‘The Blacklist’ season 4 debate: Should there a unified Big Bad?

While we wait for the fourth season of “The Blacklist” to air on NBC a little bit later this year, it’s time to ask a quick, but important question: What is the show going to do in terms of villains?

Sure, in some ways, the argument can be rather-easily made that Reddington is as much the villain of this story as anyone. fter all, James Spader’s character is a criminal mastermind, he’s fiercely intelligent, and he knows quite a few things regarding how to survive almost impossible situations. He’s the sort of person who you easily fear if you are on the other side of him.

Yet, he’s not really the villain of this tale, is he? Given that he is seen as a protector of Elizabeth Keen, he is able to mitigate many of the less-than-desirable things that he does because you know that there is that capacity for further good within him.

With that, who will be the real mustache-twirler? Is it Alexander Kirk? While you can easily argue that his first appearance on the show was a little too mysterious for its own good, there is a rather fantastic argument to be made about him making a lengthy appearance that lasts almost the entirety of the season. If he is Liz’s father, there is a lot to be explored there. We just don’t want this to be a case where he, like many other “Blacklist” villains, lasts about five or six episodes and then goes away.

Regardless of if the new villain is Kirk or someone else, what the show really needs to do moving forward is figure out a way to break itself from the established mold and give us a villain who really can be feared, and a story that has time to build We haven’t really done a full arc that lasts a whole season, so for the show to establish some sort of consistency would be nice given that season 3 effectively rebooted itself at least three or four times.

(Photo: NBC.)