The Blacklist Declassified

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For S3 Episode 8: Kings of the Highway: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script
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🌅 3:7 Zal Bin Hasaan

 
For S3 Episode 7: Zal Bin Hasaan: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script

 

 

 

 

 

 

For S3 Episode 7: Zal Bin Hasaan: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script
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🌅 3:6 Sir Crispin Crandall

 
For S3 Episode 6: Sir Crispin Crandall: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script

 

 

 

For S3 Episode 6: Sir Crispin Crandall: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script
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🌅 3:5 Arioch Cain

 
For S3 Episode 5: Arioch Cain: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script

 

 

 

 

 

For S3 Episode 5: Arioch Cain: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script
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🌅 3:4 The Djinn

 
For Episode 4: The Djinn: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script

 

 

 

For Episode 4: The Djinn: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤📒 Script
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🌅 3:3 Eli Matchett

 
For S3 Episode 3: Eli Matchett: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script

 

 

 

 

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🌅 3:2 Marvin Gerard

 
For S3 Episode 2: Marvin Gerard: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script

 

 

 
For S3 Episode 2: Marvin Gerard: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script
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🌅 3:1 The Troll Farmer

 
For S3 Episode 1: The Troll Farmer: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script

 

 

 

For essay on these two compositions – both from episodes directed by Michael A Watkins – see “Whose intentions matter?” http://wp.me/pDKwi-1K
 

For S3 Episode 1: The Troll Farmer: 🎯 WSJ recap ¤ 🌅 PHOTO GALLERY ¤ 📚 Storybook ¤ 📒 Script
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༺♤༻🔴 SEASON 2 ⊱🔴⊰ SEASON 2 🔴༺♤༻

 
⭕ 2:22 Tom Connolly (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-Wi )
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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⭕ 2:21 Karakurt (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-Ub )

 
Red: There will be an attack on an American defense installation within a matter of days. If I’m right, it’ll be the first of many acts of terror here and overseas designed by the Cabal to further their agenda. We have to stop this man, Lizzie

 

 

 
Velov: I’m surprised we never met. For many years, while you were still with US Counterintelligence, I considered you the KGB’s greatest enemy.♤
Red: [ Laughing ] Oh, my God. That feels like ages ago. For what it’s worth, I was young. I had no concept of what a real enemy looked like. [ Inhales deeply ] But I do now.
 

 

 

 

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⭕ 2:20 Quon Zhang (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-RL )
 

 

 

 

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⭕ 2:19 Leonard Caul (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-Ps )
 

 

 

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⭕ 2:18 Vanessa Cruz (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-MT )
 

 

 

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⭕ 2:17 The Longevity Initiative (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-LE )
 

 

 

 

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⭕ 2:16 Tom Keen (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-JP)
 

 

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⭕ 2:15 The Major (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-It)
 

 

 

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⭕ 2:14 T Earl King VI (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-HB)
 

 

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⭕ 2:13 The Deer Hunter (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-Fs)
 

 

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⭕ 2:12 The Kenyon Family (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-Fd)
 

 

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⭕ 2:11 Ruslan Denisov (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-DM)
 

 

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⭕ 2:10 Luther Braxton – Conclusion (script and more: http://wp.me/pDKwi-15A)
 

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crossword
 

🔴 Blacklist Crossword Puzzle

 

 

Crossword for fans of The Blacklist by Literarybitca http://bit.ly/1XvlaUm

⋙ Easy-search scripts for Seasons 1, 2 and 3 make it easy to search for answers, since all scripts for the season are in one searchable file. Just use your page search function to find words or phrases. Links:

Easy-Search Scripts Season 1: http://wp.me/pDKwi-16b
Easy-Search Scripts Season 2: http://wp.me/pDKwi-1m8
Easy-Search Scripts Season 3: http://wp.me/pDKwi-1Tj
Easy-Search Scripts Season 4: http://wp.me/pDKwi-3lZ

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status
 

🔴 Status of Major Plots and Themes

 
NOTE: Moon phases are used to show approximate degree resolved: 🌚 🌘 🌗 🌖 🌕
Has not been updated for Season 3 yet.

🌚 What kind of endgame could Sony or NBC possibly find objectionable? (See below)

WSJSpeakeasyBlog (FB): Q&A with The Blacklist creator Jon Bokenkamp http://on.fb.me/10WABMc

Q: Wendy Davies: Do you already have an endgame for the Blacklist?
A: Yes. Not sure if Sony or NBC will let me do it, but yes. -Jon

I’m thinking it may have something to do with the death penalty. (See my Preposterous Prediction #2, a fancified version of this. “He’s more than capable of representing himself in court. Trust me. I know.” – Daniel Knauf, writer, co-executive producer. Iow, he wouldn’t need Alan Shore. ) Other than this guess, I have no clue.

 
🌗 “I’m gonna make you famous, Lizzie” This is perhaps my favorite line in the pilot, delivered with promise and menace by James Spader. But what did Red mean? Was this just a theatrical line, or did Red have an idea where his involvement in Lizzie’s life would take her. Is he promising celebrity, professional success or notoriety. Did he plan to introduce her to his empire of “extralegal enterprises”? The series needs to answer this question somehow because it is seems to set the framework for all that is to come. 5/7/2015: It became clear in 2:21 Karakurt that Lizzie may well become famous – if the Cabal fingers her publicly for murdering Senator Hawkins with a genetically engineered rotavirus. Though I can’t believe this is what meant originally, it seems to have resulted from the milieu he exposed her to, so upping from 1/4 to 1/2 moon.

 
🌗 Pepper’s key. What is the story of the key Red got from Pepper at the end of [2:5 The Front]. Red and Pepper seemed to know each other, but the series has not shown this. ➔ On 4/23/2015 [2:19 Leonard Caul], we find out the key is needed to activate the Fulcrum. It has a false tip which comes off allowing it to be used the activate the Interface unit. We have no idea how Pepper got the key, why she didn’t tell Beck about it, what she planned to do with it and what her relationship to Red might have been. She died in [2:5 The Front].


