The Blacklist - S3E19 - Cape May
Previously on The Blacklist, ““Mr. Solomon”
Red’s grief drives him underground and in what looks to be an Opium den in the back of a Chinese restaurant. His interrogation of Nik yields no new answers and Tom is keeping Liz’s wishes alive, by keeping Red away from the baby.
An expensive cab ride to Cape May, New Jersey leaves him alone with his thoughts,until he spies a damsel in distress at a local diner. Her complete disappearance into the bathroom would give anyone else pause, but Red is likely used to seeing that kind of stuff. He heads to a local inn to hunker down for a spell, but first, he enjoys a sit on the beach to listen to the waves and watch someone try to commit suicide. This is the first clue that Red is losing it. There’s another man on the beach, using a metal detector to find “treasure”, but he doesn’t seem too concerned with the lady who walked into the water. A dip into the cold Atlantic and Red makes it back to shore with his prize.
Red is barely holding it together; he’s seeing people who are not there, left and right. Losing the damsel every so often isn’t helping matters, though she does reappear rather quickly, in the most random places. Over dinner, Red reveals the reason for his grief and self-imposed isolation; he had a choice between a woman and her child and he chose the child. Red never seemed the type to wallow in guilt and self-pity; this is not a good look on him. The damsel is being hunted by people who want to kill her; they won’t stop, which is why she walked into the ocean in the first place. Red, ever the gentleman, refuses to leave her behind or allow her to deal with it alone. That’s admirable, but what’s the point? Knock her ass out and bounce. Since she’s determined to deal with the men who are determined to kill her, they set up the inn for warfare.
Eight gruesome deaths later, it’s time to clean house and finally leave, when the damsel disappears again. A trip through the inn, no damage to be seen—no blood, no bodies, Red realizes, just like Biggie said, it was all in his head.
Best line “That’s every suicide. Every single one. An act of terror perpetrated against everyone who’s ever known you, everyone who’s every loved you. The people closest to you -the ones who cherish you, are the ones who suffer the most pain. The most damage.” ~Red
The Blacklist S3E19
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Plot - 5/105/10
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Dialogue - 6/106/10
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Action - 8/108/10
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Performances - 6/106/10
Summary
I had hoped with Liz absent, something remarkable would happen: an interesting plot and therefore a great episode. We got neither. Nope, just another lackluster episode, where instead of seeing Red demolish enemies with his evil wit and maybe a bullet or two, we saw him slip into a hallucination-filled depression. Don’t get me wrong, depression and grief are very real things that manifest in all types of ways. Had the writers done a better job of fooling me into thinking she was anyone other than Masha/Liz’s mom, it would have been great, but it was obvious right away. Not only that, it was clear it was all his imagination. She disappears and reappears at will, no one else could see her; much like the movie Shutterspeed, that Joey was supposed to star in on Friends. It’s all so been there, seen that. I hope the next few episodes are better. I need the writers to see the ratings go up when Liz isn’t there so we can get some much needed character changes.
I totally agree. They should have at least had a ‘blacklister of the week’ as well cos we spent far too much time with Red that the story suffered.