Corinne

Show Time: My List of Top 10 One-Off Blacklisters

These dangerous criminals may have made Red’s Blacklist, but did they make mine?

So, here we go again. In case you haven’t already seen my previous list of Top 10 Blacklisters, you should.

Today, I’ll be looking at the best one-off Blacklisters. These were people who only ever appeared on the show once — during their eponymous episode. That means that people like Floriana Campo, who was only in one episode but wasn’t the Blacklister the episode was named after, won’t be on the list; and neither will people like Gina Zanetakos, who was a Blacklister, but appeared in more than one episode.

I’ve also decided not to include the Stewmaker or Anslo Garrick, who would’ve fit the description, but they were already included in the previous list.

I’ve also got a few honorable mentions, because I came up with my top 13 or so pretty easily, but then it was pretty difficult to only put 10 on the list.

I’m judging them based on the following criteria:

Whether I personally liked the Blacklister and/or found them a compelling character
Their overall uniqueness
Whether they were imposing, threatening, terrifying, worthy of being tracked down by Red and the Task Force, etc.
Whether the Blacklister/episode hit on larger themes or foreshadowed future revelations or story developments
The guest star’s performance
And whether the Blacklister had any lasting impact on the story or characters

(Author’s note: I initially posted this list on my social media before Season 6 aired. I haven’t updated it, but simply reposted it here with the Nerds’ permission. So there will only be Blacklisters from Season 1-5.)

10. IVAN

Here we have one of our first Blacklisters who hit on the theme of “stealing someone’s identity” to better or further accomplish one’s goals. This, obviously, became a major plot point later with Red being revealed as an impostor, but Blacklisters stealing other people’s identities was a major recurring theme starting all the way back in the first season.

The “Ivan” episode was also the one where Liz realized that Tom was a total shitbag, but that didn’t really have much to do with the Blacklister himself. But, as other people pointed out at the time, Ivan (the teen) was an instance of a man trying really hard to impress the girl he loved and keep her close, just as Red — up to that point — had been trying to impress Liz and keep her close.

And, as you’ll see, I’m always a sucker for when the Blacklister ends up being a kid, because it’s a nice subversion when you expect this like mobster asshole to show up and in walks a 5-year-old with an iPad and a lollipop.

9. THE HAREM

A group of female thieves/criminals was something we hadn’t really seen on the show before. We’d seen a group of dude commandos; individual men or women who were doing their own thing; but we hadn’t seen a group of women doing their thing. This was a nice change of pace, and while it was kind of plothole that the Harem didn’t recognize Liz, it was entertaining to see her go undercover and try to outwit them.

It also gave us more insight into Red’s past via that former English agent, and his and Liz’s relationship. Plus, I like when Liz has to run around in street clothes and act like a grungy criminal, so I enjoyed this episode and these Blacklisters.

8. MAKO TANIDA

If you read last week’s Top 10 list, you’ll know that one of the reasons I loved Anslo Garrick as a Blacklister was because his namesake episode shook us out of our complacence and gave the show real stakes.

Granted, in the “Mako Tanida” episode, we hadn’t known Audrey for long, and it was obviously just an opportunity for more Man Pain; but… again, remembering how that episode went down at the time, it was pretty intense. “Mako Tanida” felt like it had real stakes, because people could die on this show. Even though she was a character who now seems to have only been brought back into Ressler’s life only to be killed off, the episode was intense and thrilling nonetheless. It also provided Ressler with some nice character moments that we haven’t really seen much of since, and again, it was another instance of an antagonist taking on the identity of someone else to accomplish their goals (although that wasn’t Mako Tanida himself but that FBI agent who stole the Tensei identity).

Still, I wouldn’t say that Mako Tanida was a very memorable character based on his personality, but his actions had a long-term impact on Ressler. So, I would say that, outside of Anslo Garrick and maybe the Stewmaker, he was probably the most threatening Blacklister we’d had up to that point.

7. FREDERICK BARNES

I always underestimate the kind of pull this show can get in terms of guest stars, but I guess the fact that in its seventh episode, it managed to pull Robert Sean Leonard should always serve as a good reminder. He was just coming off the series finale of House, and was given this character of Frederick Barnes — a sympathetic but very demented doctor — which was similar to Wilson on the surface, but his morality was much more corrupted.

The character also provided some much-needed development for Liz, as she initially tries to be a profiler and find out how to help him without him needing to be violent and she lets him get away. Then she gets blasted for it by Ressler and Cooper and reminded that she’s now a field agent and she can’t take risks like that anymore. So then, when she encounters him again with the kid, she shoots and kills him. This was Liz’s first on-screen kill, as I recall, albeit in the line of duty.

And, in addition to the ‘stolen identity’ theme among Blacklisters, there’s also a recurring theme where the Blacklister seeks to protect a loved one or get revenge for their death. Barnes was one of the first in this category, along with Ranko Zamani. Plus, this aspect of Barnes’ character gave us more insight into Red when he remarks about Barnes, “Someone who’s willing to burn the world down to protect the one person they care about, that’s a man I understand.”

6. DR. LINUS CREEL

So, one thing that continually bugs me about The Blacklist is how often its cold openings show multiple innocent people being shot or killed, mostly just for shock value. In our violent world in which mass shootings happen on an all-too-often basis, I don’t need to see any more of it on my TV.

However, while I dislike it, I actually appreciated the way this episode went in an unconventional route with such a setup in that opening, by showing us that — for this doctor — it’s not an atrocity; it’s an experiment. It’s not a revenge plot. It’s not a mobster trying to take more power. It’s a doctor testing his subjects. A man who purposely tries enticing people into becoming violent, committing crimes and larger atrocities is a villain who gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about him. His cool callousness and almost excitement at what his subjects are capable of is morbidly fascinating.

Plus, this character/episode went along with early Season 2’s much darker tone, and introduced the idea that Liz has the Warrior Gene (which she likely does). It also hinted at the idea that Liz knew what had happened to Tom — that she was doing something to him; and gave us a good look at who this darker Liz was.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that I don’t always appreciate the show’s overly violent style, but in this case, I think it worked well with the Blacklister, the episode’s message, and the season’s tone.

5. LORD BALTIMORE

I think when I first saw the “Lord Baltimore” episode, I was kind of disappointed. It likely stemmed from the fact that this was the show’s first episode of the new season after it’s three-month summer hiatus.

But, looking back on it now, this seems to be a very underappreciated episode and Blacklister. Krysten Ritter is a superb actress, as her time on Jessica Jones proves, and I underestimated at the time how big it was for the show to have her on as its first Blacklister of the second season.

Like with many other entries on this list, Lord Baltimore also stole the identity of someone and was using it to further her own ends. In this case, it was her twin sister, who had special government access. In fact, it was so far that she formed a split personality of her sister.

Lord Baltimore also had a tremendous impact on the rest of early Season 2, as she was the one who identified and found Naomi Hyland (the former Mrs. Reddington) and turned that information over to Berlin, which led to Naomi’s abduction and Red’s need to rescue her, etc.

This was a pretty high-stakes episode, in hindsight, and I thought the Blacklister’s tie-in to early Season 2’s serial arc was well done. That isn’t always the case on this show. Sometimes Blacklisters are just shoe-horned in, because we need someone for the Task Force to track down while Red does whatever he wants to do. (See episode 5.20: “Nicholas T. Moore” as an example.) But, in this episode, the balance between the procedural and serial elements were handled well. Plus, I just like Krysten Ritter.

4. ARIOCH CAIN

As I said above, I’m a sucker for when the audience’s expectations about a Blacklister are subverted, and instead of some greedy dirtbag, it’s a little kid. Or instead of a murderous thug, it’s a misunderstood person. Because it’s nice to see that not only can women and people of color be Blacklisters, but so can you, kids! Never give up on your dreams!

Anyway, I truly think this episode/Blacklister is overlooked and underappreciated. Because of the whole serial drama going down with Dembe supposedly dying, Mr. Vargas betraying Red, and Solomon threatening Liz … it’s easy to forget what all happened in relation to the actual Blacklister of the episode. So, in case you forgot, someone had crowd-funded a bounty for Liz via a website, and our heroes acquire the name: Arioch Cain. They bust into the address, and find out it’s not the dad of the family, but the teen daughter who wants Liz dead. She had made the post to get revenge on Liz for supposedly killing her mom in the OREA bombing.

Again, another instance of a Blacklister trying to get revenge for a loved one’s death; and this time it’s coupled with the Blacklister stealing someone’s identity (or using a fake one) to do what they desire; or at least, a confusion of someone’s identity. Plus, Arioch Cain’s actions forced Red and Liz to fake Liz’s death in order to find out where the Blacklister was — which of course was brought back again later with Liz’s “fake death” in Season 3.

So, for me, this one was a triple-whammy: it hit on two major recurring themes on the show (protecting/avenging loved ones; identity theft/confusion), subverted expectations by having the Blacklister be a kid, and also foreshadowed Liz’s “fake death.” Now, while it might not be the most memorable Blacklister, Arioch Cain deserves more recognition than I think she gets.

3. T. EARL KING IV

Take a look at this giant fucking asshole.

Not you, Jeffrey DeMunn. You’re a treasure.

But the character Earl King is an asshole.

There are lots of different types of villains on this show, but the ones I hate the most are the ones who profit off kidnapping and selling people. You know, like real-life human traffickers.

You want to rob banks? Launder money? Be an arms dealer? Drug trafficker? Fine. Well, not fine. But, I’ve come to just accept that from my TV villains. But if those bitches want to sell people at auction, I’ll sit there and hope that one of our heroes grabs them by the throat and throttles them so I don’t have to.

Top that off with that fact that Earl King makes his sons compete against each other in selling off things/people in the auction; and whomever loses has to play Russian roulette… I imagine you’ll see why I call him a giant effing asshole.

King and his sons proved to be a formidable force, capturing Red and forcing Liz to go undercover to help rescue him. This led to some incredible character moments for the two of them. And, again, of all the criminals on the Blacklist, the Kings are among the most deserving. They’re intimidating low-lives who have no sense of decency, humanity, or anything — really — beyond building a dynasty and preserving it by the most barbaric means necessary. And while the sons get kind of a pass in my eyes because they weren’t given a very good choice (”Sell lots of shit at this auction or you might die”), the dad gets all of the blame and thus all my anger that I set aside specifically for fictional people.

Asshole.

2. MR. GREGORY DEVRY

So, after “The Director” episodes aired and the Cabal storyline was pretty much resolved, the show seemed to peter out for a while in terms of quality of Blacklisters. Until the “Solomon” episodes where Liz & co. are attacked and then Liz later “dies.”

Between episodes 3.11 and 3.17, there really wasn’t much in the way of exciting TV, in my opinion. We got nice little morsels and tidbits in each episode, but it wasn’t nearly as exciting as seeing Liz and Red on the run. Even this episode, when I first saw it, was kind of “meh.”

Like, it was a good episode, but after “The Director: Conclusion,” it felt very anticlimatic. That’s one problem I think this show continually has — it reaches a peak in paying off its serial storylines with its fall finale or spring premiere, but then it doesn’t really know how to get down from that peak in a satisfying way. It always seems to fall dramatically — going from its highest peak to its lowest valley in about 20 minutes of screen time. Take the “Ruslan Denisov” episode, which followed on the heels of the “Luther Braxton” two-parter. It was pretty forgettable. And, while it might be a fine episode as a standalone, when you compare it to its immediate predecessors, it seems to fall pretty damn flat.

