Reddington did not kill the Stewmaker for killing that woman whose photograph he stole from the trophy book. The dialogue clearly established that Elizabeth was his first kill. The Stewmaker's only crimes were kidnapping and multiple accounts of abetting murder and improper disposal of corpses. Tom Noonan was hired to play him as creepy, and he was murdered for being creepy. Killing people you don't like is commonly regarded as a happy thing. Having Reddington do something fun makes us like him. Ressler is not robotic, nor emotionless, nor by the book. In the pilot episode, he threw a beaten opponent off a building. So far from being emotionless, Ressler is nearly always angry, something openly alluded to in some dialogue between Elizabeth and him. But Ressler's dominant characterization is that he's stupid, which is necessary so that Reddington can always win. Meera is played by Parminder Nagra. Women characters rarely get characterization, and women of color get even less. Chances are she'll never be anything much more than a cipher. Also, to nitpick, she's not FBI, but CIA. The boss, played by Harry Lennix, gets short shrift on screen time, but he is not by the book. Despite all the bluster, designed to highlight Reddington's victory, the guy has signed off on the whole cockamamie premise of the series. Plus of course, there's the incident in Kuwait. Not legalistic. Tom of course is played in every scene as something of a wet dream of a feminist husband. As they say, sweet enough to induce a diabetic coma. Elizabeth is of course the third FBI character and the co-star. Her characterization vis-a-vis Reddington is not emotionless, legalistic, robotic nor by the book. She stabbed him in the neck! The thing about her characterization is that she's supposed to be, according to Reddington, a simple-minded bimbo living her life being screwed by a criminal! And this even as she is supposed to be a talented "profiler," which means that off work she's just as dumb as Ressler. I think this is self-contradictory and it's why Megan Boone is having trouble with the role. I suspect the writers fundamentally see the value of women as sexual, so the problem isn't visible to them. They may not think any such thing consciously, but they are turning out commercial product, which is meant to appeal to "the masses." Remember that in Hollywood, the masses tend to appear nowadays as "The Walking Dead." Reddington's characterization is James Spader's success in manifesting (with the aid of the script making everyone else either an adoring employee or an idiot...or should I just say a Ressler?) an unfailing air of boudnless confidence. Many approach drama seeking someone to identify with. Confidence is for winners. There is a popular morality where winning is everything. Ergo, Reddington is the hero, no matter what he does.
Last night's episode was good. We got a few more important, though hazy, details on the connection between Elizabeth and Raymond. It also seems that despite what he does on the side, Lizzy's husband actually cares for her. Still, the shocky part of the episode was at the beginning, when that body, still in its chair, crashed to the ground. Now, I'm no delicate flower, but that actually turned my stomach quite a bit. Didn't like that part at all. Could have done without it. The rest of the episode, though, was pretty good overall. Also, for the record, the only names I have bothered to remember are Raymond's, and Elizabeth's. I frequently forget everyone else's names.
seems like the b-story with Spader should be the a-story and vice versa, regardless of the hollywood tears on the female lead. Moriarty?
I actually like Agent Keane, I think she can be an interesting character. But I agree that right now she's written a little blandly. My favorite scenes with her are the ones where she lets her guard down and treats Red like a human being, like in the closing moments of last nights episode where she was sitting on the swing set with him talking about her father, I love moments like that. What I hope is happening, is that the more time she spends with him the more he rubs off on her, where it ends up what she's doing isn't so black and white anymore. This being a network show I don't see that happening, but I can hope.
So last night made EVERY FBI character look like a moron. Why? Because we learn that Lizzie is indeed adopted. Think about it. Seriously. The big question has been "why did Red choose Lizzie?". Well, duh! Did the writers of last night's episode somehow over look the fact that the FBI supposedly looked into any possible connections? That Lizzie looked into any connections? And now we learn that Lizzie is adopted and that she knows she is? WTF? I'm guessing the people in this world are just plain non-intuitive. OJ probably didn't even come up as a suspect in Nicole's killing.
