Honey West wrote:

Yes, Maggie, I noticed that date yesterday. And welcome to the group!
My thought about that is that was supposed to be the original air date for that episode, but since they started the season a week earlier than originally announced that was why the toe tag date was for next week. either they just missed that little detail or else they couldn’t go back and change it for some reason. Plus in the final edit, you don’t see the date of death. We only see it in that promo photo.

I didn't realize the toe tag was from a promo shot. Your explanation is perfect, Honey West.
 

OK well a weird thought popped into my head this morning.  I keep thinking 10 months that is a rather random time period - and that technically 10 months would take us forward to a Season Six season premiere date around the third week of Sept!  YAY.

Anyone have thoughts on 10 months?  why not just a year?  Or just to demonstrate more than 9 months?

I was listening to TBL Exposed today and Aaron brought up an excellent observation that fits in with my own views on Liz.  I have never been a fan of the Tom/Liz relationship, though I have to admit he did redeem himself a little bit at the end of this episode with his feelings for her.  I always believed her feelings for him were real, but questioned how much he was capable of loving someone given his past.  Anyway, Aaron talked about Red reading that poem and how the last lines are "I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul".  Like Aaron, I've always seen Liz's character as a something of a reaction to both men rather than her own person.   I've never felt like Liz was her own person in this series up to this point and it was frustrating to see such a tough character be taken down to that.  Her pining over Tom in season 2 made me crazy.  I have always wanted the relationship with Tom to end because I wanted to see her on her own, forced to make her own choices and not being manipulated by both important men in her life.  Because I've often felt like if Tom weren't a factor, she would also be more independent of Red (not that I don't love the father-daughter relationship, but he controls her too much). 

Moving forward, I agree with Aaron that we are going to be able to see a Liz who is becoming the master of her fate and the captain of her soul.  She is now a widowed mother, and I speak from experience that it puts a whole new level of responsibility on you because you know if you die that your child is alone in the world.  You can't take the risks you once would because you have to look out for yourself as much as your child.  So in some ways I think Liz may have that in mind, but on the other hand she is going to be angry and grief-stricken and with her genes, I think she may end up doing something similar to what her parents did by asking someone else to take care of Agnes and to raise her as their own if she doesn't come back.  I also wonder if Agnes being raised by Red (and likely a nanny) is going to bother her because Agnes likely has no memories of her except as the Mommy who was asleep all the time.  If Agnes doesn't attach to her quickly and is seen running to the nanny or Red for everything, she may feel like she doesn't have to worry about it because Agnes will be cared for and wouldn't miss her.  It may only fuel her desire to take risks to get back at the people who killed Tom. 

Since the hiatus will be seven weeks--which will seem like a year to passionate fans--you could expect when the show returns that the writers will ask viewers for a willful suspension of disbelief. If Liz was in a coma for 10 months she's going to need extensive rehabilitation. The rule of thumb for severe head trauma is a patient needs one month of rehabilition for every DAY of unconsciousness. There's muscle wasting, often retrograde amnesia (which she doesn't seem to have)--although the loss of memory often is associated with the period around the injury but then she knew Tom had been critically injured,

So what to do. The writers can pull out a deux et machine and say, "It's a miracle."

They're too good for that.

They can push the clock forward and Liz can come back with a walker or a cane. That wouldn't work. The audience wants to see her kick some major butt with Red or...they can just keep playing the game. They've constructed a universe of highly improbable characters, who get themselves out of amost impossible situations--week after week. The only way I see that happening is pushing the clock ahead another two years or so. The writers can sell the audience on Liz' unexpected complete recovery on a few medical facts. The brain has a fantastical, almost miraculous capability to take over functions lost by catastophic damage to on area of the brain by using another. (I heard a talk given by a man who got a PETscan and discovered he had been born without one critical part of his brain and never had a symptom.)

Then there are new, exciting protocols for severe brain injury they say they could have tried: a drug named amanditine which is used to treat tremor in Parkinson's that accelerates improvement in disability scores. Another promising treatment is Ambien for a subclass of patients in comas, and finally, DBS--deep brain stimulation.

The bottom line is, Liz would have a lot of problems--her voice might never be the same. 

