Plotlines

I had actually thought about taking a break after the second season. There were already too many repetitions, the storyline with the Cabal was just meandering along, and too many loose ends that didn’t seem like they would be resolved soon.

However, with Elizabeth and Reddington’s escape, some excitement returned, especially in the second episode of the third season when Liz fled to the Russian embassy.

Fortunately, they didn’t use this as an excuse to spread Liz’s escape over the entire season, which would have been absolutely too much. I’m currently being flooded with traumatic memories of Prison Break. A whole season of breakout, a whole season of escape, another whole season of breakout, and so on.

But with The Blacklist, they’ve already learned and focused on making the escape interesting and exciting over a not too long period. This way, the viewer can enjoy it without getting tired of it.

Luckily, they didn’t just wipe everything clean and say that Liz could simply return to the FBI. That would have been a bit too fantastic after everything that had happened. Besides, the Cabal was still in the way, with its far-reaching power.

This is dealt with in the first third of the third season, even though it begins with Liz’s escape, and here too, they focus on keeping it exciting and not too long. But is the Cabal really shattered? Or are there still offshoots trying to control all the events? We’ll see, because not all members have been brought down yet, and who knows, maybe the Cabal behaves like a hydra, when you cut off one head…!

Even though Reddington apologizes for it later, I was very put off by how he dealt with Dembe at Liz’s wedding. I don’t know, even though Reddington has an incredibly big ego, I still refuse to believe that someone can get as far as he has without even a spark of self-reflection. But he completely lacks this here, because he doesn’t realize that much of what happens, or maybe even everything, is also his fault. Because if he hadn’t turned himself in to the FBI back then and demanded Liz, none of this would have happened.

On the other hand, Tom Keen was already installed, and this on Reddington’s orders, so things were set in motion even before his appearance at the FBI.

At the wedding and the birth, but also distributed throughout the season, there are always these moments where Liz pushes Reddington away and two episodes later can’t live without him. This doesn’t happen just once, but several times, and it’s so incredibly exhausting that I can hardly find words for it. They could have met in the middle here and established a fragile but steady relationship between the two. But instead, they decided to constantly choose the respective extreme side of the spectrum of interpersonal relationships, and that’s simply wearing, at least for me as a viewer.

Then the unthinkable happens, Liz dies! On one hand, this certainly has to do with the fact that Megan Boone was actually pregnant at this time, and they granted her maternity leave.

At that time, the series was already being shown on Netflix, but it was also being broadcast linearly on television at the same time. This reminded me a bit of how it was back when series were ONLY broadcast linearly. Because back then, there wasn’t this flood of information about series, or they were often only announced in magazines or shows, which caused a certain delay. So a shock like Liz’s death would have been much bigger and had a much bigger impact. Unfortunately, such things fizzle out faster than a fart in the bathtub nowadays, because by that time you certainly already know that there will be another season, that Liz is still there or the actress is still involved, etc. It just doesn’t shock you so much anymore, and somehow I find that a shame.

However, another thing emerges that will become relevant later, because the series actually works without Liz. Sure, Ressler sometimes hurls a bit of hate through the room, everyone sheds a tear, but it’s quite remarkable how quickly it just continues with the daily work. Yes, I haven’t forgotten Reddington and his trauma, don’t worry. Nevertheless, I found it strange that all this worked so well without Liz.

Somehow, this leaves the impression that they were already thinking about ending the series with the third season. Especially since the viewer numbers are steadily decreasing with each season. But I also had this impression during a conversation between Cooper and Reddington, when they sat opposite each other in Cooper’s office and looked deep into each other’s eyes. You could really see how both of them got glassy, moist eyes. Sure, it wasn’t an easy topic and both are damn good actors, but still, I had the feeling that there was more behind it.

One thing that I absolutely cannot understand, from a purely personal point of view, is the thing with Tom. Yes, by now it should be clear that I absolutely can’t stand the character, and Agnes gives the impression of being a baby that’s only there to keep both of them together (I know something like this from the real world and often such children end up as children of divorce, because conceiving a child just to patch up the relationship is disgusting and doesn’t work!!), even if she was more of an accident. Yes, that might sound a bit harsh, but it seems as if it would otherwise be simply too unbelievable that Liz and Tom would get back together after everything that has happened. Although I still find it very unbelievable, because for me, it simply doesn’t make sense. This recurring betrayal in many ways, it just doesn’t make sense to me how you can build trust there. And don’t give me the “true love” stuff, stick it! Even love has its limits!

And maybe this is also the beginning of some “twists” that I simply don’t understand, and considering the declining viewer numbers, others don’t either.

I’m thirsting for a break, due to fatigue, subtle boredom, and displeasure with the writers, because they’re trying to build tension with increasingly opaque events and “overwriting” already established events from the past. You can do that, of course, but unfortunately it doesn’t do a series any good, it never has, it never will. (And of course I understand that things change, that’s completely okay, but with The Blacklist, the sheer mass of such changes is simply too exhausting. I don’t want to have to keep a book about the events so that I can still reconstruct them a season later. I’m already noticing that some things don’t quite fit together anymore. And no, this isn’t creativity or something like sophistication, but simply the absence or lack of care in terms of continuity!)