The Blacklist Review: 2×04 – “Dr. Linus Creel”

Dr. Linus Creel may hold the secret to both mass murder and Liz’s past. We seriously hope those two things aren’t connected.

Deuces are wild in the second season of The Blacklist. We started with a royal duo and now we’ve encountered our second doctor in a row. It’s quite possible that pattern is a complete coincidence but we take nothing for granted on The Blacklist. ‘Lister No. 82, Dr. Linus Creel (David Costabile) becomes the focus of the FBI task force after Red (James Spader) tips Liz (Megan Boone) that a series of seemingly nonviolent citizens have been psychologically triggered to become killers. That doesn’t sound like a game we want anything to do with at all.

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Meanwhile, Red is working to get Naomi (Mary-Louise Parker) and her husband Frank (Lee Tergesen) to accept his help to disappear for their own protection. They seem reluctant to trust Red, and honestly we can’t blame them one bit. As much as we hang on his every word for the next memorable line he’ll surprise us with, we know better than to trust him too. With more questions than answers, let’s see if we can unravel a few of the mysteries by connecting the dots on what think we may know and what we don’t in this week’s next twisted episode of The Blacklist!

Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t actually out to get you.

Creator Jon Bokenkamp and writer Mike Ostrowski must both have smiled a bit inside knowing that The Blacklist seems to never stop finding ways to make us look over our shoulder and wonder how much our world may be manipulated by the will of others. Ordinary people psychologically manipulated to become disturbed murderers is a chilling prospect. The idea introduced by Red that these experiments are the result of an underground social-psychology experiment led by the U.S. government is even more unsettling.

Guest star David Costabile brought an eerie combination of trustworthy and mentally disturbed traits to Creel. The soothing tones in his voice certainly felt like those of a helpful psychologist. But the unsettling addition of his hair to each file and his manipulation and destruction of  people’s lives to get them to unravel and unleash their inner propensity to commit terrible crimes was cringe-worthy. The juxtaposition as he himself began to unravel was not only believable but seen from the beginning as a likely outcome given that Costabile played the jittery Creel exceptionally well letting his nervous traits emerge slowly throughout the episode.

If this episode had flaws it was that all the early plot points leading the team through a complicated series of steps to identify Creel quickly fell too neatly into place too quickly. The task force as a whole was relegated to little more than a plot device to move the larger story towards Red’s agenda and the more juicy scenes with Liz and Creel later. The storyline was however a conspiracy theorist’s dream highlighted by Red himself.

“Strap on your tinfoil hat, Lizzy.” ~ Red

After learning last week that we can’t always trust our physician’s, now we have our shrinks to worry about too. Which is ironic given that they are supposed to help us eliminate that very problem.

Red, on the other hand, seems to delight in finding subversive ways to show just how seedy the controlling powers in the U.S. government can be as well. This isn’t the first time this season he’s had the side benefit of a case casting a harsh light into the shadows of black operations within the very government Liz and the task force are sworn to uphold. As the details of black projects to control the mind are revealed to Liz by Cooper (Harry Lennix), we once again find that the enemy within may be just as dangerous as the ones waiting outside the door.

“That’s what I hate most about this detail. Reddington pulling up the carpet and shoving your nose deep into the filth. After a while it’s all you can see.” ~ Cooper

Lennix and the writing team are adding some wonderful subtext to Cooper this season. He’s never been innocent in our minds, but the more this season reveals to us the darker recesses of his past, the more we learn that Cooper has a rich and compromised history. The details of that past are things we’re just itching to know about. If there’s one area The Blacklist excels, it’s secrets upon secrets and this episode had no shortage of them.

Mrs. Reddington erased her name, but apparently not her past.

As Red works to get Naomi and her husband Frank to accept his assistance we can’t help but wonder what his ultimate endgame may be. It’s an understandably difficult proposition for Frank and Naomi to put their life in the hands of the very man that’s seemingly turned their world upside down—now more than once for her. Red places great emphasis on her safety which would suggest there is a larger game afoot or he genuinely doesn’t want her hurt. We’re left to wonder if it’s one, the other or both.

We do learn that Naomi has knowledge of Liz’s past and at the same time is very protective of her daughter Jennifer despite Red’s pleading for her whereabouts. What Naomi knows about Liz is left as only a question. In a heated discussion between two, she alludes to a larger plan to which we aren’t yet privy, acknowledging that she kept her end of the bargain by not saying anything about him or Elizabeth.

“How much does she know?” ~ Naomi

“Very little.” ~ Red

Did Naomi know all along that someday Berlin, or someone like him would try to extract information from her? it’s a curious question that we want answered.

As the episode progresses, Naomi and Frank tell Red that they don’t want his help and do not plan to go into hiding regardless of the risks. If we’ve learned one thing about Red, he’s not one to easily take no for an answer without a backup plan to get the yes he wants. Is there seriously anything he doesn’t already know about?

Mr. Vargas (Paul Ruebens) again steals the show in his one and only scened of dialogue. Frank it appears, has a mistress. And Mr. Vargas isn’t at all pleased in how she’s treated her dog. In a humorous, scene in her home, Mr. Vargas deflects the threat of the situation with his insistence that she’s mistreated her pet. It doesn’t take long for the truth to come out. Red in turn, uses the mistress as an extortion tool to change Frank’s mind on accepting help to disappear and it works flawlessly.

