S05.E17: Anna-Gracia Duerte

[MostlyC]

When an associate of the Nash syndicate is murdered, Red sets the team on the case in order to recover evidence crucial to bringing down Ian Garvey; Aram considers a step forward in his relationship with Samar.

[Neiman]

Glad to see Lizzie figured out that Red was behind the kidnapping of that witness.  I sure didn't want them to drag that out.

When the guy asked Red if an opossum has 13 nipples, I was stunned by the response.  I figured that was the sort of trivia etched in Red's brain.  

Overall, not a bad episode.  I've seen better, but I've seen much worse.

[ottoDbusdriver]

I thought it was boring.  Lizzie was there, trying to be tough on Red after she found out what Red did but ultimately wimping out.

They accidentally stumbled onto a Blacklister, which makes her ranking of # 25 on the Blacklist really lame, plus the fact she had only been active for a year.
The Kings of the Highway were in business longer than that, and they were really lame Blacklisters.

And they are really dragging out this Ian Garvey storyline -- it's just so dull.  The lyrics in the song over Red's episode ending conversation -- Time Moves Slow -- really applies to this show.

The travel shenanigans on this show don't even matter any more -- Lizzie went to Boston, and you could barely even tell.

Had zero interest in Aram's ring sub-plot.

Did like Dembe's 'therapeutic' line.

Edited April 5, 2018 by ottoDbusdriver

[Dowel Jones]

From Wikipedia, possums do indeed have 13 nipples.   12 in a circle with one in the middle.  That's all I got for this week.

[saber5055]

I hope that possum-nipple thing doesn't mean they have 13 kids every time. Ugh.

Lizzie gives Red a big old shove, it doesn't even knock pictures off the wall. Then she asks Dembe later why he didn't intervene. Intervene on what? Her beating Red up with her mean old words?

Of course Samar has had the same thing happen to her as those girls, because Samar has had everything happen to her because, you know, where she was born. I was sort of surprised the killer girl was so thrilled with "only" five years in jail. Unless it's the three-hots-and-a-cot thing that was appealing.

Speaking of hots, Aram did look hot after he gave that ring to Samar. Of course, what she really thinks depends on which hand/finger she put it on. Left hand, middle finger? I'm not sure, the scene was so quick. But what was the deal with Thai food? Samar kept saying if Aram didn't want it ... and Aram kept saying it was fine. Geesh, get over it.

I got a laugh out of Cooper saying to ask Red what he knows about the killing girl.

I don't get the Garvey story line at all. Or is there a story line? I don't care what's in that suitcase/now satchel.

On the shallow end, Lizzie either has gotten a better hair dresser or a better wig. She still looks good in a toque.

Meanwhile, this show ... *yawn*

[Chaos Theory]

The possum having 13 nipples is a weird biological trait because naturally speaking you can determine the number of children a species has by halving the number of nipples.   Naturally speaking humans should only have one kid at a time.  That doesn’t mean they don’t have twins and triplets and such but for all purpose humans have one kid at a time.   

[milkyaqua]

Yeah, this was neither the best or the worse; just pretty much there and marking time until Red gets his satchel back and Lizzie can put Ian Garvey down.  I can't understand why TPTB thought that dragging this out for the remainder of the season was a good idea because it's not.  At this point I doubt most of us care about the bones and certainly don't care about Liz getting revenge for Tom.  There better be a big payoff but who actually thinks this show will provide that?  I'll be stunned if after all of this I don't just wind-up saying to myself,to quote Peggy Lee, "Is that all there is?"

As for the "B" plot, yes, the pretty much accidentally stumbled onto this killer.  Even I know things like this happen even in the U.S. I still find it sick and disturbing but somehow The Blacklist doesn't exactly seem like the best way to get that out there although I guess something is better than nothing.

The whole Aram and the ring thing.  Why on earth would he ask Ressler for advice?  Liz is stretching it also and of course she was her usual not so helpful self but at least Aram gave Samar the ring and now that's that (hopefully).  This falls under that annoying TV trope of there's some big crisis going on and a character will bring up some personal issue that they somehow think is important at the time.  I can think of at least three shows in the past couple of weeks that have done this.  It's not cute and it just makes me roll my eyes.  I wish shows would stop doing it.

Edited April 5, 2018 by milkyaqua

[ottoDbusdriver]

7 hours ago, saber5055 said:

I don't care what's in that suitcase/now satchel.

Soon to be a Dora the Explorer backpack --- to appeal to millennial viewers.  I don't know, I got nothing.

Did Lizzie even mention Tom's name this episode ?  I don't even think she mentioned Agnes.

Still no sign of the dogs.

Edited April 6, 2018 by ottoDbusdriver

[saber5055]

54 minutes ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

I don't even think she mentioned Agnes.

Who is Agnes? What dogs? Tom? There's a Tom? *sarcasm*

[Dowel Jones]

At least she didn't yell in Red's face "This time I AM done with you."

