The Blacklist season 8 episode 12: Where ‘Rakitin’ stands on the list

The Blacklist season 8 episode 12 is airing this Friday, and we know already that the title here is “Rakitin.” He’s a clear threat to Raymond Reddington because of his connections to the Man from the East. James Spader’s character is delicately towing a line between this Man and also the FBI, and he doesn’t want someone to snap the metaphorical rubber band. If Rakitin kills Harold Cooper, his entire operation could fall apart.

What we’re getting at here is rather simple: Rakitin should be fairly high up on the Blacklist, right?

For some more thoughts leading into Friday’s The Blacklist episode, watch what we’ve got below! After you check that out, remember to subscribe to Matt & Jess on YouTube! We have new videos coming throughout the rest of the season; you don’t want to miss them.

Well, we now have confirmation courtesy of promotional photos for this episode that Rakitin is #28 on the Blacklist. That feels about perfect, honestly. We’ve already seen that as good of a hacker as Rakitin is, he’s not exactly great at other elements of criminality. That attempt to “fake his death” was pretty feeble, so we don’t think of him as so threatening that he will be the one who unravels everything in Reddington’s world.

Given that we have seen this character on multiple occasions already, it’s only fitting that he be this high up the list … but we’re also glad that he’s not in the top ten. There are still some missing places fairly high up there. Think in terms of #2 and #5! We could easily see Townsend being one of them and the Man from the East the other, but if that is the case, what else is there for this show to explore in season 9? We have to think that there is one other high-level Blacklister that the show is hiding … unless the plan is to put Reddington himself fairly high up there.

Do you think #28 is the right position for Rakitin on the Blacklist?

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