Anyway, this is all a long way of saying that I didn’t really appreciate this episode at all until after the Season 4 finale, when the Ol’ Bag O’ Bones was introduced, Liz was confirmed to be the daughter of ‘Raymond Reddington’ despite Red denying it earlier in the series, and I was first convinced of the theory that our Red was an impostor.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, this episode/Blacklister and its placement seem to make a lot of sense. Again, we were coming off a high from “The Director.” You’d like to think that the next Blacklister would’ve been an important one, since the showrunners knew that people would be excited and paying attention.

And, now we know that it was.

Looking back over my list of criteria, this one checks off almost all the boxes: I liked Devry; I thought he was unique; his appearance foreshadows the “Impostor Reddington” theory; he hit on a major theme (stealing identities or confused identities); and I thought Jake Weber did a fantastic job pretending to be someone whose identity Red had stolen, rather than it being the other way around.

However, there are two things that, in my mind keep Devry from being #1 on this list. Because, I was VERY tempted to put him at the very top.

So, the two big things I have against him as a Blacklister is that Devry really wasn’t that much of a threat, comparatively speaking. He had some information on the Task Force and other Blacklisters (which we later found out was provided to him by Red), and he claimed to be the ‘Real Raymond Reddington.’ But other than that, he wasn’t really all that threatening or malicious. He was similar to Dembe or Leonard Caul or Marvin Gerard in that respect — even though he was technically listed as a Blacklister, he was ultimately on the side of our protagonists.

And the other big problem I have is that the actual title of the episode ruined the guy’s true identity. The cold opening is almost always about the Blacklister and some nefarious deed they’ve done (often without them being around) that brings them to Red’s or the Task Force’s attention. (I think the pilot episode is probably one of the few exceptions to this rule.) So, when we see Devry in the cold opening with the files of the Blacklisters and the Task Force, it already gives the fact away that despite claiming to be the ‘Real Raymond Reddington,’ he is actually Gregory Devry. So, while the characters might be wondering whether Devry is the real Reddington, the audience has already figured that can’t be the case and is instead wondering whether Red is in on the deception.

So, while I don’t mind that we as the audience still had to do mental gymnastics, it would’ve better if Devry’s identity had been kept more ambiguous from the audience. Like maybe that guy Marcus, the one Red kills at the meeting, could’ve been the Blacklister of the episode — especially given that he was REAL antagonist, not Devry.

Again, though, in hindsight, this was a fantastic episode and a tremendous Blacklister on almost every front. I think it could’ve been done a little bit better, but rewatching it, “Mr. Gregory Devry” contains an amazing the amount of foreshadowing and world-building details that would eventually pay off later in the Season 5 finale. Thus, this Blacklister/episode definitely deserves the #2 spot.

NOW BEFORE WE MOVE ON TO MY #1 ENTRY, LET’S TAKE A REALLY QUICK LOOK AT A FEW HONORABLE MENTIONS…

HONORABLE MENTION: THE CARETAKER

Another Blacklister I didn’t really appreciate at the time; but, upon further reflection, this guy was actually a pretty interesting character and he had a unique gimmick. He wasn’t really a criminal — not a mob boss, a crime lord, a trafficker, or a hacker. He was a secret keeper. And ultimately, it was his own secrets that got him into trouble — not others’.

This episode also hinted at a larger truth that Red was keeping from Liz (the letter that he burns at the end of the episode, which likely told her he was an impostor), and has a great moment that I’ve only recently appreciated where Red says he doesn’t believe he EVER wants Liz to know the truth (despite having written the letter for her some years earlier).

Again, The Caretaker was kind of a sympathetic but flawed character in how the reveal about his (adopted) daughter was handled, and I really think he had a good gimmick as a Blacklister. Better than some of the other ones we’ve seen since then.

HONORABLE MENTION: ANNA-GRACIA DUERTE

The only entry on the list from Season 5. Every other season was represented on here at least twice. (Season 1: four entries; Season 2: three entries; Season 3: three entries. Season 4: two entries). Kind of interesting how the quality of Blacklisters has seemingly been trending downward… at least, according to the list. Then again, I had at least one entry from Season 5 on the other list, so make of that what you will.

Anyway, the real point is that I liked Anna’s story, and as I said above, I hate when people take advantage of others and ‘profit’ off them. I understand that some non-Western cultures allow or maybe even encourage teenage girls to marry older men, but I didn’t have much sympathy for the men in these episodes. I was pretty much on Anna’s side here. Granted, I don’t think anybody deserves to die, but as what they did wasn’t illegal, I guess legal repercussions (ie, prison time) for their creepiness is out of the question.

And as I said in other entries, I liked that Anna was someone who subverted our expectations, especially given the cold opening. Red believes his contact was killed by Ian Garvey or one of his goons, or like a rival criminal operation. But, no, he wasn’t killed because he was a criminal. He was killed because he had married a minor. And he was killed by a teenage girl.

The only reason she isn’t in the Top 10 is because I felt the social commentary aspect was deserved but maybe a little bit over-done. And, also, I think there were just stronger entries on the list. While I liked her conversation with Samar, Anna didn’t have a big impact on the story; she didn’t seem to hit on any big themes; and while she was unique, imposing and I liked her, I just felt that these other entries were better.

HONORABLE MENTION: THE FORECASTER

So, basically the only reason this isn’t on the list is because I thought Arioch Cain did the same thing, but better. Subverted expectations by having a kid be the Blacklister. And, like with Devry, the Forecaster (the little girl) wasn’t actually a ‘bad guy’ or a threat. She was just a little girl who kept hearing things and turned them into dioramas. But, I thought it was kind of a clever little gimmick, so I wanted to give it a shout-out.

And now without further ado, the #1 one-off Blacklister is…

…

1. THE CYPRUS AGENCY

This bitch.

Do I really need to explain this entry?

Based on everything I’ve said thus far and the various reasons I find Blacklisters compelling or think they’re worth an entry on this list — hitting on larger themes, having an impact on the story, being a major threat, etc. … you had to have figured the Cyprus Agency would be on here.

They were a very worthwhile entry to the list, as a group of people who were literal human traffickers / rapists masquerading as an adoption agency.

They also hit on a larger theme that we haven’t discussed yet, mainly because the Blacklisters themselves often don’t touch on it because it’s more frequently brought up by the main cast — family.

The clients of the Cyprus Agency were basically custom-ordering their kids from this adoption agency because they wanted them to complete their visions of an idyllic family. Because if they didn’t have a boy like they’d envisioned, or a little girl they’d picked a name for, or the right race, or a kid who wasn’t very smart… it would be a ‘less-than’ type situation and their ‘perfect family’ would be ruined. Sorry, but as much as I want and hope people adopt children who need homes IRL, the fact that, at least in the show, people were doing this disgusts me. Y’all: your adopted kid doesn’t need to fit your family perfectly or be the “ideal child.” Take them in and love them anyway.

But, of course, what disgusts me infinitely more is what the AGENCY was doing, not the clients. Kidnapping women, basically putting them into indefinite comas so they could be literal baby farms, impregnating them with the dude’s own sperm. (Which, side note: did he impregnate them the ‘old fashioned way’ or just like with a turkey baster? Either way, it’s wrong.)

Touching back on the family theme and the human trafficking deal, this guy not only kidnapped women to impregnate them, but then once he had these purposely-created kids WHO WERE HIS, he just sold them for a profit to these unwitting families.

Yeah, these fictional people can go to fictional Hell, in my book. I can see why Liz was disgusted with the idea of adoption and ‘starting a family’ after seeing this trash heap of a human literally creating his infant children just to sell them.

Speaking of, THIS was the episode where Liz decided that Red was at least partially right, that he had planted enough seeds of doubt about Tom that she couldn’t start a family with him. THIS episode/Blacklister had a lasting impact on Liz (at least through the remainder of Season 1), as she called off the adoption, voiced her doubts to Tom, and starting putting her trust (at least subconsciously) more so in Red. Plus, in that last sequence we see that Cooper, despite all his moral qualms, believes that the Blacklist ultimately does the world good.

I also thought that guest star Campbell Scott, who plays the main doctor guy who ends up being all the kids’ father, did a great job. He’s also kind of got a bit of a silver fox thing going on in this photo, but that’s just me. While The Director was a villain whom I enjoyed and appreciated, Scott was tremendous playing a villain that I cannot stand, so props to him.

So, as I said before, while I had considered putting Gregory Devry at #1, I felt like these people were more imposing and the episode/Blacklister had a more permanent impact on the characters. Foreshadowing is great and all, but at the time this episode aired, it was a pretty big step for Liz in terms of both character development and plot progression.

And it was all thanks to Red giving her The Cyprus Agency as a Blacklister.

Catching the Miyazaki Classics (Part 3) – Castle in the Sky

Castle in the Sky, the third of Miyazaki’s 11 films as writer/director

Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, perhaps best known for his work with Studio Ghibli, has gained popularity around the world for his creative and imaginative animated feature films. While they were originally released in Japanese, all of them have been dubbed into English with prominent voice actors and Hollywood stars. For the next several weeks, I’ll be reviewing the English-dub versions of each of Miyazaki’s 11 films as writer and director.

Last week, I tackled Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984).

This week: Castle in the Sky (1986).

Synopsis: Pirates and government agents alike pursue Sheeta (voiced by Anna Paquin), who holds a crystal that is from the legendary Laputa, a self-sustaining castle-city that hangs in the sky, unseen by man. Sheeta, while fleeing those who pursue her, encounters Pazu (voiced by James Van Der Beek), a young orphan boy. The two team up to evade the pirates and the government, and they make unlikely allies along the way as everyone races to find Laputa, the famed castle in the sky!

Spoiler-free review: Unfortunately for this movie, it doesn’t bring a lot to the table as a Miyazaki film. It’s not as fun as Porco Rosso; and it’s not as ambitious or impactful as Nausicaä. On its own merit, this is a fine movie, but as a Miyazaki film, it’s just kind of… there. There are several well-done animation sequences, one of which is depicted on the cover above; but, I feel that the film has pacing problems and seems a lot longer than its actual 2-hour runtime. The voice cast is fine, and the actual adventure is good, but it suffers from having the more engaging villain become an ally midway through, and by having its actual Big Bad come off as super over-the-top to the point where he’s cartoonish (and not in a good way). By the end, I was kind of ready for the movie to be over. Plus, like Nausicaä, it suffers from older animation, but while Nausicaä had an engaging story and characters, this is not quite on the same level. Again, not a bad movie in its own right, but as a Miyazaki film, it’s one of his lesser outings.

Letter grade: B-

Full review and critique: (Warning: here be spoilers!)

For a voice cast that includes the amazing Mark Hamill, this might be one of Miyazaki’s movies with a lesser voice cast.

James Van Der Beek, by himself, does very well; but having a grown man play a 12-year-old boy is as weird choice. Out of curiosity, I switched over the movie’s audio to the Japanese vocals, and Pazu’s Japanese voice actor sounds much more age-appropriate. Anna Paquin, likewise, does fine, but I felt like she kept going in and out of a British accent. I will say that that might’ve been me, as I had the sound pretty low, but either way, she didn’t strike me as one of the stronger members of the voice cast.

Cloris Leachman, on the other hand, has to be the MVP of the cast, playing Dola, the leader of the pirate gang. Leachman’s performance helps give Dola some color in an otherwise bland array of characters. All those moments of determined greed, motherly softness, or human concern came through in her performance, and helped Dola seem far more three-dimensional than I thought the movie was going for, judging by the opening 30 minutes.

