Plotlines

Of course, the father-daughter dynamic between Elizabeth and Reddington is somehow clear from the first episode; it simply emerges from the constellation. However, the series repeatedly leaves you in the dark about the extent to which they are actually related or not. After Reddington kills Elizabeth’s adoptive father, though, the whole thing takes a new direction, which keeps changing again and again, especially towards the end of the season.

With Luli’s death, the ninth episode of the first season shows that no one is really safe. Unfortunately, this rigorous approach, this brutality, is later revoked, which I find a bit of a shame. Of course, I don’t like it when established characters just die, but I find the possibility itself interesting and exciting.

Before the thought arises that Reddington is just some kind of accountant, he goes on a revenge spree, making him as gruesome as previously suggested. If I remember correctly, there will be more such occurrences (It’s shown that his playful manner is indeed not just play, but deadly serious as soon as the wrong people mess with him and his inner circle). Interestingly, part of the FBI team, especially Ressler and Cooper, is included in this circle.

One could polemically claim that this is actually just about a standard crime series where the FBI solves cases. But this whole game around it, with Elizabeth, Reddington, and later conflicts in the FBI team, the whole apparatus above the FBI, makes it not quite such a simple standard fare. And now, as I’m writing this, I still find it exciting, but I know that later, or for me back then, it became too exhausting and too confusing, which is why, as mentioned in the first post about The Blacklist, I stopped watching in the sixth season.

In episode 15, I see a face we unfortunately won’t see in newer productions anymore, Lance Reddick. I always enjoy seeing him because he always puts such a unique stamp on his characters, as every actor should, but he does it in a particularly special way. It’s a shame that he’s unfortunately killed by Tom Keen in the series, because I would have liked to see him more often.

With Reddick and then in episode 18 the appearance of Peter Scanavino, whom you know from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, it occurred to me that some series often feel like a kind of reunion. Sure, the pool of TV actors is quite manageable, but these connections that arise through appearances in different series are always interesting. I’ve often thought about creating a kind of “family tree” to see who has appeared with whom and in which series.

But I’m digressing a bit, because in episode 15 we get to see another face that comes from my favorite movie with Whoopi Goldberg. I’m talking about Dianne Wiest, who stars alongside Goldberg in The Associate. Again, something that reminds a bit of a reunion.

At the end of the season, I wondered how it would have felt if you had watched everything as a normal series, with one episode released per week. Especially the double episode at the end, which certainly wouldn’t have been broadcast in one go, would have been intense.

At the same time, I see something here that you don’t see so often nowadays. Because in the past, it wasn’t unusual to end a season in a way that the series was complete and at the same time could have been continued. This is also the case with the first season here, even if it’s on the edge. However, this is not done so often today. Often the ending is left open, you could add another season, and then the series is cancelled.

Nevertheless, there’s another bombshell at the end, because we know that Elizabeth’s biological father died in a fire and Reddington confirms this again. But then suddenly, in a new scene, we see him unbuttoning his shirt and his back is full of burn scars. This had a similar vibe for me as Obi-Wan Kenobi telling young Luke Skywalker that his biological father, Anakin Skywalker, was killed by Darth Vader.

The fate of Tom Keen is unfortunately uncertain, even though I would have liked to see him become irrelevant. Towards the end, I found him pretty annoying and was glad when he was gone. Somehow he didn’t contribute anything to the whole anymore and felt like a disruptive factor, disappointingly, not in a good way. He will certainly pop up here and there again, and I hope that this will be limited.

What I’d like to mention, because for some reason I associate it with the first John Wick film, is the role of Mr. Kaplan, Reddington’s in-house cleaner. Through all the crime series of the last decades, you have a very specific image in mind, hence probably the connection to John Wick, and then suddenly an older lady appears who, as it later seems, has known Reddington for quite some time. Casting Susan Blommaert in this role was really an extremely clever move, because I really like it when such expectations are so strongly broken.