The Blacklist with James Spader

Yeah, kinda thought that's what was gonna happen to Liz.

 

Well, we've hung in with Blacklist on NBC for 8 damned years, hoping desperately to get a few more clues as to who criminal "Red Reddington" (James Spader) really is, what his actual relationship to Liz Keen is, what really happened to her mother, and why he's helping the FBI catch other criminals. We got very few answers last night in the season finale, but by god, it went out with a bang. (Don't read the CNN review if you haven't yet watched the episode.)

'The Blacklist' season finale recap: Megan Boone bids farewell in the season finale with another irritating twist (SPOILERS) - CNN

Lots of echoes of On Her Majesty's Secret Service in the last five minutes (at least for me).

Since it did not actually happen in the episode, I'm just gonna come out and say it. The popular fan theory -- neither confirmed nor denied by the show creators -- is that (as Red recently said) his identity was constructed to take the place of the real Red Reddington, and they show a flashback from decades ago with a body lying on a bloody surgical table. The only theory that makes sense is that Red -- James Spader -- is actually Liz's MOTHER, and that explains Red's unswerving devotion to keeping her safe and alive. It also explains why Red truthfully said he didn't kill Liz's mother -- he killed a woman pretending to be her mother. Clearly, all this will change next season. And the showrunner quit this morning, so there's quite an upheaval going on. The show will return this fall for season 9 on NBC.

‘The Blacklist’ Creator Jon Bokenkamp Exits NBC Series After 8 Seasons – Deadline

 

Absolutely. Dumb of them to announce her departure from the show prior to the season finale.

 

i believe the show will be better, spader will make sure that it is.

 

Maybe I’ll jump back on the bus next season. They have 1-2 episodes to draw me back in.

 

Maybe we'll learn that it was a fake Keen and Jennifer Connelly will play the real Keen.

 

^Yes - brilliant!

 

I didn't think they'd kill her off -- I figured it was an amicable departure and she might be back for occasional (rare) guest appearances. Nope, not gonna happen. Changes the whole show. Plus showrunner Jon Bokenkamp is gone. Coincidence?

I gotta say, James Spader has been consistently good throughout the whole series, and he elevates the whole thing up a notch or two. He's a lotta fun to watch: he's interesting when he's vulnerable, he's interesting when he's murderous, he's interesting when he's joking around... Red Reddington is a great character.

 

I just watched the end again. I don't know how Red wasn't hit by the bullet that went through Liz, nor why the guy shooting didn't just keep firing. Dude gave Raymond time to pull his gun and kill him.

JcS

 

Townesend's goal was to make Reddington watch Liz's death, so I think the lackey felt he needed to give time for Reddington to process to properly suffer the loss.

 

Yep, plus, if that guy kills Reddington, there is no way he would survive, and he knows that.

 

If there is a theory that exists in which Reddington is the way he is just because of his history and relationship to Liz, then removing Liz from the show...removes the reason for the show.

You don't have a spinoff of The Odd Couple in which you just plop one of them into another storyline. Lou Grant was a part of an ensemble of characters, and that's why it worked for Lou Grant. And not Archie Bunkers' Place.

But what the producers did was to build up an entire, operatic saga about either Liz looking for an answer from this constantly-frustrating foil, or the foil making himself significant by frustrating the seeker of the secret. Poorly-acted characters or ham-fisted cliffhangers or re-jiggered story arcs to stretch the series aside...if they spent an entire show trying to tell their audience it was all about Darth and Luke...then there's no place for either of the to go on alone, except...off into the sunset.

So, congratulations, you conspired to make a great character, and you paired him up with a dishrag of a second banana. Take what you learned from this, and move on.

And maybe next time, just because an actor can convince you she can carry the weight of her character in casting, just know that, convincing you that, may have been her only acting talent.

 

So, you think Liz was the target? I mean, I know Reddington feared for her safety, but given how the guy still had the gun up, I thought he was going to kill them both.

And he wasn't a piker at it, that's why the scene needed a bit more work to make it believable, i.e. Liz gets shot and Dembe plugs him immediately, because he trailed Raymond out to the street.

JcS

 

I absolutely think Liz was the target. That was Townesend's plan all along.