As for Mark Hamill and his character Muska, Hamill’s voice performance — for me — sounds too similar to the Joker. I know that Hamill is capable of making each of his characters sound unique, and so I’m not sure if the producers wanted him to sound like that on purpose or whether it was just happenstance. While I will admit that I like the revelation that Muska is also a descendant of Laputa, which explains a lot of things about him, he doesn’t have the complexity that I was hoping for. Many of Miyazaki’s movies don’t have straight-up villains, but rather antagonists who are a little bit more interesting and complex than a typical “Mwhahahaha” sort of villain. Compared to Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke, Yubaba from Spirited Away, or Fujimoto from Ponyo, Muska is simply evil and not much else.

Now, while I have a lot of problems with this movie, there’s also a lot of good to talk about.

As I said, there are several really well-done sequences in the movie, including the opening minutes where Sheeta tries to get away from the government and then the pirates and ends up falling from the airship to presumably hit the ground thousands of feet below; the sequence where Pazu sees her floating and saves her; the two sequences with the robots, who somehow have more personality than some of the human characters; and — perhaps my favorite — is the part where Sheeta and Pazu are talking in the Crow’s Nest and everyone on the ship overhears the conversation. Sheeta’s desire to save people, even those who had very recently tried to kill her, saves her from being a totally flat and boring character.

As stated, the real problems in this movie come from the pacing, it seems. By the time the army arrives at Laputa, I just wanted the protagonists to hurry up and win. And, yet, there are a lot of drawn out sequences of Pazu running around and Sheeta running around, and Muska monologuing, and I kind of just wanted the movie to end by that point. It was a little bit disappointing that, after all the build-up about Laputa, the castle floated up into the air rather than Sheeta and Pazu getting to live there or bring it back down to earth or something. But, it makes sense tonally that the great technological marvels of Laputa stay out of humanity’s reach, lest someone like Muska try to use it for evil.

Overall, I’d probably watch it again one of these days, just to see if my opinion of it improves any, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to people. There are other, much better Miyazaki movies for people to watch. But, if anyone’s curious, I wouldn’t stop them from checking it out.

Next week: Spirited Away (2001).

Show Time: “The Blacklist” & Why People Hate Liz So Much

Agent Elizabeth Keen often gets a lot of hate from “Blacklist” fans. But, why?Now, I’ve talked on the podcast about how continually annoyed I am with how The Blacklist’s showrunners have written Liz’s character, especially in more recent season. But, I tried to keep my frustration and annoyance directed more so at the writers/showrunners and less on the character herself or the actress Megan Boone.

However, after I saw episode 6.10 “The Cryptobanker,” I definitely hit the point where — even temporarily — I started to hate Liz in and of herself. So, I started writing this post, which I’ve added to and edited over the past few weeks; and while my feelings about the character have evolved again after subsequent episodes in Season 6, I still stand by my original point.

Now, I follow The Blacklist on Facebook, and almost every single time there’s a new post, the top-voted comments are always praising Spader/Red and hating on Liz. I’ve seen people say she’s annoying, that they didn’t like the early Season 6 side-plot where she teamed up with her half-sister Jennifer, that they hoped the show would kill her off for real soon, etc.

I always thought that most of the comments were a little overblown (especially the ones about wanting her off the show). But, it really made me wonder why so many people hate — and I mean HATE — Liz so much.

While I admit that her character is starting to really get on my nerves, I’m going to try to put my personal feelings aside and tackle this objectively. I want to really look at what reasons within the show, its writing, its format, etc., Liz receives so much more hate — vastly more than any other character on this show. As I said, Red/Spader is always highly praised along with Dembe, and I rarely if ever see comments complaining about Samar, Aram, Cooper and Ressler. I would estimate that 95 percent of complaints about any one character are directed at Liz.

A THEORETICAL POSSIBILITY

Now, I will theorize — and keep in mind that this is only a theory — that part of the reason for this hatred toward Liz has to do with some male fans being misogynistic/sexist and some female fans’ annoyance at what a crappy avatar Liz makes for. (I’m talking about straight viewers, FYI.)

With regard to male fans, I think they look at Liz — who at times has been terse, mean-spirited and vindictive — and see her as a giant bitch. After all, that was the whole idea that Liz herself sets up in the pilot. She is not who her male colleagues expect her to be. She doesn’t play into the traditional feminine role of simpering, smiling and content to sit on the sidelines and let the men sort things out. (And, I’m really generalizing here.) So, I think it’s a fair assumption that some male fans have the same sentiments about Liz that her colleagues canonically have too.

As for the female fans, I think Liz might come off as a poor avatar. When you’re plunged into a fictional universe, usually there’s a character who’s plunged into the story along with you, and you learn as they do, to the point where you start to project yourself onto them. Think Neo in “The Matrix” or Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker. It’s every person’s fantasy to discover some great power within, harness it to defeat the bad guy and win the heart of the beautiful woman/handsome man in the process.

Liz was clearly meant to be our avatar into this universe. We were brought into the world along with her, saw her learn about Red, begin the Task Force, and plunge into this world of the FBI and the Blacklist.

Now, I imagine that for older women, especially, the fantasy is to be the kind of gal that a guy like James Spader would absolutely devote himself to. And that’s exactly how Red treats Liz — Like a woman he would do anything for. However, unlike many viewers, Liz has often been ungrateful for Red’s devotion and continual sacrifices for her benefit. Instead of seeing him as a savior and white knight, she frequently sees him as a nuisance and a terror in her life. I personally think she’s often justified in that, but I’d guess that 80 percent of the current audience is watching it simply for Spader’s performance alone. So, when the favorite actor’s character is not appreciated and is continually hated on by his co-lead character, it makes for uncompelling television from a “I want to project myself onto this character” kind of way.

But, with the theoretical discussion out of the way, let’s examine some more concrete reasons as to why people hate Liz.

LIZ OFTEN HAS LITTLE CONVICTION WHEN IT COMES TO HER FEELINGS AND DESIRES.

This is what I’ve often described as the “Liz loves Red, Liz hates Red, Liz forgives Red” song-and-dance routine. But, there’s much more to it than simply Liz’s relationship with Red.

Liz was first introduced to us as a woman who wanted to start a family, and yet she thought about giving up her baby for adoption and then later gave Agnes away to her mother-in-law so she could spend more time on her revenge plans. The entire pilot goes out of its way to show Liz struggling with the demands of being an FBI agent and a prospective parent, and drives home the whole “Mommy Liz” vibe with the admiral’s daughter.

Yet, when she finds out she’s pregnant, she hesitates and thinks about giving it up for adoption. Then, when she has Agnes, she agrees to Kaplan’s plan to fake her death so she and Tom and Agnes can be happy and safe away from his world. And, later when Agnes gets kidnapped, she frets and worries about her constantly.

But, the minute she wakes up after being in a coma, she’s totally cool with pawning Agnes off to someone she’s never really met. Cool.

I realize there are mitigating circumstances, but this is a woman who made all her loved ones — Red, Cooper, Ressler, Samar, Aram, any family members she had left (except Tom) — believe she was dead so she could live with her daughter in a safe location!!!

The idea that Liz wouldn’t just drop everything to spend time with her daughter after already losing 10 months with her is absurd, IMO.

But, no, revenge is far more important.

It’s also really annoying that after finding out Tom had betrayed her, she was able to give him a second chance and continued to love him despite all sorts of stuff in Seasons 2-5, but the minute Red does anything, she wants to drop him like heavy airline luggage.

So, in case you forgot: in Season 1, she found out that Tom had been lying to her, manipulating her, and abusing her. So, after shooting him in the Season 1 finale, she chains him up on a boat for several months in an effort to make him useful to the Task Force. However, the minute that she hits the “hates Red” part of her “love Red, hate Red, forgive Red” cycle, she runs right back to Tom and very quickly forgives him. And, while her positive feelings for Tom continue from late Season 2 until his death in episode 5.08, her feelings about Red are all over the place, as mentioned.

Now, in her defense, her feelings about him seem to waver whenever a crucial piece of information about his involvement in her life is discovered. When Tom’s fake passports were traced back to Red in episode 1.06, she blamed him and said she didn’t want to work with him anymore. But, then the very next episode, when he offers to leave the Task Force completely, she doesn’t tell him to do so.

And, when Red admitted to killing Sam toward the end of Season 1, she was again ready to let him leave. But then at the end of the episode, she stops him.

In Season 2, when Liz believes that Red was only interested in her for the Fulcrum, and never really cared about her, she gives him the cold shoulder. And then when he admits that he did hire Tom to be in her life, her coldness toward him again grows.

While they’re on the run together in Season 3, their relationship is at its best, arguably. Until she finds out she’s pregnant and he tells her that the fight is not over, and she doesn’t want her child to be in Red’s world. (Which is understandable)

And on and on it goes through Season 4 and Season 5 and parts of Season 6. The minute Liz realized that he stole her father’s identity, she was ready to burn him to the ground. But then only a few episodes later, she’s teary-eyed and regretting that she turned him into the authorities.

AS OPPOSED TO RED’S CONVICTION …

But, what really makes this all so annoying is the fact that while Liz’s feelings toward Red are cyclical, his feelings for her are constant, enduring, and never wavering. I mean, he’s basically Garth Brooks’ “Shameless” in human form. He is completely devoted to her, would give his life for hers without hesitation, and has loved her (in some form or another) far longer and far deeper than she has seemingly ever loved him.

If both of them liked each other, or if both of them disliked each other initially but then grew closer over time, the show would be much better. For instance, ABC’s Castle — while it definitely has its flaws — started off with the two leads liking each other from the start. Yeah, maybe they’re trying to get used to each because he’s a goofball and she’s kind of a hard ass, but it seems like by the end of the pilot, they both generally like each other as acquaintances.

Or NBC’s The Enemy Within — which is eerily similar to The Blacklist and, if it gets a second season, I might have to do a post the similarities between these two shows — which starts off with the two leads being tenuous with each other. He hates her, and she is kind of neutral toward him, but the two of them need to cooperate to accomplish a shared goal.

This was never the case with Liz and Red. In the pilot, Liz is very wary of Red, as she should be. However, he — according to Zamani — is obsessed with her, and it’s clear that he cares about her far more than he should, considering that, to our knowledge, he’d never met adult Liz before. He’s seen her from afar and kept tabs on her, of course, but this was the first time he’d met her (presumably) since The Night of the Fire. And from that meeting, his love has only grown, while hers — as discussed — has been all over the place.

THE TWO ARE NOT EQUAL

While the show really wants you to think that Red and Liz are partners (in a work sense), they are really so unequal on multiple levels.

The same could be said of the two leads on The Enemy Within, but their inadequacies tend balance each other out. The female informant has all the know-how, but the male agent has the freedom and jurisdiction to do things, and he is the one who ultimately makes the decision on what his team should tackle and how. She has some of the power in their dynamic, and he has some as well. Thus, their advantages tend to cancel each other out.

This is not the case with Red and Liz. All this time, Red has withheld crucial pieces of information from her, which he gives to her in piecemeal and only when she demands them. I won’t judge whether that’s the right or wrong thing to do, but it puts her at a disadvantage as far as their dynamic goes. And while Liz should be given some advantage of her own, she really doesn’t have one. Red has an immunity agreement and gets to do pretty much whatever he wants, unlike on The Enemy Within where the male agent has some say over what privileges the female informant has because she’s still in custody.

I guess the one advantage that Liz has over Red is that he’s told her he will never lie to her. And she has confronted him and asked him direct questions before because she knows he has to tell her to truth if she does. But, that doesn’t stop him from stalling, changing the subject, or trying to do a verbal workaround.

