S03.E21: Susan Hargrave

[Tara Ariano]

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Red connects an elegant yet dangerous woman to recent tragic events, leading the task force into a perilous cat-and-mouse game.

[AimingforYoko]

Ah, Red being Red, it was good to see. Red monologues like a mofo, but when it's time to shoot, he doesn't hesitate.

I don't know about this spinoff, though. I like Famke Janssen, but I don't know if she can chew the required scenery.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Tom was on game tonight -- very smooth moves on that woman to get access to her laptop.

I don't know who has been writing for Aram -- but they need to stop with his unending "Liz was the best, Tom tell me you loved her too" nonsense, as well as his unrequited crush on Samar.  Are the writers completely forgetting that they had Samar bang Ressler for no apparent reason -- and Amar was totally pissed about it to the point that he forced Ressler to apologize to Samar during the middle of a bomb defusal.  Yeah, that happened.

What was the point of putting the oil shipment shenanigans in the Netherlands ?  It was just all so underwhelming.

Red finally starts to go medieval on people in his revenge for Lizzie -- as promised 3 episodes ago -- I guess he just took his time getting around to it.

Much like @AimingforYoko, I'm really not feeling the spinoff either.

[Primetimer]

Even if they are only here to prep the launch of that Liz-free spinoff on the horizon.

View the full article

[Free]

47 minutes ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

Tom was on game tonight -- very smooth moves on that woman to get access to her laptop.

I don't know who has been writing for Aram -- but they need to stop with his unending "Liz was the best, Tom tell me you loved her too" nonsense, as well as his unrequited crush on Samar.  Are the writers completely forgetting that they had Samar bang Ressler for no apparent reason -- and Amar was totally pissed about it to the point that he forced Ressler to apologize to Samar during the middle of a bomb defusal.  Yeah, that happened.

What was the point of putting the oil shipment shenanigans in the Netherlands ?  It was just all so underwhelming.

Red finally starts to go medieval on people in his revenge for Lizzie -- as promised 3 episodes ago -- I guess he just took his time getting around to it.

Much like @AimingforYoko, I'm really not feeling the spinoff either.

Red had to wait and drag it out until near the finale.  Aram is a glorified cheerleader.

20 minutes ago, PreviouslyTV said:

Even if they are only here to prep the launch of that Liz-free spinoff on the horizon.

View the full article

Judging by the Liz free episodes, it's really telling that her character was completely unneeded, all they do is have Aram glorify this bland character, but there's nothing missing in her absence whatsoever.

[ottoDbusdriver]

23 minutes ago, Free said:

Judging by the Liz free episodes, it's really telling that her character was completely unneeded, all they do is have Aram glorify this bland character, but there's nothing missing in her absence whatsoever.

I wonder who was watching Baby Agnes while Tom was smooching his way through his covert op.  Sure it was premature delivery, but the baby can't still be in the hospital.  Agnes is a super-special baby after all, and will probably be key to Fulcrum 2.0.

And still no sign of either of Tom/Lizzie's dogs.  I wonder if Tom will be taking Agnes and the dogs to the spin-off.

Edited May 6, 2016 by ottoDbusdriver

[Sparger Springs]

27 minutes ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

I wonder who was watching Baby Agnes while Tom was smooching his way through his covert op.  Sure it was premature delivery, but the baby can't still be in the hospital.  Agnes is a super-special baby after all, and will probably be key to Fulcrum 2.0.

And still no sign of either of Tom/Lizzie's dogs.  I wonder if Tom will be taking Agnes and the dogs to the spin-off.

Baby Agnes has already hidden fulcrom 2.0 in her binky. 30 years from now she will remember where she put it. Red will of course still be alive and shooting anyone who looks at him sideways.

[Drusilla]

3 hours ago, Sparger Springs said:

Baby Agnes has already hidden fulcrom 2.0 in her binky. 30 years from now she will remember where she put it. Red will of course still be alive and shooting anyone who looks at him sideways.

But the rest of us will have lost the will to live...

[mertensia]

Yeah I'm siding with Cynthia. The guy has a gun, there's no reason to believe he won't shoot, he's getting the truth.

[desertflower]

It was fun seeing Tom back in his "teacher look." That girl sure was trusting, inviting a random dude she just met to her house for a date. She's lucky he's a nice killer. He's good at multitasking, too. Smooth move removing the flash drive while simultaneously making out. 

I'm not really missing Liz either. I never disliked her as much as some others, but she was definitely the least interesting character. I would be MUCH more upset to lose Dembe or Aram or even Ressler than I am to lose her.