 

Back when all the networks were desperately trying to come up with a new version of Lost -- another vast "mystery / conspiracy / sci-fi" show with lots of characters and vague explanations and weird goings-on -- I was very frustrated that most of them boiled down to relatively-simple explanations. For example, with the NBC show Revolution, the idea was that all the electricity in the world had ended, so all of society had reverted to a primitive 18th-century level of existence, with no technology. They kept asking lead actor Elizabeth Mitchell, "what happened?" And her reply was always, "it's much too complicated to explain."

And we eventually learned the answer was: "We tried to weaponize a technology that would shut down all the electricity in a certain area in the Middle East, so we could defeat terrorists and other enemy governments that were a danger to the United States. We used nanites, microscopic machines that floated through the air, to reproduce and neutralize the electricity. But the experiment worked too well, and instead it shut down all the electricity in the world, permanently. And we don't know how to get it back." That's it. Apparently, she couldn't say those four sentences in 2 years of story.

With Red Reddington and all the other characters who've come and gone (some murdered by Red to keep his secret), apparently nobody could just tell the daughter, "well, you and Red are related, but not in the way you think. Your mother, former KGB agent Katarina Rostova, disappeared right around the time Red Reddington appeared, and so the answer is... they're one and the same person. Your mother was transformed -- 'reconstructed' -- into Red Reddington. And that's why Red will do anything to keep you alive." How hard is that to say in 8 years' worth of stories?

It's a wacky Shaggy Dog story. Note this is still a fan theory and nobody knows what the new showrunners will do, but it's the only explanation that makes sense.

 

Too bad even the showrunners don't know what the showrunners will do either, until it's time for them to throw their hands up and hail-mary. :rollleyes:

 

The showrunners on Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Better Call Saul were asked, "do you have ideas for the next season when you end a show on a cliffhanger?" And they laughed and said, "no, half the time we have no idea if we're going to be renewed or even if we have jobs. We just write the best season-ender episode we can, and then hope we can solve that problem a few months later if/when the show is picked up." So they don't always know. Vince Gilligan in particular said, "we sometimes would top ourselves coming up with a crazy season finale, and would have to desperately figure out where we'd go from there a few months later when we returned to the office." You get 9 or 10 smart writer/producers sitting around a conference table, they're going to have some ideas after a day or two.

In the case of The Blacklist, my guess is that Red will now be obsessed with keeping his granddaughter alive and safe, something he couldn't do for his daughter, and to that end will continue doing the same thing he did before: give the FBI names of enemies and perhaps try to redeem himself for the years of criminal activity, and also decide on who to bequeath his vast criminal empire and financial holdings.

And let's not forget about Red's bodyguard Denbe Zuma, who knows all the secrets.

 

The Season Finale was consistent with the show's themes and was a satisfying ending to Season 8.

 

I fully expected Reddington to softly whisper his final secret in a dying Liz’s ear: “Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’ is about me.”

 

It was boring. Too much chatter between Elizabeth and Reddington about the same old stuff with no resolution.
The creator of the show also bailed on next season. This does not bode well for the future, in my opinion.

 

"With Red Reddington and all the other characters who've come and gone (some murdered by Red to keep his secret), apparently nobody could just tell the daughter, "well, you and Red are related, but not in the way you think. Your mother, former KGB agent Katarina Rostova, disappeared right around the time Red Reddington appeared, and so the answer is... they're one and the same person. Your mother was transformed -- 'reconstructed' -- into Red Reddington. And that's why Red will do anything to keep you alive." How hard is that to say in 8 years' worth of stories?"


My theory is that Reddington is actually Liz's mother. She had a sex change operation.

 

And he mumbles it, so her last dying words are, "So, wait...so, you're David Sylvain...?!"

 

When Liz's life was flashing before her eyes, the image juxtaposition of Katarina Rostova and Reddington strongly suggested she became him. I wonder if he will ever actually admit it or will there always be the tacit implication. Or, maybe Dembe will read and divulge the contents of the letter that Reddington wrote Liz?

 

Consistent with the Show's themes.

 

Not really. There were plenty of more interesting shows within that consistent theme than this one was. This was just a tribute to her leaving the show. That's all is was. An ddraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggged out for the entire show.