Real or not real? We think the answer is—yes.

The citizens committing these violent crimes appear to have a common thread in their genetic history. Dr. Creel has learned to identify and use this genetic weakness to his advantage. Posing as an ideal patient, ripe for the picking, Liz uses the ruse to dig deeper into Creel’s methods. But it’s the real-life troubles that she uses to convince him of her sincerity that steals the interaction between them.

Recounting her troubles with Tom as the husband who left her in Creel’s questions, we quickly realize that Liz and Creel are having a dual conversation about an imaginary Tom for his sake and a very real one to Liz. As Aram (Amir Arison) and Samar (Mozhan Marnò) listen in the surveillance van we find it curious that as Aram reacts with empathy to details he knows are truths and likely real pain from Liz’s past, Samir is fixed on his reactions to those truths. As Creel delves into Liz’s past he focuses on the loss of her parents and her admission that she remembers little about them.

“Perhaps if you did, it would be easier to accept who you are. The more time you spend with your parents, The more of yourself you see in them. For better or worse, they’re a glimpse into your future.” ~ Dr. Creel

I wasn’t lost on us that the scene immediately cuts to Red after this statement. Again, this show is suggesting without saying. The truth however, may be a long time coming.

As this interaction between Liz and Creel progresses, it becomes clear that Liz’s feigned reactions of confusion and pain are more and more real. Her reactions are becoming more intimate and raw the more they talk. Exquisitely tight camera work that creeps closer as they talk highlights solid performances by both Boone and Costablile. This was a wonderful touch by Director of Photography Eric Moynier. The closer the camera gets the more we feel as if we’ve been given a very intimate and private glance into Liz’s genuine pain and past that she has not yet come to terms with at all.

Liz is able to set aside her pain long enough to help Aram gain access to Creel’s computer. The larger plan to commit one last act of blatant violence is uncovered. The motivations of Creel to prove to the world that the manipulations of citizens is very real seems to be misguided. In the end, it’s another case of an extremely warped method for exposing the wrongs of a larger conspiracy. Deep down, Creel must to think he was performing a greater good by destroying the lives of a few to demonstrate the larger truth why some people commit terrifying crimes for no apparent reason. His heart was in the right place to identify and stop such people, but his research methods left a lot to be desired.

FINAL VERDICT: A few flaws, but all-in-all another fun episode of a show we’ve come to love. Where is it going? We have no clue, but desperately want one—and that’s the best reason to keep watching.

Red never really does things at random. There’s always some ulterior purpose behind his actions. Sending Liz after Dr. Creel at first seemed to be exactly what Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) described—a diversion to keep the task force from finding Naomi and focusing on Red. Writer Mike Ostrowski and Jon Bokenkamp gave us some fun moments, some tense ones and some emotional ones too. They left us with many more questions than answers. Hopefully those answers will come soon

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As the case unfolded, the truth may be that Red once again was puppeteering things behind the scenes and using those around him to get information he could never ask for directly. What was in the file that Samir handed Liz and left out of her larger report? Was that information the intel that Red wanted all along? Did he want Liz to see and know about it’s findings? Is it a coincidence that Samir, seemingly assisted by Red to gain access to the Task force, chose to withhold Liz’s test results but still share them with Liz? There just aren’t coincidences on this show and we’re fairly certain that this entire scenario which had a very public ‘Lister feel also had a hidden private agenda as well. Is there anything on this show that doesn’t?

The flaws in the episode, centered around how quickly the pieces fell into place so easily to find Creel to begin with and the fact that nearly everyone outside of Liz was pushed to the background. Director Michael Watkins was given the tall task of covering a lot of ground quickly at the beginning in order to focus on the more intense scenes later. He handled that with skill and things really came together well in the later scenes with Liz and Creel or Red and Naomi.

Despite a few flaws, the episode itself was still highly enjoyable. Red was Red, we did see an intense and emotional outpouring by Liz. Her pain is still very fresh and real. Mr. Vargas has become the scene stealer of the last two episodes. We’re dying to see Mr. Vargas and Mr. Kaplan (Susan Blommaert) in the same frame together. Those two could nearly carry a spin-off series by themselves, especially if Mr. Vargas is forced to help with Mr. Kaplan’s bloody clean up. That’s comedy gold waiting to happen. Add in some dashes of Red and that would be just too much fun.

All in all, we’re left with far more questions than answers after this episode. We don’t know what Liz learned from her test results or what Creel was trying to tell her at the end. We also know very little still about Naomi and what she knows about Red and Liz. If only Red hadn’t shown up while Naomi and Liz finally talked we might have learned more. We did learn that our mystery sniper was protection, hired by Red, but taking out Creel was he protecting her from harm or from the truth? Inquiring minds would like to know. And perhaps the biggest mystery of them all—what’s behind the door Liz is contemplating at the end? We have a few guesses, but can’t wait to find out.

We can safely say, we have no idea where things are going on The Blacklist, but we’re deeply invested in finding out. We have a sneaky suspicion that the pace is about to pick up and some questions will get answered at the same time. All the more reason to spend next Monday night with NBC and the next episode of The Blacklist!