The Blacklist season 9 episode 3 photo: What will the Skinner twist mean?

As you prepare for The Blacklist season 9 episode 3 on NBC this coming Thursday, let’s talk Reddington’s new role. All of a sudden, he finds himself in a position where he is the new Skinner. He has a new empire all around him! It felt through most of the first two episodes like a lot of his empire had disassembled; yet, things have been built back rather rapidly.

So why would Reddington really want this, and how will this title impact the show moving forward?

New The Blacklist video! Be sure to take a look at our take on episode 2 below. After you do watch that, be sure to SUBSCRIBE to Matt & Jess on YouTube — that is your source for additional updates and we’ll have a lot of them as we move further into the season.

The first thing we are imagining here is that Reddington’s title of Skinner will course its way through the next few episodes of the series. Because he’s now the head of this organization, we have to imagine that their interests will often collide with his own. We may also be able to meet some members of this organization, and we hope that he’ll be able to also bring in a few people of his own from the past.

What would his endgame be? For the time being, that’s the big mystery. It feels like over the past two years following Liz’s death, James Spader’s character could have re-entered the world at any time and chosen to be a criminal again. Dembe got injured, and that did require him to re-insert him into this world to make sure he would be okay and no one else would be coming for him right away. At this point, though, that seems to be tied up.

Our feeling is that before the events of the past two episodes, Reddington may not have thought it possible for him to be the new Skinner. Whatever he wants now, we personally think it has something to do with that new title. Otherwise, why take on the role at all?

What are you most hoping to see when it comes to The Blacklist season 9 episode 3?

Be sure to share right now in the attached comments! Once you do just that, stick around — there are more updates coming and of course, we don’t want you to miss any of them. (Photo: NBC.)