 

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🌖 The Sorrento music box and “the Fulcrum”. In Season 1, Red built a music box that played a tune that Liz remembered from her childhood. In Episode 2:10 [Luther Braxton 2] Liz found a tiny box in the stuffed bunny she saved from the fire. Also pictured: computer chips from around 1990, several small enough to fit in the box. ➔ On 4/23//2015 [2:19 Leonard Caul] we find out that what we (and Red and Liz) have been calling the Fulcrum is a component Caul calls a Bubble module. It fits into the Interface (inside the metal case that Red took from the trunk of the Presidential limo buried in a shipping container at the Kenyon compound). When both this Bubble Module and Pepper’s key are used, the Interface unit’s projector reveals the contents of the “blackmail file” which can expose the nefarious doings of the Cabal or “Alliance.” Liz uses these to show the Director what information will be exposed if Red dies. The Director calls off the raid right before Red is about to be assassinated. 5/7/2015: Lizzie cannot be protected by the Fulcrum. If the Cabal fingers her, they can say it’s disinformation from the Russians. 1/2 to 3/4. We still don’t know for sure if Red meant the music box to resemble The
Fulcrum.

 

 
🌘 The little ballet dancer. What is the significance of the date March 22, 1987 on the program for Swan Lake that Red has kept. There is a rumor that his daughter once danced in Swan Lake. The girl looks to be 9 or 10, though the actress who played her was 12. Red graduated from Anapolis in 1984 and service academy members are not allowed to have any dependents. Is the dancer a memory or a fantasy? 5/7/2015: Did Katarina Rostova have a daughter in addition to Liz, born in 1987 or so? Or is this Jennifer, Naomi Hyland’s daughter. Red’s ex-wife Naomi seems to make a point of referring to Jennifer as “my” daughter. Did she have Jennifer before she married Red?

 
🌗 The Presidential Limo. In Episode 2:12, we are told that the Kenyon family makes money be renting out buried shipping containers to criminals. At the end of the episode, Red goes into the church, tips over the pulpit and gains entry to one of these shipping containers which contains a limousine with the Emblem of the POTUS on the side and with the flag of the POTUS on the front. Red has a key to this limo. When he enters it, he turns on the tape player and laughs happily when “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” begins to play. He then goes to the trunk and removes a briefcase sized high impact resistant suitcase.
 

 
This suggests Red may have been very highly positioned in the government to have access to this vehicle. And what is in the suitcase? 3/3/2015 ➔ On 4/23/3025, we learned that what’s in the suitcase is the Interface for the Fulcrum. [[2:19 Leonard]. However, we remain with no clue as to why it was the trunk of the Presidential limo, why it was buried at the Kenyon compound or why Red had a key to the limo, knew where it was buried and knew to retrieve The Interface.

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🌕Russia. Building on the Cold War theme of the Berlin story arc, several new connections to Russia were laid out in Eps 2:10-12. Alan Fitch’s safe turned out to be in St Petersburg, Russia, not St Petersburg, Florida. The telephone number in the safe has the country code for Kazakhstan or Russia. A person’s name mentioned in the dialogue young Liz remembers from the argument before the fire is “Masha,” a Russian diminutive for “Mary.” When Liz asks young Liz who “Masha” is, young Liz responds, “You.” The music playing in the background during the fire scene (in Liz’s memory) is a Russian lullaby (per writer Daniel Knauf on Twitter) (3/3/2015).

 
5/3/2015 ➔ In Episode 2:20 Quon Zhang, Red tells Liz that she was born in Moscow and that her mother, who he knew as Katarina Rostova, was a KGB agent. Both of her parents, Red says, were in “foreign intelligence.” “Masha” was indeed the name used for Liz before someone changed it. Red identifies the girl and woman in the “swing” photo (see below) as Liz and her mother (Masha and Katarina). Click to enlarge.

 
5/7/2015 ➔ We find out in [2:21 Karakurt] that Liz’s mother, Katarina Rostova, is widely considered to be a myth, a “ghost” or a composite of several women, including by those in the U.S. Russian counter-intelligence (Masik) and formerly in the Russian KGB (Anton Velov). Agent Masik’s description:

Liz: Hey. Can you help me with something? [ Shows him photo ] Katarina Rostova – you heard of her?
Masik: I don’t know who that is, but I doubt very seriously that that is Katarina Rostova. I don’t think there are any photographs of Katarina Rostova.♤
Liz: Why do you say that?
Masik: She’s a myth. Tall tales late at night over vodka shots. Probably an amalgamation of a half-a-dozen unknown female Soviet operatives – the Pinko Mata Hari.♤
Liz: You said your CI works with the Old Guard. Could you ask him about her for me?
Masik: If anybody knows anything about Katarina Rostova, he will. Send me a copy of your photo. I’ll see what I can do.

An exception, of course, was The Director, who told Liz [2:19 Leonard Caul] she looked like her mother. Clearly, he knew that her mother was real and had seen her or pictures of her.
 

 
PLUS: Huge reveal: Antov Velov, a former group leader in the KGB, says Red was once in Counterintelligence for the U.S. against Russia:

Red: Hello, Anton. Relax. If I had bad intentions for this visit, you’d know by now.
Velov: [ Russian accent ] You’re Raymond Reddington.
Red: I am. And if I’m right, you’re the same Anton Velov who once led a Spetsnaz Special Forces Unit called The Zarubin Group.
Velov: I’m surprised we never met. For many years, while you were still with US Counterintelligence, I considered you the KGB’s greatest enemy.♤
Red: [ Laughing ] Oh, my God. That feels like ages ago. For what it’s worth, I was young. I had no concept of what a real enemy looked like. [ Inhales deeply ] But I do now.♤ Which is why I’m hoping you and I might prove to be fast friends….

So, was the “KGB’s greatest enemy” (Red) involved with the KGB’s mysterious femme fatale , Liz’s mother, Katarina Rostova? Oh, I hope so – what a story! Plus it could shine a light on this cautionary statement Red made to Liz in [2:18 Vanessa Cruz]:

Red: I understand what it’s like to be drawn to something that is unhealthy, to a part of yourself that you are afraid of.

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5/14/2015 ➔ The Russian theme came into full flower in the Season 2 Finale, “Tom Connolly” (which had previously been titled “Masha Rostova,” Liz’s Russian birth name. The plot of the finale has The Cabal blaming the explosion that killed the U.S.’s Russian counter-intel unit on Liz. When Liz is interrogated, not only do the interrogators focus on her KGB mother, Russian birth name, and the fact that she was born in Moscow, but they tell her there is a Russian sleeper cell in the U.S. and imply that she is part of it. They tell her that her fingerprints were found on the bomb that blew up the counter-intel unit, proving that she is being framed.
 

