The Blacklist

I don't watch the show myself, but I gotta say, I've been enjoying the AV Club's weekly reviews:

Precious seconds are ticking away while that bomb is out there somewhere, but Red still has his insane “I do everything face-to-face” rule, so he pops over to Germany to confront Maxwell. He tells him that he’d better talk, because some other guy named Yuri sold him out, and in fact, Yuri “talked faster than a cheerleader after a nooner under the grandstand. Probably not a metaphor you understand.” I hope to God this is the start of a new weekly gimmick, so that in every episode from now on, Red will say something incomprehensible and then pretend that the person he’s speaking to is only bewildered because of cultural differences. “Pierre, if you’ll excuse the old expression, your guilt is as evident as a left-handed Cajun accordionist’s fondness for Pindar’s Victory Odes. Sorry, I guess that was lost in translation somehow.”
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I think when they are following people instead of talking into their sleeves they should use mobile phones or radios that look like phones then they might not get spotted so often.

 

About their supposed monetary problem, they do not seem to spend that much money. We don't know much, but for all we know they could have been saving for years. The only thing we d know is that they have a house, which may or not be expensive.

About the episode, I thought the corporate terrorism plot was a little to conspiracy theory-esque. The overall arch didn't make that much sense either. My guess is that Reddington has been setting Tom up, but I don't really know anymore. It might as well have been the people behind the surveilence. And everything is supposed to go back to normal the next episode? The weakast episode yet, but they might recover.

 

Reddington didn't set Tom up. Either he set himself up to take the fall (along with Zanetakos,) for the Fokin murder, or Tom set up Reddington.

Above I suggested that Reddington could have controlled events by hiring Zanetakos for the bombing. On this hypothesis, the order for the bomb was placed when Reddington learned of the box. Then when Tom confronted Elizabeth, Reddington speeded up the time table to 36 hours. This explains why Reddington let Elizabeth "overhear" a conversation (one-side, if there were even two,) otherwise essential to the resolution. This explains how Reddington could have contrived to give Zanetakos Tom's picture. This even explains yet another remarkable coincidence, Zanetakos losing her phone (but not killing Ressler.)

Of course Reddington wanting to save his Lizzie from hearbreak, even at the expense of making himself look bad, makes a pretty far-fetched "martyr for love" fantasy.

On the other hand, Tom setting Reddington up would be a much easier and more straight-forward plot except for one huge problem. Namely, how could Tom have been sure that Zanetakos would be captured alive, to confess? Without her confession, he'd still be a suspect. I suppose it's possible that I'm wrong for assuming the writers actually have a coherent plot, but it seems too early to take away benefit of doubt.

PS Could the "Tom is framing Reddington" scenario be saved if Ressler is Reddington's man? Also, was the symbol on Zanetakos' getaway stash the same as on the one in the Keen household? Also, does a week's time passing in each episode (as Ressler's line about seven weeks suggests) feel right?

 

I have a serious crush on Red. Granted, that may just be my admiration for James Spader shining through, but Red is awesome. Yes, he's manipulating things, and he's in it, at least partly, for himself, but the way he conducts business is just smooth, and I do believe he is looking out for Elizabeth. I could be way off, but I'm of the opinion that Red keeps his word because his word is his business; you lose that, you lose everything.

 

I just saw the episode he throw the guy in the Breaking Bad chemicals and melted him alive. It was awesome. I love him too.

 

That was crazy! While I wouldn't do anything like that (I feel guilty just yelling at someone for something), Red has no compunctions to doing it. He's not necessarily a good guy, but he's not a bad guy either. He's that quasi-shades of gray kind of guy, who looks out for number one, but does tend to help people on the side when it suits him.

 

I think he is somewhat a better guy than the FBI wants to make him out to be, we just don't know his backstory.

It's not like he goes after every "bad guy" on the show, this one clearly killed someone he cares about a lot, and he took revenge on the guy because he deserves it.

But it was so awesome!

 

I must admit I love that too .

"They made me...."

Yeah dude, you were talking up your sleeve with a finger in your ear.

(see also Homeland, Agents of SHIELD et al)

 

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to like Raymond or not, but I can say with complete honesty that I like him better than anyone working for the FBI. They're just by-the-book, robotic, legalistic, and emotionless. Red's the only one who acts like he's human.

 

I've realized I'm mentally substituting Rachel Nichols for Megan Boone. I can't explain the neurophysiology but I think it's improving the show for me.

 

Minor observation: Last night's episode was written by J R Orci, had a plot not unlike a Fringe episode and even contained the phrase "fringe science." Cute.

Beyond that, I'm still watching the show for Spader. I'm also starting to wonder if the shows characters are somehow intentionally presented as a bit bland to separate them from Spader's distantly charming super villain who is only more interesting by contrast.

 

Losing will to watch.

I need a twist.

Rachel Nichols in the Inside, a clone of Criminal Minds, was a thousand times better than this.

 

Are you talking about the little girl playing in the yard? We have no proof yet that the little girl in the flash back is the main character FBI lady as of yet.

 

Exactly, but you know a lot of people are going to assume it's her until told otherwise.

At this moment, I'm more interested in who the guys are who are spying on Lizzy's husband. He may not work for the Russians like they thought last episode, but he definitely works for someone.

 

I agree, the FBI does things because someone else told them to. He just seems to do his own thing, most people he gets they to go to jail, however if they are really really bad, or killed someone he knows, he kills them. I don't fault him for that.

 

Hopefully if the series is able to carry on for any length of time, maybe we'll see Agent Keane become more and more influenced by Red until she's a mirror of him, only working for the FBI. I'd like her character to enter into some kind of grey area, because as you said everyone working at the FBI right now is pretty much "by the book" goody goody types.