‘The Blacklist’ season 1, episode 11 review: Who is Newton Phillips; is Reddington back?

After a pretty lengthy hiatus, “The Blacklist” returned to NBC Monday night with an hour that basically served to re-introduce a little bit of what this show is about: Giving us a villain for the FBI to chase after, and also seeing some more of just how crazy-evil Reddington really is.

What was pretty ironic about this episode is that we saw Raymond torture a variety of people in hopes of getting more answers when it came to Anslo Garrick, and he was somehow perceived as awesome. Then, we had a killer who claimed he was actually doing good. “The Good Samaritan Killer” was a man who was basically this show’s version of Dexter Morgan, killing men and women who were abusers. Reddington was actually somewhat detached from this case, and it was more about Liz Keen taking charge and hunting the killer down.

Of course, it was no surprise to see the killer taken down. This is the name of the game for almost every episode of the show; we almost expect it to happen at this point. The bigger surprise in here was that the “mole” when it comes to Garrick was someone by the name of Newton Phillips. Who was this? It was Skinny Pete! Seriously, “Breaking Bad” fans had to love this to a certain degree. He has only been in a few episodes, though (including the pilot), so we’re not sure everyone remembers him.

In the end, the death of Phillips meant that Reddington could continue his work for the FBI, at least until something else crazy came about. Outside of these excellent final few minutes, though, we cannot really say that there is much else to say about this … at least yet. Episode Grade: B.

Photo: NBC