Tag Archives: The Blacklist

Season premiere: The Blacklist – 2016/17

The PolyBlog
September 22 2016

As Season 3 started to wind down last year, there was an episode where Elizabeth died following complications after childbirth. They had a funeral, everybody said goodbye, and Tom tried to get his life together. Then, with everything in play and starting to normalize, Tom disappeared with the baby. Running from Raymond, refusing his protection. All of which was designed to get to Cuba where, voila, Liz was waiting, very much alive. She faked her death to get away from the craziness of Raymond Reddington being anywhere near Agnes.

But the running didn’t work very well, cuz her Russian “father” found her, kidnapped her, Agnes and Tom, and as the season kicks off, everyone is running around Cuba killing each other. Raymond’s working his way through local enforcers to find out where the Russian has Liz; and a bunch of Cuban locals are dealing with Tom and Agnes. The FBI throws a hand to help, for the most part anyway, and it is business as usual. Find Liz, save Liz.

The episode was relatively okay, a little too much button, button, who’s got the (baby) button, but not bad. I have no idea what they’re doing with Tom. He’s supposed to leave mid-season to go work on the Redemption spin-off, and Liz gets rekidnapped at the end, with continued separation from her baby which MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL. The “father” who is trying to bond with her keeps separating the two of them with no real reason to do so, it’s completely ridiculous.

But it’s up and running again, wondering how long it will take to “find Liz”. I seriously hope it isn’t half the season again. Can we get back to the frickin’ blacklist again????

Season premiere: The Blacklist

The PolyBlog
October 4 2015

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.