The Blacklist season 5, episode 1 review: Reddington gets resourceful, Ressler’s mistake surfaces
Tonight, we finally have The Blacklist season 5 kicking off and it’s going to be a very different dynamic on the show now that Liz has been clued in on her family relationship with Reddington. CarterMatt has never made it much of a secret that we feel the 30 year old blood testing leaves a cool little loophole for the show to wiggle out of if James Spader’s Reddington isn’t really her father and is in fact a Reddington impostor, but if our theory is correct we don’t expect to learn much more from it until we are deeper into the season. For now, there is a parental bond that has been created, so the dynamic of these two characters has changed now… and that’s not all that’s changed! Mr. Kaplan left Reddington’s criminal empire in tatters, so outside of his relationship with Liz changing, he also has to find a way to rebuild or move into something new, which is going to be a lot of fun to watch this season. Let’s dive into the premiere and see what’s in store.
The adventures of Reddington and Liz (and Tom)
First off, Reddington might be broke but that doesn’t mean that anything has changed for him. He’s still eating at expensive restaurants, smooth talking his way out of everything and grabbing some extra cash by committing grand theft auto and selling the cars. Not being as flush as he used to be hasn’t changed much in Reddington, but he has slowed down a bit to enjoy the finer things in life like sitting by the motel pool and making friends with his neighbors. Just because he doesn’t have his old connections, he’s still just as resourceful as he used to be, so he heads to a bail bondsman to get a name and become a bounty hunter. After a huge adventure that reminded us of Trains, Planes and Automobiles, we saw Reddington get his first two allies to help him get his empire rebuilt. Also, we saw Liz and Tom reunite where she told him that Reddington is her father, leaving him conflicted on what to do with the suitcase. With a few flash-forwards to what looked like Reddington shooting Tom, we know that whatever is in that case is worth killing over.
Task force problems
The task force is more then a little worried that now that Reddington’s empire has crumbled, since he is not be able to provide Blacklisters like he used to, and with the task force under review they are getting nervous. The task force has a few other issues to deal with too with a big one being Liz and Reddington being related. The team knows their connection, but the new director doesn’t since that will likely be a problem for them. Also, how cute are Aram and Samar? Watching Aram try to tell Cooper about their relationship was priceless!
Ressler’s grey area
We were wondering if Ressler’s little murder was going to surface this season or if this beautiful grey area he walked into was going to be left in the past – happily we got to see more of it! Ressler has alweays tried to be a man that has tried to do things by the books, but after accidentally killing Laurel in the season 4 finale we saw him call in a fixer instead of coming clean – which has brought him into this juicy grey area. Cooper digs a little deeper and finds out that Ressler was the last person to see Laurel alive and that he left the fact that there was bad blood between the two of them. Is Ressler going to get caught? he’s pretty worried, but his fixer assures him that his set up is perfectly laid out and unless he turns himself in, they will see that she slipped and fell – and after forensics went through all the evidence they settled on it being a slip and fall. Looks like Ressler got away with murder, but his fixer found out that Ressler is an agent so now we are looking at a serious blackmail situation going on.
Overall thoughts
The season 5 premiere had it all – smooth Raymond Reddington, fast car chases, family questions and new bad guys for Reddington and Liz to chase down. This season is starting to feel a lot like it did in season one and we are excited for the show to get back to it’s roots with Reddington and Liz teaming up to bring in bad guys. They may not be Blacklisters at this point, but we don’t care since for us the show was never about the blacklister and always about Reddington and Liz. The one thing we noticed in this episode is that whenever Liz brought up Reddington being her father, he changed the subject… is our impostor theory is still going strong?
If you missed our exclusive CarterMatt interview with The Blacklist showrunner Jon Bokenkamp then make sure to click the link here where you can see what he had to say about the upcoming season.
What did you think of The Blacklist season 5 episode 1? Leave us a comment in the box below with your thoughts on the premiere.
(Photo: NBC)