The Blacklist season 5, episode 2 review: Reddington, Liz and an art caper

With Liz by his side, Reddington has started to rebuild his empire – to be fair he only has 2 cons from the circus helping him, but it’s a start. The premiere of The Blacklist brought us a lot of what we loved about the first season of the show and has set us up for a really fun season 5. Ressler got away with murder, but is being blackmailed by the fixer, Samar and Amir are in an office romance and Tom is home with a suitcase full of problems for Liz and Reddington. There’s a lot to unpack going into our Blacklist season 5, episode 2 review, so we are going to dive right in.

The suitcase

Now that Tom is back he has thoughts of making things official with Liz as he brings up the idea of getting married since their first wedding didn’t go exactly as planned and she’s receptive to the idea (which is probably not a surprise to most). Reddington is still trying to find the suitcase, (not knowing that Tom has it in his possession) and finally has a lead (that he has Dembe follow up on in the most interesting fashion – by cooking this person dinner in exchange for information (needless to say we are hungry now… thanks Dembe). Before he has a chance to figure out that Tom has the suitcase, Tom brings the bones to Nik asking him to help him figure out who is in the case, but knowing what it’s like going up against Reddington, he walks away. Tom goes about this another way, looking for the same man that Dembe is trying to find named Albert… but who will get to him first? Tom gets to the apartment where he finds Albert bloodied and beaten. Tom hides in the closet and watches as Reddington shoots Albert in the chest, but before he dies, he tells Tom to find Oleander. Luckily, Nik changes his mind and is willing to help after all, so we are hoping to find out more answers about who is in the suitcase next week.

Reddington rebuilds

Cooper wants Reddington to stop acting like he’s on summer vacation and start giving him blacklisters again, but to do that he says that he needs to get back in with someone as notorious as he was. So instead of giving Cooper a blacklister, he gets him to help him earn the confidence of one to align himself with this man – a man named Blaise. We love art heist storylines so this was delicious! Once he gets Blaise’s attention, he sets him up to take a fall with a fake stolen painting… a set up to take down Blaise from the beginning. So what was Reddington’s plan all along? Reddington wanted to rob Blaise of a few valuables as well as a thumb drive and while we weren’t expecting Liz’s reaction to this plan to be “cool” that’s exactly what she said before going with him to Blaise’s house to participate in this robbery. Needless to say, Cooper is pissed that he ended up with nothing, not even Blaise, but Reddington assures him that Blaise will be let go because the painting is fake and then hands over evidence for Cooper to put him away himself.

CarterMatt’s overall thoughts

The premiere made us feel like we were in season 1 all over again and episode 2 continued that glorious feeling. We aren’t saying that we haven’t enjoyed the past few seasons, but season 5 is bringing it back to it’s roots and making us feel like a love sick teenager all over again. Seeing Liz and Reddington on this beautifully crafted caper is a high that we will be riding all week long until the next new episode.

If you missed our interview with The Blacklist showrunner Jon Bokenkamp make sure to check it out at the link here.

What did you think of The Blacklist season 5 episode 2? Leave us a comment in the box below and weigh in!

(Photo: NBC)