Blacklist is Back - But Do I Care?

 

Yes, season 8 of The Blacklist is underway. But do I really care? I do, but that care has been dwindling quite rapidly. Once upon a time this show was my favorite TV show. Oh, how times have changed. And during recent times, I have complained about this show more often than I have praised it. With good reason. It sucked the last two or three seasons.

I have lamented time and again how dizzy the female lead character Lizzy is. Thus the nickname for her, Dizzy Lizzy is more than apt. It suits her so well, in fact, that it should be her real name. Dizzy Lizzy. Yeah. Hollywood of late has become so obsessed with making strong female characters, (something I'm not opposed to, btw,) but in doing so, Hollywood has lost its grip on what, exactly IS a strong female character. Is this obsessive need for uncovering someone's "secret" something that makes a woman a strong character?

Rather, it makes Lizzy quite dizzy. Dizzy Lizzy. I would argue that respecting someone's privacy makes a character, any character, a strong character. In Dizzy Lizzy we have a woman who never knew her biological parents. But since becoming an FBI agent, she has come to know a man who has saved her life on multiple occasions. (I've actually lost count of how many times Red Reddington has saved her life.) She would be dead, dead, dead, if not for the intervention of Red Reddington. 

But does she have any appreciation of that fact? How about some gratitude? How about some loyalty or respect for the man to whom she owes her life? Um, nope. Instead, she can't get over the fact that he has a secret. It doesn't matter that he has proven time and again that he has Dizzy Lizzy's best interest at heart. What matters to Lizzy is that he has some kind of a secret and she just can't stand it.

So at the end of Season 7 we saw Dizzy Lizzy choosing to side with a mysterious woman, her supposed mother who she never knew, and after that same woman had put Dizzy Lizzy's only child into danger. And btw, she's a woman who had lied to Dizzy Lizzy when they had met to keep her own identity secret. (Talk about secrets!) On top of that this is the same woman who Dizzy Lizzy knows had murdered two of her fellow FBI agents even.

So yeah. Dizzy Lizzy sides with the mysterious mother who she never knew, and who was an enemy Russian spy, and who had lied to her, and who had put her daughter into danger, and who had murdered two of Lizzy's fellow FBI agents, instead of the man who has given her protection and has saved her life more times than I can remember. 

All of this is such crap, it's a wonder these writers are still employed by the series. I could write a lot better stories than this. I dare say anyone could. Except, that is, the writers who have the job. 

So I will watch the first two episodes of The Blacklist season eight during this holiday break, and see if these writers can pull themselves out of the hole in which they have dug themselves. It can be done. But it will take some mighty fine writing to do it. We'll see. And then I'll get back to you.