The Blacklist
30 Day Challenge, Part 4
Season 1 GIFs and Thoughts

1/08/2014

Still catching up on this challenge. I got far behind because of Christmas and I didn't even know it existed until more than a week after it started. Even though I'm addicted to The Blacklist and other shows, I was away from Tumblr for too long. I just let my queue take over.

*As usual, all screencaps belong to NBC.

Day #16: If you had to choose between being a member of Team Red or being a part of the Federal Agency, what would you choose?

Red and Dembe hug in The Freelancer gifRed and Luli kiss in The Freelancer gif

I already made these gifs for an earlier post. Time saved. Woohoo!

Both are dangerous jobs, so I'd rather be on the team that has more fun, more cash...and more hugs. ;) It's also the one that has Red, one of the most compelling characters ever on TV. He's dangerous and unpredictable, you say? All the better. Gotta keep me on my toes. Team Red all the way. (Edit 1/18/18: But Team Fed has Aram. He's adorable and sweet. Hard choice, all these seasons later, now that I know him.)

Day #17: Share your favorite couple on The Blacklist and why?

Red and Liz working together pngLiz crying, Red by her side in Gina Zanetakos jpg

I have to say Red and Liz, but as a partnership with a lot of questions on Liz's side and unexplained and intense feelings on Red's side. I'm still not convinced (by the Tumblr community) that they aren't related. My favorite idea beyond a father-daughter relationship, though, has always been that he saved her as a child, maybe from her real father, or he accidentally put her in harm's way and felt obligated to protect her; all of which were simultaneous ideas I had during their first meeting and Red smiled at Liz with this mix of joy and pain. Anyway, I'm repeating myself, because I didn't know this question had been posed before I answered it in another post.

Day #18: Who do you believe is the biggest Bad Ass on the Series?

I saw someone else say "everyone" and I agreed. All are different bad asses in their own ways. Red took a beating from Anslo and could have died from what the worst doctor in the world injected into him. He has also survived the criminal world for more than two decades after something terrible happened to him and he had to abandon his life. Liz went cuckoo bananas in the pilot and unexpectedly stabbed Red in the neck. In "Anslo Garrick" she took charge and grew as an agent. Ressler can handle himself in a fight...unless he's attacked from behind in an elevator. Hey, you can't win them all, and I wouldn't want anyone to be unrealistically infallible. I know nothing more of Meera Malik as a person than she's good at torture. I would want to keep a safe distance from her. Cooper didn't flinch when Anslo threatened everyone. Didn't even seem to care that Luli died and certainly didn't care that it hurt Red. Very cold. I could even say Tom. Don't know what he's doing, but he's messing with Red's future. That's a dangerous position to be in. And last, but certainly far from least, Dembe. He has an intimidating presence, but needed very few words to make us care about him. We weren't prepared to lose Red's closest friend and we were ready for a riot.

Day #19: What would you change about the show so far?

Meera, Aram, and Donald png

Only little things, such as more screen time for Meera, Ressler, and Aram. I want to know more about them, but first I want to get through Red and Liz's story. Their relationship is the beating heart of the show. We need to know how it began. I don't want the writers to rush anything to get to the other characters. If it's going to be a number of seasons before we are given concrete answers (something I don't think will happen) then, yes, please sprinkle in more secondary character development when there is room. So far the most important elements have been there, so I wouldn't change anything about the first episodes.

Day #20: Share your favorite quote from The Blacklist.

Red's allegory in The Stewmaker gif

"A farmer comes home one day to find that everything that gives meaning to his life is gone. Crops are burned, animals slaughtered, bodies and broken pieces of his life strewn about. Everything that he loved taken from him...his children.

One can only imagine the pit of despair, the hours of Job-like lamentations, the burden of existence. He makes a promise to himself in those dark hours. A life's work erupts from his knotted mind.

Years go by. His suffering becomes complicated. One day he stops. The farmer, who is no longer a farmer, sees the wreckage that he's left in his wake.

It is now he who burns.
It is he who slaughters.
And he knows in his heart he must pay."
—Red to Stanley Cornish

This is the most important moment for me, the one that catapulted The Blacklist from a cool, fun, interesting show into one of the best shows in my life. The way James Spader delivered the speech, with barely restrained rage, told me all I needed to know about his character, that this was a man who was not just a husband and father who abandoned his family, not just a jaded, immoral criminal, not just a traitor because the price was right, but a man who had been hurt terribly and who had hurt in retaliation. A character I could not just like, but one I could love completely, with all his faults and bad deeds, because he is not a monster. He is human, stripped to the bone and broken. Spader could not be more essential in this role. There was no better choice.

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