The cop who abducted Red was Deacon from King of Queens! He looks a lot different but I recognized his voice.  

[Texasmom1970]

Might be good doctors or the magic of makeup but I thought Famke was looking pretty good for 51. Glad to see Dembe. Even when does not speak I find him infinitely more interesting that Liz ever was.

I love Aram but I do not want them pushing him and Samar. I like them both, but separately, especially since she has already slept with one co-worker. Not that I can fault her for that If I worked with Ressler I would find myself looking at him instead of doing my job. 

[milkyaqua]

Meh, I guess next will make this supposed pilot clearer?  We know Famke, Ryan Eggold and Edi Gathegi (Mr. Soloman) are all part of this pilot that hasn't yet been picked up officially but what sort of contortions are they going to go through to have it make sense?  Not that that's ever really mattered on The Blacklist in general.

[HawaiiTVGuy]

There is a spinoff in the works?  Whoa...maybe Liz IS dead!  

[Gregg247]

My favorite line of the night was when Tom showed up at the FBI office and Ressler said, "Oh, the new Agent Keen."

I wasn't impressed with the characters they're lining up for the spin-off.  So it's Jean Grey and Darwin from the X-Men vs. Ultron from the Avengers.  Good to know.

I still don't miss Liz.  Am I dead inside?

[AbsoluteShower]

13 hours ago, Gregg247 said:

My favorite line of the night was when Tom showed up at the FBI office and Ressler said, "Oh, the new Agent Keen."

Also, show, stop calling her "Agent Keen"! As far as I'm aware, after you get fired from the FBI for killing the Attorney General, you don't get to keep your title...

[ottoDbusdriver]

37 minutes ago, sharkfan said:

Also, show, stop calling her "Agent Keen"! As far as I'm aware, after you get fired from the FBI for killing the Attorney General, you don't get to keep your title...

So much this. She hasn't been an agent for numerous episodes now.  They definitively revoked her agent status after the deal was brokered after she shot and killed the Attorney General and had been on the run for so long.

And yet Contractor Keen somehow managed to get a police-escorted funeral procession from the church to the cemetery.

[pcta]

Loved the Reddiness of this episode, the ambiguous ethical standards. Tom and the rest of the gang - great.  Can't tell you how much better I find this show is without Keen.

[Kelda Feegle]

So good to see the real Red back - lets just forget the previous two boring episodes ever happened shall we?

[dwmarch]

On 5/6/2016 at 7:58 AM, Texasmom1970 said:

I love Aram but I do not want them pushing him and Samar. I like them both, but separately, especially since she has already slept with one co-worker. Not that I can fault her for that If I worked with Ressler I would find myself looking at him instead of doing my job. 

Actually that reminds me that Tom's advice to Aram was something that stood out to me as a spectacularly bad idea. As this show has already shown us, if a gal feels "that way" about you she'll either fuck you or tell you... in that order. And Aram has never been told, much less the other thing.

[Danielg342]

A thought hit me as I was watching this episode- if the show is being mum on Lizzie being dead just because they're not sure if the character has a future with the show, why didn't they just decide to kidnap her and have her kidnapper get away? It would be simpler, the effects would largely still be the same and if the show determines Lizzie will come back, they can rescue her, while finding her dead body if they don't.

The lengths this show could have gone if they just, for once, "kept things simple".

As for this episode...another thing that amused me was that the writer decided the best way to hack into Amanda Bigelow's computer was to get her on a date with "Reggie", or Tom. Now, I'm not saying that Tom is some schlub who wouldn't be able to get a date...I completely buy that Tom could woo a lot of women. What I'm saying is that, in general, Hollywood seems to believe this idea would work more often than it would in real life...not even champion seducers score with everyone they try to seduce. I will give this writer credit in that "Tom seducing Amanda to get to her laptop" was something Tom thought of on the fly when he picked something up at the scene, but, I'm thinking, just once I would like to see the seducer fail.

I mean, a lot of things broke in Tom's favour- Bigelow was single, Tom would charm her so well that she'd invite him back into her home (and that she'd decide to go there anyway- she could have offered sex at his house, for instance), she would fall for Tom's ruse, she'd leave her laptop conveniently open (and not locked with a password) enabling Tom to get at it, she'd be very eager to sleep with Tom, she'd be away from her computer changing her shirt in order to give Tom enough time to insert the flash drive, she'd even feel like changing her shirt (c'mon...if she was so into Tom that she'd have sex with him, why wouldn't she just think, "don't worry about spilling the wine on me...I'll just take off the shirt anyway!")...and that's just off the top of my head.

