The Blacklist was the giant hit of two seasons ago, introducing James Spader as Raymond Reddington, riveting as he turned himself into the FBI with the words, “I will speak only to Elizabeth Keen”. The mystery, the bad guy of the week, the ones who lived off the radar of any government agency but nevertheless were the baddest of the bad. Ghosts, whispers, and Raymond was willing to deliver them, one at at time, while delivering on his own mysterious and hidden agenda. Why Keen? Why these people? What was he doing? And why KEEN!!!!????

Season 1 revealed the secret that he was in a deadly deal with a hidden cabal of international power brokers. They wanted him dead, but he had a deadman switch in the form of a file called the Fulcrum that had info on their entire operation — kill him, and the info goes public.

Season 2 revealed some of Keen’s past, and how her and Reddington were linked. Why he needed her, in part, and why he wanted to be with her. But the cabal called his bluff, everything went to hell in a handbasket, and now it is time for the collateral damage to start hurting.

Season 3 opens where season 2 ended — Keen had just killed a very corrupt Attorney General after being used as a weapon to kill someone else. Framed as a spy, she felt she had no way out. And so she killed the AG and started on the run with Reddington by her side. So, the chase begins. Dressler is in charge, and has locked the city down, no way out. Reddington has a place to hide for a week or two until things calm down, but that gets blown out by coincidence more than anything else. So they go to Plan B, which was the same as Plan A, but without the waiting.

I’m happy to see Cooper in the episode, Dressler, Arum, and the Mossad agent too. Dengbe is running around with the Cabal figuring out how to use him to get to Reddington, but it’s not clear to me really why he’s not involved in helping them. Maybe that was in the last episode and I’ve just blocked it out.

I liked the episode, but I just felt it was too drawn out. Also, the Fulcrum is in play after the end of the last episode, and yet the Cabal is barely affected it seems. An embarrassment, no governments are falling. Heck, even the DCS at the CIA is still in his job.Plus the giant reveal, the giant technique at the end, it was just smoke with no fire at all. It totally fizzled for all the time and effort the script put into showing it might/could/should be amazing. Welcome back, but don’t drag this out like the start of last season. Get to catching the blacklisters again.