The Blacklist

It technically a filler episode but there is something nice about spending an hour with Red while he does kind and charitable things.

Herbie continues to have the best insights. Anyone who suggests Ressler's always crappy advice should be ignored is all right in my book.

I like Malick too. She is very unlike other members of the task force introduced over the years in being relatively pleasant. It's a nice change of pace.

The episode was nice too. ***1/2.

I like that Red's entire reason for his business that week was searching for Weecha. When he finds her, he gets the passionate kiss, but not much else.

I am glad Red told Siya the whole story. My question is how did he know it? It doesn't sound like something Mira would have EVER told another person, and as far as we knew, she was the only person who knew the agent was going to die. Doesn't fit comfortably.

Even though the criminal probably wasn't actually on the Blacklist, she probably should have been. She was detestable. Especially gross was her using the misogony inherent in wedding dowries as an excuse to destroy innocent women's lives. Interesting that a major part of her undoing was one of the con husbands actually falling for his bride (fat lot of good it actually did him at the end). Another great slip-up was the fingerprint under the toilet seat. Herbie is unashamed of your shade, Dembe and Ressler. Dude changes diapers every day.

Solid week. ****.

The mystery of how the three cases tied together was interesting, but it was sort of underwhelming to learn they were just the bad parts of a charity Red wanted to support.

I did really like the notion that when Red found out Hudson was on the level, he decided to give up trying to get leverage against him. He asks who he is to hold up his career to his and suggests he'd actually vote for him. That's cool.

There was something interesting about the guy Red talked to about the photo. He decided against the carrot. He went straight to the stick. That happened to be the one unlucky bastard in a hundred Red decided to threaten to shoot in the kneecaps instead of giving his son sports tickets. He must have been in a foul mood. It's very unusual.

Dembe checking in with Red at the end reminds me how much I've missed the two of them together.

Cool episode. 3 1/2 stars.

That Blacklister was shameless. I did not like her going free at the end, and thought it was a mistake. The cliffhanger says I am right.

The worst thing about how things are falling apart for Hudson is that he can't take the freaking hint. It never occurs to him some things are actually off-limits to him, and there are consequences involved in whacking a hornet's nest. For someone looking for transparency, the guy's attitude reeks of privilege and entitlement. Especially because he doesn't seem to be doing it for the right reasons anymore. He seems more outraged that somebody actually dared to tell him, "No." Don't they understand that's not how it works? Hudson's the good guy! He always is supposed to win and get everything he wants and every question he has answered! That's how this is supposed to go! The guy's sense of entitlement is so bad I predict he's going to get along a LOT better with a monster like Foster than he could have ever predicted.

I love David Zayas. One of the most likable actors I can think of. Gotham was crazy and stupid to kill his character off. He's amazing.

Pretty good. 3 1/2 stars.

Yeah, Red's dying. Him taking down his own criminal masterpiece while protecting all his employees and treating them to the grace and wealth he did says he's tying up loose ends. In a way selling priceless stuff at a garage sale does not. That behavior is alarming but essentially harmless. What Red did tonight was actually closing a major chapter of his life.

It's so funny that he planned the party for them so openly in front of the FBI and they STILL had no clue what he was up to, even after the fact. And it was freaking Dembe of all agents he organized all that in front of! I love that.

I have a hard time accepting Cooper's judgment that this is the biggest case and win Red ever handed them. Most Blacklisters are seriously evil people. But this was essentially a conglomerate of smugglers of items trying to avoid taxes. Yeah, the network they shut down was huge. But nobody was hiring a string of hitmen to pop each other off to rid the world of compulsive gamblers or anything insane like that.

I thought the John Doe suspect was a cool cucumber in interrogation. And it's cool Red paid 3 million to free him, especially because he was actually scared to death of his employer. But he still refused to talk, and Red paid back that loyalty. Who says there is no honor among thieves?

Query: Is Hudson's interpretation of the idea that Red has corrupted an entire FBI task force actually wrong? I don't agree with it, but a legit argument could be made that that's the case. I'm glad the episode showed Hudson taking the high ground in his investigation. I feared him going down the rabbit with Blair Foster from last week. There being a controversy involved in whether or not his mission is righteous is not just narratively better, it's more interesting too.

Liked it. The show is going out on a high note. And I like that it is granting Red the same thing. ****.

There were a couple of interesting things, but the stuff with the pesky Congressman getting the dude Ressler sponsors to spy on him was weak and predictable, and the case of the week no great shakes either.

Liked two things:

1. Red's insistence that Agnes' ballet was worth risking his life over. Yes, he is clearly dying.

2. When the girl says she's sorry, Red's response is, "Many killers are." That's really all that needs to be said.

But the show has done better, and in the home stretch NEEDS to do better. **1/2.

It felt big and final. And it felt a little too pat that THAT was the exact damning conversation the Congressman overheard on tape. The series is pressing all the right buttons. But I don't know. I feel like good drama should just be good drama. You shouldn't need to push buttons to make it.