Furthermore, you have to ask questions about a company who thought so well of security that they gave Bigelow an encrypted computer that they didn't think to hire someone who would be just as interested in security as they are. I would think the company would want someone who would think twice before letting a stranger into her home, as well as someone who thinks about locking her phone and her laptop.

I also find it hard to believe expert hacker Aram Mojtabi couldn't find some other way into Bigelow's computer...he's supposed to be able to best every other kind of system, why couldn't he do it here? Besides, if the flash drive could get past Bigelow's security system when the computer is "open" why couldn't it do it at the coffee shop? It's not like Bigelow had the computer locked then.

I think a lot of things good about this episode was the acting...Famke Janssen was great. James Spader was his usual self, and I thoroughly enjoyed his monolguing. Ryan Eggold, Harry Lenix, Alyssa Bresnahan (Cynthia Rand) even Sarah Hunt (Bigelow) who I think had quite the chemistry with Tom (Tom seems to do far better with minor characters than he seems to do with the people the show actually pairs him off with). The writing...well, it goes without saying, it was weak. Perhaps the biggest issue was at the airport...if Red was supposed to be killed, why didn't the guard just kill him and drag his dead body down the stairs? Why would he care about Red's story? Then there was the business in the Netherlands...you knew it wouldn't work, because law enforcement agents on this show are poor at their jobs (also, why would the Dutch allow American police officers on their soil so soon?) and it was pretty lucky that the SWAT guy found an empty container.

Oh, and all that precious cargo? You knew Red would swipe it anyway. Since when does Red not get what he wants?

At the end of the day...it was all this...just to get to Alexander Kirk. Who I hope won't be a waste. I do have some hope because Ulrich Tomassen was Sasha Davidov in The World Is Not Enough, but sometimes that's not always a guarantee.

Episode Grade: C. Lot of writing deficiencies, but it was still mildly entertaining. Of course, it's really all about next week.

[Ottis]

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Judging by the Liz free episodes, it's really telling that her character was completely unneeded, all they do is have Aram glorify this bland character, but there's nothing missing in her absence whatsoever.

Other than the fact Red mentions her death now and then, I don't even think of Lizzie.

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So good to see the real Red back - lets just forget the previous two boring episodes ever happened shall we?

They were both good episodes. They transitioned Red from despair (his, not viewers, who were celebrating) to action, and left Lizzie behind. Maybe they will be viewed as a turning point, when this show became better.

I admit I wasn't impressed with the Halcyon kidnapping attempt. No one considered Red might have backup, especially when one of the kidnappers was aweak link? BTW, sad to see him be collateral damage. No Bahamas beach house for him.

[Dowel Jones]

I wonder what the plan was for the containers full of hijacked oil barrels.  You don't just drive up to a refinery somewhere in Europe and ask them to start pumping heavy crude oil out of individual barrels without taking some sort of steep discount because of all the work involved.  Do they have people who fence the oil to someone else?  And the convoy alone would have to be long (noticeably long) in order to transport enough containers to make the entire enterprise worthwhile.

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BTW, sad to see him be collateral damage.

If he was dumb enough to sit up in the seat when the gunfight started, he deserved it (within the confines of the show, that is).  Besides which, he was never getting out of that meeting anyway.  Too much of a loose end.

[Drusilla]

Tom was on game tonight -- very smooth moves on that woman to get access to her laptop.

I don't know who has been writing for Aram -- but they need to stop with his unending "Liz was the best, Tom tell me you loved her too" nonsense, as well as his unrequited crush on Samar.  Are the writers completely forgetting that they had Samar bang Ressler for no apparent reason -- and Amar was totally pissed about it to the point that he forced Ressler to apologize to Samar during the middle of a bomb defusal.  Yeah, that happened.

What was the point of putting the oil shipment shenanigans in the Netherlands ?  It was just all so underwhelming.

Red finally starts to go medieval on people in his revenge for Lizzie -- as promised 3 episodes ago -- I guess he just took his time getting around to it.

Much like @AimingforYoko, I'm really not feeling the spinoff either.

Me either. Famke is bleh, Ryan is not Reynolds. Who cares??

[Drusilla]

On 8/5/2016 at 10:51 AM, Danielg342 said:

A thought hit me as I was watching this episode- if the show is being mum on Lizzie being dead just because they're not sure if the character has a future with the show, why didn't they just decide to kidnap her and have her kidnapper get away? It would be simpler, the effects would largely still be the same and if the show determines Lizzie will come back, they can rescue her, while finding her dead body if they don't.

