u/AmbassadorMelodic830

I'm on Season 6 right now. Raymond's trial has just ended, so please don't spoil anything beyond this point.

I have been loving the show. The writing and the whole mythology are genuinely brilliant, and James Spader is just hands down a fantastic actor. But there is one thing that has been bothering me for a while and I genuinely want to know if I have missed something.

The whole childhood fire and Liz's memories are such a huge part of her character. We see her slowly remember what happened, and eventually she knows that she shot her father when she was a child. She carries so much emotion and guilt around "I killed my father." This isn't some small detail. It is repeated and is clearly very important to her.

Then Cooper does the DNA test and tells Liz that Raymond Reddington is her biological father.

And Liz basically accepts that Reddington is her father.

But how does she not immediately stop and think:

Wait. I killed my father.

So if Raymond Reddington is my father, who exactly did I shoot in that fire?

That should surely have been a massive moment for her.

She already knows that she shot someone when she was a child. She knows that person was her father. Then she learns that Raymond Reddington is her father. And there is a man standing right in front of her who is Raymond Reddington.

Shouldn't there have been some huge moment where she puts those things together and thinks, "Something is seriously wrong here"?

The bag of bones is a separate mystery to me. I understand why that becomes such a huge plot point. The bones establish that the original Raymond Reddington is dead and therefore the man we have been watching is an impostor.

But why does the question not come up before that?

The bag of bones is basically telling us that the real Reddington is dead. But Liz already had the information to ask that question.

"I killed my father."

"My father was Raymond Reddington."

"Then who did I kill?"

There seems to be some missing bridge between those three things.

Maybe I have completely missed an episode or a line where Liz actually addresses this. If so, please tell me because I genuinely want to know. I am not trying to find a plot hole if there is an explanation I have missed.

Also, slightly unrelated, but I have to say this about Liz's acting in Season 6. Is it just me or does Megan Boone's way of showing that things are getting intense basically consist of speaking very heavily and breathing very heavily? Heavy breathing, long pause, intense stare, heavy voice, another breath. I have started noticing it so much that now I can't unsee it.

Maybe it is the direction, maybe it is the character, but compared to Spader, it stands out a lot. Spader can do so much with just his voice and expressions without making every emotional moment feel physically heavy.

Anyway, I still really enjoy the show. The mythology is brilliant and Spader is obviously incredible. I am just genuinely confused about this one part of Liz's storyline.

So, have I missed something? Is there an episode where Liz actually reconciles "I killed my father" with "Raymond Reddington is my father"? Or is this just something the writers never properly connected?

TL;DR: I’m on Season 6, Raymond’s trial has just ended. I’m confused about Liz’s father storyline. She already knows she shot and killed her father as a child. Then Cooper’s DNA test tells her Raymond Reddington is her biological father. Why does she not immediately ask, “Then who did I shoot?” Is there a scene I missed, or is there genuinely a missing link in the writing?

I was crying while writing this, so if it feels all over the place, maybe that's because I am too.

I've never written a long rant on Reddit. I mostly come here to post food pictures and recipes. But watching these protests and seeing the amount of support they have received has made me unexpectedly emotional.

I know the issue right now is education. It is something that touches almost everyone and that naturally brings people together. And IT SHOULD. Students deserve that solidarity.

But I can't help thinking about all the other moments. The years of discrimination. The hate. The propaganda. The way narratives were twisted until people stopped seeing human beings and only saw labels.

I used to be so active on Twitter and Instagram. I showed up because I genuinely believed speaking up mattered. Whether it was the CAA-NRC protests, instances of state brutality, or Palestine. To me, women's rights are women's rights everywhere. Humanity is humanity everywhere. I never saw compassion as something that should stop at a border or depend on someone's religion or nationality.

I criticised films that, in my opinion, glorified violence or reduced patriotism to jingoism.(Eg Dhurandhar) I questioned the narratives that seemed to equate support for one political party with love for the country. I spoke about institutions, about the values of democracy that I grew up reading about in history books. Not from one author or one textbook, but from many perspectives because I was always taught that understanding history meant reading it critically, not selectively.

For that, I was branded. Liberal. Leftist. Communist. Anti-national.

I was slut shamed. I received rape threats. My religion became enough for people to decide who I was before they had even heard what I was saying.

During the CAA-NRC protests, I watched people from my university and neighbouring campuses be hunted, beaten and dehumanised. We were terrified, and somehow we were still expected to justify why we were protesting.

Our hair was pulled too.

Our dupattas were snatched too.

We were abused too.

Back then, it felt like we were screaming into a void. Somewhere along the way, I lost friendships. I lost people I thought would stand by me. I stopped posting as much because constantly defending your existence, your intentions and your humanity is exhausting. Maybe I still have the same number of friends on paper, but the distance that politics, hatred and fear can create between people is something I never imagined I would experience.

So today, when I see thousands of people finally standing up against brutality, I am genuinely happy. I really am. Every student deserves this support. Every protester deserves to know they are not alone.

But I would be lying if I said it doesn't hurt.

It hurts because I keep wondering where all this solidarity was when so many of us needed it. Why did some of us have to be reduced to hashtags, stereotypes and political labels before anyone could see our humanity?

Why does it take a scale of horror before people are willing to admit that something is deeply wrong?

This isn't me saying people shouldn't protest now. Please do. Show up. I am too. Raise your voice. Stand with students. Stand against injustice.

I just hope that the next time another community is hurting, another woman is threatened, another minority is demonised, or another protest is dismissed because it is politically inconvenient, we don't wait for the violence to become impossible to ignore.

Empathy should not depend on who the victim is.

Maybe that's why this has made me cry. Because I am hopeful for the first time in a long time. But I am also grieving all the times we begged to be heard and the silence was louder than our voices.

Maybe that's what hurts the most.

TL;DR: I used to speak out during the CAA-NRC protests, against state brutality, hate, and other humanitarian issues. It cost me friendships, invited abuse, rape threats, and constant labeling. Seeing so many people unite for students today genuinely gives me hope, but it also reminds me how alone many of us felt when we needed that same solidarity. I'm grateful people are finally speaking up. I just wish empathy didn't arrive only after the horror became impossible to ignore.