 
Red, with Cooper’s help, manages to spring Liz from the interrogation by killing the electrical power at The Post Office, but Red tells Cooper that, in Liz’s case, “There won’t be an indictment. They’ll rig the evidence against her, parade her in front of the cameras so America can see the face of the enemy, and then they’ll put her away someplace where she has no chance to mount a defense.” It is to escape this fate that she flees with Red in the final minutes of Season 2. Red lays out the future scenario Liz faces with such certainty and precision that it raises the question of whether he himself faced such accusations and if that was the reason he went underground.

Trivia: WordPress provides blogs with information on the number of page views broken down by country. I’ve been pleased that page views by people in Russia have ranked 12th among the countries for this blog, among about 200 countries that have had at least one page view. The other countries in the top group are: the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Malta, Brazil, The Netherlands, Italy, India, and Denmark. Also in the top twenty are Russia (as mentioned), Indonesia, Japan, Spain, The Phillipines, New Zealand, Austria and Malaysia. About 40 percent of the blacklistdeclassified.net page views originate outside of the United States.

I’ll continue to comment on the Russian theme here, but enough light has been shed on this matter at this point to declare the question resolved 🌕.

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🌕 Mystery Man. The content of Alan Fitch’s safe contained a phone number with the country code for Russia or Kazakhstan. Red had to cancel his scheduled person-to-person meeting with this person (or someone associated with him), but he has Aram track the source of the phone from which the follow-up call was made, a location in New York. When Red and Dembe storm this house, no one is there but there are signs of a struggle (overturned furniture) and blood on the floor. 3/3/2015 ➔ On 4/23/2015 [ 2:19 Leonard Caul], we learn the identity of Mystery Man. He is Leonard Caul, once a deep undercover CIA surveillance expert. Fitch called upon his services when The Director lost faith in Fitch. Caul knows about the Fulcrum. Red urges Liz to find Caul and, instead, Caul finds Liz. With (1) the “Interface,” (a complex apparatus in the metal case Red retrieved from the Presidential limo buried in a shipping contained at the Kenyon compound), (2) Pepper’s key which Red recovered from The Front, and (3) the Bubble Module – the tiny box we have previously been calling the Fulcrum, ➔ and (4) with knowledge of the “Ciphertext” Caul knows because he wrote the software, Caul starts up the machinery of the Fulcrum. It projects the activities of the Cabal (the “Alliance.”) Liz rushes to show the Fulcrum to The Director, threatening to reveal the content to The New York Times if The Director does not call off the raid to kill Red. The Director calls it off and Red is saved.

 
🌘 Faces that appear when Liz tells Judge Denner that people will be imprisoned or executed if their participation in the ‘clandestine organization is revealed: The Director, an older woman and a younger woman.

 
🌕 Judge Denner has an apple on his desk when Liz tells him about the Fulcrum. Does this connect him to “Apple Man” who was spying on Liz and Tom’s home. ➔ 4/23/2015 [2:19 Leonard Caul]: Since Connolly – Denner’s nemesis – seems to be going over to ‘the dark side,’ it appears less likely that Denner is a bad guy. ‘Sometimes an apple is only an apple.’ Still, time will tell.

5/14/2015 ➔ Seeing as Tom Connolly turned out to be such a bad man in the last couple of episodes of Season 2, it seems increasingly unlikely that his nemesis, Judge Denner, was or is in cahoots with The Cabal. It looks like he really is just “a self-righteous prick” (if Connolly was to be believed) or even a good guy, which is what I think. So another 🌕.

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🌕 Why did Tom come back? [2:16 Tom Keen] Tom came back to the US to confess to murdering the harbormaster. This happened very suddenly (even within the distorted time dimension of the show.) The last we saw in Germany, Tom told Red twice he wouldn’t come back “not for her, and sure as hell not for you!” But then, less than 24 hours later (judging by when Judge Denner indicated he would issue his ruling), there is Tom, sad-eyed and repentant, appearing in Denner’s courtroom to confess to Eugene Ames’ killing.
 

 
⋙ Several options are possible, including: 1. Tom’s love for Liz, with Red’s blessings, 2. Tom’s love for Liz (w/o Red’s approval), 3. “Someone” hired him again (through The Major) to get close to Liz, 4. That “someone” is Red. He “owns” The Major now. 3/22/2015

5/14/2015 ➔ In the last few episodes of Season 2, it became apparent that Tom still feels strongly toward Liz. Or, to put it another way, (I’m paraphrasing some others here), TPTB (The Powers That Be – producers, network, advertisers etc) are betting on Tom to increase the number of younger people (aged 18-49 or “the demo”) who watch The Blacklist. In fact, Megan Boone has said she calls Ryan Eggold “Mr 17 Percent” because that how many more female Millennials tune in when he is featured. (Source: An interview for which there is apparently no online transcript). Rumor also has it (I have no source for this) that James Spader was opposed to bringing Tom back after the end of the first season. The idea of Liz holding Tom captive on a rusty ship for four months – after having survived three bullet wounds to the gut with minimal medical attention – did seem surreal. Personally, I thought this plot line was #FAIL, though I think Tom is an interesting character.

In any case, the second season finale [2:22 Tom Connolly] was served up in the promos as Liz having to make a choice between Red and Tom. Sooooo – she had sex with Tom. But soon after appeared headed off into the Wild Blue Yonder with Red – after she let him clumsily take her hand, followed by availing herself of the opportunity to rest her head on his shoulder. That’s pretty racy stuff in the context on Red’s and Liz’s physical contact to date. But beggars can’t be choosers.
 

Holding hands waiting for Van:

 

Tom, meanwhile, headed off into a different Wild Blue Yonder in his new white yatch-let, after reminding Liz that she really needed to stay behind to “find out who you really are.” So, it’s almost certain that Tom will be back to continue to complicate future plot lines and draw in both pubescent (and post-pubescent) girls, along with disappointed father/daughter loyalists who were unhappy with the news (still largely ignored) that Red is not Liz’s father. [ Because she shot and killed – or at least shot – her father, as revealed to her in a flashback that released her memory of the event, which Red had tried to have blocked to spare her the trauma etc etc etc. ] So, this matter, too, seems to be largely resolved, so I award it a 🌕.

