Plotlines

Of course, it wasn’t planned for Liz to come back like this, but I can certainly understand Samar’s disappointment. There’s constant talk of witness protection programs, going underground, etc., but here they resort to methods that are not only morally reprehensible but also only serve the dramaturgy to a limited extent. It could have come to light somehow at any time, and what would have happened then? Yes, there’s a bit of frustration resonating here, I don’t deny that, but every time Liz was present and Samar too, I could really understand Samar and relate to her feelings.

In S4E18, after Mr. Kaplan has dug up a whole ice hockey field of corpses, a new investigator is introduced, Julian Gale. I’m well aware of the intention behind the character, but the way he’s played is simply horrible. This constant facial acrobatics trying to appear threatening and mysterious, plus this buddy act with Ressler, terrible. Then there’s this in-your-face behavior with others, especially with Liz, and this getting too close. As I said, I understand the intention behind the character, but it’s just terribly executed. Take a look at well-written crime movies or series, maybe then you’ll figure out how to make this work better in the future. And honestly, I’m afraid of what else might be coming.

Because it continues merrily with the “yes, we’ll just slap this down, the viewer will swallow it!” behavior (Sadly, this somehow applies to me too, because I’m still watching. Probably for masochistic reasons, I suspect!)

I mean, the fact that Mr. Kaplan suddenly digs up all the corpses is pretty intense, but I found all these investigations by special investigator Gale somehow strange. Because apparently, they only served to show what a great influence Reddington has and to establish the shady Ressler story, which will probably be further developed in the fifth season. Nevertheless, this special piece near the end of the fourth season felt strange. Like some kind of filler, as if in the writing room they felt that all the confusion and impassable, loose story threads weren’t enough, they had to add something more.

S4E21 – A stranger in a government building (archive)! An official, hand on his gun, approaches the stranger from behind, warns him, waits gleefully until he pulls his gun from the back of his pants, aims and fires. Yup, this is the level we’ve reached by now.

In the same episode: Motorcycle only a few meters away, no one shoots! Cars seemingly dozens of meters away, a whole magazine is emptied and not a single shot hits. Sorry, these illogical occurrences to drive story and “tension” are terribly annoying! And yes, a car is bigger than a motorcycle, but still, they were at most two meters away, three if you had drawn the weapon and aimed. I mean, sure, when it comes to it, no one can aim let alone hit anymore, but that was really very strange.

The continuity supervisor seems to have been fired by now, because often different camera angles, same scene from different viewpoints, no longer match up. Often it’s just details missing, but it’s noticeable.

Yes, I don’t want to hide the fact that a lot of frustration has built up in the last two seasons. This is simply because I still find the series concept itself good and interesting, and the series is trying desperately to somehow maintain that. Unfortunately, in doing so, it gets tangled up in far too many side stories, background stories, introduces new characters where none are needed because the old ones are still in a development phase, and much more.

As mentioned before, it seems far too loose, unstructured, and confusing. Maybe I need to look at who’s responsible for the individual episodes or who exactly the authors are and what else they’ve written.

And no, I don’t believe, at least not at this point yet, that the series exists beyond its zenith. I think that will be the case later, due to an event, but we’ll probably get to that later if I last that long.

That’s also a thing, I had already said that it’s getting exhausting and I’d like to take a break. On the other hand, it’s somehow my pride telling me that I have to see this through now to finish it. I’m not usually like this, because if I don’t like something, I leave it alone and that’s it, because I don’t want to waste my time on it. With some things, apparently also with The Blacklist, it’s different and I just want to find a conclusion.