The Blacklist - Recap: Red Tales
Recap and review of The Blacklist - Episode 14 - Madeline Pratt:
Not that it really hurts the show at all, but I don't think The Blacklist is all that concerned with being perceived as a prestige drama anymore. Is it affecting, and occasionally deeply moving? Absolutely. But more than anything else, it's a fun potboiler. A total popcorn drama that is going to be an absolute blast for binge-watchers in a year's time, since this is a show that wants you to become addicted. The Blacklist is a show that demands your obsession, even while it doesn't lean as hard on serialization as other pseudo-procedurals on TV today. That's because it's a show that allows you to join in at any point, a rare network drama that isn't impenetrable to first-time viewers. The story is complex but easily distilled, as are its characters (barring Red), and this is definitely a good thing, since it's been a month since the last episode. But even if the most recent episode had happened last week, the heist movie qualities of "Madeline Pratt" made this an exhilarating episode to watch, and one that illustrates why the series is worthy of your DVR season pass. Between the fast-paced plots, and James Spader's towering, nuanced performance, The Blacklist is an incredibly easy show to get hooked on.
Credit: NBC
With that said, "Madeline Pratt" isn't perfect. The episode centers on Madeline Pratt (Jennifer Ehle), a Blacklister who enlists Red (James Spader) and Liz (Megan Boone) to help her retrieve an effigy with the identities of six Russian spies embedded within from the Syrian Embassy. Why, exactly, she needs the FBI for a job she could just as easily do herself isn't made immediately apparent, nor is the rationale for why Liz is supposedly the perfect woman for the job. Yet we learn, in a genuinely interesting anecdote, that Liz used to be a criminal herself. In her teens, she and an ex-boyfriend used to pull small-scale jobs in order to make ends meet, including robbing the convenience store at which she worked. In the "Omaha" incident, Liz and her boyfriend are nearly caught stealing by the night manager, and so she decides to seduce him in order to prevent him from discovering their theft. It's an illuminating look into where Liz comes from, and how she came to acquire her various skills. In essence, it instantly makes her a more interesting character, since she's little more than a window into this world for the audience. Is she occasionally badass? Absolutely. But "badass" isn't comparable with having a real character.
Credit: NBC
Right now, the job is her character, and maybe that's the point, since it's consuming her home life with Tom (Ryan Eggold) as well, to the point where he takes some time apart from her, and runs into beautiful substitute teacher friend Lucy Brooks (Rachel Brosnahan). But even if her career-oriented nature is the point of the character, that doesn't mean she can't have several interesting facets, which is why it's disappointing when Liz eventually reveals to Red that the "Omaha" story was made up. Granted, this doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of her story as a teenage thief was a lie, but it does send Liz right back to being as obtuse as she ever has been, since we mostly just know vagueries about her past, with very few specifics. Her characterization has always been something I've been willing to overlook because the show was in its very early stages, but I feel she should be much farther along as a character by now. Especially since she and Tom have been having pretty much the same argument about the demands of her job since the series started.
Credit: NBC
But if Liz's character arc is why the episode isn't perfect, that's a small issue, since the rest of the story more than makes up for it. Red and Liz's infiltration of the Syrian Embassy features a positively marvelous scene in which Red rescues Liz from capture by pretending to be her effete best friend. Of course, when you lie with dogs, you wake up with fleas, and so it is when you team with a Blacklister, as Madeline betrays Red and Liz, taking the effigy for herself. She does this because Red, her ex-lover from ages ago, bailed on her some years back. They had plans to meet up in Florence to start a new life together, but Red never showed. Madeline accuses Red of treating his entire life as one big job, refusing to engage with meaningful connections. And she might be right, for all we know, although we do get insight into why Red is so guarded. During their argument in the street, both Red and Madeline are tased and abducted by men in a van. When they come to, Red and Madeline are in adjacent cells, and the conversation that follows gives us the furthest window into Red yet (in addition to providing us with Spader's best scene of the series so far).
Credit: NBC
In explaining to Madeline why he never showed in Florence, Red recounts the night his family was murdered. It was Christmas Eve, and he'd run out of gas in the midst of a snow storm on his way back from buying presents. With no other option, he walked the several miles it took for him to reach his house, the whole time thinking of the hearth fire in the living room and the smells of oyster stew from the kitchen, and the sound of his daughter at the piano. He worried his kids would be disappointed that he'd ruined their Christmas by leaving all their presents behind in the abandoned car, but Red eventually decided they'd get a bigger kick out of the story of how their daddy stupidly forgot to get gas in his excitement to get back home for Christmas.
However, things went tragically awry when finally Red reached the house, as he recounts to Madeline that there was blood everywhere. The sight of blood was all he could sense -- that and the smell of the nape of his daughter's neck. It's the moment that broke Red completely, and this, he explains, is why he never showed in Florence, and hardly ever shows anywhere he's expected these days. And, in that moment, Red's character crystallizes, largely on the strength of Spader's achingly moving performance, as he imbues Red with a real sense of conflict: he wants to retain the memories of his families, to call upon those warm thoughts when he's feeling lonely and wracked with despair, yet those memories have been tainted by the tragedy that befell them. And so the entire scene plays out with Red fighting to keep the bad thoughts tamped down. Red is doing his best to keep from crying (a wonderful choice by Spader, as it seems like Red really is doing his damndest not to give in to his body's natural urge to salve his pain with tears). He doesn't entirely win out, but dammit, he tries.
Credit: NBC
In fact, his tears are so moving that Madeline decides to give their captors what they want: the six names in the effigy. But, as we learn, they aren't really six names, they're six bombs. It's a cache of nuclear explosives from the Cold War that have been planted in six separate locations, and the effigy contained the coordinates to their location. But in a genuinely surprising turn of events that probably shouldn't have been all that surprising, we learn that this was all a trick on Red's part to get Madeline to reveal the effigy's secret contents. Madeline is understandably furious, but what she really wants to know is if the story Red told was even true. And he's as evasive as ever, although I don't think the story was a lie. Then again, I suppose if you're going to be a criminal at the level of a Raymond Reddington, you'd have to also be a pretty good actor. But either way, Red's secrets are left for another day, as Liz and the rest of the FBI is left to apprehend the mobsters looking to obtain the effigy's secrets. It's a bit of a blase climax, but it provides decent action and provides the jump-off point for several interesting developments: Liz is starting to rely more on Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) not just for tactical support, but for emotional support as well, in the wake of her conclusion that Tom is likely going to leave her; the other big development is that the Washington Bureau is ordering Director Cooper (Harry Lennix) to cease his investigation into the disappearance/death of Diane Fowler. It's hard to know what the Bureau gains from covering up Fowler's death, or from protecting Red and shielding him from prosecution for it, but it's an interesting turn of events, far more so than the Liz/Ressler stuff (although I do like their pairing as partners).
Ultimately, "Madeline Pratt" is as succinct a representation as any of why The Blacklist is so compulsively watchable. Is it ever going to be the next high-minded TV drama? Probably not. But I'll take "fun" on a Monday night. Lord knows, it's needed.