The Blacklist season 5: How could the time jump impact Donald Ressler?
Let’s start to circle back to where things were for Ressler during the first half of season 5, where the death of Laurel Hitchin came back to bite him in an enormous way. We’ve personally come to know Ressler as a very moral man, someone who tries to follow the letter of the law in almost every circumstance he can. With everything that has happened it has put Ressler in a very grey area which he is really not used to – we also suspect he probably hasn’t gotten much in the way of sleep since this all went down.
Due to what Henry Prescott knows he’s got Ressler by the throat and has made him do things we never imaged Ressler doing in a million years. Prescott has been able to get him to do his dirty work for him (that includes such things as getting a car out of evidence that has a dead body in the trunk) and because Ressler acquiesced the first time, he’s in so deep now that he can’t get out without implicating himself in all of these misdeeds.
So what will have happened to Ressler during the ten-month jump? One of the most interesting scenarios we could see is Ressler becoming a man who is far more clouded in moral ambiguity than he once was — he may be doing all sorts of shady stuff in order to save his own hide and building up a wall so he can live with himself. He could be the new version of Tom Keen with an FBI badge.
Or, maybe he’s someone who decided to murder Prescott in order to ensure his own safety? There is something fairly interesting that goes along with that, with the main downside being that if he does that, since he can never come back from something like that. The death of Laurel was an accident and if he had gone about it the right way when it happened, Prescott never would’ve had power over him. Premeditating murder is something that we would never think Ressler to be capable of, but desperate men can sometimes do desperate things and he is in this very interesting grey area.
One other question that we do wonder is this: How much does he miss Liz? It’s no secret that Liz and Donald don’t see eye to eye on everything, but when she worked with the Task Force she was a valuable part of it. We wonder if Liz’s absence, (due to her being in a coma) has caused Ressler to adopt more of her characteristics. That could include a better relationship with Reddington. One of the more interesting carrots dangling over Ressler’s head was the offer of help from Reddington. If he ends up biting on that, what could that mean in terms of his relationship with Reddington? It’d certainly throw him deeper into that moral gray area, but in the process, it’d gain him a new ally.
Where you think the story on The Blacklist season 5 is going to pick up for Donald Ressler after the time jump? Be sure to share below!
(Photo: NBC.)