@mechajutaro said:

Ironic, as this show's survival is entirely dependent on Spader's remaining resigned to slum it on a show that ran out of steam a few seasons ago

This recently finished "jail season" just dragged along right until the season finale. I don't know how much longer they will want to keep this series going. They have to continue it long enough to answer the nagging questions Liz has been seeking answers for since the beginning, and tie up loose ends.
Killing off Tom was a mistake, and I think killing off Kate was also. But the writing, especially this past season was pretty poor.
Do we really think Red could not have arranged for some protection on the inside? Why did Dembe agree to lie to Red about Kate? Dembe has been the one lobbying for honesty the whole time, telling Red he shoud tell Liz. Now he lied to Red about Liz being the one who betrayed Red. Dembe could have used this to make his case that Red should tell her, saying "see what happens when you keep these secrets from her? She put you in jail just so she could search for answers without interference from you".

The trope that irritates me the most though is the cyclic way in which Liz recognizes how much Red loves her and is willing to sacrifice for her, even to the point of sacrificing his own life for hers, which he has volunteered to do so many times. And then she completely forgets all that and sees him as just someone who is using her, as absurd as that calculation has become. "He is keeping a secret from me, so he doesn't really love me" she thinks over and over. "He offered to trade his life for mine, just like I thought he would. haha" she told hallucination Tom, as though that is evidence of Red's poor character. She has cycled through this flip flop way of seeing Red so many times, thinking the worst of him, then seeing she was wrong and appreciating him again, etc. that it is past boring. You know it is coming long before it happens, because it always happens. She never seems to learn, or remember the previous times. You have to wonder if she suffers from some sort of dissociative personality disorder, which would be ironic since she studied psych and is a profiler.

I still think he is Katarina's brother and that is why he protects and loves her. He feels some guilt over how things happened when she was a child as well, perhaps. But if I were Red, I would have long ago said "have a happy life" and left her alone, perhaps leaving a team of people to keep track of and protect her. She has dumped on him too many times. She is an ungrateful psycho bitch.