Current Events > I'm getting back into the Blacklist after a long hiatus. Up to season 8 *spoilz

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'll write out my thoughts after I get dinner. Might post some screenshots of my old Blacklist topics from That Other Site for content and to avoid repeating myself.

The one thing I will say is this: as much as Keen going to war with Reddington is a mid plot development that I'm not wholly into, I think it fits the character and I'm getting fucking sick of seeing the IMDB review scores getting review-bombed because Elizabeth Keen is in the fucking episode.

Also the last decent season of the show was season 5. The story arc in season 6 was a wet fart, though the execution plotline was good, and season 7 was where the show began to dive off a cliff because Laila Roberts's Katarina Rostova just kind of walked into everything she wanted and the turn Elizabeth took didn't have the weight I think the showrunners wanted. Season 8 has had some really fun ideas that I really like like the Cyranoid, but I don't buy Liz matching Reddington pound for pound like she's been able to do.

And even still, the abject hate that she gets is beyond me. By far my least favourite part of the Blacklist experience is the scathing hate for her.

Funny thing is I don't follow communities of any of the shows I watch, so I would have never known she was hated had I not stumbled into this topic right now.

I've watched the show from day one. It's one of those things that I should stop watching, but I keep going anyway.

King_Rial posted...

Funny thing is I don't follow communities of any of the shows I watch, so I would have never known she was hated had I not stumbled into this topic right now.

I've watched the show from day one. It's one of those things that I should stop watching, but I keep going anyway.

Oh yeah I totally get that. In the build-up to the How I Met Your Mother finale, I binged the entire series including 3 seasons I hadn't seen before. I watched that show on and off for five years of my life - I was ten when I started watching it.

I was so invested in the final payoff and I felt like I *needed* to be there for the end of the show. That ending was so disappointing I don't even miss the show itself. I won't go back to it unless someone else puts it on.

I also felt this way about the last three seasons of Doctor Who. Loved Whitaker's Doctor dearly, but fuck me they botched the writing. I'm just along for the ride at this point.

The Liz Keen hate on IMDB is absolutely fucking wild. Remember that episode, Brothers or something, that's about Ressler and his brother dealing with the death of their father? There are IMDB reviews with like six stars or less that say "this would have been an easy 8 or 9, but I'm taking three stars away because Elizabeth Keen was in the episode. The episode I just watched, Misre, is the one where she comes back after nine episodes - it's sitting at a 4.9/10 on IMDB. I'm pretty sure it's the lowest rated episode of the show.

Okay a couple points I want to bring up as I read over some old threads:

- Remember when they made a blatant clip show in season two?

- I'm still firmly in the camp that Reddington is Katarina Rostova as a post-op transman. How else would Reddington have escaped from Alexander Kirk? And even in the first season, there are so many tantilizingly relevant hints.

- Bro I thought Charlene was gonna dump Harold in season 3, and then she reveals she was FUCKING THE NEIGHBOUR HOLY SHIT. That was a really funny moment of the show for me.

- The guy playing Mattias Solomon was fantastic. They wasted him on Redemption.

- Actually speaking of The Blacklist: Redemption, why the fuck was it not like a suicide-squad show full of former Blacklisters doing covert ops? Instead we get Locke from Lost and a cast of all-new characters who have crazy sci-fi tech. I know the main show is unrealistic, and episodes like the Cyranoid have eye-cam contact lenses and stuff, but it felt so out of place in Redemption and there weren't even fun cameos like Gina Zenatakos or anyone related to Tom's past. I binged it in a day, I didn't like it. What a disappointment.

- The music they pick for this show is great a lot of the time. Any time Gordon Lightfoot comes on, shit's gonna go down - If You Could Read My Mind was such a pleasant surprise. They also used a song by the Weepies, which I can only explain with a screenshot:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/4/6/AAbh80AAD5Aq.jpg

So imagine how hype that shit was.

- High point of the show was the Mr Kaplan revenge arc. That's where the show peaked.

- The beginning of the end was season six. The president wants to kill his wife because she wants to tell the police he ran over a child. That carries significantly less weight after 2016 and 2020, where we know the public would not only excuse that shit but take up arms and attack government institutions if the president was prosecuted.

- The show jumped the shark when the Real Killer of the episode was a sentient AI.