And then, when the show was promoting Season 6, they made it seem like the power was finally in Liz’s hands — she knows he’s an impostor and he doesn’t know that she knows.

But, while the show tried to give Liz a bit of an edge over Red, it ultimately fizzled out. She knows he’s an impostor, but she no longer has an interest in pursuing it. Which goes back to my previous point about her not having conviction. She wanted to destroy Red, and betrayed him to ensure that he wouldn’t get in the way of her and Jennifer’s quest to find out his true identity. But then, she drops it.

Again, I realize there was a lot going on — Jennifer was kidnapped and Red was almost executed. And while I think the fact that she’s fine with not having all the answers is a sign a maturity, it’s also incredibly frustrating to see how she went from 0 to 100 in such a short span of time.

LIZ DOESN’T FEEL LIKE A REAL PERSON

Relative to the screentime she’s received, Liz does not feel like a real person, but merely a plot device or a vehicle for Red’s schemes and/or the Task Force’s missions.

Very rarely do we get to see her on her own, doing her own things, outside of Red/the Task Force — going to the store, doing chores at home, hanging out with her kid, etc. The only times we do are when it’s relevant to the overall plot. Like when she gets beat up in the parking lot in episode 3.11; or when she brings that Lady Ambrosia kid over to her house, tries to cook him something and then the fire alarm goes off.

She seems solely to exist within Red’s/the Task Force’s orbit.

I feel like the fact that Liz doesn’t have any friends or family outside of the Task Force, Red and Tom (when he was alive), really speaks to how she seems to exist more as a character, not as a person within a fictional universe.

She doesn’t seem to have any hobbies, and outside of her mentioning The Wizard of Oz and a few other things, she doesn’t really seem to have any major interests in anything.

By comparison, we have lots of scenes with Red and Dembe doing puzzles, playing cards and board games. We know Red enjoys art and food/alcohol and traveling, and he has a penchant for some types of drugs — his favorite being sex.

And even Aram enjoys Doctor Who, biking and cooking.

I’m not saying that Liz needs to start chatting with Ressler about Monday Night Football or joining a pool league at a local dive bar, but something! Just a line about how she talked with Agnes last night, or asking Aram about whether she should try dating again, or a scene of her running around a park but she’s disturbed by memories from her past. Just something. Something to make her feel like a real person, who does things outside of the Task Force.

Again, I always hate the fact that Liz was supposed to have all these friends in Season 1 (the house party at the end of episode 1.03 and the vow renewal later in Season 1), and yet, they seemed to have vanished. I hate the fact that Liz doesn’t have any support system outside of Red and the Task Force. The girl needs friends! Hobbies! Interests! Something!!!

LIZ TRIES TOO HARD TO PROVE HERSELF, GETS IN TROUBLE, AND OFTEN HAS TO BE RESCUED BY RED AND/OR THE TASK FORCE AS A RESULT

This gets into a personal pet peeve of mine where Liz reassures people that she can do things, but later it seems that she can’t.

In the most recent case, she told her sister that she was definitely capable of deceiving Red and keeping him from finding out that she knows. But then within an episode or two, Red definitely knows that Liz is up to something because she has been acting weird around him. And, before she begs Dembe not to tell Red that she was the one who betrayed him, Red was pretty certain that she was the one who did.

Then, Liz and Jennifer kept going back and forth on trying to convince the other that they could pull off this “Find Red’s true identity” side-plot, but ultimately, Jennifer got kidnapped, Liz killed a dude, and ended up having to recruit Ressler and Red to help her find Jennifer and confront the people who took her.

This type of situation happens A LOT on the show. Liz will try to do her own thing (finding Red’s true identity, etc.) and it ultimately gets her into trouble. It seemed to happen more often in Seasons 1-3. One example I can think of was when she didn’t kill Tom, but instead captured and imprisoned him, and then he killed the Harbormaster and forced Liz to face charges for murder. Red and the Task Force and even Tom had to come to her rescue to make sure she didn’t face the consequences of her actions. Yes, Tom did kill the Harbormaster, but Liz was the one who had decided to chain him up on the boat in the first place. The murder is on him, but the imprisoning is on her.

Liz also killed the Attorney General, and Red and the Task Force (and Tom, once again) were ultimately responsible for saving her from the Director’s plot while she was trapped in The Box, bringing the Cabal’s actions to light, using the Director as the scapegoat for Hitchen and then getting Liz out of the murder charges by bringing in Karakurt. And then, later, Red was responsible for leveraging the President into pardoning her so that she could become an agent again.

Now, there have been a few occasions where Liz was kidnapped simply because she was an FBI agent, not because of her connection to Red or anything else. For instance, in episode 1.04 “The Stewmaker,” she’s kidnapped and almost killed because she had her own personal history with that Lorca guy.

But, again, too many times Liz is put in the “damsel in distress” position where either she’s in trouble or her life is threatened and others have to be the ones to save her, either by saving her life or by saving her from legal repercussions, etc.

In a way, the whole first part of Season 6 was the result of Liz’s actions, which she regretted and then was looking for any and all help to make sure Red wasn’t executed after she’d turned him in. Yes, Red was the one who insisted on the death penalty, but he never would’ve been in that situation if she hadn’t betrayed him. And ultimately, it was Cooper who came through and pressured the President into staying Red’s execution.

Going back to the “Red and Liz aren’t equals” thing, very rarely is Red the one who needs saving. And, even when he is, it isn’t always Liz who’s rescuing him. Again, Cooper was the one who saved Red from execution. Liz has saved him a few times that I can recall — she stopped that guy from shooting him in episode 2.14 and she leveraged the Director into calling off the hit in episode 2.19.

But, again, Liz seems to be in trouble far more often than Red is, and she very rarely is able to save herself (with the solo-Liz episode being one of the few times she does). Meanwhile, Red is able to get out of jams on his own much more often, such as when he escapes Anslo in episode 1.10. And, he and the Task Force save her far more often than Liz and the Task Force save him. And, even then, sometimes Red saves her single-handedly (like in the Season 2 Super Bowl episode) while she usually has to work with others to save him.

Once again, I realize there are a lot of mitigating circumstances. Red has a vast criminal empire and more knowledge and resources than Liz does, most of the time. But, I do wish:

Liz wouldn’t be kidnapped or have her life/livelihood threatened so often, AND
That Red’s would be a tiny bit more frequently, so that she can save him.

It also doesn’t help that she was sidelined in the second half of Season 3 partly because she was a felon who was no longer able to be an agent on the Task Force but also because both Liz the character and Megan Boone the actress were pregnant. And then she was sidelined again in early Season 4 because of the whole felon thing / trying to get Agnes back.

TL;DR

Liz doesn’t get the character development she should relative to her screentime; and any development she does get seems to be cyclical and inconsistent. (ie, she acts however the writers need her to for the given arc/episode)
Liz often tries to do her own thing, despite warnings not to; and while she’s by no means useless to Red or the Task Force, she often has to be rescued (either directly or indirectly) far more than she does the rescuing.
Liz often acts demanding, ungrateful, and selfish — or at least relative to how the audience might want her to act, especially with regard to Red. And, jumping off the second point, also has a bit of an ego and can be proud and willful, which as I theorized, might be a turn-off for some male viewers.

Overall, I think some of the reasons for hating Liz are valid, but as I said, I try not to direct my annoyance toward the character of Liz herself or Megan Boone, the actress, but rather to the writers, who I feel need to take responsibility for what they’ve done and continue to do with this character.

Don’t take this to say that I hate the writers, but rather that I want them to do better. I want to see this show succeed and I want to see Megan have some amazing material to work with the same way that James seems to with Red.

Show Time: Why “The Blacklist” is everything that’s wrong with TV and “The Good Place” is everything that’s right

THERE WILL BE NO MAJOR SPOILERS OF EITHER SHOW. YOU MAY PROCEED WITHOUT FEAR.

(Author’s note: the below text was taken from a social media post that I wrote in October 2018, when The Good Place’s third season was airing on NBC and before The Blacklist’s sixth season had premiered. I have edited and re-posted here with the Nerds’ permission.)

For the past several years, I’ve been analyzing different aspects of The Blacklist on my social media, calling attention to what I believe are flaws in its plotlines and characterizations.

In April 2018, I happened upon The Good Place on Netflix and absolutely gobbled it up. I watched all of Season 1 in pretty much a single day; Season 2, in a similarly short time frame. Now, I’ve probably seen every Season 1 and Season 2 episode at least five times, and I’ve seen every episode of Season 3 at least twice.

Now, it’s definitely not fair to compare The Blacklist and The Good Place. The former is an hour-long (44 minutes/episode) crime drama procedural that has had 22 or 23 episodes per season for six seasons. The latter is a half-hour (22 minutes/episode) ‘genre’ comedy set in the afterlife that has 13 episodes per season for three seasons.

So, TBL has an approximate 5,808 minute run-time, and TGP’s is approximately 858 minutes.

That means that The Blacklist’s overall runtime is almost SEVEN times the length of The Good Place.

Even so, both of these feature prominent TV actors, including Emmy Award winners James Spader and Ted Danson, respectively; both center on a friendship between a 30-something white woman and a senior-age white man; and both of these are NBC shows.

So, while it might not be exactly fair to compare these two shows, I’m going to do so anyway, because I feel like where the Blacklist struggles, The Good Place shines as a quality television program.

Now, don’t think for an instant that The Blacklist is a completely worthless show or that The Good Place doesn’t have its flaws. There are good and bad aspects of both shows, but I’m going to be comparing the two by focusing on three key things that make a TV show compelling:

Plot Progression
Character Interactions
Character Development

But, before diving into each of those aspects, I’ll first summarize the basic premise of both shows as presented in their respective pilots.

THE BLACKLIST: On Agent Elizabeth Keen’s (Megan Boone) first day as an FBI agent, Raymond Reddington (James Spader), one of the FBI’s most wanted criminals, surrenders himself and says he will only speak with Keen. The two talk, with Reddington offering to help Keen (and the FBI) capture a wanted criminal. He also warns Keen not to trust her husband. After averting a crisis and nabbing the episode’s bad guys, Reddington says he’s willing to make a deal. He wants immunity in exchange for his Blacklist, which he and Keen (and an FBI Task Force) will work to capture over the course of the show.

THE GOOD PLACE: Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) wakes to find that she has died and is in ‘the Good Place.’ Michael (Ted Danson), her neighborhood’s architect and a de-facto angel, shows her around the neighborhood in the Good Place where she lives, and introduces her to her soulmate, Chidi (William Jackson Harper). After Michael leaves, Eleanor confesses to Chidi that there’s been a mix-up, and she’s not supposed to be in the Good Place. After some chaos in the neighborhood, caused by Eleanor’s selfishness and not belonging there, she asks Chidi — who was an ethics and moral philosophy professor on Earth — to teach her to be a better person.

1. PLOT PROGRESSION

Without getting into spoilers, I’ll just say that The Blacklist continually treads water, plot-wise.

Most of the major plot developments/revelations come during a mid-season or season finale, or a season or mid-season premiere. The Blacklist’s plot structure continually revolves around the idea of ‘sweeps week,’ when the network tries to boost its ratings by promising major reveals and developments during certain time frames.

The problem with this model, at least with The Blacklist, is that often the revelations are so basic that many fans figure them out way beforehand. Again, no spoilers, but it continually frustrates me that fans will have a very basic theory, then think, “No, that’s too easy, they’ll do something crazier” and then the basic theory was the one that turned out to be right.

