blacklist "lunatics" like myself! 

Lara - I know what you mean. Lotte seems so lithe whereas Red seems very stocky. But the red haired actress thing wasn't lost on me, a redhead myself. We'll see. At the very least, I appreciate them even choosing a red haired actress. There's certainly not a lot of us out there!

I just checked it out. The episode is S2:E20 Quon Zhang. It's frustrating because even after pausing the scene at various points, it was hard for me to make out any of the book titles. Oh well. I'm happy to just let it be.

I hope everyone is staying cool in this heat!

Tuxie, 116, it looks like the same one to me. Its just odd Tom seams to know why they are there.

It doesn't bother me that they didn't use his name. I was thinking about it and I hardly ever say anyone's name when I am talking with them.

I listened to the Pepe interview and the Roundtable.
Both were great!  I want to hear the roundtable again.

The only book I see is Operative Surgery, Vol. II.
It looks like an older book to me, but who knows...

I'm up to 3.11 on my re-watch.
The roundtable discussion Pointed out out things pull together a bit more when you look at several episodes at once which is true for me.
I plan to be done by the time S4 gets to Netflix.

It was fun to watch S1 again.  I love how we get to see people for the first time, especially Kaplan!

I will wait till everyone gets caught up on the interviews so I don't spoil it for anyone.

Try to keep cool in this heat!!

Eastcoast - thanks for the "sneak peek" into the roundtable.

Tuxie400 - LOL!    But that's a good point actually!  And sometimes I wonder whether we should not take things as literally...  So here's another thought for you....

Re Sam not calling Red by any name, it didn't bother me as such but I do think that was deliberate (on the part of the show)...Sam initially doesn't recognize Red (although we presume he hadn't seen him in many years and Sam was I think sedated....)  - so we see Sam initially searching Red to try to figure out who he is.  So how did he recognize him - well Red does start to speak.....but was it Red's eyes?

I remain fixated on all of those close ups of Red's eyes in the Ep 8 finale with Kirk.....and then we sort of see something similar (maybe) in Requiem when Red meets with Kaplan in the shadows - a focus on the eyes and the rest of the face in shadow (though that may have also been to help with the "reverse aging" effect).    So anyway I am still thinking, that might be one thing that hadn't changed or at least changed much...the eyes? Not that I'm convinced yet, LOL!  but its intriguing......

 

lara1 - The eyeballs likely wouldn't have changed - unless he wears colored contacts. Eye shape can be altered with cosmetic surgery. But I think the focus on the eyes in all the instances you mention could be a clue.

Here's a thought I had about mirroring. Kaplan uses the last name of her dead lover to honor her. What if that is a mirroring situation to Katarina using Raymond Reddington's whole name?

I think there are lots of mirroring situations. Red and Liz on the swings in Season 1. The photo with Katarina and little Liz in a swing.

Red wanting to take Liz shopping for some Cuban designer's dresses in Season 1. Katarina writing in her diary about how much she loves dress shopping with Masha.

Katarina telling Kate, "You will not love her" with the same cadence and intonation as Red telling Tom, "You will not marry her."

Last edited by Tuxie400 (7/21/2017 10:57 am)

lara1 - What if Katarina and Raymond are distinct and separate personalities within a multiple personality framework, and Kaplan knew that?  What I found earlier this year that disturbed me indicated the writers were drawing some images, phrases, characters and plot points during the first two seasons from real and literary pedophilia/child sex abuse cases. Now it could be Bokenkamp or Eisendrath had done a lot of research on this topic for a project that never took off and just used some of the ideas for the creep factor. But child sexual abuse is the main cause of multiple personality disorder, and we have had episodes dealing with both multiple personality and pedophilia. What if the Katarina character was abused as a child, and then developed multiple personalities? After all, the CIA guys said Katarina Rostova was an amalgam of many women. Red said he knew her as Katarina Rostova, one of her many names. What if those were just her other personalities?  The name Raymond means protector. The protector personality is the most common alter in multiple personalities. Red seemed to know Katarina's inner thinking. Some people on this forum have even suggested Raymond had Katarina's memories implanted somehow. I don't know how this would all work in the context of the show, but these are some of my crazy morning thoughts in response to your last post points. Could this show go all Beautiful Mind at some point? This wouldn't be Katarina doing a gender change to hide, it would be the protector alter sublimating all the other personalities except himself and the child.

Last edited by Tuxie400 (7/22/2017 12:19 pm)

Hi Tuxie400 and Laura1!  Much food for thought. I've been morbidly reading a lot about such topics lately, including human trafficking, thinking the show's mythology somehow ties in with them. Should we move this over to the THRUSHES spin-off site?

I finished season 3!!!

Last night I watched 3.11/ Devery through 3.14/lady Ambrosia.

Today I started with Drexal and before I knew it I was on
A. Kirk! I thought i may as well finish it.

It's hard to believe how some things seamed to pull together like they did.

I could be wrong, but after watching it I just don't see how he could be KR?  So many people knew who he was.

I was trying to pay attention to all the stories he tells.
When you look at them all back to back one thing becomes obvious for me, he has a story for everything.
I started to feel like liz when she just looks at him as if to say, ' another story'?  I think some are true but some are stretched a bit and others he makes up to be funny or make a point. 
I feel the story he told about about not swimming was meant to be funny but he wants people to take him serious so he went off the subject.  I don't feel like he's afraid of the water after watching him in Cape May.

When he sees Dom,  I feel he is Red.

But here is what I am wondering.

Kate knew who Kirk was but not Dom. 
I felt like this was very telling.
Kate knew everything but that he said.
That means KR didn't discuss him either. 

Dom knows Red, but he doesn't mention Kirk.

Red said to him when her name hit the news they came for her.  But Dom didn't feel anything was really complicated about all this stuff. 

So Did he know anything about the marriage to Kirk?  Red said she had many names.
What if Dom thinks they were together and Kirk was the assignment? 

In the real world of spies, it's not uncommon not to tell who your family is so they are not in danger. 

We talk about Red having 2 families, but what if KR had 2 families?

Just food for thought...

Last edited by Eastcoast (7/23/2017 1:16 am)