The Blacklist: Redemption episode 4 review: More Whitehall questions

Last week, The Blacklist: Redemption had its best episode of the series to date, a bizarre but fascinating look at a secret Russian town where we saw people effectively being shipped off as operatives sporting the look of someone else. It was there that the series dropped one of its biggest bombs to date: Scottie Hargrave could be someone else in disguise.

Unfortunately, we’d say that episode 4 of the NBC series was somewhat of a step back, largely because of the fact that the procedural element didn’t bring as much to the table. Also, we do wish that the show spent some more time with Scottie and Tom in the same room together. We don’t necessarily want anything creepy like what we saw in the first episode, but we do want more of them together.

The meat of this case instead revolved around an attempt by Tom and company to stop some terrorists who escaped from a black-site prison in Manhattan. We had a few great moments (including Tom and Mr. Solomon staging a fake argument in front of the police), but then also many others that we won’t quite remember.

It wasn’t until the end of the episode where this story started to get interesting, mostly because Tom’s mission ended and his back-and-forth with Scottie started when things became interesting.

Scottie’s quests and conquests

We did not predict last week the big surprise when it comes to Scottie Hargrave potentially being a Russian operative, just as we also did not predict her relationship with Trevor. She knew that this was something silly that would not last, but still, we don’t blame her for wanting some sort of love connection.

The bigger story tonight was her continued search for her son, and any evidence that may be linking back to him. For a good percentage of the episode, it felt as though she was making big steps in the right direction. However, by the end of the hour we quickly saw that her quest went up in smoke. This young man was not Tom at all — he had a birthmark that Christopher Hargrave did not. This left her distressed and going back to Trevor, who was actually Dan and enjoying some time with one of Scottie’s employees.

Howard’s truth

What is Whitehall? At the end of the episode after the mission was over, Tom paid a visit over to Howard Hargrave, the same person who told him the “truth” about Scottie in the first place. They still didn’t make any progress on the subject of learning what Whitehall is beyond some secret off-books operation that hurt Howard’s credibility … and something that Scottie was clearly hiding, no less. He wants to use Tom to get to the bottom of it, and the more Scottie trusts him, the closer he’ll be to the truth.

In the end, we wish the show scrapped most of the procedural stuff altogether unless it’s intrinsically close to what’s going on with Howard and Scottie. This stuff with Tom’s family is incredibly fascinating and Ryan Eggold shines in these dynamics. The rest of the stuff? We can take it or leave it. Grade: B.

Next week

Want to see what’s coming up on The Blacklist: Redemption episode 5? Then be sure to head over to the link here! (Photo: NBC.)