Conversely, the Good Place — according to the show’s creator Mike Schur — centers on the idea of subverting expectations. Based on the pilot’s premise, you might think that, in the finale, that “x” will happen. But, Schur and his writing team focus on trying to make each episode end with a cliffhanger, and doing those big reveals or developments earlier in the season than the audience expects. (It’s one of the reasons why I binge-watched Season 1 in a single day. Those cliffhangers kept hooking me!)

As Schur (or maybe some other writer or exec) said on the Good Place podcast, Episode 2.09 “Best Self,” felt like a season finale in some respects, despite the fact that there were three more episodes left in Season 2.

The Blacklist, IMO, also suffers from overdramatic promotions that sometimes make it seem like each episode is going to have some shocking development. But, to be honest, in many of those cases, you could probably skip the episode and not really miss much (unless it’s a premiere or finale).

The Good Place, on the other hand, doesn’t really have episodic promos like The Blacklist does, which might work in its favor.

Let me give you a hypothetical scenario to show you what I mean in a way that doesn’t spoil anything: Let’s say both shows decided to kill off a character.

The Blacklist would promote it weeks in advance, teasing that someone was going to die, and everyone would think it was Person X, the seemingly obvious choice, only to overthink it and then believe it’ll be Person Y, a more dramatic choice. But, then it will end up being Person X.

The Good Place, on the other hand, would just go about its business, not doing any kind of overdramatic promotion. People would just be watching the latest episode when Person X dies in a very organic and plot-driven way, and then the episode would end, and everyone would sit there, like, “??????!!!!!!!!”

Also, while I feel like The Blacklist tends to play things safe — very rarely breaking away from the crime drama procedural vibe — The Good Place doesn’t mind taking chances, so long as whatever they’re doing fits within the ‘world’ of the show.

Clearly, whether you’ve seen one, both or neither show, you can seen how one’s plot progression is preferable — as a viewer — to the other. It’s also helpful, I imagine, as a writer, to let the plots unfold organically, as fast or as slow as they need to rather than having to rush them or drag them out to reach a certain point in the season’s schedule.

2. CHARACTER INTERACTIONS

As said above, both shows focus on the connections between its male protagonist and female protagonist. And, while it’s ultimately the female protagonist’s journey, the male protagonist is a guiding force for her — helping her along and pushing her to make decisions, whether good or bad.

(I guess you could argue that Chidi is really The Good Place’s male protagonist, but considering that Ted Danson is more heavily promoted, I’d say it’s really Michael.)

And, for both shows, its two main protagonists are part of a six-person main cast.

For The Good Place, the cast is Eleanor and Chidi, Tahani and Jason (two other residents in Eleanor’s neighborhood), Janet (the neighborhood’s anthropomorphized mainframe/help desk), and Michael.

The Blacklist’s cast, as of the beginning of Season 6, is Reddington and Keen, her fellow agents Donald Ressler, Samar Navabi and Aram Mojtabai, and their task force director Harold Cooper.

Now, the Blacklist primarily focuses on the relationship between Reddington and Keen; he doesn’t interact with the other cast members very frequently and Keen’s interactions with them are pretty basic and often work-focused. There aren’t very many crucial interactions between non-Reddington/Keen pairings, especially in more recent seasons of the show. While Seasons 1 and 2 tried its best to have Keen interact with Ressler, Ressler interact with Reddington, Cooper interact with Reddington, Keen interact with Navabi, etc., Seasons 3-5 have more focused on the Reddington/Keen dynamic at the expense of everyone else. In Season 6, the show has tried to correct this by showing more interactions between Keen and Ressler, between Reddington and Cooper, and Aram and Samar. But, still, of any of the six main cast members’ interactions, the Reddington/Keen ones make up the bulk of them from week to week.

Granted, I like the Reddington/Keen dynamic (in some respects), but giving it more weight in the runtime unfortunately means that the remainder of the cast has to tackle the more procedural aspects by trying to track down the Bad Guy of the Week while Reddington and Keen get to have more of the character-driven serialized moments and developments.

Compare this, though, with The Good Place and its interactions outside of the Eleanor/Michael dynamic.

Throughout different points in all three seasons, we got significant interaction between almost every single possible pairing of characters on this show. (And I mean pairing in a non-romantic sense.)

We see Eleanor’s significant interactions with Chidi, Tahani, Jason and Janet. Michael has important scenes with Chidi and Janet, and some smaller moments with Tahani and Jason. Tahani and Jason’s connection is explored, as is Jason and Janet’s. Chidi and Tahani have an important bonding moments in both Season 1 and Season 3, and even the dynamic between Chidi and Jason is touched on some.

So, while The Blacklist’s cast feels a little separated and almost cliquish, The Good Places’s six castmembers feel like a cohesive team where any two or three characters can be trusted to carry a scene and have an emotional connection/interaction. The former comes off as weak writing and show structuring, while the other is far more preferable to watch.

3. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Now, this is probably my biggest grievance with The Blacklist, even more so than the weird plot structure.

Despite supposedly being major characters, Ressler, Cooper, Samar and Aram get very little in the way of growth or development. I can barely describe them, their personalities, their desires, their moral codes, etc. in maybe a paragraph for each character. And these are people who have been on this show for FIVE EFFING YEARS!!! How is that possible that they’ve gotten so little development in so much screentime?

Again, the show has tried to remedy this throughout Season 6, but it still falls flat (in most instances) both because of the poor execution and the fact that Reddington and Keen have taken up so much of the meaningful screentime for such an extended period of time. These characters have been given the shaft so much in the past, but now we’re supposed to care about them again only because the show tells us we should. Why should we, considering that only now is the show bothering to care about them again?

Again, remember, The Blacklist’s runtime is almost SEVEN TIMES that of The Good Place. And yet, I feel like any and all of The Good Place’s major characters get way more development simply in the first season than The Blacklist’s do in five.

I could definitely describe Jason, Tahani, Chidi and Janet’s personalities, desires, moral codes, etc. in like a page for each character.

Now, granted, I suppose the show’s structure lends itself better to that. The characters have to do a lot of soul-searching so to speak in almost every episode. Whereas, The Blacklist’s cast has to chase down the bad guys and stop some major terrorist threat every time, which takes up at least 20-30 minutes per episode.

Okay, okay. Maybe it’s not fair, considering that TBL clearly doesn’t care about its characters unless they’re Reddington or Keen. So, let’s focus on both show’s two leads and their character arcs.

Let’s look at Reddington’s character development versus Michael’s.

Again, without spoilers, I can’t say much. I’ll only say that Michael’s character development was primarily in Season 2 and it was dramatic. Certain things had to happen plot-wise and the show had to establish other characters’ arcs first, but I think Michael got his character development as quickly as it was organically possible.

Reddington’s, meanwhile, seemed to come more in the latter half of Season 4 after he was confronted by some very difficult demons from his past. And, even after all that happened, he’s still very much the same Red we met at the beginning of the show. Still holding all the cards and keeping important secrets to himself. In Season 6, he had some measure of growth by being willing to reveal some of those secrets, but only once he believed someone already knew about them.

So, while Michael has learned and grown as an individual, Reddington has stayed relatively static in terms of character development. Not to say we haven’t seen different sides of Reddington, what he would do when he faced difficult scenarios… but the Reddington of Seasons 5 and 6 is too much like Reddington in the pilot episode — especially considering how much screentime and emphasis he’s gotten over the Blacklist’s six seasons.

Michael has learned his lessons, for good or bad. Red, still has yet to.

Alright. Now let’s look at Elizabeth Keen versus Eleanor Shellstrop.

Both characters have suffered from character regression, where they start at Point A, then develop and grow over time to reach Point B, and then — for whatever reason — regress to Point A again.

Now, while Eleanor’s character regression fits within the confines of the show — again, trying not to spoil anything, but trust me, it works — Keen’s makes no sense. She’s confronted and overcome various challenges across The Blacklist’s six seasons… so, why hasn’t she learned from them? Why is she still relatively the same, especially considering that x-number of seasons ago, she was so completely different? She might go from happy and bubbly, to dark and gritty, back to happy and bubbly, back to dark and gritty again.

And, despite Eleanor not being a very likable protagonist at the outset, she becomes more likable as the show goes on, thanks to her growth as a character. Conversely, Keen started out as somewhat likable but has become more annoying as the seasons progress and as her character continually regresses.

All in all, to quote (or at least paraphrase) some other The Good Place fan on the internet, “I can’t believe The Good Place literally invented character development.”

TL;DR

Again, just to reiterate, I think there’s good and bad in both shows. But, there’s a reason why I’ve seen every episode of the Good Place so many times and why it’s currently in the top 5 of my All-Time Favorite TV Shows.

The Good Place pushes the envelope by subverting expectations and having major developments earlier in the season than expected; it makes sure that almost every character has significant moments with every other character; and it ensures that each of them has a major character arc that works within the confines of the show.

The Blacklist, by comparison, does what too many other shows on TV do: it treads water plot-wise; it focuses too much on some characters at the expense of others; and even the characters it focuses on don’t show any significant or organic growth.

And, that’s why, IMO, The Blacklist represents everything that’s wrong with television, and The Good Place represents everything that’s right.

Catching the Miyazaki Classics (Part 2) – Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Nausicaa, the second of Miyazaki’s 11 films as writer/director

Last week, I tackled Porco Rosso (1992).

This week: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984).

Synopsis: Nausicaä (voiced by Alison Lohman) is a princess of the eponymous Valley of the Wind during a bleak post-apocalyptic time period. Her kingdom benefits from its location along a coastline, where the wind blows away all the toxic air that comes from the neighboring forests, which are also filled with dangerous, giant bugs. While the Valley of the Wind is a small kingdom, the neighboring kingdoms are much better equipped and more politically ambitious. Conflict soon comes to the Valley of the Wind, and Nausicaä must work with others to save her people and find a harmony between mankind and nature.

Spoiler-free review: This film is one of the harder Miyazaki movies to review, because it reminds me a lot of Princess Mononoke (which I’ve seen before, but haven’t watched yet for the series). It has a darker tone; it’s more ambitious in terms of the worldbuilding; it has more ‘adult’ components to it (like the political and environmental undertones); and it’s not a particularly ‘fun’ Miyazaki movie. I had such a blast watching Porco Rosso last week, but this film feels denser and much heavier by comparison. That being said, by no means is it a bad film. The worldbuilding is well-done, the creatures’ designs and the movie’s visuals are stunning, and it features a very talented voice cast including Edward James Olmos, Uma Thurman and Patrick Stewart. I find it kind of interesting that this was classified as a children’s film when I picked it up at the library, because I feel like younger kids (ages 4-7) would be very overwhelmed or bored by this movie. It really seems more for older children (ages 8-10) or pre-teens. And, of course, adults will probably enjoy it as well. So, I would say it’s definitely worth checking out, but it’s not the fun and breezy watch that Porco Rosso is.

Letter grade: B

Full review and critique: (Warning: here be spoilers!)

Overall, I’d say that there are Miyazaki movies that I like better, and there are Miyazaki movies that I think are done better, but this is a worthy sophomore outing for the famous director after his debut with Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro.

While the film is older and doesn’t have the same brilliant colors or newer techniques and technologies that later Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli films benefit from, it’s still very impressive and doesn’t feel quite as dated as other animation from the 70s and 80s. So, overall the animation and the visuals really hold up after 35 years.

