🔴 Season 8-9 Unanswered Questions
Last Updated: 6/8/2022
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Season 9 Unanswered ?s: ⇊ Page Down ⇊
Season 8 Unanswered ?s
Season 7 Unanswered ?s: (with comments)
Season 6 Unanswered ?s: (with comments)
Season 5 Unanswered ?s: (with comments)
Season 4 Unanswered ?s: (with comments)
Season 3 Unanswered ?s: (original version)
Season 2 Unanswered ?s: (original version)
Season 1 (I did not start watching until Season 2)
🔴 Season 9 Unanswered Questions
⭕ Major Themes:
1. What is Red’s life story? What’s his true identity?
2. Who is Red’s family?
3. What’s the relationship between Red and Katarina?
4. How will Wujing use the list of Blacklisters? Who’s on it?
5. Why did Red start his criminal empire? What’s its purpose?
6. How will the series end?
🔻Go to “Unanswered Questions” for discussion of Major Themes
⭕ Other Questions:
● Who is Red’s heir apparent now, with Liz and Marvin dead? Dembe? Agnes?
● What happened in Brasilia between Red and Dembe that Red said was “a tragedy”?
● Does Red have a continuing relationship with the Russian FSB/SVR/Vory?
● What’s in the box Red gave to Dembe?
● What did Red whisper to Alexander Kirk so he wouldn’t kill him, and what is Kirk doing now?
● What happened to the Cabal?
● Was the date on the Swan Lake program significant?
● Why did Liz’s memory have to be erased twice?
● Will Mierce and Weecha return for Season 10? Where are they from anyway? What will happen to Red and
Mierce’s relationship?
⭕ Discussion of Major Themes
♦️1. What is Red’s story? What’s his true identity?
● What is Red’s life story?
● What was Red’s relationship with Dom? Son? Daughter/Son? Protégé?
● What does the letter from Katarina to Liz say? ~ Every.Single.Word
♦️2. Who is Red’s family?
● Dembe commented that Red, Liz and Agnes all have the same laugh and same “heart.”
Agnes, Elizabeth, and Raymond. This funny, little family who all share that laugh. This one, big, generous, mischievous, loving, hungry, wanting, tragic heart.
● Cooper also seemed to imply Red is Agnes’s grandfather …
● How will Cooper tell Red’s and Liz’s story to Agnes? How much of it does Cooper even know?
● Will Red want to groom Agnes like he did Liz?
♦️3. What’s the relationship between Red and Katarina?
● Is Red really Katarina?
⋙ It’s pretty unrealistic to think Katarina could have transformed into Red without all the women he had dalliances with noticing. He’s such an alpha male. State of the art plastic surgery just isn’t there yet [Or are we to assume Dr Koehler’s skills were decades ahead?] Will this be clarified or remain an unresolved mystery?
● Diane Fowler said she knew what happened to Red’s family and The Director when he said he knew who Red was to Liz. Red killed them both. Was that relates to knowing about Katarina becoming Red?
[Whether Red is really Katarina has divided the fandom into factions almost as much as Lizzington/Daddygate did. 8:21 and 8:22 offered clues but they were subtle and the atmosphere dreamlike]
♦️4. How will Wujing use the list of Blacklisters? Who’s on it?
● Will the fact Red is an informant become widely known or will Wujing sicc them on him one-by-one? Does Red assume someone is dead who isn’t?
● I marked my list of “Blacklisters and Other Bad Guys” with an ❌ if their status was “Arrested” (vs “Dead” or “Free” etc). There are at least twice as many “Other Bad Guys” as there are those that got numbers. Some were really bad, worse than the episode’s Blacklister. Others hold a grudge or explicitly threatened Red (eg Anne Foster’s best friend Lois said “I’ll kill you” if anything happens to Anne). Will any of them come after Red?
♦️5. Why did Red start his criminal empire? What’s its purpose?
● We’ve been told Red did it for Liz. But Red does follow a certain code of ethics based on his sense of justice. He may traffick humans, but he tries to do it safely. He deals justly, sometimes generously, with most of his associates. He applies his “justice” at times when the legal system fails.
● Marvin provided a raison d’être for Red’s criminal empire which articulates these values, but then implies Red had other motivations, too. What other motivations, exactly? Succession? Family? “Blood is thicker than water,” an idea Marvin may not understand, and which is often at odds with even-handed “justice.”
Marvin: … I devoted everything to you, to your vision, to what I thought was our vision. A life of crime with a common purpose: to help keep the world from slipping into the kind of evil we know humans are capable of. I thought we were together in this.
Red: We were.
Marvin: No, Raymond, because to me, it was the most important thing, but to you, it wasn’t.
♦️6. Series Ending:
Will Red live happily ever or die “on top of Everest” (quoting JS)? People are already bracing themselves for this. Do series always have to end in tragedy? My favorite novel, packed with drama and tragedy in which the main characters meet their differential fates, nonetheless ends, “Hoorah, Karamazov!” A high bar.