[steelyis]

On 4/5/2018 at 10:40 AM, milkyaqua said:

As for the "B" plot, yes, the pretty much accidentally stumbled onto this killer.  Even I know things like this happen even in the U.S. I still find it sick and disturbing but somehow The Blacklist doesn't exactly seem like the best way to get that out there although I guess something is better than nothing.

 

 

The child brides plot had me grinding my teeth all episode. I remember the first time I found out America allowed that bullshit to happen in an episode of The Practice when--coincidentally--James Spader as Alan Shore, before the character was spun off to Boston Legal, was hired by a twelve-year-old girl to stop her parents from forcing her to get married. When the girl lost I could not sleep that night I was so upset (the episode haunts me to this day). That's when I realized consent laws are mild suggestions in the U.S. if we have legal ways to rape children.

 

On 4/5/2018 at 10:08 AM, saber5055 said:

I was sort of surprised the killer girl was so thrilled with "only" five years in jail. Unless it's the three-hots-and-a-cot thing that was appealing.

 

I think she was grateful about likely being sent to a juvenile facility instead of an adult prison.

(I know the penal systems has no problem sending minors to adult prisons but if they had sent her to a women's penitentiary I would have lost my god damn mind!)

Edited April 7, 2018 by steelyis

[milkyaqua]

12 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

At least she didn't yell in Red's face "This time I AM done with you."

Ha!  I know.  When she finally found out Red was responsible for the disappearance of the witness.  I was like, "well at least now she knows" and then just as quickly I was like, "not that it matters."  Though we did get the usual Lizzie being mad at Red and then just as quickly telling Cooper and the others that it was okay because Red had a master plan (insert eye roll).

At least one reviewer is wondering if after the resolution to this nonsense story-line whether or not Red and Lizzie's relationship dynamic will change.  If only because they think Lizzie should grow a spine but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that.

[saber5055]

14 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

At least she didn't yell in Red's face "This time I AM done with you."

Lizzie flip flops more than ... well, a pair of flip flops. "I hate you," "I love you, you're my dad." Gah.

2 hours ago, milkyaqua said:

At least one reviewer is wondering if after the resolution to this nonsense story-line whether or not Red and Lizzie's relationship dynamic will change.  If only because they think Lizzie should grow a spine but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that.

Their relationship changes multiple times every episode. Lizzie's spine also flip flops every episode ... now you see it, now you don't.

[VinceW]

On 4/5/2018 at 1:40 PM, milkyaqua said:

........ At this point, I can't understand why TPTB thought that dragging this out for the remainder of the season was a good idea because it's not. I doubt most of us care about the bones and certainly don't care about Liz getting revenge for Tom......

As for the "B" plot, yes, the pretty much accidentally stumbled onto this killer.  Even I know things like this happen even in the U.S. I still find it sick and disturbing but somehow The Blacklist doesn't exactly seem like the best way to get that out there although I guess something is better than nothing.

 

Samar: “According to this (underground chat room), over 700 million women worldwide were married as minors to adult men”.

Aram: “ Half our states have no age limit. More than 200,000 American children were married in the last 15 years. Apparently, all that's needed is parental consent or judicial approval”.

At first, I was taken back watching the scene with the team that included these comments because I was sure that the child marriage numbers were an exaggeration put forth by the writers to further the blacklist case, but according to the latest UNICEF statistics, these numbers are accurate which is just really troubling. However, according to UNICEF, child marriage numbers are now falling. UNICEF estimates that 25 million child marriages have been prevented in the past decade.

I would never have expected this kind of story to be part of a ‘Blacklist’ episode, but rather something that might show up in the ‘Madam Secretary’ series given that child marriages are more prevalent in foreign countries. The problem is most severe in Africa. The child marriage twist was a worthwhile distraction from the ongoing bones-in-duffle-bag plot which has been lost on most viewers after all this time.

Edited April 11, 2018 by VinceW

[saber5055]

17 hours ago, VinceW said:

“ Half our states have no age limit. More than 200,000 American children were married in the last 15 years. Apparently, all that is needed is parental consent or judicial approval”.

I thought this was pretty common knowledge, about the age limit anyway, not the more than 13,000 marriages per year. It also works the opposite way, when minors go to a different state to get married w/o consent. There have been multiple true stories told on tv about some guy getting a young girl's parents to agree to their marriage. This is something that could/should be addressed by state legislators, brought to their attention by the voting public, to get laws changed so these pedos could be arrested and the young girls rescued.

[CaptainE]

I applaud the show for highlighting the issue.  Not sure why parents would consent in this country though, unless maybe gold digging (see Melania).

Otherwise, I hope this is the last season of this dreck.

[Ceindreadh]

On 8/4/2018 at 4:43 AM, CaptainE said:

I applaud the show for highlighting the issue.  Not sure why parents would consent in this country though, unless maybe gold digging (see Melania).

Otherwise, I hope this is the last season of this dreck.

If the girl is pregnant then some parents would apparently rather they marry their rapist than ‘bring shame on the family’ by having a child outside of marriage. ?