When the movie first introduced Nausicaä, I was afraid she was going to be a very typical Disney princess-type of character — sweet, kind, innocent, cares about animals, is loved by everyone, and seemingly has no flaws. However, about a third of the way into the movie, there was an important moment for Nausicaä, and after that, I was totally on board with her character. When another kingdom invades the Valley of the Wind, and kills Nausicaä’s father, the king, she acts on her darkest impulses and her overwhelming grief and anger and kills every single one of the enemy soldiers in the room. And, while there are a lot of dark things in this movie visually (including a stand-in for a nuclear weapon), this is perhaps the darkest thing, tone-wise, that we see.

Now, other films probably would’ve used that moment to turn Nausicaä into some kind of vengeful hero who rallied her people to fight the invaders and take back their land — which would be typical of a lot of other action/adventure movies of that era and this one. But, instead, this film does the exact opposite. Nausicaä realizes what she’s done and what it means and the terrible cost it has, and uses what she’s done to recommit herself to pacifism and protecting life, especially the lives of her people. She tells them that, while it’s devastating to lose their kingdom and have to surrender to the invaders, it’s better to lose their land and their freedom than it is to lose their lives.

One downside to the movie that I’ll mention is the weird shoehorned-in prophecy. It’s only mentioned once, very early on in the movie, and then really doesn’t come into play again at all until the final minutes. I even went back and double-checked: the animators specifically changed the color of the outfit Nausicaä is wearing toward the end of the movie just so she will fit the prophecy. Nausicaä’s outfit, when she first puts it on and starts heading back to the Valley of the Wind, is pink. But at some point during the final confrontation with the ohmu, it suddenly and inexplicably becomes blue — which fits the prophecy. So, I’m not sure why it was discussed or put in the film in the first place. Nausicaä’s actions still would’ve been heroic and brave and critical for her people (and mankind as a whole) without having to make her some kind of prophesied savior. She’s the hero of our story without needing to fulfill some great destiny. Having her try so desperately to save everyone — the ohmu included — is reason enough to root for her.

In any case, I feel like the messages of this movie — about empathy, compassion, and the preciousness of all life — are well done, but might fly over the heads of some younger viewers. Still, it’s a wonderful movie, and while I think that Princess Mononoke handles some of these same things much better, I’ll have to talk about that whenever I review it in the coming weeks.

Next week: Castle in the Sky (1986).

Show Time: My List of Top 10 Blacklisters

The world’s most dangerous and obscure criminals have landed on Red’s Blacklist.

Let me say right off the bat that it was really difficult to compile this list. Because while I feel a lot of one-off Blacklisters are pretty much throwaways, especially all the different cults and kooky people that the show likes to keep introducing, many of the better ones (in my opinion) were bad guys who had been around for multiple episodes, maybe even entire arcs or seasons.

So, picking out my Top 10 — based on how unique they were, how memorable they were, how intimidating, how threatening they were to the main cast, etc. — was relatively easy, but ranking them was difficult. Because, again, a lot of them get way more screentime than others.

So, I’ll try to rank them based on a combination of how much I personally liked them, how much of an overall impact to the story/characters the Blacklister had relative to their screentime and build-up, how well the actor did with the role, how unique and memorable they were, etc. Also: this list only includes Blacklisters up through the end of Season 5.

Obviously: SPOILERS AHEAD.

You’ll notice that people like Laurel Hitchen, who was an antagonist but not technically a Blacklister, isn’t on the list; and you’ll notice that “good guys” like Dembe or Marvin Gerard who were technically Blacklisters, but weren’t antagonists for Red or the Task Force aren’t on here either. Tom, who flip-flopped between good guy and bad guy as the show progressed, isn’t on here either; but that’s because there’s so much material to judge from as he was a main cast member for at least three seasons, which is unfair.

HONORABLE MENTION: MR. KAPLAN

I really wanted to put Mr. Kaplan on this list, and I had at one point, but then I realized I forgot one of the more imposing Blacklisters and had to slide him into the spot where I had Mr. Kaplan. The only reason I took her off completely rather knocking every lower-numbered entry down a spot, was because while I really liked Mr. Kaplan in the first three seasons, I hated how the showrunners forced the storyline where she had once been Liz’s nanny and hated Red for doing her and the Keen family wrong. I love Susan Bloomaert and think she’s a very talented actress who’s incredibly underrated; but I loved her character more when she was on Red’s team — his cleaner, his friend, his confidant. Granted, there were some really good episodes with her as an antagonist, but I hated the way she died — throwing herself off a bridge.

So, I want to emphasize that this list is purely subjective. As I said: I loved Mr. Kaplan, but I felt the whole late-Season 4 storyline completely assassinated her character as we knew it up to that point.

10. LEONARD CAUL

This is one of those entries where I guess I kind of cheated. Caul didn’t really end up being an antagonist for Red, Liz or the Task Force. But he was introduced to us a little ambiguously with him developing photos of Liz and Red, listening to the police scanner — and then holding Liz at gunpoint (briefly) in Red’s Bethesda apartment… I really liked all of that and how it was kind of vague from the beginning whether he was on their side or not. Granted, he doesn’t get much screentime even in his own episode, and honestly, after Season 2, I’m not really sure what happened to him. I know he was hanging around with Red up until the Season 2 finale or thereabouts, but yeah, whatever happened to that guy?

Anyway, it was a really tense episode, and I felt like Caul brought a level of adrenaline and urgency to the situation with Red and the Cabal, as well as the show in general.

9. IAN GARVEY

You’d think Garvey would be higher on this list, but I was never really a big fan of him. Granted, he did pose a pretty serious threat for our main crew, after he stole the Real Reddington’s bones, killed Tom and his goons knocked Liz into a coma. And the actor did a fine job. But, I just felt that — up until his connection to the Reddington family was revealed — he was just kind of cartoonish. A dirty cop who runs a drug cartel? Yeah, I don’t care.

But, again, while I don’t really like Garvey, I felt like he had such an impact on the show and the characters that he deserved a spot — even if it was a low one.

8. MADELINE PRATT

The only female Blacklister to formally make it onto the list. (Sorry, Mr. Kaplan.) I thought her character and this episode was incredibly well-done. It was a little bit of a heist storyline, and Pratt was a good foil for Liz and Red, forcing both of them to open up in ways we hadn’t seen before (up to that point). Liz became more comfortable doing criminal-type things, using her slight-of-hand, infiltrating locations and lying/manipulating people; while Red, conversely, became more human and opened up about why he has been so distant with people and the hurt he has experienced in the past.

Also, Madeline is one of the few past/current love interests of Red that we see on the show, and I really like Jennifer Ehle (mostly because of the 1995 version of Pride & Prejudice). I felt like she matched well with Spader and wasn’t overpowered by his always-charismatic performance. And, while we only ever saw her in this episode and briefly in 2×14, I felt like she deserved a spot because she was such a unique character and that episode introduced a lot of character details and traits that became important later.

7. THE STEWMAKER

I really, really liked the Stewmaker — both the bad guy and the episode. The only reason I didn’t put him higher on this list is because I feel everyone else is too good (or bad, depending on how you want to look at it) to be displaced.

So, I remember reading on one of those TV-watching websites that if you weren’t entirely sure about a show but you wanted to give it a chance, you should watch at least four episodes to see whether it was any good. By the fourth episode, the show should have established its characters, its dynamic, its continuing plot points, its feel, etc. Pilots, of course, always feel a little different than the shows themselves because they’re filmed months before any other episode; so you have to give shows a chance to establish themselves and walk on their own two feet.

So… when THIS was the show’s fourth episode… oh, buddy.

The Stewmaker posed a serious threat as he was the first person to ever hold Liz captive and feel the wrath of Red for such an offense. The episode gave us the infamous Parable of the Farmer; and continued the then-mystery of Liz finding out about Tom’s shady past.

But, as for the character himself, he was just really weird. Walking around naked while he was working, but having that mask on; disintegrating bodies; having his dog with him; actually being a family man but having this criminal work on the side. And, also, we had a little bit of interaction where Liz was actually trying to do her job (for once) and profile him and use that info to her advantage.

He was a character that I feel the show has tried to redo several times — the kooky weirdo who’s very calm, apologetic and doesn’t like violence but who is also fascinated by death, bodies, etc. But, of course, this was the FIRST time the show had used such a character, so it was much more memorable then and not so watered-down.

In any case, I really liked the Stewmaker and thought he was a fantastic Blacklister for the show to have in its fourth episode of the entire series.

6. MATIAS SOLOMON

So, this is actually the spot where I had Mr. Kaplan. But, while I was doing some background research on my #1 choice, I ran across Edi Gathegi’s name and remembered that I left Solomon completely off the list. He had been an antagonist throughout the whole of early-Season 3 and then came back for his namesake episodes where he and his crew attack Liz and Tom’s wedding, Liz gives birth to Agnes, and later she “dies” with Red by her side.

Solomon is either directly or indirectly responsible for a lot of major drama that happened on this show — hell, just in those two episodes. And, I really like Gathegi’s performance, especially considering how Solomon was a little Extra™. So he had to play him as dramatic with a penchant for flair and style … but without him becoming cartoonish. He was just a little bit eccentric but could still hold himself and lead a team of goons in shooting up a church.

Again, I hated to leave Mr. Kaplan off the list but I felt it was a greater disservice to not put Solomon on it, considering how much of a threat he posed to our main cast throughout various points of Season 3.

5. THE DECEMBRIST (A.K.A. ALAN FITCH)

This is basically just an outlet for me to talk about how amazing Alan Alda is and how much I love him and wish the show hadn’t killed his character off. Seriously, he’s just so adorable, and it was hilarious to see him partly playing against type here. Fitch was intimidating, but I also kept wanting to give him a hug.

And, I felt like that was how Red felt toward him. He hated Fitch for the raid on the Post Office, but yet, he also respected him. That look on his face when he’s having that last conversation before the bomb on Fitch’s neck goes off… just heartbreaking.

And while so many actors seem to bow under the weight of Spader’s performances, Alda is also one of the few actors who I felt like was on-par with him in terms of charisma and acting chops. It seems he just strolls onto the set and does whatever is required of him without a care in the world. “Need me to be gruff and menacing? I can do that. Need me to be sad and fearful? I can do that. Need me to look bored and indifferent? I can do that.” Gah! I just love Alan Alda, and I want to give him a hug.

But, seriously, Fitch was a Blacklister whose impact on the story goes all the way back to setting Berlin on Red decades before Season 2 takes place, and he was one of the few people (at that time) who seemed to know Reddington from the pre-Night of the Fire era. (It’s unclear now whether that was actually true; he probably knew the REAL Reddington, but never knew our guy was an imposter.)

Anyway, Fitch had a major impact on the story because he was the one person/thing who had a connection to the raid on the Post Office, the Cabal and Berlin.

4. BERLIN

This is a weird entry, because Berlin is hardly in either of his two namesake episodes; and even when he is, his identity is obscured until the very end of “Berlin: Conclusion.”

Berlin had been built up for a long time, and, to be honest, I’m so frustrated that it was never addressed how he organized a giant criminal syndicate while in a Russian prison. And, for all the build-up around the character, I feel like the pay-off was a little bit disappointing. Which is why he’s at #4 for me.

Still, when he came back in the first half of Season 2, he was such a good baddie. I absolutely love when he and Red meet on Coney Island, and that weird, dynamic and layered conversation that they have. And overall, Peter Stormare’s performance is fantastic. He’s mustache-twirling, sure, but he was so intimidating at the same time… threatening Liz, capturing Naomi, being responsible for the attacks on Cooper and Meera, etc.

