NFL
By: Mark T. Wilson
Who is Mr. Kaplan? That was the question many of us had in the early stages of The Blacklist whenever Raymond Reddington would mention her name. I can’t lie, it threw me for a loop when Mr. Kaplan turned out to be a female.
She was the original Reddington cleaner. When Red did one of his deeds, it was Kate aka Mr. Kaplan who was there to clean up the mess. Their history goes way back. Even before Reddington and Dembe. Mr. Kaplan knew Red’s secrets. Some, but clearly not all of them. That’s why it was hard to stomach the Red vs Kaplan war that went down in Season 4.
While it was a pain to watch two old friends go at each other, it also served as a turning point in The Blacklist and proved to be the best showdown ever. Kate, in her own words, only had one job. And that was to protect Marsha aka Elizabeth Keen at all cost and that even meant, protecting her from Reddington.
But as we look back and the The Blacklist is over, was Mr. Kaplan a character we grew to love or hate?
Over the years, Blacklister’s have shown up and we looked at them as either competition to Red or some evil person lurking in the shadows. But Mr. Kaplan, she was different. Yes, she crossed Red but she did give Red that warning early on. She told him from the beginning that she would keep Liz safe from anyone, himself included.
Red was on a war path and Mr . Kaplan did what she said she would do, protect Liz. She got Liz out of the county, a new identity and even provided her with the info regarding the secret bones. It was not about taking Red down, it was about protecting Liz. She had known Liz all her life and that was priority Number 1.
Who Was Mr. Kaplan On The Blacklist
But then it happened. No one is going to cross Red and live to tell about it. In a scene out of a Western movie, Reddington draws Kate to the woods and shoots her in the head, leaving her to die alone. But she did not die. Kate was saved and well, we all know what happened there. But was Mr. Kaplan in the right to do what she did before she was shot and after she recovered?
In all fairness, can you blame her? There is no way any true fan of The Blacklist should hate Mr. Kaplan for anything she did. Except one thing. Why did she take her own life?
Despite her ongoing war with Red, Kate did not know that Red was going to spare her life. But Kate, seeing the inevitable, decided to end hers by jumping off a bridge. She did not get to see the hurt on Red’s face at that moment. Their bond was forever, and he was not given a second chance to redeem himself for trying to kill her.
All she had done for him and Liz, Me. Kaplan was not a real blacklister, she was an old friend who went against the grain but did so for a good cause. Red was a different man back then. If there was one character who should have survived The Blacklist, it was Mr. Kaplan.