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🌖 A photo that Liz discovers in “Red’s secret flat” (according to early release of the synopsis for 2:20 Quon Zhang) makes her react astonishment. It is of a man/woman sitting on a swing with a little dark-haired girl leaning back against him or sitting on his lap. The person’s face is obscured, but the question must be asked: if this is Liz and Sam, why put it in the promo at all. Could the man be Red and the little girl Lizzie? ➔ 5/3/2015 First of all, when enhanced, the photo appears to be of a woman not a man (see photo plus two enhanced versions, to right; click to enlarge).
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In Episode 2:20, Red tells Liz the photo is of Liz and her mother, Katarina Rostova, a KGB agent. Red says this name was one of many she used. Liz asks about the name “Masha” from the dream recovery sequence. Red tells Liz she was born in Moscow and that both of her parents were in “foreign intelligence.” Liz asks about Red being there on the night of the fire. She asks him if he was in love with her mother and if that was the reason he (Red) killed her father. Since the dream restoration therapy, Liz has assumed Red killed her father. He, however, refuses to answer. His face does not provide any clue as to whether of not this is true. It is not clear whether Red does not want Liz to know about something he did or, perhaps he is shielding Liz from finding out something one or both of her parents did. Did one kill the other? Are they implicated somehow in the death of Red’s wife and child?

🌕 A second photo from the 2:19 Leonard Caul episode appears to be a photo of Liz from 2:11 Ivan Denisov, but darkened and set at an angle. Here’s a comparison of four views of the Liz picture http://bit.ly/1D0VgKe. At the original exposure in the promo, lightened automatically by my photo editor;then lightened further by increasing “exposure.” Originally, I thought this might be a photo of Liz’s mother.

🌚 Who are Carla/Naomi and Jennifer relative to Red’s family who, – according to his account to Madeline Pratt and Diane Fowler’s comments, – died in a tragic, “all there was blood” sort of way? Was he married twice? Is Jennifer Red’s biological child? Naomi said she herself was suspected somehow in events leading to Red’s disappearance. Was she in fact involved? We are still almost completely in the dark about this.

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🌕 Q: Completely trivial: What is the connection between Laura Poitra’s new documentary on NSA spy Edward Snowden ‘CitizenFour’ & James Spader crime/spy drama ‘The Blacklist’?

A: ‘CitizenFour’ & Blacklist’s James Spader film ‘Sex, Lies & Videotape’ were both directed by Steven Soderbergh.

● NYT, AO Scott (2014): Intent on Defying an All-Seeing Eye: ‘Citizenfour,’ a Documentary About Edward J. Snowden (NYT Critics’ Pick) http://nyti.ms/1pIB9LV
Note: Citizenfour won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary.

● NYT, Carlyn James (1989): Review/Film: ‘Sex, Lies and Videotape’: A Dance of Sex and Love, Through a Lens Darkly http://nyti.ms/1wpJaKp James Spader won the Best Actor Award at Cannes for his performance.

 

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predictions
 

🔴 “How’s this all gonna end?” Preposterous Predictions

 
😚 Scenario One:

Our Red is not the real Red Reddington. (Both Naomi and Tom have told Liz “He is not who you think he is “). Our Red killed or tried to kill the real Red Reddington, in retribution for his killing our Red’s family. Why did the real Red kill our Red’s family? I have no idea. Possibly our Red discovered the real Red was stealing state secrets, which might explain why Red may not actually have them. Red’s daughter was likely older than Liz, seven or eight – old enough perhaps to have danced in Swan Lake and played the piano. Since our Red did not go to the military academy, the timeline issues regarding a midshipman having a child of that age are not an issue. It also explains Red’s saying he has not swum since high school.

Anyway, in retribution for the murder of his own family, Red set fire to someplace the original Red was at, killing the original Red, possibly on that Christmas Eve. But when he heard a little girl calling for help, he leapt in to save her, suffering severe burns himself. As soon as he was able, he took Liz to stay with Sam in Nebraska. Sam may be our Red’s brother or a childhood friend since he told Liz he had known Sam “all of your and most of my life…”

Red will be found out and indicted for the murder of the original Red. He will be convicted and sentenced to death for killing a federal agent. Liz will still not know that the original Red was her father and will be on good terms with him until she somehow finds our that the real Red was her father. Somehow, our Red’s fate will rest on Liz. That is all I can conjecture.
(Winter 2015)

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😧 Scenario Two:

In this scenario, Liz’s father survives Red’s attempt on his life

This was first laid out in a Twitter exchange with some other Blacklist fans.

The shady international corporate-dominated new world order organization “The Alliance” plans to run one of their embeds for President in 2016, to take over the US clandestinely. That makes sense because that person would become President in 2017, the year Fitch warned Red about. Tom said Lizzie’s Dad is still alive. Maybe he is the person, embedded in the US government, who they plan to run [I’ve speculated that the information that Fitch said Red stole, was a planning document for this clandestine takeover.] [ ➔ which was consistent with Episode 2:9, by the way.] So he would be elected President but his true allegiance lies with “The Alliance.” He is #1 on The Blacklist. So Red assassinates him or blows him up, and is caught! He is charged with terrorism, capital murder, etc etc, with the probability of the death penalty if convicted.

Red tells Lizzie about the Alliance [in 2:9, actually]. She is on Red’s side and tries to get the word out that a traitor was President. But then she finds out that the President was her father. Red has now killed TWO of her fathers! So she is conflicted and confused and… Somehow his fate rests on her…

This is silly, but hey: So Red will need a super great lawyer! Who does he turn to other than his old buddy, Alan Shore. Spader can play both parts! Denny has died and Alan is now a named partner in the firm and has married Tara. Somehow, Alan gets the case before the Supreme Court. But, to no avail. Red goes to Gitmo (which is still open, of course). The final show is his execution. We find out Red was #2 on The Blacklist. But – his death, as promised, triggers the release of all the information about The Alliance. The traitors around the world who participated in the plot are all arrested by their governments. Posthumously, Red is reinstated in the Navy and given an honorary burial at sea. Lizzie attends the ceremony and mourns him. She is four months pregnant with his child, a daughter [had to throw that in for the shippers]. Red becomes a national hero and legend.
(Early spring 2015)

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😅 Scenario Three (after almost three months, I still haven’t read this)

This was based on a dream I woke from at about 11:00 pm CDT 4/9/2015. Posted 12:45 am 4/10/2015. I did not check anything against timelines except what I remember and extrapolated only from existing assumptions, so there are some overlaps and inconsistencies without attempts to reconcile. (Because it was from a dream, I’m putting it in quotes.)