3. ALEXANDER KIRK (A.K.A. CONSTANTIN ROSTOV)

Like Berlin, Kirk is hardly in either of his namesake episodes, but we get to see him more fleshed out as a character/villain in early-Season 4.

Unlike most villains, we actually got to see quiet moments of Kirk, where he was caring, respectful, loving and just … generally not villainous. Most of these other Blacklisters never got those opportunities, and Kirk — in hindsight — was built up as a kind of hero out of a Greek tragedy. Odette tells Liz that he was a kind, caring and gentle man up until he found out about Liz’s identity as Masha and her connection to Red. Then, he flipped his shit and did whatever it took to get his (step)daughter away from him. And, honestly, I really liked his little farewell speech to Liz about how she would only ever remember him as a villain who kidnapped and threatened her and her child; and she would never remember him as the young, happy father who held her in her arms, excited at what the future would hold for their family.

Gah! Just thinking back to that speech makes me feel such sympathy for the man… not the one he became but the one he used to be. Kirk was hurt and betrayed multiple times by Katarina, the Real Reddington, the Fake Reddington, and all these other people who played him like a puppet for their own ends. Really thinking back on it, it’s no wonder he became the broken man he is, so desperately trying to cling to this frayed prospect of happiness with the family he once had. Yes, he was hoping that Liz or Agnes would help cure him of his disease, but I truly believe that was only a bonus in his mind and he was really hoping to piece his family back together — to have a second chance in his (step)daughter’s life and help her with her newborn.

He’s also one of the few villains with his own arc who wasn’t killed off at the end of said arc, so I really hope he comes back. I doubt it, but I would really like to see it. Maybe he could help Liz understand what all happened with Katarina, Real Reddington, Fake Reddington, and everything on the Night of the Fire.

And, again, like with Fitch, he was a really important Blacklister as he was connected to both Red’s past and Liz’s. And, that scene where he’s about to kill Red, and the two stop to reminisce about Katarina, who she was, and how important she was to them … that’s the kind of depth we don’t get out of most Blacklisters.

Honestly, even though his introduction to the audience was a little too Darth Vader/Alias-esque, I still really enjoyed the range of emotions Ulrich Thomsen got to run through in his portrayal, especially in that final episode. And while he doesn’t really have a lasting effect on the story once his arc is resolved, he was a major threat to everyone, including Liz, and the main characters to make major decisions in the latter half of Season 3 and the first part of Season 4 that showed us who they really are.

2. ANSLO GARRICK

It might seem a little weird to have a one-off villain this high on the list, but Anslo Garrick — both the character and his namesake episodes — was an actual game-changer. Here we were, skipping along through Season 1, pretty complacent and chill. And then all of a sudden, Anslo Garrick shows up and turns everything on its head! The Post Office is under attack; Ressler gets seriously injured and he and Red have to make due hanging out together inside the box; Cooper et al is captured; Liz and Aram, who have little field experience between them, have to team up to try to get to safety. Luli is killed; Dembe is almost killed; Liz is threatened; Red is captured and later escapes.

So much happened in those episodes, and I still think “Anslo Garrick: Part One” might be the best episode of the show to date. Seriously. Intense, dark, with high-stakes and important character moments — and there have been very few episodes like it since.

But, anyway, as for Anslo Garrick himself… he isn’t really all that much. He was a rabid dog sent by Fitch to bring Red in. He was intimidating, coarse, violent and gave zero shits about his actions.

This entry doesn’t really celebrate who the character of Anslo Garrick was, but more of what he represented and the major impact he had on the show at that point in time. He introduced us to Fitch, who first brought up the whole “Cabal” storyline, which was responsible for a lot of stuff in Season 2 and early-Season 3.

Again, Garrick woke us viewers out of our little complacency that Red & co. were just going to glide through their Blacklisters with only a few cuts and bruises and no real stakes (outside of the Tom/mystery storyline that was going on at the time). This was a good kick in the pants to make us realize that we were wrong.

1. THE DIRECTOR

So, you’re sitting there, wondering who the heck could be sitting at #1… above Garvey, above Kirk and Garrick and Fitch and everyone else?

It’s the man who if I could push a button and bring any of the show’s dead character back to life, he would be the one I’d pick:

Peter Kotsiopulos, The Director … played by the amazing David Strathairn.

Even though he appeared in 12 episodes over what amounted to an entire season of the show (from 2×09 to 3×10), I really wish The Director hadn’t been killed off. Seriously, I have no idea how much money the showrunners had to throw at Strathairn to get him to appear for as long and as many times as he did, but it wasn’t enough. I’ve always said that this show deserves a Big Bad, and he would’ve been great as the Big Bad for The Blacklist.

While Strathairn’s basically just reprising his role as “Unethical and Shady AF Government Official and Resident Mustache-Twirler” from The Bourne Series, it’s a role he’s really good at. And even though he didn’t get a lot of quiet moments to be humanized or come across as sympathetic, like Kirk did, I still feel like it was such a bitch move for Red and his crew to play on The Director’s feelings for/obligation to his wife as their opportunity to abduct him. I know that Liz was facing trial for murder and desperate times called for desperate measures, but I can just imagine that poor lady sitting in her therapist’s office, wondering where her husband was only to find out that he was a villain who had ditched her and fled the country, when that wasn’t the case at all.

Yeah, I know The Director’s an absolute piece of filth who’s responsible for threatening the entire Task Force, publicly demonizing Liz and almost killing Red… but he was so good at being bad that I wanted him to stick around long-term. I wanted to see him and Liz have more interactions; and again, Stathairn was one of the few actors who held his own in scenes with Spader without any effort.

He was also the first one, as I recall, to set Liz on this path toward Katarina Rostova’s backstory and finding out how alike the two of them were. In Episode 2.19, he remarks how much Liz looks like her mom, and I feel like that sends Liz down a road to get answers from Red about who she was and what his connection was to her mom and her family.

But, anyway, I just love David Strathairn; I loved him in this role, on this show; and I loved how diabolical, manipulative, and just conniving his character was. I also just absolutely love the look on his face in 3×10 when he and Red are watching Laurel Hitchen on the TV and Hitchen just outs The Director as a member of the Cabal. He just goes from angry and staring daggers at Red to flustered and “oh shit” in an instant.

So, just like my Fitch entry was my opportunity to celebrate how amazing Alan Alda was, this is my chance to celebrate how underrated David Strathairn is as an actor and how much I wish he was still on the show.

But, putting all of that aside, why should The Director as a character be ranked above all those other people as a better Blacklister?

Because, The Director represented the Cabal, which was an entity that had been built up from Episode 1.09 as a major force that had power to easily destroy everything Red, Liz and their crew was trying to work toward. They sent Braxton after info about the Fulcrum, they sent Karakurt to frame Liz, they sent that team of commandos to attack Red. They were a force that seemingly could not be stopped, and the Director was at the head of it all.

Plus, he was one of the worst kinds of people as he constantly did evil in the name of the greater good. He was the embodiment of all the worst parts of The Blacklist’s villains, actual real life government officials and humanity at large. He had dozens of people killed without batting an eye because it’s all in the interest of “national security.” Or so he tells others. But, deep down, we all know that he’s only really concerned about his own self-interest.

Now that the show has killed him off, obviously, there’s no way for Strathairn to return as The Director; but perhaps, if/once the show delves more into Katarina and Red’s backstory, maybe we will see a Young Director in a flashback so that we can see exactly how he was connected to Katarina, the Cabal, and that whole mess with the Fulcrum.

Show Time: Comparisons Between The Blacklist’s Red & Liz and Bill & The Bride from “Kill Bill”

Red & Liz from “The Blacklist” have a lot of similarities to Bill & The Bride from “Kill Bill.”

Perhaps you’ve heard that I’m a fan of NBC’s The Blacklist. I know two of the Nerds have watched the show and talked about it on the podcast; but unlike James, I am committed to seeing this show to its bitter end. The Blacklist has had its ups, and it’s definitely had its downs. But I’m to the point where I’m so invested in the characters and their journey that I can’t not watch it.

The two characters who hold my attention the most are Red (AKA, Raymond Reddington, played by James Spader) and FBI Agent Elizabeth Keen (played by Megan Boone). Now, while Red as a character is far more interesting, thanks to Spader’s brilliant performances and the fact that he’s the show’s anti-hero who can do pretty much whatever he wants, Liz is … another story. (I’ll talk about her more in a future post.)

But, throughout the first four seasons of the show, we got serious chemistry and meaningful interactions between these two, to the point where I — very early on in Season 1 — began to believe that the show would end with Red and Liz being a couple. And, while their dynamics have changed a great deal throughout the course of the show, I firmly believe these two idiots are our endgame couple.

One of the reasons is their similarities to other couples in pop culture, including — as referenced in the title of this post — Bill and The Bride (AKA, Beatrix Kiddo) from Kill Bill.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR BOTH KILL BILL AND THE BLACKLIST.

(Author’s note: the below text was taken from a social media post that I wrote in Summer 2017, so between Seasons 4 and 5, which I have edited and re-posted here with the Nerds’ permission.)

Strangely, though, their similarities haven’t been discussed much among The Blacklist’s fans. I did a quick Google search, and I found a gifset comparing the “don’t marry that guy” scene from the respective shows, but that was about it.

But, there are so many similarities that I can’t believe that this has flown under everyone’s radar.

Guy/gal couple have a very meaningful, trusting relationship (which is explicitly romantic and sexual in Kill Bill; the jury is still on out The Blacklist)
There is a significant age gap between the guy and gal; in some ways, he is her mentor as well as her love interest
Both of them live in a violent world and/or take part in a violent profession that involves tracking down and (sometimes) killing people
Gal finds out she’s pregnant and distances her self from guy in an effort to keep her baby safe
In her efforts, gal fakes her death
Guy is absolutely devastated to lose her
Guy tracks down gal inadvertently while looking for the people supposedly responsible for her death
At some point, gal intends to marry a second dude, and first guy objects to this marriage; and because of some violent circumstances, gal never marries the second dude
Gal gives birth to a baby girl
Gal goes into a coma and guy helps to raise her daughter in the meantime
Guy and gal have a confrontation where each of them is angry at what the other did; yet deep down, it’s evident they both still care about each other
At some point, gal tells everyone present that the guy is her father; he’s not super-pleased about this but goes along with the charade

There are plenty of differences too, don’t get me wrong.

But, even the whole “Red is Liz’s dad-CONFIRMED” thing from the Season 4 finale made me think of that scene where the Bride pretended that Bill was her dad, even though the two had been in a relationship and she was pregnant with their child.

I think this also gives some perspective on why Liz was so mean and vicious toward Red once she found out she was pregnant in Season 3 and then later in early Season 4. Given what he’s done and what he represents and the life he leads, it’s no wonder that Liz would feel like she needs to protect her daughter from Red.

Before she found out she was pregnant, Liz and Red had been in a relatively good place in their relationship. They built up a great level of trust, understanding and affection while she was on the run in early Season 3. Then, in the Gregory Devry episode, she’s clearly frustrated that he isn’t going to take a break and that the fight against the Cabal must continue. But, it’s only after she finds out she’s pregnant that her frustration and venom against him really escalates.

***

Before that strip turned blue …I was a woman, I was your woman.

I was a killer who killed for you.

Before that strip turned blue, I would’ve jumped a motorcycle onto a speeding train.

For you.

But once that strip turned blue …I could no longer do any of those things.

Not anymore.

Because I was gonna be a mother.

But why didn’t you tell me then, instead of now?

Once you knew, you’d claim her. And I didn’t want that.

