Denis Kimathi
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Sometimes you hit a huge high such that any decline is a significant low.
We returned to our regular format on The Blacklist Season 10 Episode 10, where Raymond offered a case, and the team worked to solve it.
There was expected to be a drop in the story’s quality after a wild hour on The Blacklist Season 10 Episode 9, but I didn’t expect it to feel this disappointing.
With the show closing in on mideason, it stood to reason that they would keep the momentum they had been developing throughout the back half.
Raymond had made a very selfish play that was expected to have some consequences, but he appeared to come out of it unscathed.
Despite being visibly annoyed, Harold just rolled over and ate the scraps being offered, which is so not like him.
He should have offered some pushback unless he was confident that someone’s life was in danger.
These actions served to show the point Task Force and Raymond’s relationship had reached. They had gotten used to being at his beck and call such that he could do nothing bad enough for them to pause.
I love Raymond as much as the next Blacklist fan, but objectively speaking, he needs to face some repercussions for his actions.
Wujing carried all the hopes for that, but with his death, the hopes died too.
They were reanimated by the thought that The Task Force would take over after Raymond’s stunt, which left Harold furious, but it didn’t seem like they thought much of it.
Harold has always been steadfast in his convictions about justice and doing what is right.
I’m not saying he’s innocent. I’m just unconvinced of his guilt.
Harold
During the flashbacks to when he served on the jury to convict Larry, he acted how you would expect him to act. He didn’t go with what the majority thought. He followed the evidence and where that evidence took him.
Harold was just the tip, albeit the sharpest tip, of the problem.
The whole Task Force had become complacent in Raymond’s actions. Ressler, who we counted on to keep the team on the straight and narrow when it came to Raymond, was understandably dealing with something, but he had also become lax throughout the years.
The Ressler we knew might have quit the Task Force after finding not one but two dead people in the middle of the war room, and the perpetrator had left with a powerful government program, and they didn’t plan on recovering it to boot.
Ressler: I’m sorry, but w-we’re gonna hunt down the local kingpin of prison contraband because what, he injured one of Reddington’s cronies? What about the people that Reddington killed in this very room just last week?
Harold: Reddington’s actions with respect to Wujing were frustrating, I know. They will be dealt with in due time.
Siya: Look, I’m not losing sleep over the loss of evil men, but Reddington told us a pack of lies. Why should we believe him that the Postman is even worthy of our attention?
The weight of keeping the group’s moral compass when it came to Raymond fell on Siya, but she could only do so much. She didn’t know much about Raymond and was left asking questions hoping for an honest answer.
If only someone in the team had spent their entire career hunting Raymond down. Someone who had researched anything there was to know about Raymond and followed him around for eight years. Someone who had been keeping tabs on Raymond for the past ten years.
If only there were someone like that.
At this point, what is needed is someone from the outside to intervene. If the criminal world can’t deal with Raymond, The US government should step up.
The government managed to keep him in hiding for fourteen years. It’s not impossible to arrest him when he has ties in the country.
Thanks to Raymond’s actions, there is now no proof that any arm of the government had given him an immunity deal, so it was open season on his as*.
He also was in possession of a government item, so that could be a great pretense to go after him.
Harold: We hunted Wujing for months, at a steep cost to the U.S. government. We put people’s lives on the line. And the FBI has nothing to show for it, save for a few minor arrests.
Raymond: Uh-huh.
Harold: We are not a hit squad! Wujing, Zhang Wei, Alban Veseli, all dead. Perillos is gone, I assume dead. Bo Chang is in the wind.
Raymond: Right.
Harold: This won’t end here. An official investigation hasn’t come down from Main Justice yet, but when it does, how do I explain to them why this task force should continue to exist?
And while doing all that, make sure The Task Force was nowhere around the case, and they had been disbanded.
Panabaker has a lot of influence being a United States Senator. She needs to act now!
Apart from most characters acting out of character, the biggest shortcoming of the episode and subsequent episodes is the absence of Wujing.
We had expected Wujing’s hunt for Raymond to dominate the majority of episodes, if not the entirety of the season.
His death left a gaping chasm in the story, and it genuinely felt like a loss. Resolving a major storyline in the middle of the season and maintaining the allure is a feat many shows can’t pull off, and The Blacklist seems to have fallen into that category.
There’s never been a fixed paradigm for how we operate, Harold. What the task force was on its first day was different than what it was on its second. Or third or tenth. And different from what it is today. All I can say is… the danger that Marvin Gerard unleashed, it’s done. Criminals are dead. My connection to the FBI has been erased. As we’ve changed course many times before, we’re changing course again.
Raymond
Whether it will bounce back later in the season remains to be seen.
I’m afraid we might need to update our “Worst Series Finales Ever” list.
“The Postman” was typical. There was a case, and the team solved it.
The opener was interesting, seeing a Glock automatic in prison open fire when expecting someone to get shanked. They maintained the same intrigue with the blacklister, which was a positive for them.
That did not cover up the glaring problems, but it made it less painful to watch.
Without Wujing’s threat looming, it is unfathomable how the show will look going forward but judging by the upcoming episodes; it’s back to the old format with more blacklisters.
What did you think? Was this a snooze fest or what?
What do you hope to see as the season progresses?
Let us know in the comments section, and don’t forget to watch The Blacklist online.
Denis Kimathi is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. He has watched more dramas and comedies than he cares to remember. Catch him on social media obsessing over [excellent] past, current, and upcoming shows or going off about the politics of representation on TV. Follow him on Twitter.