- Title: The Blacklist – The Man in the Hat
- wiki: link
“The Man in the Hat” is an unusual episode in that it offers very little of Reddington (James Spader) with the task force searching for their missing consultant they believe might be a hostage in a gas station in Pennsylvania. With Reddington MIA, the focus is on Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) and Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq) helping local authorities to handle the situation and life back at the post office for the rest of the team where Harold (Harry Lennix) is given an arbitrary deadline by Senator Panabaker (Deirdre Lovejoy) not helped by the missing Red and Siya (Anya Banerjee) discovers a secret about her mother she wasn’t prepared to learn.
Whether intended or not, the episode feels like one to give Spader a bit of a break and instead focus on other members of the series. It’s also a rarity with the episode not including either a larger threat to Red or a Blacklister of the week. With Red being the most interesting character, and not having someone like to fall back on, the results are mixed. There’s never a moment where we believe Panabaker will make good on her threat to burn the task force to the ground. And while Siya’s discovery is important to her character, it doesn’t feel important to the show. It earns some points for being different, but otherwise is a mostly forgettable episode of the show.
