Raymond Reddington WAS Indeed Katarina Rostova in ‘The Blacklist’ Series

“EVERYTHING ABOUT ME IS A LIE.” — Katarina Rostova / Fake Raymond Reddington

That’s what this entire series is based on.

Direct Confirmation from Redarina

Confirmation #1

Redarina never lied to Liz, he always withheld the answers but never lied. She asked him if he was her father and he said no.

Confirmation #2

Redarina tells Kirk that he is not Liz’s father but that Liz is his daughter. How can Liz be Redarina’s daughter if he is not her father? Only if Redarina is Liz’s mother. It only makes sense that he is her mother.

Confirmation #3

Alexander Kirk is determined to kill Redarina, even if it means not getting the cure for Kirk’s own disease. Then Redarina whispers something to Kirk and Kirk does not kill him and stares at him in shock.

Logically, Redarina told Kirk that he is Katarina and it was clear from the episode that Kirk still loves Katarina. If he didn’t whisper “I’m Katarina”, what did he whisper that would save his life? What could possibly have made him let Reddington go? Or who, rather.

We never see Reddington kill Kirk either. Not on screen, not when Kaplan gives up all the bodies.

Hints

Hint #1

At the end of S8, Redarina said that if Liz read the letter now, she wouldn’t want to kill him.

Hint #2

The flashbacks of when Liz died; and her realization as she was dying (which is a beautiful scene, btw).

Hint #3

Neville Townsend wanted to kill Liz in front of Redarina. He wanted to make him understand what he went through. Neville believed killing Liz would punish this man in the same way as Neville losing his family.

Redarina’s eastern friend had to have told Neville that Redarina was actually her mother.

Hint #4

Redarina has a photo of Katarina and Liz because he just misses that time with his daughter — “it represents everything he wanted but couldn’t have”.

Hint #5

When Liz asks if Redarina was the one that took the photo of her and her mother his reply is “I was there” not “I took the photo” so there is no possible way that Redarina was the real Red.

Hint #6

It’s been established that the real Red died in 1990. And from 1990–1994, Katarina became Redarina. In 1994, Katarina ceased to exist, and Dom lost his daughter. Only Redarina existed from that point forward.

Hint #7

Kate said she put Liz in Redarina’s arms 30 years ago. We see in the flashback in Requiem that that was Katarina.

Hint #8

Kate apologizes to “Katarina” when she digs up the bones, which she is doing to hurt Redarina (and the bones are not otherwise related to Katarina).

Hint #9

Kate says Little Nikko helped her after Annie was shot, and Redarina responds that Kate knows that he was “away” (not that he had not met Kate). At that time in Kate’s flashbacks, Katarina tells Kate she must go “away.” Kate had not yet met the real Red or the impostor.

Hint #10

When Redarina is introduced to Kate by Sam, Redarina tells Kate that he is not as unfamiliar as he seems and wants Kate to be the trusted voice she was to Katarina.

Hint #11

Redarina knows things that only Katarina would know. Red knows that when Kirk jumped over the hedge on their first date, he found Katarina dancing. Could a close friend or relative guess that Katarina was dancing over the hedges on her first date with Kirk?

Sure… but consider the context.

Kirk is telling the story. Red’s life is on the line and he wants to keep Kirk talking as part of his plan to stay alive. Red interrupts Kirk’s story to tell the ending. Kirk had not asked anything to Red and it wasn’t Red’s “turn” to talk.

Interrupting Kirk to finish the story would be an unnecessary and dangerous thing to do if Red was guessing or retelling something he heard secondhand since Kirk would snap out of his memories and get to killing Red if Red were wrong.

Red finishes the story because he remembers the story firsthand (because he is Katarina and so he was there), and the line is delivered with wistful memory.

Hint #12

Redarina tells Liz how Katarina felt when she found out she was pregnant with Liz and throughout the pregnancy.

Could a close friend or relative know how Katarina felt when she was pregnant?

Sure.

But they give a clue by Red describing the exact moment that Katarina’s feelings changed. It is said as if he is inside her head. Redarina often speaks to Liz for Katarina (in terms of how she would feel or what she would say).

Hint #13

The real Red was an American military naval officer. Redarina appears to be Russian from the books on his shelf, his choice for his last meal (Silyodka pad shoboi — a Russian dish), and his close childhood friendship with KGB agent Ilya Koslov.

Also, Agnes calls him out for being from Russia in S9.