The most shocking thing about last night's episode was that the writers allowed the FBI to be competent enough to realize that a fake had been replaced. Economics as practiced in the US is pretty metaphysical. But if the Treasury had issued currency using the specs in "Ludd's" substitute, how would that be any different from issuing currency after they had simply changed the specs? Tagging Occupy Wall Street as assassins should have been shocking but, sadly, no. Reddington's magical abilities continue to amaze, as in his ability to talk Sam into letting him euthanize him with a pillow. Personally I would have held out for a morphine OD. I'm quite certain Reddington's straight, but the scene plays as two old lovers quite well. In addition to the hints in the deathbed scene, Reddington identified himself as Liz's father in the confrontation with Tom. It was indirect to be sure, but he was talking about Liz's father watching as he was giving the Evil Eye to Tom. He was of course also saying, "I'll be watching," just as he was saying Liz's father would be watching. Unfortunately there's no reason for him to love his daughter Liz when he didn't give a shit about the family he actually knew, so this is a really lame development. It's true that Tom could in principle have been a regular guy who just doesn't flinch from eye contact when some dude suddenly starts glaring while he makes weird insinuations. But the simplest interpretation is that Tom was doing bad guy defiance of the hero. Which means that Tom and whoever is behind him successfully framed Reddington as unsuccessfully framing Tom. This is not actually possible according to what we've seen, which means Reddington's enemy is also magic. It also means that Liz, the profiler, is really, really stupid and getting screwed by the villians. I don't see any reason to think Tom has any feelings for her at all. Maybe if Tom is somehow a puppet instead of an active agent, or maybe if Tom's ultimate agenda didn't require marriage? Far fetched. The ultimate takeaway on the episode depends on how much you enjoyed watching Reddington kill his good friend Sam. PS Missed the post right before while writing this one. But every character but Reddington has been always, consistently, portrayed as stupid, so profoundly stupid that the stupidity is fooling lots of people into thinking the characters are "bland." The stupidity is so intense and relentless that last night even had Reddington joking about making fun of Ressler. But, contrary to the hacks' handbook, "hanging a lantern" on it only works if you're not taking yourself too seriously. Reddington's badassery is supposed to be taken very seriously. 2nd PS General Ludd's idea may have been to use his copy of the specs to counterfeit huge amounts of currency, which, using the same specs as the official currency would have been forgeries as perfect as the paper. Don't know how he was expecting to print and distribute that much paper, nor do I know how cash is going to crash the financial system, given that data entries in banks and the whole shadowy financial system are more important.
Are we sure Keane is not part of the family Reddington raised in the house he burned up last week? He could of course have two separate sets of children (I'm guessing the girl at the end is Keane's sister).
^^^We're sure of nothing at this point, except that Reddington is the hero, Liz is infinitely desirable and everybody but Reddington will be completely stupid when convenient for the script. (Well, except for Tom framing Reddington somehow.)
I can't think of her name at the moment and am too lazy to google it, but the actress who plays Elizabeth Keane was on The Today show this morning and it turns out she wears a wig for the show. I'm sure someone will show up and say it is obvious but it fooled me. Anyways, I see no reason for her to wear a wig as her natural hair is just gorgeous.
I didn't notice the wig until Aragorn pointed it out. And yeah, she does look gorgeous with the shorter hair.
I noticed that Megan Boone's character has "TV hair" (hair that's fuller and styled a certain way), but I never stopped to think that it was a wig.
If they weren't all idiots, someone at the Black Site should tell Liz that Reddington was in Nebraska when her father died. And, for that matter, both Black Site and whoever is watching the Keanes should have followed Tom out of town, as it's easy to meet someone while traveling or otherwise engage in hanky-panky. I'm not sure whether Liz should expect Tom to recognize Reddington, as opposed to just knowing the name. Tom saw the board with pictures of Reddington's flunky and I think Reddington's picture was there as well. Should she be suspicious that Tom didn't report the conversation? And, is Tom pretending not to recognize Reddington absolutely conclusive proof that Tom is a villain? And since he went to the trouble of framing Reddington, why wouldn't he want to cause Reddington even more trouble by suggesting that Reddington killed Sam? (That it would be a true charge is irrelevant.)
Yeah---there's a chip in his neck. Isn't someone monitoring where he goes? Doesn't someone ever connect the dots?