‘The Blacklist’ season 1, episode 6 review: Did Liz learn the truth about Tom?

After five weeks of cases on “The Blacklist” that felt far too procedural, this was the one that we have been waiting for. It combined the story of Reddington’s exploits with Elizabeth and Tom’s relationship, and gave us something that felt intelligent, action-packed, and relevant. We actually cared about everything that happened, and at first we did not know for sure that we would. There was no guarantee of a resolution, or that Tom was the guy that we were hoping that he would be.

Throughout the episode, we found ourselves mostly rooting for him because we hate the notion that almost every drama series that starts off with a married leading man or woman is somehow not with the right person, and they have to split up to go off and find their true love.  There’s also that issue of someone in a marriage always being a cheater, which came up tonight when Red told Liz that their target this week was Tom’s lover. This is not the sort of show that we want “The Blacklist” to be: Obvious. It’s also why we will throw something across the room in the event that reveal comes that Red and Liz are related. (Please, no.)

It did take a good 55 minutes until the answers started to come courtesy of Tom; the “lover” claimed that she had never seen him before, which may have been his literal get out of jail free card. Meanwhile, she outed Red as being involved in the shipping operation. So everything seems to be okay … or is it? The only problem here is that while Red seems to be the bad guy for now, the door is still far from closed on Tom being a bad person as well. It’s a little frustrating for the show to drag this out, since it is at least predictable now that the next few weeks will be spent with the couple in bliss, and then things will go south again.

For now, though, this was a thrilling “Blacklist” episode that contained everything that we would want to from it. While it may still be below some of the best of cable, this show is making a case for being among the best that broadcast has to offer. Grade: A-.

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Photo: NBC