Title: The Blacklist Season 1
Starring: James Spader, Megan Boone, Diego Klattenhoff
Language: English
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Episodes: 22
Along with doing manga reviews, you guys voted and the results supported doing more television show reviews. I know, I know...I should also contribute to the Asian drama tag some and I'm still trying to figure out how to squeeze in drama time. Eventually, I shall figure it out,
Elizabeth Keen is a new profiler for the FBI from Quantico. Raymond "Red" Reddington is highly articulate and intelligent mastermind who's on the FBI's "10 Most Wanted List". As soon as Liz begins her new career, Red turns himself in to the FBI with an interesting proposal. Red presents them with a blacklist of criminals the FBI doesn't know about that should be taken care of in exchange of removal from the list and cooperation with Liz to apprehend these criminals.
It doesn't show much here since integrating television shows (non-Asian dramas) is a new addition to Muddy Cult, but I've been watching a lot of crime, mystery, and some sort of government type series. Hopefully, I'll get to share some of those thoughts about them here. Anyway, I heard this series is pretty good, even though I barely knew anything about it. Of course, I went into it with an open mind. From the first episode, I was instantly intrigued by our main characters Liz and Red. They were similar yet different enough to have conflict with each other. They both bring out the best in each other throughout the series, which contributes to their growth. Of course, their relationship hits plenty of bumps from the start, considering one is a very wanted mastermind and the other works for the FBI. Each episode presents a different criminal that utilizes different tactics to achieve their goal, whether it's viral warfare, the use of international citizens, or pure terrorism. They all present a new challenge for our characters and also share a relationship with Red. What makes the show entertaining is the relationship between Red and Liz. They both take different routes to meet their goal and sometimes have to compromise on what the proper solution should be to handle these highly dangerous criminals. Not all of these targets are blatant bad guys that just want to ruin the world (or America), some of them do have a purpose to their crazy schemes.
The Blacklist doesn't just focus on capturing or eliminating dangerous targets, but there's other obstacles our characters must face at the same time. A couple of the important subplots that occur throughout the show deal with Liz's relationship with her husband and finding out who the traitor/mole is in the group. Some of these subplots seem more prominent than others for me; one of them being Liz's marriage and trust with her husband and Red, which go hand in hand. I think this addition makes Liz and Red even more dimensional characters than just FBI agent and criminal. It makes them more human and relatable, so you feel the need to sympathize with their downs and triumphant for their ups. It's a great bond that you don't want to see damaged. You really want these opposing sides to work out as long as possible.
The way the first season ended was definitely a good cliffhanger and I'm looking forward to the unfolding of Red and Liz's backstories, which I'm hoping is featured in the second season. I will admit that I had a couple moments of uncertainty or were distracted, but overall, I enjoyed tracking these clever criminals and learning along with Liz about her husband, Red, and herself. Recently, the second season has ended in May and the third season will begin in Fall 2015 on NBC. I'm looking forward to watching more in the near future on DVD or Netflix.
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