Liz’s is Red’s daughter but not the Red we’ve all come to know, or so it seems. In Season 5, Episode 22 of The Blacklist, the truth was apparently revealed. Yes, Liz and Raymond are father and daughter, but the man she thought to be Red wasn’t her father at all. The actual Red had been in a relationship with Liz’s mother, Katarina Rostova [Laila Robins], a KGB agent sent to seduce him and begin a romance with him.
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Blacklist Season 8, Episode 21, “Nachalo.”]
The Blacklist is delving into long sought-after answers in its final Season 8 installments and the most recent episode, “Nachalo,” is teasing Red’s [James Spader] true identity.
In the penultimate episode, after revealing that he is N-13, the elusive spy that Liz [Megan Boone] had been searching for all these years, Red brings her to the headquarters of his operation in Latvia. There, he helps tell the story of her past and provides clarity regarding their connection.
Reddington and Liz are heading to Latvia for the final Season 8 episodes.
Among the episode’s biggest takeaways are that Liz’s mother Katarina Rostova is still alive, and the woman she believed was her mother is actually a spy named Tatiana Petrova [Laila Robins]. Where Liz’s mother actually is remains unclear, but Tatiana initially assumed Katarina’s identity to help the woman escape and protect Liz.
The real Raymond Reddington was Liz’s father and was killed by his daughter’s hand as a child when she shot him. Katarina went into hiding at this point and Liz was sent off to live with her adoptive father, Sam. Since the U.S government and the rest of the world was unaware of Raymond Reddington’s death though, Katarina created a new one who could watch over Liz.
[Credit: Will Hart/NBC]
Whoever Red is, he didn’t originally look the way he does now as a scene of surgery teases a transformation for the individual assuming the identity. While Liz is mostly preoccupied with locating her mother, answers don’t come before she’s shot and pulled from her fantastical walk down memory lane.
The culprit of the interruption is Neville Townsend [Reg Rogers], who shows up in Latvia with his own motivations. With the help of Dembe [Hisham Tawfiq], Red gets Liz into a bunker before setting decades of intelligence, Neville, and his men on fire in the space above them.
[Credit: Will Hart/NBC]
Could Red actually be Katarina or is it someone else we have yet to uncover? It’s clear viewers are on the brink of an answer and with Boone exiting the show as a series regular, it would only make sense that Red’s true identity would be unveiled before she departs. The reveal could also set up where the show will go in Season 9. Tune in to the Season 8 finale, “Konets,” when it airs June 23 to hopefully find out.
The Blacklist, Season 8 Finale, Wednesday, June 23, 10/9c, NBC
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there are some differences in the stories as told by Berlin to Ressler and Liz, by Berlin to Red in the presence of Zoe, and what Zoe says. User “Don’t forget about Berlin #8″ who posts at the WSJ pointed out that Berlin had to believe Red killed his daughter. And why did he go for Carla instead of Jennifer or Liz?
Let us examine the different stories:
I will use bold and #1 for the story told to Ressler and Liz, regular and #2 for the story told to Red and italics and #3 for Zoe’s story
#1They say he started in the Red Army and then the KGB, and he was notorious for sending off his enemies to the war camps in Siberia.
#2 It was in ‘91. The Soviet union was falling apart. A small group of us Members of the Politburo, the military, KGB, Stasi had a plan to push back the progressives, to stem the tide. We were meeting and discussing strategy when a Bomb [The Kursk bombing] and with them, our resistance. Rumors began that the Americans were involved.
This makes sense. As Berlin would not have said anything about the bombing as it would have been a clue to find his identity: just identify the survivors. Also it does gives us clues that there may have been lots of people intent of causing Berlin great suffering, including some former colleagues.
#1 Then, towards the end of the Cold War, some stories began to circulate that his daughter had fallen in love with a dissident. She was captured, imprisoned.
#2 One name emerged. Yours. You came after my daughter. You exposed her as a dissident. She went to jail.
#3 You killed my friends. You destroyed my life once. Isn’t that enough?
Here are some changes. The story about the daughter falling in love with a dissident was clearly an embellishment to safeguard Berlin’s identity. In the story told to Red there is no falling in love with anyone: she was jailed for being a dissident. In the story Zoe tells, her friends were jailed. She does not say she had been imprisoned.
I conclude she was never jailed. Her friends were jailed and she seek to escape her father. Even the story of her going to jail was a fabrication, designed probably to have him arrange an escape and get him to prison. Probably because he survived the bombing. The idea was to end the old guard and end the Soviet Union.
