The Blacklist is BACK, baby! Did you watch The Blacklist, Luther Braxton, after the SuperBowl last night? I’m going to talk so openly about it here that it’ll make you want to go back to Belgrade and smack a Beast if you haven’t seen it. (See what I did there? I slay myself, heh.) In other words, I’m going to spoil the episode in this post.
I can’t put into words how excited I was to see The Blacklist again! It feels as if it’s been forever since we saw the last episode and that reinforced my thought that I need more Red in my life! True to form the episode started with a bang and kept the action up all the way through. It’s raised a question, though, or maybe made me question the running theory I’ve had since I saw the very first episode.
Is Liz Red’s daughter?
I have another question. If Luther Braxton was just a thief before Belgrade, how did he know about the girl and the fire? I’m getting ahead of myself, however, so allow me to back up.
MacGyver Ron Pearlman guest starred as an incredibly believable bad guy on Luther Braxton. Coming in at number 21 on Red’s Blacklist, he’s planning to steal very important documents from the secret blacksite prison in the middle of the ocean. His being there is why Red got himself arrested in Hong Kong. He aims to stop Braxton from stealing these documents and gaining access to the world’s most powerful secrets.
In short, Braxton is after the Fulcrum.
Remember the Fulcrum? Fitch told Red to get it as it’s his only chance at living. The Fulcrum is information about the Cabal that could lead to their undoing. The Cabal, a consortium of the world’s most powerful people, haven’t killed Reddington because they believe he has it and has plans for it to be released upon his death. To say the Fulcrum is of utmost importance to quite a few people would be an extreme understatement!
I don’t do play-by-plays of TV shows (far too many sites do this far better than I ever could). I prefer to get into what I thought of as the ‘meat’ of the episode. That meat, for me, was Red and Liz. I’ve thought since the very first episode that Red is her father. SHE thinks Red is her father. Tons of people think he’s her father. After listening to their conversation in the boiler room (?) I found myself feeling a teeny bit of doubt. Red told Liz that the actual Fulcrum isn’t there in the secret prison but information that would lead to finding it was. He also told her that he hadn’t wanted her there at the prison because Braxton might figure out that he can’t get to the Fulcrum without Liz.
!!!!!
Begs the question, why is Red in Lizzie’s life? What if he isn’t her father after all, that he’s just protecting his secret by keeping her out of the bad guys’ hands? His talk about the little fish that found themselves stranded in the dark caves in Mexico and had to adapt to their new surroundings echoed this thought. In order to survive in the dark they lost their pigment, their sight and even their eyes. They morph, so to speak, into these horrible looking creatures, having had to change from their former selves to survive. He compared himself to these fish, wondering if he’d gravitate towards a ray of sunlight were it to suddenly appear in the darkness. The girl and the fire from 20 years ago, that was his dark cave.
So. Is Liz his daughter AND the secret to the Fulcrum or is she just a path to this important and damning information? I still want to think he’s her father but, I dunno. The previews for Thursdays episode don’t do much to clarify. Braxton has her and is forcing her to undergo some sort of therapy to get her to relive the events of that night 20 years ago. All we can (still) say for sure is that she’s the girl.
I’m also wondering what comes after the Fulcrum. Berlin was the main over-arcing bad guy from season one. He’s dead and now the Fulcrum has taken his place in terms of big arc in the story. This is season two and I’d expect they are planning for many more seasons. If they’re playing the Fulcrum card now and how Liz factors in to that, what comes next? It surely won’t be over with the Luther Braxton story line as that concludes Thursday. We still have more to see from Tom I’d think, even though Red told him to never contact Liz again. You can’t drop a bomb like Tom having been working for Red all along and then never pick that story back up again!
The new guy that, I’m assuming, is taking the place of Fitch as the go between for Red and the Cabal (in whatever manner that works out to be), I get the feeling he’ll have a big role for the foreseeable future. Makes me think Red gets the Fulcrum or, at least, finds a way to keep it protected, thereby making the Cabal believe it could actually be released upon his death. Then there’s the Blacklist of 100 bad guys to watch through. I think we’ve only seen …. 30 so far?
I’m on the edge of my seat until Thursday! Please, let me know what you’re thinking about the show in the comments. Link is at the top of the post!