The lengths this show could have gone if they just, for once, "kept things simple".

 

That would mean no weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth; no Red returning to "save the incompetent FBI YET AGAIN", no fake funeral like that other FBI agent whose colleagues didn't know she wasn't six feet under like they thought, being at her funeral and all, instead she was off in Paris swilling champagne under the Tour Eiffel, Agent Emily Prentiss, her...  no opportunity for "yet another big bad" or no zillions of teenage girls cwying on Twitter about poor Liz and poor Tom and poor ickle baby Agnes...

 

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Edited May 9, 2016 by Drusilla
double post

[Danielg342]

Red would still come back to help rescue Liz from the new "big bad"...everything else is spot on, though.

[thuganomics85]

Ressler is actually starting to become my new favorite non-Red character, between him calling Tom the new "Agent Keen" and then his "Of course!" response to finding out that Tom obviously has to end up going on a date with their target, who luckily enough for them, ends up being a single, attractive woman, who has a thing for random guys who bump into her at internet cafes.  It's like Ressler has suddenly realized his entire life is part a cliched, network show, and he's just decided to go along with.  He doesn't even seem all that upset about Lizzie.  Almost like he knows she probably isn't gone for good.

This episode was more enjoyable then the past ones, but it's still really hard to fully judge it, because I still think this is less about the actual Blacklist show, and more about just setting up this spin-off, so NBC can just take one step to only having only Blacklist spin-offs (hell, I'm just going to pretend Blindspot is one), Dick Wolf shows based in Chicago, and The Voice.  I guess Famke Janssen was alright, but it's not like she's up there with James Spader in the acting department.  And I couldn't stop laughing at that whole "I will use my sexual appeal to my advantage by having that random guy grab my boob because.... well, I don't know really.  Just grab my boob!" introduction.  I guess that was showing her power or something, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it.  Maybe that particular actor is a friend of someone, and his dream had been to always go to second base with Jean Grey...

Aram is starting to get on my nerves, sadly.  I usually like Amir Arson on this, but he's playing him so broadly that he's actually making Aram come off like he was in love with Lizzie.  It's just weird.  I won't even get into the bizarre scene where Tom of all people was giving him relationship advice about making a go with Samar.

I do kind of like how Harold is continuing to just not give a crap anymore about the rules, because really.  The FBI is shit and if feels like every single government official is corrupt or useless, so fuck the rules indeed, Harold!

[Drusilla]

5 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Ressler is actually starting to become my new favorite non-Red character, between him calling Tom the new "Agent Keen" and then his "Of course!" response to finding out that Tom obviously has to end up going on a date with their target, who luckily enough for them, ends up being a single, attractive woman, who has a thing for random guys who bump into her at internet cafes.  It's like Ressler has suddenly realized his entire life is part a cliched, network show, and he's just decided to go along with.  He doesn't even seem all that upset about Lizzie.  Almost like he knows she probably isn't gone for good.

This episode was more enjoyable then the past ones, but it's still really hard to fully judge it, because I still think this is less about the actual Blacklist show, and more about just setting up this spin-off, so NBC can just take one step to only having only Blacklist spin-offs (hell, I'm just going to pretend Blindspot is one), Dick Wolf shows based in Chicago, and The Voice.  I guess Famke Janssen was alright, but it's not like she's up there with James Spader in the acting department.  And I couldn't stop laughing at that whole "I will use my sexual appeal to my advantage by having that random guy grab my boob because.... well, I don't know really.  Just grab my boob!" introduction.  I guess that was showing her power or something, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it.  Maybe that particular actor is a friend of someone, and his dream had been to always go to second base with Jean Grey...

Aram is starting to get on my nerves, sadly.  I usually like Amir Arson on this, but he's playing him so broadly that he's actually making Aram come off like he was in love with Lizzie.  It's just weird.  I won't even get into the bizarre scene where Tom of all people was giving him relationship advice about making a go with Samar.

I do kind of like how Harold is continuing to just not give a crap anymore about the rules, because really.  The FBI is shit and if feels like every single government official is corrupt or useless, so fuck the rules indeed, Harold!

ALL of *this*. Someone send this to Jokenkamp (not a typo).

[Margherita Erdman]

On May 6, 2016 at 7:11 PM, AimingforYoko said:

I like Famke Janssen, but I don't know if she can chew the required scenery.

She's been honing those skills to a fine edge on How to Get Away With Murder