Hint #14

Dom blames ONE person for making choices that resulted in Dom not being in Liz’s life as she grew up. Initially, Dom directly blames Redarina for this. After Liz betrays Redarina and Dom is explaining why he forgave his daughter, Dom expressly blames his daughter for this.

The ONE person who made choices that forced Dom into isolation is Dom’s daughter.

Hint #15

After Dom is shot by Tatiana, he does not reach out to his granddaughter, he reaches out to Redarina (to apologize for not understanding him). As we die, we reach out to the person closest to us, which in the case of Dom is Redarina.

Hint #16

When Dom is dying, he tells the vision of his daughter that she is N-13 and Redarina is N-13, but we know N-13 is one person. We find out from the flashback of Katarina and Ivan that Katarina is N-13.

Redarina takes Liz to the N13 bunker where he explains everything, how it all unfolds, and admits that he is N-13.

Hint #17

We see Dom sentimentally attached to his Wagoneer. Redarina sentimentally describes how his dad drove a Wagoneer.

Hint #18

Both Dom and Redarina’s father are shown to/described as liking peanuts, being authoritarian, and excommunicating their child (although Dom forgave Katarina — because of love, and clearly seems to have forgiven Redarina).

Hint #19

The show repeatedly showed us Katarina was all ALONE at Cape May yet Redarina knew every move she made there. It wasn’t a narrated story. It was presented like haunting memories, a PTSD flashback, or a hallucination.

Hint #20

In Cape May, Redarina sees the prospector has a locket and recognizes it as the locket that Katarina put down on the beach in Cape May. Redarina says it has great sentimental value, and it turns out to be engraved to Katarina from papa.

This is what sends Redarina running to see Dom (although Redarina keeps the locket so he must feel ownership of it). His mind was still seeking a connection to his other identity and Dom aka “papa” was that connection.

Hint #21

Katarina loves and trusts Sam to raise her daughter. Redarina loves Sam and finances and directs Sam in raising Liz.

Hint #22

In the S1 finale, we see burn scars on Redarina’s back. Even though we don’t necessarily see those scars on Katarina when she brings Liz to Kate at the motel in S4, we see later she is the one who ran into the fire to get Liz and she tells Liz in S8 in the bunker that they were both burned.

Hint #23

Redarina plays the piano which further connects him to Dom.

Hint #24

The exact poses Redarina and Katarina had fighting off the assassins.

Hint #25

Everyone believed Katarina died but her body was never found.

Hint #26

They even gave another nod to it with the whole “you sound like such a mom” comment from Agnes (His call to Agnes, she said “You’re such a mom”, and he said “I can’t help myself”.)

The creators did everything that they could to hammer it home instead of directly saying it.

Official Confirmations

Confirmation #1

John Bokenkamp, John Eisendrath, and Diego Klattenhoff all confirmed Rederina during a virtual discussion on Blacklist & The Capture at Comic-Con 2020. You can find all the footage mentioned on YouTube.com. Comic-Con 2020 panel discussions.

Confirmation #2

It was confirmed by James Spader in May 2019 at the NBC 2019/2020 Upfront. He is having a discussion with another actor from a separate show (didn’t recognize the other actor).

The guy point blank asks if the current Reddington was Katarina. He says yes, and goes into detail. You can find all the footage mentioned on YouTube.com (NBC Upfront 2019/2020 background discussions).

Confirmation #3

Knauf confirmed in a Facebook post.

Confirmation #4

A script supervisor dating all the way back to S1 also confirmed it.

Confirmation #5

Nachalo and Konets were confirmed by Aram’s actor to reveal Redarina's identity.

Creators confirm the theory and say it's a truth, even hinting at it for people like you who refuse to believe it still say it’s not real? There’s a lot of evidence, but if you are in denial and even the claims of the people who make the show are not enough for you, then there’s nothing to discuss.

You can deny all you want, but at the end of the day our theory is still right and you’re still wrong! 🤷🏼‍♀️

Responses to Common Arguments

Response #1

• Redarina is bisexual because he slept with Anne, and during Nachal, said that he had shared a bed with men and women.

Redarina: My appetite was voracious. And as the Soviet Union fell, I gorged myself. On information. Money. Weapons. Women. Men.

Response #2

• Redarina had the best work available and, later, the best treatment for scars. He could’ve had any surgery he wanted at any time.

