The Blacklist has the same appeals and problems that the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), faces. Back in the day, when the WWE had a lot less bells and whistles, there was a certain rhythm to its plots. (The rhythm is still there, but it is far less easy to discern.) A villain would be introduced to challenge the champion, the baby-faced good guy Bob Backlund. Then for a month or two, the villain would go around doing dastardly deeds, showing that he was a credible threat to the said champion; the more credible the villain, the longer the buildup. Then they would meet, and either the villain would prevail — and they could drag out the story line for a few more months — or the villain would be dispatched and relegated to the back burner for a while. The key to the rhythm was the organizer’s understanding that the key to suspense is threat. In this case, actually winning the championship. Once the villain is defeated, the threat is gone and a new threat must be established. This rhythm governs the WWE today and has been appropriated by The Blacklist.
Creator Jon Bokenkamp introduced a strong rogue gallery of villains set on taking down the show’s main protagonist, Raymond ‘Red’ Reddington (James Spader). An impressive group of actors have portrayed various baddies: Alan “The Decembrist” Fitch (Alan Alda); Milos “Berlin” Kirchoff (Peter Stormare); US Assistant Attorney General, Diane Fowler (Jane Alexander); Luther Braxton (Ron Perlman); former Russian foreign service agent “Karakurt” (Michael Massee); CIA National Clandestine Service director Peter “The Director” Kotsiopulos (David Strathairn); and Matthias Solomon (Edi Gathegi). All but the last three are deceased. As frustrating as it is to see such compelling characters wiped away, Bokenkamp understands that once a character loses, they are done as a viable villain.
Right now, there are three bad guys at play; the Director, Solomon, and Karakurt. Karakurt’s cast as a pawn and is not actively threatening Reddington or Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone). The other two characters, to some extent, had their wings clipped by Reddington. The producers decided to have the Director be the trapped animal. In this week’s episode, “Sir Crispin Crandall”, Strathairn delivers a great performance as a very well-written character, playing a boxer with a great knock-out counterpunch fighting a far superior fighter. He is able to maintain a menacing presence, even while losing. Late in the episode, there’s a scene where he interrogates a henchman. It has first-rate writing: the Director eruditely threatens the man’s family, and tt’s wonderfully shot. The rims of Strathairn’s glasses flash and he bobs in and out of the shadow. Finally, Strathairn delivers a menacing and authoritative pitch that works for the scene.
Unfortunately, Mathias Solomon’s character started out great but lost its threat level. In the first few episodes, Solomon stood up to both the Director and Reddington’s badass security guard Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq). The character was written just as smart, cool under pressure, and ruthless as Reddington, but in the last two episodes, he went from a fully drawn diabolical menace to just another cartoon rogue. It is a shame, because Edi Gathegi appeared to have the chops to pull off a great, complex villain. Now he just seems like the leader of the Keystone Cops chasing after Remmington.
Tom Keen (Ryan Eggold) fills another prominent roll in professional wrestling: the ambiguous champion. This is the guy that is essentially bad, but also popular. Perhaps the greatest example of this in the WWE was Ric “The Nature Boy” Flair, who on several occasions, was voted by fans as the most loved and hated wrestler in the same year.
Tom Keen is essentially Reddington. The main difference is he is age appropriate to be a romantic interest for Elizabeth. He’s a hyper badass; there’s a scene in the episode in which he calls out the men he is going to disarm, in the order he is going to disarm them. Further, he’s absolutely ruthless and great at deception. In a classic pro-wrestling trope, he is the good guy, turned bad, turned good. The problem is, except for the fact that he professes to love Elizabeth, he has not changed his behaviors at all. In this episode, he kills a bystander who he had singled out to befriend. While the character in question was a narcissistic member of the 1%, it’s still disturbing to watch Keen use and then kill him in cold blood, all for the sake of his love.
With the exception of Solomon’s descent to pedestrian henchman, “Sir Crispin Crandall” delivered all of the things that makes the The Blacklist great. Along with Keen’s grand bad-assery, there are several exceptional moments, including two great interrogation scenes: one with the director, and one an exchange between Reddington and Sir Crispin Crandall (Harris Yulin) in which Spader delivers a rant with just the right amount of condescension to come across aloof and cool. There’s also a wonderful subplot involving a Canadian building inspector and a bad French cook, and a chase scene set to Golden Earring’s Radar Love. It’s a perfect song for the show; both are true guilty pleasures.