#breakingitdown

Daniel Cerone in my opinion is one of the best character writers in the biz…. I loved Kate Kaplan as a character. But I don’t feel she should’ve been the baddie. And I resent Red shooting her because in my opinion he never would have. He abhorred violence. In Marvin Gerard, spousal abuse crossed the line. So now Kate is a survivor but she’s a bad person?

It does not compute. It’s a heartbreaking twist that will lead Kaplan to join Annie at last. And for what?

To give Tom a story. It is unforgivable to lie to your audience. It’s worse to have others do damage control inyour place because you can’t admit you lied to your viewers.

So, be that as it may..,I’m being asked about Red/Katarina Is he The Dad?

“The Appearance of Truth” is the theme and it’s a cop out. When it comes down to canon these writers are stingy. (Basically because they cannot agree on soul creative rights and Sony wants money off it.) Do they make it up as they go along? Yes. A lot of us do, but most show runners have the arc completed before, even next season halfway complete. This season they had no arc, and it shows through execution, lack of continuity, imbalance to character screen time, overabundance of cheap marketing, it goes on and on.

What you watched last night was a culmination of season 3’s Knauf arc infused into season 4.

If you recall in the Vehm by Vincent Angelli:

“I’m a bad man. I kill people. And every time I do, a piece of me dies with them.”

“I always wanted to be a boyscout.”

Recall those hints? Dembe saying, “that’s enough”

Ok.

Well that’s what you’re seeing now. Everyone question Raymond, even the task force.“

"Don’t fret Harold. I’ll be the declarer you be the dummy and together we’ll win the hand.”

Well last season Cooper, Aram, Ressler, and Samar were tired of being the “dummy.”

“Just because you’ve been bumped up to first chair in an orchestra doesn’t mean you can compose a symphony.”

Last season Ressler *was* the mastermind of who betrayed Red and why. Red knew in Dawn Denoon he could not search and do a moral inventory of himself without Donald.

This Season? Oh it was “Tom”

I loathe agenda driven behind the scenes back stabbing garbage. Professional sets do not engage in such foolery but this circus really…

A mess.

This is no different they just changed Kaplan to the bad blacklister because they did not have one. I think it’s a mistake personally, because the hype on turning victim Kaplan into the baddest of the bad scorned means last season when they had her betray Red, according to Ryan Eggold who said Bokenkamp boasted, “it was Tom’s plan., is just deceptive.

No it was originally Ressler’s plan with a happy ending at S3 with Red leaving the task force and Liz life to let her have that normal life. Then all hell breaks loose. Instead, they fractured an intelligent plot, dumbed down every character and then in Season 4 never gave them a voice to express their betrayal. Its why Diego has had no storyline for 15 months, and probably, is on his last five weeks unless viewers don’t speak up. This show will change things on a dime. They did last season. They did in Season 2. They did in Season 1.

The only character that deserves to die after this fallout are Tom, Kaplan, and Hitchin.

The rest is about cutting the budget and supplying serious shockudrama to get the ratings up, go into a new direction…. and add two new Sony actors to the show…

And purge the rest.

But I digress.

Anyhoo….

Last season.

"Why because I didn’t get Daddy’s permission?”

Yes, Tom knows.

“Preparing for war.”

“What War?”

“Ours.”

All that is from S3.

Now this season:

“Yes, Elizabeth is my daughter.”

She’s his daughter, but he’s not her father.

Do we get this play on words?

When Katarina gave birth, she never got a paternity test. She only knew one thing she loved Masha so “the truth doesn’t matter. It is the appearance of truth” that does.

Bokenkamp said last season “is it safe to assume Tom is the father of Liz baby?”

“I don’t think it’s safe to assume that I think it’s good to anticipate that.”

Yes so what is it that Liz said in the Vehm?

“I assume Tom is the father.”

“I haven’t told him.”

Liz has never said if Tom *is* and with Megan’s hint about Liz being unfaithful, that connects to Eli Matchett in S3 and it’s not Nick. So, now we see her mother fogging up the windows in the back of a car with….Raymond.

In Philomena you will see two forbidden lovers fogging up the windows kissing inna parked car.

In the Apothecary, the theme (don’t you guys read the transcripts?) is Marriage, betrayal, the appearance of truth and infidelity.

Escaping to motels, and celebrating anniversaries and birthdays. Raising a family from prison.

In Natalie Luca you had forbidden love-the most romantic scene Samar ever seen. Watching the person you love die in your arms. They fell for each other at work, talk about forbidden love. It even explains how they could love each other without touching….

Significant to Liz life and her parents.👇🏻

Kirk was her husband. He was out of town a lot. On business. While he was away, Katarina wasn’t faithful. She was having sex with other men.

Mainly, “the American.” He was her mark, but their affair did not stop afterward it kept going.

But the paternity is down to three men. Two Americans, and Kirk. Both Red and Kat knew Sam. He was a grifter, a criminal trying to get his life straight.

What was Liz father?

“My real father was a criminal.” Her mother died from weakness and shame.

In S1.

“Everything about me is a lie.”

“Criminals are notorious liars.”

“You will always be her father Sam.”

“Are you my father?”

“No your father is dead.”

“And I know what happened that night to my father. I shot him.”

“Yea.”

“That’s why you erased my memory. You’re my sin eater.”

Right here the story should’ve shifted. Liz trust for Red should’ve grown not regressed.

“I never wanted you [Beat] to grow up like me.”

“Is he her father?”

“I don’t know Kate I never found out.”

“It’s Raymond. He took Masha because he thinks she’s his.”