Red doesn’t know if he is Liz’s father. He could be tested, of course, but he doesn’t want to be. He wants to find out at the same time Liz does. He knew Liz’s mom as Katarina Rostova. She was working for the CIA, as far as he knew; he didn’t know she was a double agent, using her relationship with him to gather additional information that she did not have security clearance for. Then he discovered she was in a relationship with someone else, who died the night of the fire. Red shot Katarina for betraying him in having a relationship with this other man who also may be Liz’s father. This man appears to have died in the fire. He had the Fulcrum and he sewed it into the bunny. The CIA assumed Red was the person who stole the Fulcrum. Or set him up for it. They may have wanted to get rid of him because he knew they’d fallen for a double agent.

Red was married to Carla/Naomi. Carla had a daughter when he married her, Zoē, so she was the right age to be 10 or so years old in 1987. Naomi may be older than Red. After killing Katarina, with whom he had been having an affair, he could not bear the emotional burdens and, after a while, abandoned his family (Carla and Jennifer). The story he told Madeline was a ruse.

The CIA blamed Red for accessing military secrets. This was information about the Cabal, that had been gathered by Katarina and fed to the government of the USSR. Red struck a deal with the Cabal through Alan Fitch not to expose any more about its activities. They don’t know if he had the Fulcrum. The destabilizing activities of the Cabal may have begun with the destabilization and breakup of the Soviet Union,

U.S. intelligence knew Katarina had a daughter and assumed the girl was the daughter of Katarina’s husband. Liz’s American birth citizenship etc were concocted by Liz’s “father,” who was the first person with a forgery business. With both dead, Red took that business over, and left Liz with Sam, a childhood friend, to attempt to keep anyone from finding out about her relationships with either Red, Katarina and/or Katarina’s husband and/or true father.

The CIA assumed Katarina’s daughter died in the fire until just recently. Braxton gave them some new information from stories he had gathered. Red or her father had abducted her from Katarina when her (Liz’s) parentage came up for question, renaming her Liz. After the fire, Red called Sam who came and got Liz while Red suffered alone, recovering from the fire from which he and Liz had barely escaped. (His scars look as though they were not treated medically.) that’s why Red used the caveat “The way Sam tells the story…”

On subsequent investigation into Liz’s mom, Red learned that she “had many names,” and was (in reality, not just “the old stories”) was an amalgam of all the females she had assumed, as a “pinko Mata Hari.”

The Director knew Katarina as well, may have also had an affair with her, may even be Liz’s father. Remember, there are, according to Masik, no known photos of Katarina. We only know of Red’s. To know that Liz looked like her mother, the Director had to have known her personally.

P.S. When Diane Fowler said she knew what happened “that night,” she was referring to the night of the fire, not to the Christmas Eve story Red told Madeline Pratt. At best, Diane Fowler’s understanding would have been second-hand, from Fitch perhaps or someone else. Red knew she had no exclusive or useful point of view on these things. She may not have known her pov was useless to him.

P.S.S. Swan Lake is a story of deception and the trickery involved in keeping two true lovers from one another. Red loved Katarina and believed she loved him. She may have. In the story, the star-crossed lovers, their lives hopelessly complicated and destroyed by the constantly shifting allegiances of this world, agree to meet after death in the afterworld. The dance at the end of Mako Tanida is called “The Dying Swan.” The “Dying Swan” is merged in Red’s mind with Katarina’s death in 1987. Did Katarina die on that date? Did the little ballet dancer even exist, or is the memory evocative of Katarina’s death primarily or even exclusively. The March 1987 performance is important to Red in part because of Jennifer’s performance, but because it reminds Red of his desire to once again experience the love he had for Katarina – a love he wants to believe she shared – when he joins her in death, “where, beyond these voices, there is peace.” (Heloïse and Abelard)

P.S.S.S. Lizzie’s scar may have been associated with Red’s suppression of Lizzie’s memories at age 8 or age 14. According to the Writers’ Room Timeline, those were the dates when “Red and Partner” killed Liz’s father. Something tells me Season 2 will end in a bad way, if Liz’s memories have broken through the barriers created then. Red has believed memories cannot be restored, the reason he raised the matter with the doctor in The Longevity Initiative.

P.S.S.S.S. Did the apartment belong to Katarina? Not from the dream, but from earlier. yesterday.
(April 9, 2015)

Author’s Note: In case my attitude toward predictions isn’t yet clear, I’m planning two more: 1) prediction on the basis of the meanings of the characters’ names, and 2) predictions based on the numerology of the characters’ birthdays, height and BMI.

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🎃 Scenario Four
October 14, 2015, Post-Episode 3:2 Marvin Gerard

Shared with HestiaPrytaneum, Twitter DM, on Red/Katarina/Liz:

I thought episode 3:1 made it clear that whatever the relationship was between Red and Katarina, it was INTENSE. I’ve long thought that the reason some people see Red as a father figure and others as a possible lover for Liz is that Spader is playing it both ways. He is “conflicted.” But, however conflicted, he told Liz to invoke her “inner Katarina” to figure out how to avoid capture by the FBI after killing AG Tom Connolly. The other way it is conflicted is whether KR was/is(?) good or evil. Her “death” may have been metaphorical. They wouldn’t have Liz ask “Is she alive?” If she isn’t – she could be #1 on the Blacklist, Head of Cabal or something.

I assume, Red had a love relationship with Katarina, possibly before she went over to the “Dark Side.” Love affair, marriage, who knows? Whatever, because Liz now looks so much like her Mom (mirror scene in 3:1), Red is torn. He is torn emotionally, and yes, I do think there are incest overtones – just as there are in Oedipus (which Aristotle considered the “perfect” classical drama) and Hamlet (which many consider the perfect modern drama, in English at least). Spader has said “I’m drawn to conflicted characters.” I’d love to see this explored by a good fanfic writer, though obviously it would be totally off-canon, a prequel so-to-speak. I did love the reference to Odysseus in 3:2 – 10 years, I think, to get home from Troy. A slow-burn if ever there was one lol.

Additional Notes

11/3/2016
I wonder if Red is saying Liz was “not [Kirk’s] to raise” because he left her in the closet during the fire and departed with the other men. Red may have heard her scream, led her out and then went back for Katarina, getting burned. That would indeed by a “Hodgkin’s Choice.” He said, “I chose the child” to Katarina in Cape May. This doesn’t however make any sense of Liz’s flashback to shooting her father which Red seemed to (albeit) passively to affirm. He is still insisting “I have never lied to you.”

