The Blacklist 6x15 Thoughts
Apr. 18th, 2019 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaOlivia Olson [No. 115]
+ Oh, Aram. Him stealing 60 million from Red and then trying to blackmail Red into taking him to Samar was such an Aram reaction and I loved it. I'm really glad the show went this route instead of vengeance-seeking Aram and I'm hoping that him understanding why Samar and Red both did what they did will help him move on.
+ The Red/Aram scenes were really great. They've always worked well together. I loved Red giving Aram the "friends and family discount".
+ So Red was talking about Liz, staying out of her life to keep her from being a target, but also maybe Katarina? He assured Liz that Katarina was dead but the way he talked here made me wonder. Does he suspect that Katarina may have survived but has convinced himself that she had to have died and has refused to look into it any more because he knows if she did survive he couln't act on that knowledge?
+ Some really nice Aram/Liz friendship. I liked that the episode opened with Liz worrying about Aram closing himself off, I liked her tell-asking him for drinks to drown his sorrows and him taking her up on it, and I really liked their last scene and the fact that she read his letter before he came back and they talked about it.
+ "You may consider it a badge of honour to have him as an enemy I don't." - Olivia. I loved this line. I love getting to see the legend of Red from other people's prospective.
+ I loved that Olivia had her own Dembe. His first worry was her escaping! I love loyal henchmen.
+ McMahan was genuinely rattled when Olivia called to tell her that Red knew about their connection which was interesting. Up until this point she has been so cool and collected with everyone.
+ I really liked how observant Liz was this episode - seeing the assistant being squirrely and getting him to break, and then at the end realising the guy who walked passed her was Olivia's accomplice.
+ Not surprised that Ressler is refusing to drop the search into the past/truth but still find it a little weird how completely Liz has dropped her desire to know. Especially the Katarina angle. Fine, Red's almost execution, in part because of her actions, have made her realise that she values Red and his place in her life more than the truth about him. But her mother? The reasoning Liz gives - that Katarina set up her father and made Liz think he was a traitor - doesn't really hold water for me. I'm actually rather annoyed by how much time Liz has spent on her father - remembering him, thinking other people are him, looking into him as a person - while so little has been spent on Katarina. Why has she cared so little? Why doesn't the fact that her mother could maybe be alive make her want to find out that truth? How this is playing out is not working for me. It would have made more sense if she'd decided to drop looking into Red but switched to looking into her mother and worked with Ressler on that. They could have still had Ressler looking into Red on the side.
OR, they could have connected the Samar/Aram situation to this. Liz learned that the Osterman Umbrella Company had a contract on Katarina and that it was a large part of why she killed herself. So tie the Liz and Aram stories together! Having them realise concurrently that Samar/Katarina made the choices they did to protect the person they love, that to continue to pursuing them would only put them in danger and the best thing both of them could do was to respect their wishes would have been perfect. That final scene between them would have been even better and more importantly it would have made Liz and her choices make so much more sense! And you could still have Ressler deciding to keep searching into the past on his own. Ugh, now I'm actually deeply annoyed the show didn't do this. Stop half-assing on Liz's motivations show!
+ Oh, Aram. Him stealing 60 million from Red and then trying to blackmail Red into taking him to Samar was such an Aram reaction and I loved it. I'm really glad the show went this route instead of vengeance-seeking Aram and I'm hoping that him understanding why Samar and Red both did what they did will help him move on.
+ The Red/Aram scenes were really great. They've always worked well together. I loved Red giving Aram the "friends and family discount".
+ So Red was talking about Liz, staying out of her life to keep her from being a target, but also maybe Katarina? He assured Liz that Katarina was dead but the way he talked here made me wonder. Does he suspect that Katarina may have survived but has convinced himself that she had to have died and has refused to look into it any more because he knows if she did survive he couln't act on that knowledge?
+ Some really nice Aram/Liz friendship. I liked that the episode opened with Liz worrying about Aram closing himself off, I liked her tell-asking him for drinks to drown his sorrows and him taking her up on it, and I really liked their last scene and the fact that she read his letter before he came back and they talked about it.
+ "You may consider it a badge of honour to have him as an enemy I don't." - Olivia. I loved this line. I love getting to see the legend of Red from other people's prospective.
+ I loved that Olivia had her own Dembe. His first worry was her escaping! I love loyal henchmen.
+ McMahan was genuinely rattled when Olivia called to tell her that Red knew about their connection which was interesting. Up until this point she has been so cool and collected with everyone.
+ I really liked how observant Liz was this episode - seeing the assistant being squirrely and getting him to break, and then at the end realising the guy who walked passed her was Olivia's accomplice.
+ Not surprised that Ressler is refusing to drop the search into the past/truth but still find it a little weird how completely Liz has dropped her desire to know. Especially the Katarina angle. Fine, Red's almost execution, in part because of her actions, have made her realise that she values Red and his place in her life more than the truth about him. But her mother? The reasoning Liz gives - that Katarina set up her father and made Liz think he was a traitor - doesn't really hold water for me. I'm actually rather annoyed by how much time Liz has spent on her father - remembering him, thinking other people are him, looking into him as a person - while so little has been spent on Katarina. Why has she cared so little? Why doesn't the fact that her mother could maybe be alive make her want to find out that truth? How this is playing out is not working for me. It would have made more sense if she'd decided to drop looking into Red but switched to looking into her mother and worked with Ressler on that. They could have still had Ressler looking into Red on the side.
OR, they could have connected the Samar/Aram situation to this. Liz learned that the Osterman Umbrella Company had a contract on Katarina and that it was a large part of why she killed herself. So tie the Liz and Aram stories together! Having them realise concurrently that Samar/Katarina made the choices they did to protect the person they love, that to continue to pursuing them would only put them in danger and the best thing both of them could do was to respect their wishes would have been perfect. That final scene between them would have been even better and more importantly it would have made Liz and her choices make so much more sense! And you could still have Ressler deciding to keep searching into the past on his own. Ugh, now I'm actually deeply annoyed the show didn't do this. Stop half-assing on Liz's motivations show!
