Current Events > Just found out where The Blacklist jumps the shark (episode spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's a season 7 episode where the Blacklister is Dr. Lewis Powell. He's an AI pioneer with ALS, and he's been making deepfakes to kill off other AI researchers despite being wheelchair-bound and on a respirator.

I want to make a few points.

First of all, this show has always had goofy moments and magical realism for the sake of a memorable and kinda fucked up viewing experience. The Blacklist has its roots in schlocky action media and conspiracy thrillers, and as juicy as the plotline has been getting, the show has always felt like it's bordering on trash TV. There's an episode where a woman kidnaps disabled children, taking them into the woods to live in a forest community until their 13th birthday where they're drugged and thrown down a well to be eaten by carnivorous butterflies. You have to understand - I have a high threshold for this shit. I expect the show to have twists and turns at a breakneck pace, and to be shocking for the sake of being shocking.

Secondly, this is the first season to be impacted by COVID restrictions. They had to animate the season finale in CG, and not just the vehicles and the action sequences - they animate the characters and have them dub their lines. This has really affected the quality of the show, which has a habit of being very "big" - big setpieces, big crowds of extras. Episodes, like "Kuwait", are very obviously reliant on green screens - and it does hurt the quality of the show. So there's already a big downturn in episode quality. It comes with being an ongoing property affected by the pandemic. I get it, and I'm not wholly unsympathetic.

This episode is too schlocky and unbelievable, and I don't think its problems stem from COVID-era production. It is a plot development that feels insulting and cheap, even for the seventh season of a conspiracy thriller action show on a cable network. It is beyond the pale.

So the FBI break into the criminal's apartment when he's not responsive, and they see him at his computer where he's been calling hitmen and plotting his grand scheme. Except plot twist, he's been dead for a few days.

The REAL murderer is an AI.

Not an "algorithm", not a deep web thing. A fully sentient, autonomous AI, that's killing people and destroying AI research because Powell was afraid of the Singularity and the AI decided to send AI research back decades to delay the Singularity. That includes wiping itself as well.

...Look. This show has had a blackmail file about the most powerful secret society on earth. It has had memory manipulation. There's an episode where a Blacklister is known for changing people's DNA - it's schlock all the way down.

And also? I love AI stories. I love stories about fully sentient, autonomous AI and the concept of digital personhood and all that shit.

But seeing The Blacklist, a show known far and wide for middle-aged James Spader in a fedora blowing away bad guys with a pistol, resort to a talking computer screen that commits assassinations and creates unparalleled deepfakes because it's a computer... Fuck, man. I won't say it's the LAST straw, not yet, but it's really fucking close. There's being unbelievable for the sake of being stylish, and there's being a hack. This episode of The Blacklist is a total hackjob. Fuck me sideways.

The worst part is that the previous worst episode of the series was a pointless clip show in season 2. It was in the first half of season 2 so it had a season and a half of clips to choose from. Most of it was a guy asking the main character "What happened next?" before she would explain the plotline of the first season and a half of the show. It was fucking terrible.

This episode was worse. Hands down. What a piece of shit.

Like, Blacklist Redemption was bad for future tech stuff too, but the shiny silver tech scanners and stuff didn't make their way back into The Blacklist. Some goofy shit did, but nothing like this.