Her grandfather came to the US, but we don’t when or in what circumstances. Then I suppose she tried to solve the crime, read the local reports of the fire and built up an interest in piecing together information and solving crimes, which lead her to the FBI profiling role she had when Red re-entered her life.

Alexander Kirk claims to be her father. He could be an Uncle who wants Liz to have his business and has other nieces and nephews who could take over. For reasons of his own he wants Liz to succeed him. Alternatively, Liz and her mother weren’t in the US with her father, living as part of a sleeper cell. Given Liz’ knowledge of the fulcrum, Katerina Rostova worked as one of the agents who provided it with information and then stole it leading to her apparent death. Presumably, the organization that created that fulcrum just started another for their own, no doubt, nefarious purposes, but would like to get the first one back and kill all those responsible for its theft.

Red’s therefore putting an organization together that’s capable of smoking out the one behind the fulcrum. At the moment Liz is just bait as she’s always been. Kirk could turn her into a player. That would complicate Red’s life no end.

The fulcrum organization ran agents ostensibly working for governments. Penetrating the FBI is child’s play in comparison or other criminal organizations. I suspect season 4 will see an erosion of trust between all members of the ‘team’. Dark secrets will emerge and be used as leverage.