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😉 Scenario Five
12/24/2016

My final prediction is simple, though it assumes we’re supposed to remember Season 1 and that Red had a child who was killed. I assume Tom was stolen because Scottie Hargrave was somehow involved in the death of his child, so in retribution, Red stole Tom and handed him over to someone else to raise then eventually to Bill MacReady. As for Liz, it’s hard to say as it’s still not clear if he believes Liz is his daughter.

 

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interviews
 
 

🔥 Red Hot 🔥 Interviews: Excerpts and Links

🔴 Conan O’Brien 2004 via DailyMotion http://bit.ly/2HSu7YY 💥New💥

🔴 Playboy 2014
🔴 Rolling Stone 2014
🔴 Playboy 2005
🔴 LA Times 2004
🔴 Toronto Sun 2002
🔴 Playboy 1990
🔴 Japanese TV 1997

 
🔴 The Playboy Interview: James Spader (Sep 2014) http://bit.ly/1sKfatM

[Earlier roles] “…petulant-preppy good looks, laser intelligence, breathtaking condescension and air of polymorphous perversity” – Playboy

[Growing up] “We watched great films from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, like The Third Man and Humphrey Bogart movies. Charles Laughton in Hobson’s Choice, Bogart—those were the actors I liked best.”

“[A] television show is your life. It swallows you whole and chews you up but refuses to spit you out. And on a brand-new television show, the writers don’t know how the fuck to write it yet. The actors don’t know how the fuck to play it yet. The editors don’t know how to edit it yet. Composers don’t know how to compose it yet. The crew doesn’t know how to shoot it yet. I work very hard on the show, and I’m lucky because it’s a wonderful character who’s great fun to play. I work closely with the people I make the show with. It’s a lot of time spent when all of us might rather be spending time with our families or doing something else.”

“When viewers respond well to a character, there’s a natural tendency for them to say, ‘I want to know more. I want to know everything.” But I say, “’Well, you can’t. It would ruin the character for you. You just must trust me in terms of that.'”

“I think the greatest works are always based on that prism of sexuality and relations”

 
“I’m ritualistic and habitual. I have an addictive personality. I love cooking, which I’ve done since I was a kid. That’s very methodical. It requires focus and yet allows for extrapolation or improvisation and spontaneity. It’s also calming for me. I don’t sleep particularly well. If I wake up at night, everything inside turns on instantly and won’t stop. There’s a compulsion to address things. I just can’t let them fester or get pushed under the rug. I have to tie it up tightly in a box, throw it right out the fucking window into a river and let it sink to the bottom.“

“I’m not a believer that good work comes out of antagonism, fear and punishment, but I think it can come out of discourse and argument, so long as you’re open, communicative, honest and able to listen to what others’ needs are.”

[On his love of vinyl] “I like the whole process. I like to get the record out. I like the way a turntable looks. I like to watch it work as the record plays. I like to read the liner notes when I listen to a record. I don’t understand what else people do if they’re listening to a record.”

“I like to travel, walk through a city and go to museums and galleries.”

“But to look another human being in the eye and pretend you’re in love with them, that’s a very different thing”

 
“I think the greatest works are always based on that prism of sexuality and relations. It’s been that way for me my whole career and has probably informed my choices more than anything else.”

[On his female co-stars] “Look, we’ve certainly heard stories about people who fucking hated each other and came up with a wonderful film. But it seems to me that you have to fall in love with the person, because film looks right into your head. It’s wrenching, because you have to fall in love with that person but also accept it for what it is and turn it on and off. That’s a very important part of what is a sometimes schizophrenic job…. I think you can fuck things up, because anticipation and unrequited feelings are very powerful. Ultimately, in acting you’re always pretending you’re angry or a bad guy or that something is down the hall that isn’t actually there. But to look another human being in the eye and pretend you’re in love with them, that’s a very different thing.”

“…You’d be surprised at some of the people who have walked up and told me they’re great fans of Secretary. I’m always intrigued whether that’s a practice in their life or not. To me, Secretary is a very funny, sweet, lovely love story — very touching in a way.”

“‘Secretary’ is a very funny, sweet, lovely love story — very touching in a way”

 
“‘Be of love a little more careful than of everything’ wrote e.e. cummings. Pay attention. Take great care, especially in things that are taken for granted.”

“I like the saying ‘May you live in interesting times,’ because I think things are great when we accept chaos in life. That goes against my being obsessive-compulsive and ritualistic, but I don’t mind adversity. The fight is okay with me. My life is wonderful. It’s a grand time, you know?”  //  8/18/2014, Sep 2014 issue

 
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🔴 RollingStone, Andrew Goldman: James Spader: The Strangest Man on TV (4/21/2014) http://rol.st/XJRtDS Why the gloriously bizarre James Spader is the most intense guy in any room
// 4/21/2014

● “‘It can never, ever, ever get weird enough for me,’ he likes to say. Indeed, his work reflects him, and at first glance, the Spader who strides through the doors of New York’s 8th Street Stumptown cafe might actually be The Blacklist’s criminal mastermind, Raymond ‘Red” Reddington. Spader wears a Reddington-esque forest-green felt fedora that matches his forest-green scarf, which matches the lenses of his sunglasses.”

‘I have very, very strong obsessive-compulsive issues. I’m very particular’

 
● “We drop by his Greenwich Village carriage house, which he shares with his girlfriend of more than a decade, actress Leslie Stefanson. The couple have a five-year-old son, Nathanael, who, in addition to two sons in their twenties from his previous marriage, will be Spader’s final offspring. ‘I believe in a negative population growth,’ he says. ‘The other two were with another mother, so we have three boys that will replace all three of us.'”

● “‘I’m obsessive-compulsive,’ he admits later. ‘I have very, very strong obsessive-compulsive issues. I’m very particular.’ There are rituals common to obsessive-compulsives Spader must do – step-on-a-crack-break-Mother’s-back-type stuff – but it’s even more pervasive than that. ‘I rely on a certain routine,’ he says. ‘It’s very hard for me, you know? It makes you very addictive in behavior, because routine and ritual become entrenched. But in work, it manifests in obsessive attention to detail, and fixation. It serves my work very well: Things don’t slip by. But I’m not very easygoing.'”

An admitted ‘early . . . voracious . . . masturbator,’ [he] acknowledges, cryptically, that he’d always had an experimental sexual side.

