Blacklist - Suicide by Bull? WTF?

 All good things...as they say. But the end to The Blacklist was, for me, at least, disappointing. I was very happy with the writing up until the very last scene of the very last episode. Agent Ressler finds the dead body of Red Reddington in a field. He had been gored by a bull. So, yeah, like WTF?

In the show, Red had entered into a bull's corral, whether by accident or deliberately, (the writing did not make it clear.) But what was clear is that when Red faced off with the bull, he made no effort to vacate the area. He just stood there and waited for the bull to gore him. Actually, the bull seemed to be giving Red a chance to leave. But he didn't. And the last thing we saw in that scene was the bull beginning its charge. So, yeah. I've heard of suicide by cops, but this was on another level.

And, as I said, the final scene of the series is Ressler finding Red's gored and bloodied body. And very dead. A very anticlimactic ending, imo. We did have a eulogy of sorts, for Red, shortly before that, from the bed-ridden Dembe, which was fitting. However, for me, anyway, it would have been better writing if the camera never showed the dead body of Red. After the "bull" scene, I think it would have been better if Red was never seen again, alive or dead, by Ressler or anyone else. 

And if Ressler had never found the body of Red, then the audience could have fantasized that Red was living out the rest of his days somewhere with that very nice Cuban woman which the writers had established was very willing to do so. (You know, the younger sister of his former girlfriend.) Btw, about that. How was it that Red hooked up with his former girlfriend's little sister? That was never explained. Some people would call it lazy writing. But I digress.

A great character like Red Reddington, like Conan, should never be shown killed or dead. That's not to say he can't get killed. It just shouldn't be shown. It's what I didn't like about the final Daniel Craig Bond movie. Well, they really didn't show him killed, did they? (Nor did they show his dead body.) Okay, then, it is one of the major criticisms I have of the Star Trek movies because they did show Captain Kirk killed and even buried. (I hated all those movies.)

And yes, I do place the character of Red Reddington up there with my all-time favorite characters, which include Conan, James Bond, and Captain Kirk. Yes, indeed. Red belongs. 

One last comment. I never got my wish for the show to provide a definitive statement that Red was the biological father of Lizzy Keen. Although the writers were kind enough to put in the dialogue that he was the grandfather of Lizzy's daughter. I suppose that will have to do.