Lara- it was more the shape that made me think ballet.  The ruffle part threw me off because like you said, ballet shoes don’t  generally have them.  Then it made me wonder if it was elastic that had worn over time, like a slipper?  But I still can’t tell what is at the other end.

Did anyone happen to see what she was wearing when she had her bathrobe on and he came up behind her with the ax?  She had it on 2 times. Were they possibly slippers that were similar?

Thank you tuxie.  Since your on a roll do you remember what she wore in McGrath?    I know she had on silky looking pjs that looked very nice. I think she was shown 2 times writing in her diary.

I will say I think it's just really weird that Red is shown with an axe behind his back looking as creepy as i have ever seen him and we have a chopped up body in a suitcase. 

Well I don't have any new insights about the suitcase, but I did re-watch Ivan the other night and the computer program that "Ivan" stole was called The Skeleton Key.  That made me smile.  I don't think that the idea of a skeleton in a suitcase had been conceived way back then but the show is to a certain extent about skeletons in closets, IMO.

So, just for fun - the theme of the episode was unrequited love and infatuation.  It's also the episode where Liz finds out that her husband has a different identity, Tom has to destroy his wall of clues.  Also, when Red gives the music box the Liz.  And I realized that the tune, "Anniversary Waltz" was a reference to dance.  I hadn't made that link before as I was focused on the song itself.  I believe its the third reference by Red to dancing by that point in the series.  

Last edited by lara1 (1/02/2018 10:38 pm)

Tuxie400 - of course I loved reading your post!  LOL.

Its interesting because in Ivan and the Skeleton Key plot, Tom tries to keep Liz from finding out that he is living as her husband in a fabricated identity.  Killing Jolene was part of it, he tears down his wall of clues, and of course he ends up punching Liz to the ground and running out to keep her from seeing him, and to a certain extent, who he really is.    Of course I see a parallel to Red, who of course would never punch Liz but who is going to great lengths to keep the suitcase from her and maybe his real identity and that he is not her father.....just some ideas.

In the prior episode, Mako Tanida, Tanida's brother was killed while he was captured, and someone from the FBI task force took over his identity and role in the Tanida syndicate.    Another parallel if you think about the imposter theory.  A government agent who takes on the identity of a criminal....

I like your idea of matching the "end" with the "beginning".  There are also a lot of scenes where Red is carrying a black bag or case...including in Cape May.  Interesting idea..... 

Last edited by lara1 (1/03/2018 2:47 pm)

Tatiana - Good question about what happened to all those bodies and Agent Gale. His investigation was shut down by Laurel Hitchins, but who knows about the bodies. Would they even have enough space to keep them all for evidence?

Well still no new theories on the skeleton, but I re-watched Milton Bobbitt tonight and totally forgot about the scene with Red and Vlad, where Red seeks him out to help with touch DNA from Craig's fingerprints - Vlad is a scientist and professor, he is examining a broken skeleton when Red goes to see him for help.  There are also around half a dozen skeletons being studied by others on examination tables.

I didn't really pick up on thoughts from this, but I did add stuff to the parallel and numbers list, maybe someone else will have an idea.   

So, as I rewatch any episode I am looking at shoes, lol.  I have gotten behind from all this snow! 

​Is there 1 or 2 episodes where Red watches the home movies?  I remember The Front, but is there another one?  
​A friend brought up Naomi so we were discussing if Naomi could be in there instead of KR and KR might have took over her identity. But I cant seam to make it work with what we know.  On the other hand we never know if what we know is correct. I cannot make Jennifer fit into that idea.  

 

For the last couple of days, I've been questioning whether the bones could be a child, which is bananas because I've never been in on the theory of there having been two kids there at the fire.  I've wondered if Liz's memory of shooting someone could have been that second child instead of her father, like she has believed since season 2.  The child's existence could have been glossed over or intentionally hidden for whatever reason. I'm not in the belief that Red isn't really RR, but I've wondered if Red and Carla could have had a child older than Jennifer or if Red had a child with someone else in his younger days, but perhaps there isn't a major link to him for some reason (his name wasn't on the birth certificate, it primarily lived with its mother, etc).  Or if it could have been someone else's child (maybe someone who was working with Red?) that was shot and Red has not only wanted to protect Liz from the memory of shooting a child, but to protect her from revenge of the parent(s) of that child?  It's definitely out of my normal line of thinking and will probably go away.  lol

I just can't quite figure out how threatened Red feels by the contents of this suitcase outside of his relationship with Liz.  Especially since he can't seem to offer up a good reason not to be honest with her, even after they've lost Kaplan and Baz and his business was ruined. That seems to be the only concern he has ever really shown besides people getting killed so someone else could get to it.  Garvey thinks he can blackmail him with it, which makes me think it is something bigger than Red's own dead child.  But maybe not. 

Last edited by Brittany (1/07/2018 9:58 am)

I know we've all looked over the bones (like that questionable shoe thing), but I've made myself stop looking at things that have been blown up or are zoomed in from the background because it isn't realistic that we as the viewers could be expected to be doing still frames and blowing up pictures to get answers. I don't think the bones are supposed to be able to tell us much of anything except that there is a body in there.  They changed props between the season 4 finale and the season 5 premiere so any conclusions we can get from one set are likely negated by another . So I'm not going off of the look of the remains, but by the possibilities that would elicit his behavior along with being a reason why he would need to enter her life when he did.  But I'm still not in the camp of it being a "real Raymond Reddington".  We've already been told he doesn't have DNA on file from prior to his disappearance.  Garvey seeming to have no idea who Liz is or any care about her already makes me think the CODIS search didn't bring up a genetic connection to her (from either parent) and it isn't public knowledge that Liz is RR's daughter.