A few weeks ago, I shared my review on Blacklist season 1, which really got me attached to the series, but watching the second season, I began to get more understanding of why Liz was brought in and what the show was trying to do with her. I now saw that this has gone beyond a random FBI agent out of nowhere trying to work with the most wanted man on their list.
I started to see that she was trying to understand right and wrong while working with the most dangerous criminal alive while she was slowly being overshadowed to the extent that those lines became blurry to her. Because the more she tried to dig deeper, the more exposed she got.
Raymond still remained the biggest reason why I continued this series, because I have seen his previous movies, and it has become so impossible for me to dislike how good and eloquent he can be, even when he's doing some dangerous things that get me uncomfortable.
What I liked about him is that he doesn't need to show himself too much or act as if he's dangerous, but the mention of his name is enough to bring fear to anyone's mind, including the president's. I also like how he talks, gets funny while telling his long stories, has a normal conversation, and at the end makes a decision that completely changes the life of the person or people he's talking to. He does not need to constantly threaten anyone because of his calmness and look with his homburg or fedora hats....
In this season two, I paid more attention to Liz just to know what she was up to because she got me angry with her decision at some point. Because after she discovered a little of Tom, her husband's identity, she was looking much more suspicious and harder. But at some point, I began to like her change because she stopped acting like a naive FBI profiler that always thinks she can easily read everyone around her when she first got the job.
She started to think outside the box because she was spending more time with Raymond and she started thinking just like him. This was probably when this season got me more hooked. Because seeing an innocent profile changing, not in a bad way, but like someone desperate to find answers.
Another character that always shows up once in a while in some scenes is Tom, and I can't ignore him because those little moments he comes in always carry weight. And his married life started getting more complicated after Liz discovered that the man he got married to was not who he said he was and that he had another life that she was yet to discover.
At some point, she began to avoid and dislike him, but she was still attached to him. And I saw their relationship in a way that feels less like a simple wife and husband betrayal and more like two married people trapped in something they never planned for, let alone understood.
I talked about Berlin in season one, and he was still the villain I enjoyed in this season because he had conflict with Raymond, which felt so personal and was not even about rivals. While Raymond was dealing with his own tactic on how to find him. They finally met, and the whole issue was about how much he hated Raymond due to their past experience. The misunderstanding between them.
I also liked that his special agent Samar Navabi was introduced to this new series. She was an addition to the special task force, and the way I see her, age did not seem to be intimidated by Red. And Ressler became more of a team man even though she didn't like the whole interaction between Raymond and Liz even though the job damaged him in a way. Also, Assistant Director of the FBI task force, Cooper, and Aram continued to do their part and made the series look more alive in a way that they did not just exist to go after criminals. Dembe also remained a loyal servant to Raymond.
The favorite episode, I'll say, I enjoyed most was probably the Luther Braxton episode where the whole series took me back and gave me more suspense about Liz's past and how she's probably connected with Raymond. I also enjoyed the season two finale when Liz, who was on the run, finally killed Tom Connolly, the US attorney general who framed Liz and wanted her gone. This act made Liz a fugitive, and she became closer to Raymond. This showed how far she had moved from the Liz I first saw in season one.
Still, what I seem not to like about this season is how the show keeps introducing another mystery before the previous one gets solved. It was all linking into each other, and I guess this was what gave it more suspense than I can't even predict, unlike other series.
I like the slow transformation of Liz. It was not a rush because she was finally realizing who she is and finding out her own story. I also liked when Raymond told her to start thinking like a criminal, which she eventually got to understand along the line.
This season two was mainly about Liz, and I like how they put it because what I saw was not Liz just catching criminals; I saw how much of herself she lost while trying to. So, I'll give this session two a 9.6/10
imdb images
Other images are screenshots from my movie player
Rating: 96/100
Originally posted through scrobble.life/tv.