 
● “Spader shares the patrician bearing that comes through in many of his roles. It’s not his fault; all he knew growing up were the kinds of prep schools favored by Boston Brahmins. He grew up in faculty housing at the Brooks School, a prep school where his father taught English (his mother was a teacher nearby), and then went to high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. There, he thrived doing stage plays so much that he decided it was a waste to continue attending, and dropped out when he was 17 to seek his fortune in New York, where, while waiting to be discovered in the theater, he did odd jobs, like shoveling horse manure out of the Upper West Side’s Claremont Stables and sleeping through yoga classes he was ostensibly teaching. ‘The lights were turned down, the heat was turned up,’ he explains.”

● “[He] spent much of the Eighties trailing slime through Brat Pack vehicles, like the scummy coke dealer Rip in Less Than Zero. So convincingly despicable was Spader in his audition for Steff, Pretty in Pink’s rich, sneering high schooler with those linen suits and the dangling cigarette, that the film’s casting director had to overcome a visceral dislike of Spader to even get in the mind frame to hire him.”

You know, I had two older sisters, and everybody seemed to be naked all the time, my parents and my sisters

 
● “The late Eighties and the Nineties ushered in a period of leading-man roles – but kinky-weirdo ones. There was the bedroom-eyes voyeur with a camera in Sex, Lies, and Videotape; the guy who did it to – yes, actually put it in! – Rosanna Arquette’s leg wound in Crash; and the insatiable cunnilingus enthusiast of White Palace who spent much of the movie with his head buried in Susan Sarandon’s lap. It wasn’t an accident, says Spader, an admitted ‘early . . . voracious . . . masturbator’ who acknowledges, cryptically, that he’d always had an experimental sexual side. ‘You know, I had two older sisters, and everybody seemed to be naked all the time, my parents and my sisters,’ he says. ‘Our household was very comfortable with sexuality. There was just a lot of girls around. And guys. I played doctor with both.'”

● “A watershed moment came with 2002’s Secretary, in which Spader played E. Edward Grey, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s sadomasochistic boss, who also, it should be noted, was obsessive-compulsive.”

● “His portrayal of charming sleazeball lawyer Alan Shore on The Practice and its spinoff, Boston Legal, saw him beating out the likes of James Gandolfini for two consecutive Best Actor Emmys”

‘Our household was very comfortable with sexuality. There was just a lot of girls around. And guys. I played doctor with both’

 
● “But it is The Blacklist and its antihero Reddington that allows Spader to incorporate all of his best gifts – the kink, the unfathomable darkness, the suggested violence and the ability to deadpan his way through the campy bons mots in the script. ‘Janice, my sincerest apologies,’ Reddington chirps to a woman he’s just stuffed into her own closet, a moment after shooting her husband’s knee. ‘I’ll take a rain check on the stroganoff. It smells delicious!'”

● “These days, Bokencamp and fellow executive producer John Eisendrath spend a good chunk of their time ministering to Spader, a tradition that will continue for at least another year, since NBC picked up the show for a second season. Bokencamp knew nothing of his star’s obsessive qualities. ‘Oh, God, no,’ he says. ‘But we learned very quickly.’ Spader says they speak to each other seven days a week. No topic is too small. ‘I haven’t talked to him today yet,’ says Bokencamp, ‘but last weekend, on his birthday, we were on the phone for two and a half hours, and on Thanksgiving, when I was in Colorado, I was out pacing on the phone for two hours. This stuff keeps him up at night. He can dig his heels in. The conversations can be frustrating.'”

But it is The Blacklist and its antihero Reddington that allows Spader to incorporate all of his best gifts – the kink, the unfathomable darkness, the suggested violence …

 
● “The shit hit the fan when Spader got a two-part script in which the secret FBI black site where Reddington meets his handlers is invaded by assassins aiming to kill him. ‘I called up the writers, and I said, “You understand the collateral damage of this, correct?'” Spader says grimly. “‘You understand this is a game-changer. You’re burning down this house! This means there’s a terrible security issue for Reddington. How do I go back there? How do I trust anyone moving forward?'”

● “Spader seems genuinely worked up, like a fictional character’s safety is literally a life-and-death issue. He’s collecting a paycheck, so why on Earth would he care so much? ‘Because I have to perform it,’ he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.”

 
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🔴 The Playboy Interview: James Spader (Sep 2014) http://bit.ly/1sKfatM

“The thing I envy most about women is their ability to have one orgasm after another”

 
click to enlarge🔴 Playboy interview (2005): James Spader – a candid conversation with Boston Legal’s press-shy star – about pushing sexual boundaries, his bizarre characters and why journalists annoy him. http://bit.ly/1pwfG8u
Notes: Here’s another link, but it’s tricky. http://bit.ly/1MlazoA There are 7 pages & you have to select each page separately. Each is a pdf. … [ So – I took the liberty to post screenshots of the article here. Click to enlarge – contact is LizzieB90@yahoo.com 8/30/2015 ]

“Women are absolutely beautiful, perfect sexual creatures … The smell of women is absolutely intoxicating”

 
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🔴 LATimes: Does he make you a little…uneasy?James Spader loves to play compelling creeps. Now he’s feeling comfortable in your living room. http://lat.ms/1wxRA3k
// 10/3/2004, sculpture garden

“The day before James Spader won an Emmy for his portrayal of Alan Shore, the morally dubious lawyer on ‘The Practice,’ the actor was at the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden at UCLA, admiring the statues — especially the female forms. ‘Look at the beautiful curve of her back, right at the base of her spine,’ he said, noticing a dancer at the top of Robert Graham’s ‘Dance Columns.’ ‘It’s the most perfect curve in nature.’ Then Spader felt a breeze and started ambling in the other direction. ‘I just want to walk into it,’ he explained. ‘Oh, my God, that is nice.’

“Look at the beautiful curve of her back, right at the base of her spine. It’s the most perfect curve in nature”

 

The sculpture garden, a favorite hideaway of Spader’s, brought out in him a charming mix of formality and earthiness. When Gaston Lachaise’s bronze powerhouse ‘Standing Woman’ caught his eye, the memories rushed out. ‘My sons, when they were growing up, always enjoyed her rather ample’ — here he used a word not proper for this newspaper but that means ‘derriere’ — ‘and her rather ample breasts,’ he said. The boys, Sebastian, now 15, and Ellijah, 12, would come here with their scooters. ‘So you come around,’ Spader explained, ‘and lo and behold, you have that beautiful’ — that word again — ‘over there. You can hardly resist scootering by and giving her a poke. She has nice calves too. She’s ample everywhere. She’s spectacular.’