At the end of the day, the onus for credibility is going to be on the fans of the series. We have to "suspend our disbelief".

I'm an agnostic and I still believe in the "miracles" attributed to a catholic's petitionary prayer to a Saint. There are just too many of them.

We know Dembe is a Muslim and given the prayer he and Red said in the episode "Anslo Garrick", deeply spiritual, and a man who likely has profound religious faith. Red has already said Dembe stays with him for his "salvation". I'd like to see a flashback where Red and Dembe are waiting in the car and Dembe tells Red he has always believed he was in control when he controlled nothing and everything that has happened has been the will of Allah. (As a Muslim, Dembe would believe in the concept of "Maktoub"--"It is written".  This would explain how such a compassionate, decent man could justify the murders he committed.) Red could respond by saying, "I could not endure an existence in which I was a marionette, whose strings were being pulled by some cosmic puppeteer." To which Dembe, would reply, "Even your disbelief is not of your own making."

No preaching or evangelizing--just the suggestion that as Shakespeare said, "There is a destiny which shapes our ends, rough hewn though it may be."--in so many words, Red's belief in his resourcefulness and intelligence--as well as his indifference to violence to advance his cause--has brought nothing but tragedy and can no longer be justified. Have Red make an incredibly difficult moral choice: will he continue to labor for his own personal gain, cloaking his retribution as being an asset to the FBI, or will he walk away from his empire and become an avenger, taking down the bad guys because that's what good guys do?

At any rate, Liz can't just hop out of bed and start taking down Blacklisters. She has a long recovery ahead of her
and I hope that fact isn't glossed over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq4ZddafwSI



 

Last edited by N504JB (11/17/2017 4:00 pm)

Tuxie400 wrote:

My first thought about the 10 months was that Liz might have been pregnant and given birth while she was in the coma. Weird, I know. But so many sequences were repeating that that's what popped into my head.

Tuxie400 - that's actually where my mind went with this too.  Some folks speculated about a Liz pregnancy due to the love scenes mirroring the boat scene.  Not sure.  

Show of hands - who's excited to see Red and Dembe with Agnes as a toddler? She'd be between 2 1/2 and 3 years old, right?

I have visions of Red walking into the Post Office as dapper as ever, with Agnes being a totally mismatched ragamuffin because she insisted on dressing herself. Wearing a little sparkly red fedora.

Red gives the task force the latest blacklister. Harold doles out assignments, telling Samar to go to an embassy, Aram to access some satellite, Ressler to head to the crime scene.

Red adds, "And I'm going to the zoo."

Being in work mode, Ressler asks, "What's at the zoo?"

Red says, "Agnes, tell Donald what's at the zoo."

"Monkeys eating bananas!"

With that, Red and Agnes stroll out of the Post Office. Cooper smiles, Aram laughs, and Samar shoves Ressler who is shaking his head.

Colleen - thanks for sharing the parallel with the pen.  I hadn't thought of that, but that was good.  And a very touching moment.

The last two lines of the poem that Red was reading:
I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul".

Reminded me of the monologue in Anslo Garrick.  I believe there was a line about charting one's own course, one's own destiny.  And, I think similar in Red's discussion with liz in the "shipping container" - explaining about how he wanted to be the captain of his own ship.  And as he explained Polaris to her, how she was his way back home.
 

Tuxie400 wrote:

My first thought about the 10 months was that Liz might have been pregnant and given birth while she was in the coma. Weird, I know. But so many sequences were repeating that that's what popped into my head.

I thought that very same thing, Tuxie400, you are not too far out with that idea at all! In fact we wondered about that about a week ago, didn’t we?

Last edited by Honey West (11/17/2017 11:24 pm)

Honey West wrote:

Tuxie400 wrote:

My first thought about the 10 months was that Liz might have been pregnant and given birth while she was in the coma. Weird, I know. But so many sequences were repeating that that's what popped into my head.

I thought that very same thing, Tuxie400, you are not too far out with that idea at all! In fact we wondered about that about a week ago, didn’t we?

Ohhhh... that would be so like the episode... (what was it called?) where he kidnapped women, put them in a coma, impregnated them, and adopted out the children... Ok, It wouldn't be so like it, but in a weird way it would be.  

Tatiana - That was the Cypress Agency.