Ok, so I know I’m not Mr. On-the-Ball with this one, but, quite honestly, I’ve been hurting. Ever since The Blacklist finale, I’ve been overcome with a sense of injustice and frustration.
Ten seasons (and one failed spin-off series), that’s 218 episodes, came to an end back in July, bringing a conclusion to the Raymond Reddington story arc. Ten years of my life, I had been following the twists, turns, subterfuges and betrayals of the Reddington Task Force and its associates. And now it’s over.
But it didn’t go out with a bang, far from it. It took the most special character and flushed him down the crapper. He deserved SO. MUCH. BETTER.
Pain.
The Blacklist centers around Raymond Reddington (James Spader): number one on the FBI’s most-wanted list. At the beginning of Season 1, he surrenders himself to the Bureau, offering his services as an informant. You see, he may be a bad person (a thief and a murderer), but there are worse out there. He can help catch criminals the FBI don’t even know about. They can get ruffians without a sense of decorum off the streets and into jail.
Every episode revolves around a criminal on Red’s Blacklist, harkening back to a bygone era of “villain of the week”. It was an easy watch and, with a season consisting typically of 20+ episodes, it lasted half of the year.
But it wasn’t just a procedural cop show. There was also a mystery at the heart of it. Who was Raymond Reddington? Why did he suddenly turn himself in? And what was his relationship with Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), the FBI Agent he requested as his handler?
Ten freaking years and these questions, the very premise of the show, had not all been answered satisfactorily. Bits and bobs had been revealed each season, just enough to string you along and keep you engaged, but even now, I’m not 100% clear. I LOVE IT!
Or, at least, I did.
Let me talk to you about our main character, international criminal mastermind Raymond Reddington. Red for short. He is undeniably one of the best-written television characters from the last decade. He’s a classic villain. He’s a thief. He has violent tendencies. He runs an international criminal empire, the full extent of which we may never know. He manipulates every situation to his own advantage, sometimes actively working against the FBI team he informs for.
However, he’s a gentleman thief, preferring to talk through issues and only resorting to death-dealing when truly necessary. His long, drawn-out speeches conveying morals to his adversaries, teaching them the error of their ways, are iconic. Screw action sequences; when Red is sitting in a chair with a glass of scotch, that’s when you’ve got to be careful.
He’s loyal to his friends, especially members of the Task Force like Elizabeth Keen, Harold Cooper (Harry Lennix) and Donald Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff), and his friend and confidante, Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq). He’d do anything to protect them from harm, and when a team member dies, he’s distraught. These are protagonist traits, an unlikely protagonist, but a protagonist nonetheless.
All the while, he keeps his secrets, maintaining his mystery throughout.
Raymond Reddington is a f*cking all-timer. That’s what makes the ending so much worse.
In general, the quality of the last two seasons dropped. Megan Boone exited the show, and with that, Red lost his surrogate daughter and the heir to the empire. The ninth season was dedicated to determining the cause of Elizabeth Keen’s death and taking down the culprit. Fine. We had a legitimate reason for the guy in the hat to return.
In the tenth season, Red began to dismantle his own criminal empire, taking steps towards retirement. He didn’t want to leave his foolproof infrastructure in evil hands. Good on him. In doing so, he inadvertently alerts an ambitious US Senator to the covert Task Force, and long story short, Red ultimately kills him to save Dembe.
So it ends where it started: Raymond Reddington is number one on the FBI’s most wanted list, and he’s on the run. Except this time, his criminal enterprise is in tatters (which is his own doing), and the Task Force, now hunting him, is closing in. A set up to a barn-storming finale!
Then, he walks through a field and is trampled to death by a bull. A BULL! BULL-F*CKING-SH*T! After all we’ve been through. After all we’ve seen Red survive, finagle, manipulate and dodge, he’s done in by something so stupid as a bull. It’s disrespectful. It’s derisory. It’s a joke. He didn’t deserve to go out like that!
I can see what they were going for, drawing comparisons to a story from earlier in the season about Manolete, a Spanish bullfighter who found it easier to risk his life than live his life without risk. Hit me over the head with it whydoncha? “Red died on his own terms.” Give me a break! He didn’t plan to get mauled by a bull in a random field, so he didn’t die on his own terms. You can’t say someone died on their own terms if an airplane toilet falls out of the sky and smacks you on the noggin’ (shoutout Dead Like Me). Same principle.
Going out on his own terms would have been a standoff with the Task Force or taking down one last worst-of-the-worst criminal. Hell, going out on his own terms would have been taking a leaf from Hans Gruber’s book, sitting on a beach earning 20%. Something where he was in control. Just like he’d been in control for ten years.
The writers did him dirty.
Raymond Reddington is an all-time great character that I’m going to sorely miss. What a terrible ending to a beloved character.
Did you watch The Blacklist? What did you think of the ending? Am I overreacting, and if so, by how much? Tell me in the comments below.
