‘The Blacklist’ season 3, episode 14 review: Leslie Jones shines; Katarina Rostova re-enters the picture

We’re not going to mince words when we say that Thursday night’s new episode of “The Blacklist” was not the strongest of the season. There was too much going on, we didn’t care that much about the Blacklister, and we’re still not sure what’s ultimately happened to get Tom Keen in such a pickle because we only saw so much of him and Gina.

Mostly, the big purpose of much of the episode to us seemed to be bringing forward more on Katarina Rostova as a chance to dive into more Liz Keen mythology in the next few weeks. Logistically, we get it; since Liz is about to become a mother, you want to try and show some other layers of her life and potential parallels. Right now, everyone other than Liz seems interested in keeping the child, and maybe going through this could convince her to not want to give the baby up, even to the seemingly-nice family that she found.

Random aside: We’d be willing to bet a ton of fake money that this family is constituted of some Reddington plants.

Most of the joy in this episode came to us from two separate but enjoyable sources.

1. Getting to see a little bit more of the DMV, probably our favorite place for all things Team Reddington. We don’t know why; maybe it’s because this is the only happy memory of a DMV that we have.

2. The wonderful cameo by “Saturday Night Live” cast member / James Spader superfan Leslie Jones, who is clearly one of us and we’re thrilled to see that she got this opportunity.

Now, let’s just wait until next week rolls around. That’s when we will get to the good stuff hopefully. Grade: B-.

(Photo: NBC.)