agent Red is fully with the FBI now and he plans to teach Liz to think like a criminal and see the bigger picture whether she wants to or not even as he relays his blacklist to the FBI.
A week-in, weak-out study in same-y procedural storytelling and mythology stalling that's powered by the usual salacious crime exploitation and the unusual lead performance of James Spader. [Blu-ray]
With such a flamboyant lead in Red and more and more outlandish bad guys, it's felt for a while like The Blacklist wants to be a looser, wilder show than its fairly straight-faced procedural beginnings suggested.
It's important that the show doesn't forget that its first season thrived with sturdy, efficient standalone episodes that didn't try to jam so much stuff into the proceedings.
The Blacklist moves away from questions of Raymond 'Red' Reddington's true motives, and towards getting things at the FBI black site back in order, so that more names can be checked off the titular blacklist.
It does seem like the writers are trying to fix the problems that really made the show so uneventful and unfulfilling. It's not a gigantic shift for The Blacklist, but hey, it feels like a move in the right direction.
Throughout the episode, in a very unsettling way, dots are connected: tracking markers in ties, drugs people take, World War II documentaries we're watching on Netflix, subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal and Cat Fanatic.
Spader continues to nonchalantly demolish the scenery surrounding him with is pursed lips and blasé delivery. Truly, he is a gifted SOB even if looking at him wearing that trademark hat makes me despair.