[Content Note: Violence. Spoilers for the pilot episode of The Blacklist.]
So, last night, I watched the premiere of The Blacklist, because James Spader. Who, for the record, is now sporting what is probably the exact opposite haircut of his glorious mullet, if haircuts can be said to have opposites.
Anyway.
I requested that Deeky watch it with me, because why wouldn't I, and so we watched it together and had a terrific text conversation about it, an excerpt from which I will share with you now:
Deeks: James Spader is Keyser Söze!
Liss: Hells yeah he is.
Deeks: I liked The Blacklist better when it was called Silence of the Lambs.
Liss: LOL! That's exactly what I said to Iain after we saw the preview!
Deeks: Silence of the Lambs + Homeland =The Blacklist.
Liss: The other thing I said to Iain after the preview was, "He's her dad." I eagerly await confirmation of this prediction!
Deeks: He might be! Probably!
Liss: [quoting line from show] "You look much less Baltimore." LOL!
Deeks: Right?!
Liss: [quoting line from show] "I noticed how you stroke it." LOL FOREVER!!!!!!! Yeah, well, fuck YOU, buddy! I noticed how YOU stroke it!
Deeks: LOLOLOL!!!
Liss: Your neck is fucked, son!
Deeks: That carpet is ruined.
Liss: [quoting line from show] "He's fascinated with the things." This bozo's like a regular magpie, except with chemical weapons instead of shiny things!
Deeks: LOLOLOL this show.
Liss: You know how you hide your Bourne Box under wall-to-wall carpeting for easy access?
Deeks: Totally. So. Randy Roddington or whoever his name is had Clarice's husband stabbed so he'd bleed and ruin the carpet and she'd tear it up and notice the floor was cut and get out the crowbar and pull apart the floor and find his stash box? That seems a rather optimistic plan, really.
Liss: LOLOLOL!!! He's a SUPERGENIUS! Also: I love James Spader. This show is terrible, but I will totally watch it, lol.
And that about sums it up. What—you have no idea what the show is about from our totally trenchant conversation?! Huh.
Okay, so the show is about a SUPERGENIUS criminal played by James Spader, who, if you're not familiar with his work, is the philosopher's Nicolas Cage. (That makes almost TOO MUCH sense, when you really think about it.) He looks like the love child of John Lithgow and Susan Sarandon (tell me I'm wrong!), and he is a fine actor and a very witty person in real life whose rare appearances on late night chat shows are always delightful. All of which is relevant to this post, I SWEAR, because it makes him the perfect person to play the SUPERGENIUS criminal with devastatingly witty banter who is definitely #1 on the FBI's Most Wanted list for LEAKING IMPORTANT INFO (good one, NBC!) and walks his ass into FBI headquarters and gives himself up so he can help the feckless US government find only slightly less supergeniusy criminals than himself that the incompetent feds don't even know exist!
But he will only speak to Agent Elizabeth Keen! Which is SO WEIRD because it's her first day on the job and he knows EVERYTHING ABOUT HER whooooaaa he is creepy but also charming! (Aren't all SUPERGENIUSES?)
In the pilot, they stop a Serbian bomber together, of course they do, but WAS IT ALL A SET-UP to reveal to her in the most convoluted way possible that her husband is maybe a SUPERSPY?!
Okay. Thus ends the sarcastic portion of the post. Now I want to say, with all seriousness, that James Spader is really great in a show that, in all honesty, is probably beneath him, but I'm totally willing to give it a few weeks. Also? There is a scene in which Agent Keen's husband (before he's under suspicion of nefarious activity!) is held and tortured by the would-be bomber, right in front of her, and, while I never like the "put the significant other of a law enforcement person in peril to manipulate them" trope, because it is both overdone and gross, it was pleasantly jarring to see a husband in that position. So props to The Blacklist for turning a highly gendered trope on its head by casting a female lead.
There is a distinct dearth of other important female characters, though. And Agent Keen, played well by the lovely Megan Boone, is simultaneously written as a Damsel in Distress and an Exceptional Woman, so she is bearing the weight of a lot of Yawnworthy Lady Narratives all on her own. Still, there seems to be some interest in fleshing her into a fully three-dimensional character at some point, and, protip to the writers, that's always easier when there are other female characters around, so your female lead doesn't function as an Avatar for All Womanhood.
It was also great to see the wonderful Harry Lennix in the show, whom many of us will know from The Matrix, but he, too, is a pretty lonely representative for people of color. That will also need to change, if the show is to become something more than it is now.
