The Blacklist - S1E6
WARNING: This review contains spoilers.
After a strong episode last week, The Blacklist delivers "Gina Zanetakos," an episode as hard to follow as the title is to pronounce. A lot of stuff happens within the show's 44 minutes and a fair amount of it does not make much sense.
As I've said previously, for me to enjoy The Blacklist, I have to suspend logic and just come along for the entertainment of Spader's acting and the big-budget action scenes. But this week requires more than a suspension of logic. It requires thought. And thought during The Blacklist can make the show much less enjoyable, because most of the plot of The Blacklist does not make sense.
Let's give credit to the writers, they have not held the Tom mystery until later in the season, like most shows would. Instead, they thrust this mystery front and center. Tom (Ryan Eggold) tells Elizabeth (Megan Boone) that he knows nothing about the box of passports, gun, and money hidden under the floor. But we all tell our wives the same thing when our go bag gets discovered. Tom suggests that Lizzy call the FBI if she has any doubts. So she does. How's that for blind faith in your significant other? Now here's where the show gets confusing. When the FBI is taking them to a black site, Lizzy tells Tom that she does not work for the FBI and that this black site is her workplace.
Now let's blame the writers. Elizabeth Keen does not work for the FBI? Huh? I am fairly confident that I have seen most of her co-workers wear those FBI jackets. Meera (Parminder Nagra) was introduced as CIA a few episodes ago, but I am sure that Elizabeth has been introduced to the audience as a rookie FBI profiler, who just happens to be an expert computer hacker. I think I know what was implied; that Liz and the team of FBI-ies are part of a multi-agency task force that works the Reddington case, which includes the CIA. But that should have been cleared up during the first edit of the script.
And then there was a German bombmaker who was an acquaintance of Reddington. Red even remarks that, "I've climbed Masada with his wife." That's who my wife and I vacation with, the Bombmakers from down the street. The German bombmaker does not play a major role in the episode, and seemed like an unnecessary addition. But at least Reddington got another opportunity to remind us that he is a renaissance man.
Reddington seems genuinely interested in Lizzy's well-being and happiness, and he has consistently suggested to her that her husband is a bad man. But as this episode progresses, Tom keeps clearing the smell test, and by the end of the show, he walks away, free and clear of wrongdoing or suspicion. And it looks like Reddington engineered the whole fiasco.
Again, we spend the hour wondering if Reddington is working for the FBI, or just working the FBI. And by the end of the show, we get the feeling that we've just been on a circular ride, and we are right back where we started.
Agent Ressler is back in his old role of being a jackass. But he saves Liz, when he shoots a knife-wielding Gina (Margarita Levieva), then saves the world from a dirty bomb by driving a car into the water, just before it detonates. I feel much safer knowing that Agent McDummy is looking out for us.
The show ends with the apple-eating surveillance guy and another guy still keeping tabs on Elizabeth and Tom. And they mention that Tom isn't working for Reddington, but they don't know who he is working for. So our mystery continues.
This episode was a prime example of plot overload. There was plot everywhere. It was like somebody tried to shove 10 pounds of plot into a 5 pound bag. Like a plot/lettuce/tomato (PLT) sandwich, hold the lettuce and tomato. Like a .... well, you get the idea. The heavy dose of plot dulled the focus of the episode.
I really want to like this show. And I am OK with a thriller that has lots of twists and turns. But the twists have to at least appear to make some kind of sense. And, as of this writing, I cannot help but think that all these twists are starting to resemble a slinky. The last few episodes worked for me, as I thought we were moving into a formulaic Big Bad of the Week. And the last two Big Bads were interesting characters. But the problem with a network show is that the writers have to fill 22 episodes a season. So what we get every few weeks is a Gina Zanetakos episode. Let's hope that we can get back on track with the Big Bad of the Week again, because that formula seems to work with this show.
Random Thoughts:
- Nice to see Grey (Charles Baker) do something more than serve as a plot device.
- I want to believe Reddington, I really do. That's Spader's acting having an influence on my emotions, right?
- I found myself much more interested in the stolen art transaction that Reddington was brokering than anything else going on this episode.
- Harold did something wrong in Kuwait, and Reddington holds it over him. Maybe that will be the mid-season reveal.
- Will someone please arrest Reddington? He has killed at least two people this season and is implicated in other murders. I know he has value to national security, but I just cannot believe he is not in custody.
What did you think?
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