I’d like to preface this
review by saying that I personally found this episode rather challenging to
critique, which is the main reason why it has taken me so long to write this
review. The other reason why it has taken me so long is because I’ve been busy
with work, Christmas, as well as other projects. While I’d like to apologize
for me taking so long to write and post this review, I felt like I needed to
take some time to really think about this episode before commenting on it; that
being said, here are my thoughts on this episode.
When it comes to how I feel
about this episode compared to the first part of this two-part episode, I have
to say that I didn’t like this episode nearly as much as the previous episode.
The main reason for this being is that I feel like the previous episode had a
great deal of emotional sustenance and character development to go along with
the action packed nature of the episode. This episode on the other hand felt
like the exact opposite. I feel like this episode primarily action driven with
only a little bit of emotional sustenance, and if you ask me, that definitely
hurt the episode quite a bit.
Don’t get me wrong, I like
this episode and it definitely has some good moments, but every time I watch
this episode, I constantly find myself feeling like I’m watching an action
movie that’s 97% intense action and drama with only 3% of the movie being
devoted to character and storyline development. I know that most people like it
when a story is full of action, but I feel like this episode felt like such a
mindless action movie or TV show that sacrificed having any significant amount
of emotional depth in exchange for lots of action sequences, and as a result, it
actually led me to tuning out mentally quite a bit as I was watching this
episode.
At the start of the episode,
Anslo Garrick
was still hell-bent on getting his hands on Red, but Harold was refusing to
give Garrick the code to the box that Red and Donald were both locked in
despite the fact that Red was telling Harold to give him the code. While Harold
refused to give Garrick the code, Red got Donald to give him the code to open
the box by putting a gun to Donald’s head, which Red did once Garrick had
gotten his hands on Elizabeth and was threatening to hurt her. Once Red had
opened the box, Garrick managed to get away with him, which also allowed
Elizabeth to get away from Garrick’s men. Garrick’s escape with Red led to a
whole high-speed car chase and action sequence that I thought was more chaotic
than entertaining. It definitely grossed me out when Garrick’s men dug the
tracking device that Red was implanted with out of his body during the high-speed
car chase, but then again, I’ve always been pretty squeamish when it comes to
that kind of thing.
Garrick managed to get away with Red, and Red ended up being tortured by Garrick and a former colleague of his named, Mr. Fitch, who was played by Alan Alda. Mr. Fitch questioned Red about his relationship with Elizabeth, but that whole part of the episode failed to give the viewers any real insight into Red’s fascination with Elizabeth, which I found rather disappointing. (Sighs) In the end, Red managed to kill Garrick and get away after Mr. Fitch left Garrick alone with Red. The FBI showed up at the scene right after Red had gotten away.
Personally,
I thought Alan Alda was completely wasted in the role of Mr. Fitch. I have to
admit that I’m all not all that familiar with Alda’s work as an actor, but I do
know that he’s too good of an actor to be wasted in one-off guest-star role on
a TV show. Maybe if the producers bring Alan Alda back in a future episode, I
won’t feel like the writers wasted him in the role, but for now I feel like
Alan Alda was extremely underutilized in this episode.
Elizabeth,
Aram and the others spent a large chunk of the episode trying to find Red. The
task force ended up discovering that there’s a mole within the agency. At one
point in the episode, Diane Fowler announced that she was disbanding the task
force that’s dedicated to catching the people on The Blacklist and told
everyone that as far as she was concerned the only person on The Blacklist was
Red.
Honestly,
I have no idea who could possibly be the mole at this point in time, but the
whole revelation about there being a mole within the agency is definitely a
pretty interesting twist to have happen so early in the series’ run. I
personally can’t wait to see how that all plays out.
Once
Garrick had gotten away with Red, Donald was taken to the hospital where he was
taken into surgery in order to treat the injuries that he sustained in the
previous episode. Donald made it out of surgery and his ex-fiancée; Audrey came
to see him at the hospital since she’s apparently still listed as his emergency
contact with the bureau. They spent some time together talking to each other,
which makes me wonder if they might end up getting back together at some point.
Although, Donald noticed that Audrey was wearing an engagement ring when she
showed up at the hospital, so it looks like she has moved on. Up until the
previous episode, I always thought of Donald as just being kind of “there” and
his presence on the show never made much of an impact on me, but I’m definitely
invested in his character now, so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what
happens next with Donald.
Tom
spent the episode worrying about Elizabeth after Garrick had answered her phone
when he called her at the beginning of the episode. During the brief moment
that Elizabeth talked to Tom on the phone she insisted that he call the police
and tell them to come to the FBI headquarters. Elizabeth briefly went to their
house at one point in the episode, and Tom begged her to move to Nebraska with
him like they had talked about after her adoptive father’s funeral. I live in
Nebraska, so I always love it when TV shows mention Nebraska since I feel like
it’s a rare thing for writers to have characters that are from Nebraska on a TV
show or simply mention Nebraska in some way. I also always love it when the
writers for The Big Bang Theory mention Nebraska since the character Penny is
from Omaha, Nebraska, but I digress.
A
part of me has to wonder if at least a part of Tom’s desire to move to Nebraska
has anything to do with getting away from the criminal activity that the
writers have alluded to Tom being involved with. News flash, Tom! Nebraska
isn’t a crime free state, so if you think moving to Nebraska will get you away
from whatever criminal activity you’re involved in, guess again. For all Tom
knows, he could easily end up getting involved with criminals in Nebraska if he
moved here, or anywhere for that matter. Just because a person moves from one
place to another, it doesn’t mean that their problems won’t end up following
them wherever they go.
This
is a truly difficult episode for me to rate, because while I liked this
episode, most of what I liked about this episode had to do with the ideas for
future episodes that it presented, such as the return of Donald’s ex-fiancée
and Tom’s desire to move somewhere else, possibly Nebraska, while Elizabeth
insisted on continuing to search for Red and working with Aram and the rest of
the task force to try and figure out who the mole is. It will definitely be
interesting to see what happens with Elizabeth and Tom’s marriage since it’s
pretty much a guarantee that Elizabeth will continue to work with Red and the
rest of bureau, while Tom will most likely continue to try and convince
Elizabeth to move somewhere else with him. The way this episode ended also left
me feeling excited to see how Red will go back to working with Elizabeth and
the rest of the FBI since the task force has been disbanded, at least for the
moment. There’s also the fact that Red called Elizabeth that he was going away
for a while, but he told her that if she needs him, he’d come back.
Elizabeth
asked Red if he’s her father, but he told her that he isn’t and warned her about
Tom at the end of the episode. The whole thing about Tom apparently keeping
secrets from Elizabeth is something that I’m really anxious to see play out in
future episodes. I’m still not entirely convinced that Red isn’t Elizabeth’s
father. Regardless of whether or not Red was telling the truth when he told
Elizabeth that he isn’t her father, it’ll be interesting to see how long the
writers plan on keeping Red’s connection to Elizabeth and how it’s possible
that he knows so much about her and Tom when they don’t appear to have any
obvious connection to each other a secret. Aside from the ideas that this
episode presented, I found this episode as a whole to be very lacking compared
to the first part of the two-part fall finale. In the end, my final score for
the episode is based mostly on how I feel about the storyline ideas that the
writers presented in this episode rather than being largely based on the
episode as a whole.
That
being said, my final score for this episode is 5 out of 10.
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