The Blacklist season 5 episode 14 review: Martha Plimpton, John Noble steal the show
Liz in therapy
She needs to focus on is getting reinstated as an FBI agent (as it was previously noted: it’ll take a badge to find a badge), but this is going to be a bit trickier then she thought.
If Liz wants back on the task force one of the things Cooper wants is for Reddington to stop helping her look for Tom’s killer, at least not with his methods. They are willing to do everything they can to help Liz find Tom’s killer, but once she’s reinstated she has to enforce the rules, not break them.
Therapy for Liz was quite interesting to watch, because we do believe her when she says she wants to find revenge against Tom’s killers, but that if she can find another way to get closure that isn’t revenge we think she would take that. It’s been great fun watching Liz embrace her dark side and being the badass we all know that she is, but we’d like to see her find a balance between these two sides of herself and maybe this therapist (Dr. Fulton played by Martha Plimpton who we love!) can help her find that.
When Liz’s therapist feels that Reddington has a part to play in her reinstatement and wants to meet with him he gets bent out of shape about it – which was pretty funny to watch since it’s rare to see Reddington bent out of shape over anything.
The meeting between Fulton and Reddington was nothing short of glorious. She was straight up with him saying that he disgusts her and that he’s nothing more than a glorified serial killer. She tells him that reinstating Liz would be a no brainer if it were not for her relationship with Reddington, because although other children run from the sins of the father, Liz embraces them and that’s a problem for her being in law enforcement. Reddington reminds her that her purpose is to look at just Liz, if she is capable of returning to the force and that Reddington has nothing to do with that. WE all know that’s not exactly the truth, but they need Dr. Fulton to buy into it and we don’t think she is.
The Alibi
Normally we don’t dive too deeply into the blacklister of the week and focus our reviews on our main cast and what they are up to, but with a blacklister as interesting as The Alibi (Raleigh Sinclair III) we couldn’t not talk about him. First off he was played by the incredible John Noble who was nothing short of brilliant in this role. He was smart, creepy and felt that what he did had a certain artistry about it. He creates alibis for the crimes that people are going to commit and makes sure the alibi’s are air tight – like getting people to swear to seeing things they never saw, using doubles and creating patterns with the neighborhood where people see you on the regular. Very interesting concept and we wish that this story would have gone on longer than just an episode and when we see Reddington get Sinclair out of trouble (not arrested and not dead) we are hopeful that we will see him again.
A double-cross
When Liz finds Singleton in her apartment a second time he tells her that he needs to know what her relationship to Reddington is, but for that to happen she needs to know she can trust him, so she brings him to the task force where he learns all about the Reddington task force. Now that most of her cards are on the table, she asks for Singleton’s help to find the dirty cop that killed Tom and he tells her that he thinks that he can help her find him. On the flip side, Garvey is willing to sell out Singleton as a way to get to Reddington, but that’s not surprising. We think Garvey would sell out his own grandmother if he needed to.
CarterMatt Verdict
We never ended up hearing if Dr. Fulton is going to recommend Liz to be re-instated, but things are looking good. Also we know that for the story to progress it needs to happen, so we aren’t really worried about it. As much as we loved the stories of this week’s episode and watching Reddington and Liz do what they do best, for us this episode was as good as it was from it’s guest stars. Plimpton and Noble really stole the show for us and we want to see them again in the future.
What did you think about The Blacklist season 5, episode 14? Leave us your thoughts in the comment box below.
(Photo: NBC)