Also: Red’s “other” family
On this blog, this 2014 article remains one of the most popular, often in the top 10. It’s mostly just a collection of quotes from the early episodes which seem to imply Red had a family that died and he’s searching for answers. For instance, when Diane Fowler says: ‘I know what happened to your family, Red, that night. Don’t you want to know?’ and Red says, “More than anything in the world” before shooting her. I’ve reached the view that this is the retconning inevitable with a series this long and complex, but others care. (I’ve even tried to make this article less visible, but fans find it.)
Technical: When you buy a Season at Amazon, it comes without most of the “extra” features. I always buy both the DVD set and online set, but don’t have easy access to a DVD player. It would be nice if the “extra” features were also provided online.
🔴 Season 8 Unanswered Questions
June 2022
Note: Season 8 provided answers to many questions but presented in a way that much remains cloaked in mystery. So, questions have lingered. Rather than do a formal list for S8, I sent the email below to Troy Heinritz at The Blacklist Exposes, Golden Spiral Media. I also posted it on Twitter. ~ LizzieB90
July 2021
Email to: Troy Heinritz
A much shorter list this year, as so many questions were answered in 8:21. What an amazing episode.
Thank you for doing the special episode on Jon Bokenkamp. I’ve only listened to it once so far, but it was very clarifying.
I posted this list to Twitter. Please pass it along if you see fit
♡ ૂི•̮͡• ྀ ♡
~~~~~~~~~~
The 1987 ballet program Swan Lake – who did Red remember?
“You’re N-13 aren’t you?” (not “You’re Katarina, aren’t you?”) How did Tatiana find out Red was “hiding” Katarina that set her against him?
What’s in the box Red gave Dembe, of course.
Who is/was Sikorsky?
Dr Krilov ~ why was there a need to erase Liz’s memories again?
Red promised Liz (and us) “his” backstory – is this where Red would have explicitly said what was implicit in 8:21, (e.g. “Elizabeth, I am your Mother”?) What was Red going to tell Liz that wasn’t already told her in 8:21? “You’ll find out.” It was to be “his” story. Plus, what, exactly, does the letter from Katarina say? Yeah, we wanna know.
Is “Red” a chimera (aka a Frankenstein), or do we chalk it all up to the skills of Dr Koehler? Who were the “criminals” involved in “creating” Reddington? Was someone sacrificed for body parts or what?
I understand that “Anne” was to establish (in addition to Red being a mortal danger to any love interest) that, whatever the means, we are to think that Red is “the sexiest man alive,” so what the —? Some fans are assuming given Redarina, (s)he has Lesbian relationships with women. We all know plastic surgery falls short on F-to-M even now. What about all Red’s other women?
Red had a badly burned back in a very important scene at the end of 1:22 Berlin Conclusion; in the bathtub scene in 3:19 Cape May, there is a fleeting glimpse of Katarina’s back unscarred. Some fans say this means they can’t be the same person.
RR being rescued by Harold Cooper: torture table: what was that all about? Seaduke? I’ve never been clear on the Cooper backstory, but this was a compelling tale told by Cooper.
Will Season 9 be confirmed for 22 episodes?
1. What is Red’s life story? What’s his true identity?
I’m beginning to think he’s Constantine. It might be that Kirk was someone hypnotised to believe he was Constantine and that when Red whispered in his ear, he said something that released Kirk from that hypnotised state. That would be why Kirk and Spader say the same phrase at the same time about watching Katarina dancing in the show. It looked as if Red was reliving the moment as well. This way Red could be Liz’ father without being her father.
2. Who is Red’s family?
If Red is Constantine, then we don’t know much about his life except that he was and is a criminal, who eventually married Katarina. It may be that he was taken in by Dom Rostov (i.e. Constantine Rostov – Rostov is a relatively rare family name, unlike Koslov which is fairly common) and wasn’t able to fulfil Don’s dream of him being an agent – or staying an agent, maybe – marrying Katarina might have been the plan to cover for Katarina… as mentioned at the beginning of season 7.
3. What’s the relationship between Red and Katarina?
Criminal and Spy, one way or the other. If Red is Constantine, then it could be criminal-spy-criminal and Spy, maybe?
4. How will Wujing use the list of Blacklisters?
To create a band of people to track Red down using all their various skills combined.
– Who’s on it? Anyone and everyone who was caught and is still living.
5. Why did Red start his criminal empire? What’s its purpose?
Depends on which empire. If Constantine, he probably started it to provide for the ‘daughter’ Elizabeth. As post ‘90 Reddington, the empire exists to protect Elizabeth, and now Agnes.
6. How will the series end?
I still hope Liz comes back – after altering her appearance, building an empire in her own right and saving – the still dying – Reddington. She can then become and informant for the FBI while fight the Cabal, or somehow, miraculously, become an agent again with all sorts of inside sources. I can only imagine Red dies, I don’t see a happy ever after for him (except in knowing Agnes (and Liz, hopefully) is safe and protected. Reddington life never seems to have been happy per se.