“‘When we first went to the network about James, they shrieked in horror,’ Kelley said. ‘James Spader is not a network face. … But once we began to focus on him, he was the only choice. What James does so well is there’s a nucleus to this character that is humane and decent. He manages to let that nucleus shine through even when he’s committing egregious, contemptible acts. You don’t know if you like him or not, but you can’t wait to see him next.’

“He’s always looking for the truth of the moment, and he gets fidgety when it’s not there,” said William Shatner

 
“Yet for all the unpredictability that comes across on screen, Spader’s Boston Legal co-stars described him as meticulous, exact and particular on set.

“‘He’s always looking for the truth of the moment, and he gets fidgety when it’s not there,’ said William Shatner, who won a guest-actor Emmy for his portrayal of Crane on The Practice. ‘He becomes as recalcitrant as a donkey until he can find the right way to deliver a line. He never says a word that doesn’t seem to come from the organic character. That’s because James himself is a little weird. But we love him for it.’

“Confronted with the praise of his colleagues, Spader took a deep breath and looked skeptical. ‘Maybe this thing they are describing is just obsessive-compulsive. It just seems to be what the job is, to just try and get the right intention of whatever … you’re saying. Who is to say if whether what you end up tumbling toward is the right place when you’re standing on your feet in the middle of it?'”

“And that, according to Camryn Manheim, who starred on ‘The Practice’ for eight years, can be intimidating. ‘After you saw ‘Secretary,’ wouldn’t you be scared to go on a date with him?’ Manheim said, laughing.

“He’s weird and strange and eccentric, and I mean a lot of that in the very best way”

 
“‘I was scared of him,’ she added. ‘He’s weird and strange and eccentric, and I mean a lot of that in the very best way. He plays all of these sexually charged characters. He looks at you too hard, like he’s got your number. But behind all of that, he’s a very simple man who is very thoughtful and insightful about the world and humanity.’
 
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TorontoSun: Spader prefers the extremes http://bit.ly/1LwTiqU
// 9/20/2002

TORONTO (2002) – James Spader’s handlers have asked that any piece about Mr. Spader not include biographical material about the actor.

Mr. Spader does not want to read a story about how he dropped out of school at 17 to move to New York in the hopes of becoming an actor.

Sure, he’s been acting up a storm in such little-seen — and some rather watchable — reels as The Watcher, Curtain Call, Critical Care and 2 Days in the Valley. But, really, where has he been? After Sex, Lies and Videotape finally peeled him away from the Pretty In Pink teeny-bopper casting calls, Spader was poised on the verge of superstardom.

Critics called him everything from the next Cary Grant to the heir apparent to Jack Nicholson’s throne of creepiness. A few standout roles in movies such as Crash, Wolf and Stargate kept Spader in the Hollywood Rolodex, but now that he’s getting big time attention for his latest role as an uptight, sexually repressed psychiatrist in the Sundance winner Secretary, Spader’s recent absence from the A-list comes into stark focus.

“It’s nice to fall in love on film. I mean it, because as an actor, you’re always seeking out roles that will take you to extremes. I mean, if you’re going to play make-believe, why not play make-believe in extreme situations?” he says.

“The more extreme it is, the more it pulls you out of your pedestrian life. I always think it’s more fun to do something fantastic than something highly realistic.”

Falling in love could be seen as something incredibly ordinary — little more than a reason to buy Hallmark greeting cards on Valentine’s Day, a high-minded spiritual fantasy to justify physiological lust.

I think real love is the rarest thing in the world. I have fallen in love, and I’m lucky for it.

 
But not to Spader.

“I’m a very romantic person and I think we’ve been taught to believe that love is something ordinary — that everyone can find it, but I think real love is the rarest thing in the world. I have fallen in love, and I’m lucky for it,” says Spader, looking somewhat more earnest behind his designer specs.

One imagines Spader is talking about his long-term relationship with his wife, the mother of his two children, Victoria Kheel — but he doesn’t go out of his way to expound on the revelation and after the early warning about personal questions, I don’t ask.

Besides, he’s on a bit of a roll with the love stuff.

“I think in life, people have this confusion about love. We all want to fall in love so badly that we are almost willing to lie to ourselves, to force ourselves into believing that we are in love when we aren’t. It’s too bad, because in so doing, we cheapen it. I don’t think we recognize the depth of the emotion at all. It’s entirely transformative, and we — like you say — think of it as a blurb on a Hallmark card.”

One could argue that all human emotion is within our control. Behavioural therapists insist we can stop ourselves from feeling powerless in the face of addictions — that with enough discipline and training, we can control our response.

When you’re in love, you can’t control it. … When it happens, it happens in spite of you.

 
Spader couldn’t disagree more — when it comes to love, at any rate.

“When you’re in love, you can’t control it. It’s when you can’t take charge of what you feel, when you are completely powerless in the face of the emotion. When it happens, it happens in spite of you.”

All this talk of love has been prompted by Spader’s role in Secretary — the part of a kooky shrink who moves through the steno pool with serial sexaholic aplomb, pulling each one into a creepy S&M game of lust and suppression. When he feels too much for his latest conquest, the good doctor tries to reform himself — with mixed results.

It’s an interesting role, and one that Spader sunk his bicuspids into because the more extreme the role, the more it pushes an actor toward self-knowledge — at least that’s the theory. Spader says he’s finally grown to accept the idea that life is an never-ending series of surprises.

“I’m 42, and I have no idea who I am. At one point, I thought I knew who I was. But it really just stretches into delusion — and you realize it’s all bulls–t and you just have to give yourself a break. Fortunately, I’ve learned not to put a great deal of pressure on myself, so I don’t really think about it anymore,” he says.

“I think I spend an awful lot of time simply trying to make it from the bedroom, to the bathroom, to the dining room in a single day that I don’t really have time to think of the other big questions,” he says, wiping his eyes.

“I still do think of them. I do, and acting is a great way of taking you to another place. It’s a way of being transported to a world that you’re not familiar with. I also love to travel, and that’s one of the things you can do with a job as an actor. I’m also fairly selfish when it comes to doing things that feed my curiosity.”

A great day, as far as Spader is concerned, would consist of seeing friends — and staying in bed. “I’m just a bit obsessive compulsive … and a bit angsty,” he says. “But anything you can do in bed, I enjoy immensely,” he says.

© The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia, Canada), September 20, 2002 Friday Final Edition(Thank you, Susan!)
(Angelfire http://bit.ly/1LwTiqU)

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