BWW Column: Can THE BLACKLIST Continue to Delay Its Answers?

In the 1960's, television audiences thrilled as Dr. Richard Kimble -David Janssen -spent each week running from town to town, an escaped convict, saving old ladies and singlehandedly barricading collapsing dams. Oh, sure, he was looking for a mysterious one-armed man that killed his wife, and each town was a place the man had been seen. The central mystery of the series was, "Will Dr. Kimble ever catch the one-armed man?" But in the meantime, there were stories to tell. And those individual weekly stories fueled THE FUGITIVE, a hugely popular drama.

In a more recent decade, two intrepid FBI agents, one of whom couldn't keep hold of a cell phone or gun, investigated mysterious phenomena. There were many mysteries to its mytharc. Were aliens trying to take over Earth? Who were the humans that seemed to be in league with them? What part did the hero's father play in this conspiracy? And would Scully and Mulder ever kiss? But around the mythos of THE X-FILES, there were the episodes that never even mentioned the problems: the show's fabled "Monster of the Week" episodes. Audiences that gave a fledgling network shockingly high ratings thrilled to the horror of human flukes that ate your liver, and laughed uproariously at monsters so funny that they appeared to have been invented by William Castle. The mythos questions never disappeared, but while new questions emerged, old ones were at least partially answered in neat, serial fashion thanks to the fine work of Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, and its other creatives.

And then there's THE BLACKLIST.

In the midst of the second season of THE X-FILES, people gathered around the office water cooler to ask each other what Krycek was up to, whether Mulder was insane, and if Scully would be rescued. These questions arose from the show's mythos, but were serial-arc questions that were answered, expanded upon, or solved so that new stages of the overarching plot line could develop around those exciting, stand-alone Monsters of the Week. In the second season of THE BLACKLIST, already renewed for a third season, there have been almost no answers, a growing number of questions, and a sense by many fans and equally many critics of total frustration.

THE BLACKLIST is not a bad show. It's got certain flashes of brilliance, notably the finely tuned hamminess of James Spader, whose real task, rather than being a wealthy, evil criminal genius with a government background and a huge pack of secrets, seems to be playing James Spader telling his legendarily long, winding, never-reaching-a-point talk show anecdotes, and wearing James Spader's hats. But oh, he plays the public image of himself so well. It's no secret that Spader spends hours talking to the producers and writers. Rumor has it that he writes his own dialogue, or parts of it. Whether that's true or not, Red Reddington sounds almost exactly like James Spader deliberately trying to be mysterious, and succeeding.

If only the same could be said for the plotting. While THE FUGITIVE made you forget that there was a question, while letting the audience believe that the question would clearly be answered in a yes-or-no fashion one fine day (as it was in the final episode), and while THE X-FILES led its audience down a twisting path that occasionally gave a concrete answer so that a new question could be developed, THE BLACKLIST, halfway through its second season has either given no answers, or at least none that audiences believe, while continually throwing new curves and questions at viewers.

Although Raymond "Red" Reddington has plainly stated that he is not FBI agent Elizabeth Keen's father, there are still on-line fan wars over the point, called "Daddygate" by many, because the other evidence on the show has left the question dangling. If he's not her father, how has he known her adopted father for decades? What was his part in the fire that may or may not have killed her father? Those have been hanging since the beginning of the first season.

Then there was Tom Keen. Fine, Red was right that Elizabeth Keen's husband was not on the up and up, and was likely a spy. He certainly was working for "Berlin," Red's enemy - who wasn't, however, the enemy that's been destroying Red's criminal business. Meanwhile, Keen is also connected to Reddington himself, though we don't know how. But how was Keen working for Berlin, about whom Reddington knew nothing though he knew that Keen was a danger to him, while also being connected closely enough to Reddington to get a payoff from him? Unless there's an answer of X-FILES genius coming up, that's just bad show writing.

Let's touch on the international alliance that's up against Reddington. To be an active presence in the show at this point, rather than being as shadowy as the human conspirators in THE X-FILES, the audience requires some actual clarity on their ultimate purpose; at least this far into X-FILES, we knew that the conspirators were deceiving Mulder because they wanted to help the aliens. The alliance on THE BLACKLIST must have some purpose other than simply trying to block Red from destroying them. Could we have a clue? Every plot point we've been shown in the mythos, other than what finally became of Reddington's wife, has had no answer; although the Berlin storyline did conclude and gave some answers, Berlin was really nothing more than a red herring to delay answers about the gathering storm against Reddington.

The latest result of revelations about the international conspiracy? Reddington winds up making a telephone call to someone, only to discover that he doesn't know who they are or why their phone number was the only thing in a safe left to him by a frenemy, Alan Fitch, who was close to him but still a leader in the international alliance that doesn't know whether to fear Reddington or to ignore him.

And just what is that mark on Elizabeth Keen's wrist? Although it appears she might have gotten it in the still-mysterious fire (and just who did scramble her brain, anyway?), it may match the mark on a box she found under her dining room floor that was connected to Tom Keen, and it might have matched an envelope that had photos of Red at the hospital where her adopted father was killed by Reddington. Yet it's a plot point that, like most of the questions raised in the first episode, still isn't answered while the newer ones hurtle at viewers. Elizabeth won't remember, at least not yet; she's conveniently had her memory of childhood events scrambled, so this can go on forever.

A show can succeed, like THE FUGITIVE, while postponing one simple question and focusing on the story of the week. It can succeed gloriously, like THE X-FILES, by revealing bit by bit while stories of the week come in between the revelations. But THE BLACKLIST, after the first half of last season, has been short on real Villains of the Week -some, like Ruslan Denisov, aren't even villainous once we meet them -while not offering any revelations. The further it goes, the fewer answers and more questions we seem to have.

It's not clear how long THE BLACKLIST can maintain its ratings for NBC based on its judicious mix of Spader's intermittent appearances on each episode, Diego Klattenhoff's looks (and bizarrely abused character), and Megan Boone's growing acting skills without providing either clear answers or a large number of standalone episodes that don't focus on the same questions that have lingered since the beginning of the series. Like LOST, it's too complex for a casual viewer to understand the series' arc plot that hangs over each episode; the MOTW episodes made X-FILES accessible for the drop-in viewer, just as Richard Kimble's weekly white-knight quest made THE FUGITIVE accessible for people who didn't know or really care about the One-Armed Man.

The episode "The Good Samaritan" involved Red helping Elizabeth Keen with a cold case she'd worked when she was an agent in New York. "The Cyprus Agency" does not clearly tie in to the show mythos, other than dealing with Elizabeth's issues with adoption; it had nothing to do with Reddington's enemies. This past week's "The Deer Hunter" concentrated on more standalone material. There is not a plot need for this series' episodes to connect with Reddington's blacklist of his enemies at all times. If the audience isn't to be given answers, then the series' incorporating breaks from the questions is in order for the viewers' sanity. The standalone episode has been the backbone of more than one hit series with a mystery-based story arc. It can work just as well here. Producers Bokencamp and Eisenhuth need to consider either at least one genuine, solved revelation per half-season or else look more carefully at standalone episode incorporation if they must stall the audience.

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