Well, then!

There was a big surprise on The Blacklist Season 7 Episode 7, and it was a little bit mindblowing.

It also sends us one step backwards in the "Who is Red" neverending mystery.

Sometime during The Blacklist Season 6, there was speculation that the guy who was sitting on the park bench with Red, might have been Ilya Kozloff.

At that time, and even up until The Blacklist Season 7 Episode 6, when he was jetting around the world with Red, the man's name wasn't revealed.

Well, now we know.

Red isn't Ilya at all because there is already an Ilya.

It's shocking but also disappointing because the story Dom told Liz about the Katarina/Ilya love story was a great one.

It's still a beautiful story, but it doesn't involve Red, and that's what makes it disappointing.

And it doesn't appear that the story is real at all, and may have been something Red and Dom conjured up to keep enemies at bay.

Because if Ilya was Katarina's lover, she didn't appear to be too happy to see him.

It's unclear why she was searching for him, but it also doesn't seem that she was looking to rekindle a lost love.

And while the case of the week was odd and seemed more like a political message than anything else, there might be a connection to the whole "Who is Red" question.

It's definitely not one I hope comes to fruition, but it's a theory (I know some of you don't like the theory, and neither do I.), but it's possible that is where Red's story is heading.

Obviously, Red is not Katarina, but, stay with me here, maybe he had some sort of "sex" change similar to what Hannah Hayes was doing to the men she was operating on.

I haven't completely wrapped my head around it yet, but the people on Red's Blacklist are on Red's list for a reason.

So, she wouldn't have gotten featured if there wasn't a connection.

I have no idea what it means, but there's something to it.

It's clear that Katarina is Liz's mother, but the way The Blacklist works, nothing is as it seems.

So, and this is a far-out-there theory, but what if Red gave birth to Liz?

I know. It's a crazy thought, but it's not impossible.

Granted, Hayes had an agenda for what she was doing, but Ressler commented that the technology has been around for a long time.

So, the possibility is there, as crazy as it is.

That nutty thought aside, there was a message getting sent.

Between Hannah's surgery exploits and Katarina's statement about being tired of men running her life, the message was about women's empowerment even if it was convoluted.

That's what I got out of it, at least.

And I'm not one for political messages on TV shows, so I'm not even going there.

Anyway, everything is getting complicated again, but that's why we love The Blacklist, right?

It still blows my mind that Red doesn't know Katarina is living next door to Liz.

How is it that not even that Skip guy mentioned it?

He had to know, right?

And if Red has been working so hard trying to find where she is, it's still hard to believe he hasn't figured out where she's living.

But that little secret is about to get exposed. I don't know how many little kids you know, but there's no way in hell that Agnes isn't going to tell Liz about the man in the bathroom.

That juicy piece of information is going to be the catalyst for Liz learning that the wonderful woman taking care of her baby is actually her mother.

There's one more episode before the fall finale, and that revelation would be the ideal story to keep us hanging until The Blacklist returns in March (yes, March).

We might also get closer to learning more information about Ilya and Red and how they're connected.

Or even what happened to Dom. Is he dead?

Why can't we get an update on his situation?

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For a minute, it seemed like Patrick might have been Katarina's son, but he's not.

Red was ready to kill him after he got the information he needed, but Dembe talked him out of it.

That might prove to be a wrong move at some point because that's just the way things are.

He's obviously important to Katarina, but obviously not that important enough that she was willing to let Red kill him.

She's a bitch -- and a badass.

She's also not as quick as she was in the old days because it took her some time to kill the guy who went after her.

If she had more time, she would've been able to get out of the bathroom before Agnes entered.

So, that's another tick in the lose column for her.

If she can't kick ass like she used to, and it's not a slam against her, then she's not going to have a chance against Red.

Maybe Park will somehow be Katarina's Dembe?

Park told Liz her secret, but it hasn't been revealed to the audience yet.

Whatever it is, it definitely has something to do with Red because if it wasn't, she wouldn't have had regrets telling Liz.

The fact that Liz is Red's daughter changed things for Park in relation to the Anchorage incident.

I didn't care about it before, but now I'm super curious.

I'm also getting the feeling that Aram is starting to sniff around Park and that we're getting set up for a romance.

Please, let's drop the Aram romance thing because I still don't like Park (even though she was more tamed down this hour), and Aram's romance storylines are getting out of hand.

There are a lot of more interesting things happening on The Blacklist that need to get addressed than Aram and his distracting love life.