Not your decision to make.

But it’s the right decision, and I made it for my daughter.

She deserved to be born with a clean slate.

But with you, she would’ve been born into a world she shouldn’t have.

I had to choose.

I chose her.

***

That, ladies and gentleman, is the dialogue — as best I can tell — from the confrontation between The Bride and Bill once she finds out that B.B. lived and that Bill raised her, and as Bill is finding out why The Bride faked her death to begin with.

Right now, as we’re nearing the Season 6 finale, there are fan theories circulating that Red and Liz were ~together~ while they were on the run in early Season 3 and that Liz’s memory of it was wiped (which we heard about episode 4.19). This makes sense of the pregnancy timeline, which doesn’t add up if Tom is the father, meaning that Agnes is Red’s daughter.

Still, even operating under the assumption that Agnes IS Tom’s daughter, the conversation still applies quite well to Red and Liz’s relationship. While she definitely disagreed with his methods and decisions, Liz showed time and time again that she was loyal to Red and cared about him and his well being. Granted, not to the same level that the Bride did with Bill, but still… it works.

In Red and Liz’s case, her affection for / loyalty to Red seems to have gone out the door the minute she found out she was pregnant.

Red, well-meaning as he was, did try to “claim” Liz and her child, in a certain way. He definitely tried to insert himself into her life. He offered to give her money for her child; he put a security team across the hall; he booked pregnancy massages; he bought her a couch; etc. So long as Liz was in Red’s life, that meant that Agnes was in his life as well. Liz knew first-hand that people had used her to get to Red; who’s to say they wouldn’t use Agnes to get to her and/or Red?

So, she rejected Red’s “dirty money.” She wanted Agnes to have a relatively normal life. Fair enough. As venomous and hateful as she was toward Red from mid-Season 3 onward, I can’t fault her for that much.

In the end, Liz chose her daughter over Red.

And, now, Bill gets to tell the Bride “the truth.”

***

And for the record, letting somebody think somebody they love is dead when they’re not is quite cruel.

I mourned you for three months.

And in the third month of mourning you… I tracked you down. I wasn’t tryin’ to track you down. I was tryin’ to track down the f***ing ***holes I thought killed you.

So I find you...and what do I find?

Not only are you not dead…you’re getting married to some f***ing jerk.

And you’re pregnant.

I overreacted.

You overreacted?

Is that your explanation?

I didn’t say I was gonna explain myself. I said I was gonna tell you the truth.

But if that’s too cryptic, let’s get literal.

I’m a killer. I’m a murdering bastard. You know that.

And there are consequences, to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard.

You experienced some of them.

Was my reaction really that surprising?

***

If this isn’t Red, you guys, I don’t know what is.

Granted, on The Blacklist, Liz and Tom decide to get married while Liz is pregnant and THEN she fakes her death. (Whereas in Kill Bill, it’s the other way around.) Either way, Red was devastated and hurt by both decisions. He warned Liz not to marry Tom — begged her, even. Said it wasn’t in her best interests, that Tom wouldn’t change. Now, it’s been a while since I watched Kill Bill, but I feel like Bill told The Bride that she couldn’t have married the other dude because she was a killer and she would always wake up and be a killer. It would be hard, if not impossible, for The Bride to be satisfied with a “normal life.”

(In some respects, I would argue the same thing for Liz. We saw in the pilot that she’s drawn to the criminal mind. Not saying she couldn’t also be a stay-at-home mother, but would she really be happy with that life, long-term? I feel like she would miss the action, drama, and psychology of her time on the FBI Task Force. Anyway…)

Now, as for the fake death, Red is completely distraught — a man without purpose — after Liz’s death. His saving grace, he’d hoped, was to be a part of Agnes’ life, but Tom seemingly puts the kibosh on that. So, he goes to Cape May and then he sulks at Dom’s house. It’s not until Aram says they need help tracking down Liz’s killers that he decides to come back.

Additionally, Red has told Liz (and others) time and time again that he is a killer. He’s a monster — someone who does bad things. Even if he has the best of intentions, he still kills people.

And after Liz died, what did Red do? Like Bill with The Bride’s “killers,” he went on quite the murdering spree to find Scottie Hargrave and then Kirk, all in an effort to get revenge for Liz’s supposed death.

But, after he reunited with Liz, he kept his distance. Yes, he offered her help and protection, and so on, but he wasn’t nearly as close or as unguarded with her as he had been previously. Even later, when he gets Liz her much-desired pardon, what does he do? He lets her find out on the TV and hangs out in his car. Doesn’t even give her so much as a phone call. This was a man who was thrilled to buy her an apartment and called her seemingly every half-hour she was waiting for her trial in episode 3.10.

All in all, I just wanted to point out the similarities between these four idiots, and wonder whether this means The Blacklist will follow in the shoes of Kill Bill, or if it’s going to do its own thing. (It’s going to be the latter, let me tell you right now. Or, at least, it’d better be.)

Catching the Miyazaki Classics (Part 1) – Porco Rosso

Porco Rosso, the sixth of Miyazaki’s 11 films as writer/director

This week: Porco Rosso (1992).

Synopsis: Porco (voiced by Michael Keaton) is a former WWI pilot from the Italian Air Force, who was cursed with the face of a pig for his cowardice. He’s abandoned his country and his former life, and now hides out in the Mediterranean and makes a living as a bounty-hunter of seaplane pirates. His only remaining friend is Gina (voiced by Susan Egan), his love interest in the film. Porco’s piloting skills and tenacious attitude have made life difficult for the local seaplane pirates, and they combine their resources to hire Curtis (voiced by Cary Elwes) to shoot down Porco. Curtis does so, but Porco makes it out alive and goes to Milan to have his plane repaired by the Piccolo family. There, he meets Fio (voiced by Kimberly Williams-Paisley), an up-and-coming aerospace engineer who wants to prove herself by fixing Porco’s plane. In the end, Porco and Fio work together to return to the Mediterranean and face Curtis and the seaplane pirates.

Spoiler-free review: Porco Rosso is such a fun and breezy watch, and I had such a blast with it that I decided to watch it twice. Clocking in at about 90 minutes, it has a good pace and atmosphere to it, feeling neither too heavy nor too light. It touches on some heavier topics, including death, the trauma of war and even the afterlife, to a degree. However, it does this in a way that’s approachable and understandable for people of all ages. Like all Miyazaki films, both the animation and the music are amazing. Composer Joe Hisaishi and the Studio Ghibli animation team do an excellent job of putting you in the Adriatic Sea, flying the skies up in Porco’s plane, or sending you back to the “Bygone Days.” The one issue I had with the movie is that the ending is abrupt and a little disappointing after such a fun build-up. But, overall, the characters are fun and memorable, the voice cast is talented, and the story is engaging and something that kids (and adults) of all ages could enjoy.

Letter grade: B+

Full review and critique: (Warning: here be spoilers!)

I got the idea to watch this movie — and actually, to do the whole “Catching the Miyazaki Classics” series — from listening to the song “Bygone Days.” Without having seen the movie, I got serious Film Noir-type vibes, and it felt reminiscent of “As Time Goes By” from Casablanca. So, I was intrigued and had to check it out.

The song “Bygone Days” wasn’t the only thing about this movie that reminded me of Casablanca. Porco, as a character, felt a lot like Humphrey Bogart’s Rick. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that, had Humphrey Bogart been alive when this movie was made, he would’ve been the ideal voice for Porco.

Both Porco and Rick (from Casablanca) have hard and jaded exteriors, something they’ve gained from a life full of difficult experiences. Because of this, both characters tend to keep to themselves and don’t really get close to anyone — at least, at the beginning of their respective films. Porco is close to Gina, but that’s about it. However, underneath all their self-centered bravado, both are men who have a strict code of honor that they live by, which includes looking out for those traditionally considered ‘vulnerable’ – women, children, the poor, etc. For instance, as seen during the fight of honor at the end, Porco refuses to shoot a pilot, and only shoots the plane.

And just like how Rick reunites with Ilsa and seemingly rediscovers what it means to fight for others rather than simply himself, so too does Porco after he meets Fio.

Fio and Porco’s relationship, while it doesn’t have much screentime, is a bit complex and hard to define. Porco certainly makes the comment that he has a reputation as a womanizer and doesn’t want to scandalize Fio, and there is the scene where she decides to go swimming, and he looks away as she throws off her clothes. He also blushes both times that she kisses him on the cheek. However, there are several instances where people remark on the age gap between them, and Porco himself frequently calls her “kid.” So, it seems that the relationship is a sort of chivalric romance.

Porco doesn’t love Fio the way he loves Gina, but he still respects and admires Fio, both as an engineer and as a person. And she motivates him to be a better, more courageous and more honorable man. He stands up for her in the honor fight against Curtis, wanting to win mostly because he doesn’t want Fio to have to marry Curtis. In fact, Fio’s presence seems to have this effect on all the seaplane pirates, as a few chastisements from her causes them all to start behaving more honorably. She even uses this ‘call to honor’ to have the pirates give up their intent to murder Porco, and instead fight him honorably via Curtis.

And while I really enjoy this dynamic between Porco and Fio, perhaps my favorite part of the movie is when Porco recounts his last dogfight in WWI, and the sequence where we see Porco’s friends and fellow pilots move on to a sort of pilots-only afterlife. The image all of all those planes in a big, long band in the sky, seeing all the different colors and insignia and allegiances represented, and yet they’re all dead and flying together forever… If I’d lost my best friends and seen something like that, I might be a jaded coward too. What does it matter which side you fight for, if you’re all going to end up in the same afterlife? And, honestly, it’s probably a good thing that Porco is out for himself. Otherwise, he’d be a pilot for the Facist government.

As I said, Porco Rosso is a fun watch, and it was a great one to kick-off this “Catching the Miyazaki Classics” series!

Next week: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

Author: Corinne

10. IVAN

9. THE HAREM

8. MAKO TANIDA

7. FREDERICK BARNES

6. DR. LINUS CREEL

5. LORD BALTIMORE

4. ARIOCH CAIN

3. T. EARL KING IV

2. MR. GREGORY DEVRY

HONORABLE MENTION: THE CARETAKER

HONORABLE MENTION: ANNA-GRACIA DUERTE

HONORABLE MENTION: THE FORECASTER

1. THE CYPRUS AGENCY

A THEORETICAL POSSIBILITY

LIZ OFTEN HAS LITTLE CONVICTION WHEN IT COMES TO HER FEELINGS AND DESIRES.

AS OPPOSED TO RED’S CONVICTION …

THE TWO ARE NOT EQUAL

LIZ DOESN’T FEEL LIKE A REAL PERSON

LIZ TRIES TOO HARD TO PROVE HERSELF, GETS IN TROUBLE, AND OFTEN HAS TO BE RESCUED BY RED AND/OR THE TASK FORCE AS A RESULT

TL;DR

THERE WILL BE NO MAJOR SPOILERS OF EITHER SHOW. YOU MAY PROCEED WITHOUT FEAR.

1. PLOT PROGRESSION

2. CHARACTER INTERACTIONS

3. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

TL;DR

HONORABLE MENTION: MR. KAPLAN

10. LEONARD CAUL

9. IAN GARVEY

8. MADELINE PRATT

7. THE STEWMAKER

6. MATIAS SOLOMON

5. THE DECEMBRIST (A.K.A. ALAN FITCH)

4. BERLIN

3. ALEXANDER KIRK (A.K.A. CONSTANTIN ROSTOV)

2. ANSLO GARRICK

1. THE DIRECTOR