The Blacklist Review: The Major (Season 2 Episode 15)

Nearly every sitcom has an episode that they call the “clip show” episode. It’s one where instead of filming new scenes, the writers and producers re-purpose scenes from previous episodes that season or seasons prior in order to fill time. A clip show episode is important because it causes the characters to reflect on what has already happened and prepares them for what’s to come.

“The Major” is – very clearly – The Blacklist’s version of a clip show episode, as it finds Elizabeth Keen telling a judge about why the job she does is a matter of national security. In doing so, he forces her to tell him everything: who their criminal informant is, what kind of cases they’ve been on, what happened to her marriage, etc. which finds Liz (and us) re-living everything from the pilot episode through “Anslo Garrick” and beyond.

It’s clear from the episode that Liz is the mouthpiece of the series – that she is, essentially, being quite meta in explaining exactly to the judge what her life is about, why she’s stayed with the task force for so long, and what her connection to Raymond Reddington is.

It isn’t the most vulnerable that we’ve ever seen Liz, but it is the most honest we’ve seen her (final lies to the judge aside about the harbormaster and Tom). It was actually more of a therapy session than anything else. She is forced to confront hard truths from an outside source and she’s forced to examine her life from a view of 10,000 feet in the air, seeing how – when she separates herself from everything that has happened to her in the past eighteen months – it might look to someone on the outside. She admits that she doesn’t know why Red chose her. She theorizes, of course, but she doesn’t know.

And then, when the judge continues to press her about how all of these insanely dramatic things suddenly happen to her and they sound suspicious and made-up (like, oh, I don’t know, we’re on a television show or something), we realize what Liz does in that moment: she didn’t ask for any of it. All she wanted was to live a life where she went to work in the morning, came home to a loving husband and an adorable dog and maybe a baby. And it’s the first time that we, as viewers, can see what Liz sees: how jumbled everything is and how she’s literally just trying to wade through it all and keep her head above the water.

Unfortunately for Liz, things don’t go well: though Cooper covers for her and lies, insisting that Liz was at the harbor for a case, evidence surfaces of Liz’s discharged weapon with a bullet that had Samuel Aleko’s blood on it: the blood of a man she claims she never even met. Uh-oh.

Elsewhere in the episode, Red realizes that the only way to exonerate Liz is to find the truth of what happened on that boat. And the way to do that? Find Tom Keen.

So this week’s blacklister is a man called The Major, who essentially trains young orphans to become spies. And he trained Tom Keen. The way to The Major is apparently by kidnapping the Malaysian Deputy Minister (which the task force does because, you know, why not) who was one of The Major’s young recruits and knows where the man is located. (Apparently Red does not know this, which is on the VERY short list of things Red does not know.) Once the kidnapped Deputy Minister leads Red to The Major, the two men have a discussion about their pasts including Tom being hired out to Red and then him turning on Red once Berlin offered a higher price. Oh. Interesting.

“The Major” sparks a great exchange between Red and Dembe, where the latter tells Red that he needs to confess everything to Liz. And when Red admits that he doesn’t think he can do that, Dembe tells him that perhaps that’s his problem – he shouldn’t think, he should just do it. Essentially, this episode is all about actions and consequences: what we do affects us just as much as what we don’t do. It also begs the question of how far everyone will go to protect Liz.

The answer? Pretty far. Pretty dang far.

Additional moments/quotes:

• Since this episode featured so many flashbacks, we got to remember what Megan Boone’s horrible wig looked like in so many different scenes. Reminder: it was really pretty bad.
• Liz: “But DO NOT QUESTION where my loyalties lie.”
• Liz: “… He keeps us busy.”
• The judge was asking Liz a lot of really deep, detail-specific questions that had nothing to do with the murder she is being accused of committing. And when the camera panned to his notepad, he had drawn a diagram of how Liz is connected to Red and everyone else. Don’t trust the judge, Liz. He seems kind of sketch.
• I have never loved Elizabeth Scott Keen more than when she burst out, sarcastically to the judge with: “WOW, I SUCK.”
• Red: “Truth be told, I do love fried chicken.”
• Next week’s promo shows that Ressler and Red will locate Tom. I really hope Ressler makes good on his promise to beat Tom up. I just really want to see him beat Tom up.

What did you all think of The Blacklist’s take on a clip show episode? Did you think it was a lot of filler and not a lot of new action or information (as I did)? Or did you enjoy it? And did anyone miss that horrible, terrible wig?

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The Blacklist airs Thursdays at 9/8c on NBC.