Up until the very end, this episode felt like an odd fever dream. Everything felt uncanny and off. As someone who was never a huge Liz fan, I will say her death scene was sad. Probably hit me because they showed flashbacks and reminded me of when I cared about Liz, but there was something about experiencing Liz's life flashing before her eyes that hit even my jaded heart.
Elizabeth Keen should have been so much more. Something along the lines of a Buffy Summers type, deeply flawed and vulnerable but strong, smart, relatable, sympathetic, tough, someone you can't help but fall for. Instead, Liz was the single most poorly written female lead I have ever witnessed. Granted, the shoddy writing was probably necessary at times in order to facilitate her keeping Tom around after all his stunts, and working with Reddington at all after basically the first season, and I could forgive all that. They made it make enough sense. What I can't forgive, is the lack of true character development. Liz stalled and went in circles past a certain point. All I can figure is the people in charge are clueless about writing women, because when Liz was at her worst these past 2 seasons, it seems we were supposed to be most impressed.
I could mostly understand the Liz we got the first 5 seasons. I could understand her in season 6 when she secretly had Red put in prison. I believed her remorse when she realized she made a terrible mistake. Nothing was truly unforgivable until that BS in season 7 with blonde not-Kat. She went from being on great terms with Red, to oddly distant after he'd been kidnapped. Why? One week she hates him, the next she's warm and thankful he made it to her daughter's ballet reception. Then she hates him again! In my opinion, this poorly executed, one sided Liz VS Red war was the start of what has ruined the show. They wrote their co-lead into a volcanic pit, and they did it poorly whilst making every other main cast character look dumber than a bag of rocks.
I don't know what, if anything went on behind the scenes to propel this, but regardless, the people in charge should be ashamed. The fans, regardless of what faction they're in, they deserved better. The cast deserved better. How did we go from intriguing and dark crime/spy drama taking down creepy and colorful criminals to a mediocre soap opera with forced feuds, forced sleazy romance (sorry keenler crew, you weren't my cup of tea but you did deserve better), forced stupidity, and an adversary so cartoonishly embarrassing? What the heck went wrong?
Liz never got the answers she so desperately sought. Red would only grant her this knowledge after she killed him. Liz agreed, but when the time came she didn't want to do it, because even after all her misdeeds and painfully stupid stunts, Liz had a heart and Red was family. If she was ever truly capable of killing him, she would have shot him after she killed Anne. Liz didn't want to kill someone who, as damaging as he was, looked out for her, who cared for her daughter while she was in a coma, who wanted to leave her everything he had. Liz was a lot of things, but not heartless. She could not kill a man her daughter lovingly dubbed Pinky. Even if this had been the series finale, it never would have happened, at least not believably.
It's because of Red's ludicrous request, Liz ends up dead. You'd think after everything, Red would have sought out Townsend's remaining ally. Liz surely knew how dedicated VanDyke (?) was to Townsend. Red should have squashed that bug, but much like with Townsend himself, Red was careless and let this guy live because plot demanded it. So this henchman of the worst villain in the series shoots Liz from behind, fulfilling Townsend's wish of having Red watch Liz die. Seriously? By the way, why on earth would Liz want to raise her daughter living even deeper in Red's world? You'd think Liz would want to take her kid and have a peaceful life. Give her daughter stability and a mother she could rely on, but Red's stupid desire to have Liz take over his empire was more important.
A good, respectable enough exit would have been Liz telling Red to take his empire and shove it. She should have demanded he facilitate her going into deep, deep hiding and he should have respected that. Liz should have stood up for herself and her daughter but instead, she goes with Red's dumb request because he has some disease that writers probably can't figure out. I have never seen a show sabotage a lead character the audience is supposed to root for the way Blacklist relentlessly sabotaged Liz. I thought I'd be happier she was gone, I didn't think they'd kill her.
6/10 because they pulled off the amazing trick of making me feel bad for Liz for the first time since season 6. This was a strange episode, that by the way, refused to confirm Red's identity. They purposely fueled the "Redarina" fire, and I doubt they'll ever bring it up again so the audience factions can be in an eternal civil war. No one wins except the "Redarinas". They have likely angered all of the Lizzingtons, the Keenlers, the Daddygaters, the Other Dude theorists, the people who just wanted a good story, we all lost. I'm not mad because "it's not the story I wanted", I'm mad because they took a good, intriguing, fun story with endless potential, and turned it into a dumpster fire.
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