‘The Blacklist’ season 2, episode 7 spoilers: Ryan Eggold on surprise return, story ahead

Last night, “The Blacklist” delivered its biggest “shock” of season 2, but the level of surprise you are feeling now may be solely dependent on just how much you saw this coming. Personally, we felt it was telegraphed for a mile away.

So Tom Keen is back, and he was the mystery that was hidden behind Liz’s door. What we’re mostly curious about right now is how in the world Reddington doesn’t suspect this as a possibility. He has to know that there are only so many secrets Liz could keep from him effectively, since he has so many people in different reaches of the glob. This is one of the few mysteries that remain.

We’ve already made our opinion clear on this twist in the review last night: We don’t like it at all, and we feel almost like it’s the worst thing the show has ever done. We like the Tom character a ton, but having Liz keeping him prisoner like this just seems to be a bridge too far for her character, who is almost unrecognizable now versus her season 1 self.

Nonetheless, we’re going to stick with the story to see if this story redeems itself, and if you love Tom, you can at least be assured that there is quite a bit for him to come. He appeared this morning on “Today,” and explained some of the story that he is aware of for the episodes ahead:

“There’s a good bit coming [about Tom] … What’s exciting is it’s kind of being weaved into the central mythology a bit, in terms of who this guy is and why he’s there. And some of the big questions — why did this whole thing start and why did Red come into Lizzie’s life — one thing may shed light on the other.”

 The only other reason that we’d say that this appearance was not a “surprise” at all was that they had Tom return to the show earlier this season in a dream sequence, where he surprisingly had facial hair that he didn’t have after season 1. If Eggold was done with the show, he wouldn’t have appeared then.

(Photo via NBC.)