tags: #publish links: [[The Blacklist]] created: 2021-07-22 Thu --- # The Blacklist S1 Episode 1 (Pilot - Zamani) Next: [[The Blacklist S1 Episode 2 (The Freelancer)|2 (The Freelancer)]] More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_(The_Blacklist) *(Spoilers)* Raymond 'Red' Reddington (James Spader) casually arrives at the front desk of FBI headquarters, and announces he's here to see the Assistant Director. Given that he is on the Most Wanted list, he's immediately surrounded by a lot of guns and attention, which is clearly what he was hoping. There's a lot of plot for one episode, setting up the framing for the show... After some initial pleasantries with the director, Reddington is chucked in a hysterically dramatically elaborate cell in a giant empty warehouse, from where he begins a game of offering the FBI information in exchange for escalating tiers of freedom and privilege over the next couple of episodes. He insists on working with Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), a rookie profiler whose first day on the new job unexpectedly begins with her being picked up and brought to the aforementioned warehouse and a meeting with the Assistant Director. It rapidly becomes apparent that Reddington knows key details about various pieces of havoc before they happen; it also appears that he is partially complicit in arranging some of them, but in each case we tend with the perpetrator of the havoc being captured or killed. In the first episode, there is a kidnap and revenge plot, the kidnapping involving a dramatic raid on an FBI convoy, seemingly a planned interception after the FBI helpfully grabbed the expected victim to protect her. Parallel to all this, Keen and husband Tom have been pursuing a adoption (she does not wish to have kids, for reasons as yet undisclosed). The Reddington drama causes her to miss the adoption interview (one may comment on the unwisdom of scheduling this on the first day on a new job). Tom attends, but on Liz's later arrival home he's found being held at gun point by the perpetrator, who seems to have been inflicting some mild torture while awaiting her return. Zamani stabs him and escapes, taking advantage of Liz's understandable preoccupation with saving Tom's life. The tail end of the kidnapping involves a chemical weapon bomb fully intended to kill the kidnapee and cause - you're getting the theme here - havoc. This is eventually foiled when Reddington supplies a clandestine bomb defuser, who steals the bomb in "payment". Meanwhile Zamani is caught and jumps from a rooftop. Along the way, it transpires that Reddington has also been the orchestrator of Zamani in the whole thing - they're old mates - including requiring him to stab Tom. The cliffhanger is that, while Tom is in hospital, Liz discovers a box hidden at home with a zillion fake Tom passports, a stack of cash and a gun. Reddington appears to have been expecting this too... ## New characters ### The star duo - Arch criminal mastermind **Raymond 'Red' Reddington** (James Spader) - FBI Profiler **Elizabeth Keen** (Megan Boone) ### Supporting - FBI Assistant Director **Harold Cooper** (Harry Lennix) - FBI Special Agent **Donald Ressler** (Diego Klattenhoff), who appears to be set up as the fall guy who ends up in the middle of whatever mess goes down and barely scraping through alive - Unwittingly affected husband **Tom Keen** (Ryan Eggold) ## Mysteries What is Tom's background? Why has Red picked Keen? Why is Red doing all of this?