#1 But, you see, the Colonel– he knew his way around. He arranged so she could escape. When the Kremlin found out, they decided to make an example of him, so they sent him off to Siberia to rot away with his enemies. It is said that they could hear him every night praying for his daughter’s safety, that she would never be found. And one day, something arrived in his cell. It was a pocket watch he had given his daughter, and inside was a picture of her. And a few months later, something else arrived– her ear. And then a finger. His enemies sent her back to him piece by piece. No one knows how he did it, but he did– some say that he carved a knife from one of his daughter’s bones– and slaughtered all the men that had held him captive for so many years. Then he vanished disappeared A ghost hunting, searching for the man responsible for his daughter’s death.
#2 After that, my loyalty was questioned. I was exiled to the Gulag, where, one by one, her bones were sent to me.
#3 There was a man. He said he could protect me from… from you….I never met him. I don’t know. His people, they called him “The Decembrist.” Please. That’s all I know. You killed my friends. You destroyed my life once. Isn’t that enough?
So, It does seem that the bones were indeed sent to him. But Berlin thought that he had helped his daughter escape, but even that was not true. She had escaped already, and the point was probably trap Berlin by forcing him to go against the regime. So who he did reach to help his daughter escape? It could not have been Fitch, an American. Or Red, another American. It had to have been a Russian. Was it Vitsin, then a low level operative? But when the daughter’s bones were sent why he did not go after him? Had he received confirmation that she was safely out of Russia? Or was the Russian he reached to Katarina Rostova? Did she say Red would help her escape? Did Katarina send Zoe to Fitch or send Fitch to Zoe?
Fitch said he sent many guys. But did he really send Berlin? It seems he needed Berlin out of the way and he found a way of sending him to the Gulag. If Fitch did it because he was angry at Red for stealing the fulcrum, then why the bones? The bones must have taken months, if not years to arrive. Was it Fitch who sent them? Was it the StewMaker, who had suffered tremendous loss early on his life, maybe in the Soviet Union? Was it someone else who had a grudge against Red or against Berlin, or against both? Or was it Katarina looking to send a formidable enemy to kill Red, his wife and daughter?
And then he went for Carla Reddington, even though she had remarried. So why would he think that Red would care about her? Unless it was taking 2 birds with one stone. Did he think Carla was also guilty? Look at what he says to her:
Hello Mrs. Reddington.
There a slight pause between Mrs. and Reddington. Very curious. The next point in the scene is this [but no guarantee there are parts of this scene we have not seen]
If you’re looking for him, I can’t help you. You have to listen to me. Reddington, I haven’t I haven’t seen him in 20 years.
I need you to lay down.
No, please. Please, I’m begging you. I can’t help you.
I don’t want your help! That’s nice. Hold still.
is there more dialogue to this scene? Do they know each other. Is he confusing Carla with someone else? He calls Red and tells him:
I can only imagine how dearly you must be missing her after all these years, huh? So I made you a little something to remember her by. You see I’m gonna do to your wife what you did to my daughter I’m gonna send her back to you piece by piece by piece.
And to Carla again:
Hello, darling.
Listen, you’ve got it all wrong. Hurting me won’t …Reddington doesn’t care about me. It it’s why I’m in hiding, is to protect my child.
You know what? You have such beautiful mouth. It’s perfect.
This is very curious. Any woman trying to protect her child, would she start talking to a man who is intent on hurting Reddington, tell him about her child, probably Red’s child. Or Berlin might think so. Even if she has no idea where Jennifer is, if Berlin found her, could he not find Jennifer? She says she is hiding to protect Jennifer. So this is a second child that has been protected by hiding: Liz hiding with Sam and Jennifer protected by Carla hiding.
But who thinks Berlin Carla is? Why go after Carla? Was there something about Carla or Jennifer? Or is he going after Carla and Jennifer.
For Carla to be hiding to protect her child and yet she made a deal with Red means Carla and Jennifer are hiding from Red’s enemy.
But this enemy could NOT be Berlin, as she went into hiding in 1990, and Berlin came into play with the Kursk bombing in 1991.
But we know now that Katarina disappeared in 1990. And the cabal was looking for the fulcrum in 1990.
Conclusion: There is a bit more to the Fitch / Red/ Berlin story. Whatever it is it that made Berlin go for Red’s former wife is interesting. Did he think she was guilty because he had asked her to help his daughter? Did he think she was Katarina Rostova because she resembles her? Because Carla is her? For some other unknown reason? Or because Katarina told Berlin that Red killed his daughter so it was natural that Berlin would go for Red’s loved ones and yet show no interest in Liz.