The Blacklist

• Title: The Blacklist – The Avenging Angel
• wiki: link

Raymond Reddington (James Spader) sends the team after a former nun turned judge, jury, and executioner (Annabella Sciorra) who looks to avenge those who have been wronged. Her latest goal is to steal the heart of a wealthy businessman who used his power to bump the line leaving the rightful recipient of the heart transplant slowly wasting away. While hardly the show’s most villainous target, the rescue of the businessman does leave Red with a new friend. The episode’s B-story continues Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) drug issues while also starting a ridiculous new plot thread of someone quite obviously attempting to frame Harold Cooper (Harry Lennix) for murder. 

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• Title: The Blacklist – The SPK
• wiki: link

Following the two-part premiere, “The SPK” offers the first Blacklister of the week with the team now back in place once more. SPK isn’t a person, but a cult obsessed with stealing and destroying religious artifacts (unaware its leader is a con man actually selling them on the black market for a tidy profit). Stacy Keach returns to reprise his role as the con artist Robert Vesco. Vesco, however, has lost control of his cult who are embracing a more destructive, and bloody, method of teaching the world a lesson.

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• Title: The Blacklist – The Skinner (Conclusion)
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The season premiere of The Blacklist concludes with the team fully reinstated, Raymond Reddington (James Spader) using a case to bolster his own power base once again, and the safe return of the kidnapped family. While the team is successful without the help of a profiler, the tactic of running to tell daddy (i.e. the former heads of the secret organization) on the bad guy of the week isn’t exactly one of the show’s strongest resolutions. Still missing an important piece of the team, and a key member of the show’s cast, can The Blacklist find it’s footing without Elizabeth Keen? Evidence so far is inconclusive.

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• Title: The Blacklist – The Skinner
• wiki: link

The Blacklist returns for its first season without central character Elizabeth Keen who was killed off in last season’s finale. While Raymond Reddington (James Spader) has always been the show’s star, Keen was the character at the center of the story. How well the show can move forward without her looms large over the show’s Ninth Season. Set two years after her death, “The Skinner” focuses on Harold Cooper (Harry Lennix) putting the band back together after after Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq), now working for the FBI, is injured while attempting to stop the theft with global repercussions.

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• Title: The Blacklist – Nachalo / Konets
• wiki: link
• wiki: link

It wasn’t that long ago that I checked in on The Blacklist and found Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) obsessed with destroying Raymond Reddington (James Spader). The pair’s love/hate relationship comes to a close in the final two episodes of the show’s Eighth Season which also marks Boone’s exit from the show. While the show never fully commits to delivering Elizabeth Keen the answers about her parents and Red’s true identity in so many words, much can be gleaned from what is suggested in these final two episodes. In “Nachalo,” Red delivers Liz into the heart of the Blacklist and offers more information about her mother. And in “Konets,” the ailing Red decides to sacrifice himself by offering Liz all the answers she seeks if she kills him and assumes control of his organization.

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