Lady Ambrosia:

“Your mother was ever the same after that. The man she loved killed by the child she adored it was too much.”

“So I killed both of my parents.”

“You were a child. None of this was you fault. There never should’ve been a gun around for you to grab.”

“I ran out of gas.”-Madeline Pratt

Katarina and Kaplan left the Summer Palace for America after Masha. Because Red took her.

But Liz lives in Summer Palace again because she’s young in the yard with her mother in Mato.

Ressler and Red are the only men that have been to Summer Palace.

Liz will go back in these final episodes.

Lady Ambrosia:

“Your parents loved each other very much. The Cold War was hard– too hard for your father. When the Soviet Union was collapsing, he took you from her. She gave up everything to follow him, to follow you.”

“The night of the fire– that’s what they were arguing about?”

Nope it was the fulcrum. Liz lived in Summer Palace when she wasn’t a baby because the night of the fire is five years into the future.

Red was married, had Carla and Jennifer. And Liz. Red took Liz as an infant.

Katarina gets Masha to Kaplan night of the fire because of “the dead man on the floor.” She’s looking for a new place for them to live.

A week later she can’t go home she calls from a payphone. She wants Kaplan to give Masha up to Sam.

Go back to Cape May: the arson Katarina had. The dead man on the floor.

“He’s coming.” “Who’s coming.”?

US intelligence and KGB. They know about her affair with Raymond.

“Your mother, despite what he’d done, she wanted him back. She wanted them to be a family. As much as it pains me to say it, he was probably… the only man she ever really loved.”

And I shot him.

“It was an accident.”

Liz accidentally shot “the bad man.”

Stewmaker

“You’re a monster.”

“Yes.”

“How can you live with yourself?”

“By saving your life.”

Katarina and Red at that point were enemies. He wanted the fulcrum he needed it to blackmail US intelligence so to leave them alone otherwise they’d kill him and her. It’s why he sold secrets to North Korea and Soviet Union:

Katarina set the fire. But it was Red who pulled Liz from the flames.

“Tell me. I need to know. Your mother was never the same after that. The man she loved killed by the child she adored– it was… just too much. Two months later, she went to Cape May and left her clothes on the beach, walked into the ocean, and was never seen again.”

“So, that night, I killed both my parents.”

“You were a child. There should never have been a gun for you to grab. Looking back, I’m not sure I shouldn’t have raised you myself. I don’t want you looking back with that kind of regret.”

All that played out.

Now liz’ regret is coming.

Agnes.

But focus on the man Liz shot. The scars on Red’s back. He and his family were to die in that fire.

“There was so much blood.”

But he survived.

His family. Carla and Jennifer are in WITSEC

Red was gone all this time recuperating. Where he was is the next leg of the mystery. He knew after stealing secrets, he was safer dead than alive. So you have him blackmailing, building an organized criminal empire for 25 years through Russian Oligarchs, collapse of Soviet Union, the cartels-burning down the earth in order to one day walk back into her life but this time with ammunition to protect her.

In the farmer parable Red explains when he comes home from work one day…crops are burned, his children gone, “it is now he who burns, he who slaughters, and in the end he knows that he must pay.”

He also mentions children. Two.

Red wasn’t a good man. He had affairs on Carla, abandoned his other daughter to appease Liz, and keep her safe. He wanted to raise her but if it got out about who she is, who her “father is,” the danger was too immense. To protect Jennifer and Carla he abandons them and turns the other way.

In Mako Tanida, Red warns Ressler to stay in the light, “go home!” Red didn’t after the fire. He wanted revenge and Justice. He became a criminal. Stole secrets betrayed his country.

What is Ressler about to do?

Hitchin cannot be arrested, she runs the courts. She will pay off judges. So now Ressler like Red knows, once he crosses over, there’s no turning back.

Back to Liz and why the mystery s being revealed aside from the fact that they dismantled a fine piece of television just to do a spin off nobody wanted for a character audience feels is worse than Mr. Kaplan because he hurt Liz the most.

That logic right there doesn’t make any sense.

Liz is the target because of who and what she saw happen in that house. The Fulcrum was only part of the story. Who wanted it besides Red and Katarina *Is* the story. Red wanted to know what happened the night of the fire. Diane Fowler knew. Fitch knew. The Director knew.

“I know who you really are, Raymond. Who you are to her. And I know why you did this. Does she?”

“I know what happened, that night, Red. To your family.” Mr. Kaplan cleaned up Diane Fowler. Her body is about to be revealed…the task force has no idea about this.

Cooper suspects.

Kaplan does.

So is he her father?

Legally, no. Her father is dead. “You will always be her father Sam.”

But yes, Elizabeth is his daughter.

He had no legal claim to her when she was a child. She was Kirk’s.

Now: liz and Katarina are similar.

Both are known to be unfaithful. Liz was seeing someone when she first met Tom. Liz was also seeing someone after Tom re entered her life in S2.

“He worked, I didn’t.”

“How did that work out for ya?”

“Not so great.”

Liz too, is keeping a secret. Like her mother.

And Kaplan knows. It’s why she can gain access to Liz apartment. She knows everything.

Hold on to this because I’m not doing another.

The point is.

Red believed Liz was his child. Red wanted Liz to be his child. Red loves Liz like a father. Red fell in love with her mother a Russian sleeper agent. Red had a longtime affair with Katarina.

You cannot do Red/Liz in the romantic sense after that. Period.

So….

Even if he turns out Red to *not* be her bio dad-It never mattered to Raymond. He loved Liz that much. In his mind, “you will always be her father Sam.”

But Yes, Elizabeth is his daughter.