Response #3

The real Red absolutely impregnated both Katarina and Naomi Hyland and died at the hands of the daughter he had with Liz. A DNA test was done on a shirt stained with the blood of the real Red. So the real Red, being her father, was the correct conclusion drawn from that.

I’m not sure that we see an exact date, but it’s presumed that this happened in the 1980s. Regardless, anything that happened before 1990 had to have happened to the real Red. It couldn’t have been Redarina because he didn’t exist yet, he was still Katarina. | 4x22 (Mr Kaplan: Conclusion)

Response #4

As for Redarina having two children, they were both born before the fire, so they are the real Red’s kids, just not the Raymond you know now.

Response #5

The bones are matched to the real Red and Garvey tells Jennifer that she has been hiding her whole life from her father based on a mistake. The bones must have been matched to Jennifer’s DNA since ORR’s DNA is not on file (Cooper used a private lab).

Speaking with Dembe, Redarina privately refers to Jennifer as Liz’s sister, so the real Red is the bag of bones and Jennifer and Liz are both his daughters.

This has been confirmed multiple times in the show and by the showrunners.

Redarina obviously cares deeply for Liz but not in the same way for Jennifer. This is evidence that Redarina is Liz’s mom and Naomi is Jennifer’s mom, but the real Red is the dad of both Liz and Jennifer.

Response #6

Dom most certainly knew and although he never came out and said the exact words, I thought it was pretty clear. Watch the scenes with him and Redarina talking again.

Dom did in Rassvet, and his dialogue with Redarina makes it clear. When they both are squabbling in front of Frankie, Dom lets everything slip. He says to Redarina “y’made choices” after originally speaking about Katarina.

He plainly knew who he was speaking to and that signed Frankie’s death warrant because Redarina was afraid she had heard it.

Response #7

Dom initially accuses Redarina of killing his daughter, but this cannot mean literally because they clearly care for each other. Redarina tells Liz before his execution that his father was conservative, and did not accept him or his choices.

Yet he keeps his most important survival box with Dom (not Kate, Dembe, Ilya, or Ivan) and runs to him when he is distraught upon believing Liz died, to burn the bones, and upon finding out Liz betrayed him.

All of this is consistent with a father who cannot accept that his daughter became a man. Dom treats Redarina as someone he loves but resents, not as someone who killed his daughter.

The metaphoric killing was Katarina becoming Reddington. Nothing else would explain this difficult relationship.

Response #8

When Dom is in a coma, Redarina goes every day to read to him as Redarina did for Liz. This is a parent-child relationship.

Response #9

Dembe says “I don’t think Elizabeth will ever be prepared to hear what you did with her mother” as it’s not easy to digest that a woman became a man.

I found it all pretty cut and dry, and reading all of these arguments against the theory suggests to me that people may be watching the show without actually paying any attention to what they were watching.

Final Thoughts

If Reddington being Katarina was the goal all along, then there shouldn’t have been things hinting at other outcomes once they were committed to it. They left it ambiguous because the creators knew it would cause discussions now and forever.

It’s the “mystery box” problem. J.J. Abrams perpetuated the mystery box formula, where you have to keep presenting conundrums and puzzles to be solved, but not necessarily answering them, to keep the hype going for the show.

It’s a horrible model and it pretty much leads to the issues that The Blacklist suffered from. The mystery box approach worked in the Shadow comics. However, the mystery box needs direct confirmation. The Shadow had a direct confirmation, not an indirect confirmation.

There was more than one Reddington after the first scene where the bearded Reddington gets in the Taxi. I was convinced this whole season that there would be a huge plot point in the final season with the real Red battling Redarina, but that never panned out.

I think the inconsistencies are what really damaged this show. It was the sloppiest writing and worst execution of what could have been a great story.

Moreover, fans are so blinded that they can’t seem to differentiate between a mother giving up her entire life, and becoming somebody completely new with the sole intention of protecting her daughter at all costs.

I’m starting to think they should’ve had Redarina break the fourth wall and say “Yep, I was Katarina” before he died but even then we’d still have people who fail to or won’t accept it. Take the L and move on. At the end of the day, it’s just a TV show. Reddington could be a unicorn if they wanted to.

This was never a sexuality storyline at all but instead a story about the love of a mother and the lengths she would go to save and protect her child. Raymond Reddington was Katarina Rostova.

Disclaimer: I take zero credit for any of these. People smarter than me have pointed these out before.