Most people don't agree with that sort of viewpoint, but I feel if they had to work SO damn hard to get Harold to say something so incriminating on tape, they probably should have went with a different idea for a finale. It's ridiculous the narrative hoops the story jumped through to get to that. It did not feel organic or realistic. I didn't actually believe it.

It's amazing how addicted to creating "realism" television and the movies have gotten. As far as making sets and costumes and locations feel authentic, THAT is the priority. But asking characters to behave in a believable fashion? For some reason all of the hype for realism goes out the window then. And it's not just this show. But it's this show doing it right now, which makes it fair game to discuss. But I have made this exact point before many times. And I wish I didn't have to keep complaining about it.

On paper that hit the right notes. But I ain't gonna compliment a player piano for doing so, especially if the music actually sucks. **1/2.

You know the entire series was sort of building towards Red being the last name on the Blacklist at Number 1, and I'm glad to see the series went down the proper way there. I knew all the way back during season one the last episode would need to be titled "Raymond Reddington (No. 1)". And Red's permission at the end for Harold to try and catch him takes this very difficult and impossible choice Harold has to make and turns it into something fun and not at all personal. Red doing that on the way out shows he IS a true friend.

My TV need more Dan Butler on it. It's been sad he's not been on it more. Either he hasn't been cast in a lot of stuff lately, or I've been watching the wrong stuff. But my TV likes it when he's on it, and so do I.

Malick expressing disgust at Hudson over his morbid interest in the plane crash bodies is great because despite the fact that Hudson believes he's a boy scout, and he's gotten everybody else to think that, I don't think he's aware of the fact that he's an awful person. He advocates for the right causes, I suppose. But for entirely selfish and vain reasons. He's working on the side of angels while his immortal soul is headed to Hell for the amount of darkness it contains. I have to say so far, I appreciate that the show has basically just gone that far with him, and no farther. A lesser show would have turned him into a criminal to make it clear to the viewer the task force are the good guys. But the task force are the good guys because they have good intentions. While the boy scout's heart is entirely black when on his personal crusade to destroy the careers of good agents he actually knows nothing about.

I think the death of John is a good place to leave Ressler. Ressler always wanted to bring in Reddington. Before that final chase begins, I want him to understand that John was cynical casualty that Hudson used and discarded once he had no further use for him. If Ressler has to hunt Reddington next week, I want him to have the context that's on behalf of people who destroyed a good friend of his he was trying to help for no other reason than he was temporarily useful. I want Ressler to understand that as far as deals with the devil go, Red is not the only demon's name on that specific contract. At least not since Hudson entered the picture.

I was a little disappointed in how unlikely and unbelievable last week's damning tape conversations were. And while there are still some unlikely coincidences present in how screwed Harold found himself, the truth is I ain't never gonna turn up my nose at the teaser ending with Dan Butler saying in an annoyed voice over the phone, "The President can wait." I am NOT freaking made of stone. I actually DO like and appreciate good things. Dan Butler is a good thing I liked and appreciated very much. ****1/2.

I am not 100% on this. We'll see what the conclusion does, but this doesn't feel like the right penultimate episode. If the last episode is a similar disappointment I'll talk about it then.

I am very glad Hudson was killed. But I'm also not glad the show had him go so insane. The controversy was supposed to be that on some level he had the high ground. Taking it away and then having him shot in the head is not a good thing for the second to last episode. That was a dark ending. We'll see how things wind up. Now. 2 stars.

I have been extremely generous to the show for its final season. That is probably the worst finale I could have imagined for it. Frankly, back when the show actually sucked and was infuriating me every week, I couldn't imagine a finale this bad.

There is no wrap-up or resolution for the characters on the task force. Red is killed by a bull of all things. And they couldn't even have Aram cameo? What kind of series finale IS this? But really the most unforgivable thing is that Red's actual identity and secret were not even brought up in the episode. The last episode is when it should have been revealed. And I said in the first review I was a little leery of that, because the episode wasn't about Red or his mystery. I would never have guessed they would have done that. Not in a million years.

Maybe you are surprised to hear me upset about that. I talk up both Lost and Twin Peaks for letting me make up my own mind and come to my own conclusions about those shows' mysteries. The Blacklist was never built like those two shows. We had been led to believe there were solid answers we deserved and would eventually get. That's what Liz's entire infuriating arc was actually about.

I also should disclose one final thing. I'm not TRULY too upset or feel TOO betrayed. That would involve me liking the show more than I did or trusting the producers more than I did. I am not gonna have a restless night because the ending upset me the same way as the first time Twin Peaks ended. But even if I wasn't emotionally upset, I recognize that the show did wrong by the characters and the mysteries they've been teasing for seasons on end. If I actually cared about this show I would be sickened. It's a blessing in disguise the show lost me a few years ago and never fully won me back. My enjoyment of the last couple of Liz-less seasons were always on a provisional basis. Again, I'm glad about that.

And what are they going to tell Agnes? This was not the show to end suddenly on a shocker moment.

This was the worst finale possible. The show had a LOT of parallels with the shady show Blindspot, and it sort of feels fitting it ended on an equally sucky note. I think I'm staying away from other shows with similar premises from now on. Network television procedurals with long-term mystery arcs are now off my Watchlist. For good. 0.