The Blacklist: Redemption finale review: The real puppetmaster

The finale of The Blacklist: Redemption aired on NBC Thursday night, and if there is one thing that we would say is the theme of the episode, it’s decisions. Multiple characters were forced into making some life-altering moves in terms of figuring out how to stop Scottie Hargrave, and if they even wanted to.

For Howard Hargrave in the episode, one of his most brilliant moves was finding a way to get almost everyone, other than Mr. Solomon, to be persuaded in order to join his side. Even if they did have a deep personal relationship with her, over time they started to realize that she was a sinking ship.

With that said, was she really responsible for everything that happened? As we saw the Whitehall prototype start to be put into action within the episode, there were some questions that were raised in turn. Specifically, we are wondering about whether or not she was fully framed by Howard, and if this was all an elaborate plan by him to make sure that her entire world fell apart.

Here’s the big twist — just as Howard is manipulative, so is Scottie. Tom’s mother made a desperate appeal to him to consider seeing things from her side, and reminded him that it was Howard who told him to keep things a secret from Scottie about the mission. She’d done a lot of wrong, but we did actually think for a minute or two that she was going to win him over.

The aftermath

The majority of the characters folded against Scottie as they were investigated by police over her actions, and also the Whitehall prototype that was being built in secret — and that Scottie supposedly signed for. She denied this, but it didn’t quite matter when the evidence was still there.

Well, here’s the first twist: It was Kat Carlson who apparently put two and two together. It was her former boyfriend and Scottie’s boy-toy who was behind the payments the whole time. Maybe Scottie is not fully innocent of anything, but at the same time, it’s starting to feel like she is innocent of signing for the supplies.

Unfortunately, Kat making these revelations almost ended her life. Instead, she got the upper hand and she ended the season a murderer. It was self-defense, but murder nonetheless. (Why did she lie there after bludgeoning him?)

With Scottie behind bars, Tom and his father celebrated, he invited Howard to his daughter Agnes’ birthday party, and the two parties went their separate ways. Unfortunately, there was an interruption in Tom’s plan to head back home: Kat showing up bloody at her door, with the information containing the truth that Howard was the traitor all along. We kind of saw that coming, but kudos to the writers for executing it in a way that made sense.

Overall

The finale for The Blacklist: Redemption was just about as good as its penultimate hour, as it managed to tell a good self-contained story about how Howard built an empire in secret, and managed to dismantle Scottie’s entire operation in the process. Not bad for short first season, especially when only a few episodes really focused on this plot at all. Grade: B+.

What is your personal The Blacklist: Redemption finale review? Share some of your thoughts now with a comment!

Meanwhile, be sure to head over to the link here in the event you do want to get some further news and insight when it comes to the show and its potential future on NBC. (Photo: NBC.)