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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26965 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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Apologies for making this a total digression but including Raymond Reddington in that list is just absolutely laughable as "international man of mystery" goes because The Blacklist decided to Shyalamatwist by making Raymond Reddington, James Spader Moustache Twirling Hopkins Hannibal Channeler, a fucking woman.

It probably wasn't meant to be a girlboss attempt as much as it was meant to be a Smart Twist, but the reveal coinciding with the heights of cultural wokeness just made the entire series retroactively worse (I think, after the second season of Spader Smugly Wins I got tired of the premise). In any case the idea that Great (wo)Man Raymond Reddington is an aspirational touchstone for younger men to set themselves by is dodgy enough to begin with and became ridiculous later on.

The one US TV series that DID approach the AI apocalypse anything resembling competently was Person Of Interest, where it ended up being humans effecting their AI Godslaves. Otherwise most Great Man stories have to be small, since nukes and interwebz are unnavigable. Unless you're a leet hacker like Hugh Jackman who can keyboardhack while getting slopknobbed.

EDIT https://popculturereferences.com/we-dont-need-authorial-intent-to-know-who-red-reddington-was/#:~:text=Knauf%20confirmed%20that%20the%20intent,to%20leave%20after%20Season%208.

Knauf confirmed that the intent of the writing staff on The Blacklist (specifically show creator and co-showrunner Jon Bokenkamp and John Eisendrath, co-showrunner for the first eight seasons, and then solo showrunner in the final two seasons) was that the Red Reddington (James Spader) that we followed on The Blacklist for ten seasons was born Katarina Rostova, the mother of Elizabeth Keen, the FBI agent who was the co-lead on the series with Reddington until her actor, Megan Boone, chose to leave after Season 8.

@MaximumCuddles, this may or may not serve as proof. I personally noticed this theory when there was fucking ENDLESS spaderfacing about "well maybe I AM really your father or not hmm hmm hmm" that irritated the fuck out of me when watching Blacklist, combined with the lead actress just being very bad at doing anything other than white woman whining about this brainteasing, so I just caught up the summary when it finished and, yea, retroactively made my decision to dip early on worth it.

That's fucking hilarious. I haven't actually watched much of the show, just enough to grasp the conceit. In my mind, Reddington was something like the final money-grubbing exploitation of the character concept, dragging it down to Law & Order spinoff levels for the people who still watch network TV.

As someone whom is aware of but has never seen any of the things you’ve referenced this comment is a goddamn roller coaster of emotion.

Are you takin the piss or are you deadass?

James spader’s character turns out to be a woman? This reads like a /pol/ parody of Yellowstone. I’m legitimately frightened to know the answer to this.

Are you takin the piss or are you deadass?

On god bruh, unc is deadass. Shit is not bussin, that shit is low-key sus AF. Gyatt.

In the year of our lord 2025, you’re either a spiritual boomer or a spiritual zoomer. No in between. Call it.

I still see all the other phrases a lot, especially "unc," but we seem to have passed peak "gyatt." I feel this is a positive development.

Also bussin is passé at this point as well

If I had to take a guess it’s been about 67 weeks since it passed from typical zoomerspeak

James spader’s character turns out to be a woman?

It isn't in the Wikipedia article.

It's been awhile since I saw the show, but it really jumped the shark. The Spader character wasn't actually Raymond Reddington, I forget who, but was somehow related. The real Reddington was someone else, and then someone else from that. It was a series of fake faces. I don't remember the woman part, but the show got bad, so I buy it.

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