The Blacklist Review: 3×03 “Eli Matchett”

Red’s life isn’t an easy one Liz. Mistakes only pull you further in and survival becomes a life one step ahead of everyone that wants you captured or dead.

CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD IN OUR DETAILED REVIEW

The Blacklist — Despite being free and clear, when a golden opportunity strikes, Red (James Spader) and Liz (Megan Boone) can’t pass up a chance to tighten the noose around The Director’s (David Strathairn) neck, even if it means putting themselves squarely in Ressler’s (Diego Klattenhoff) FBI sights again. A bombing by a militant group of disgruntled farmers led by Eli Matchett (Don Harvey, Blacklister No. 72) that could directly affect the Cabal’s interests could provide the leverage needed to clear Liz’s name. But getting it will mean staying one step ahead of a determined Ressler, who is closing in at every turn.

Meanwhile, Red turns to Glen (Clark Middleton) to find out why Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq) is missing and what may have happened to him. But as Red closes in the Cabal from one angle, Mateus (Edi Gathegi) is circling the vulnerable underbelly of Red’s inner circle. When a battered Dembe won’t talk, Mateus turns his attention to other members of Red’s most trusted and it would seem that it’s only a matter of time before someone caves under the brutal torture. As with all things on this show, as Red and Liz sink deeper into the Cabal’s interests, things are not as they first appeared. Would we expect anything less from this show? Not a chance. Separating truth from lies is one reason we love this show and we got plenty of both in this episode of The Blacklist!

Another pawn sacrificed in the larger game.

As Blacklisters go, Eli Matchett was a little on the thin side. That’s not to say that Don Harvey didn’t have a good presence on screen when he was there—he did—but in all honesty the Blacklisters have taken a back seat this season to the dynamic duo of Liz and Red on the run. This show has taken a turn from its original premise with Liz now on the other side of the law and that’s made the struggling Liz a far more interesting criminal than the Blacklisters. That was especially true this week as Eli Matchett was almost completely a means to an end. Red wants the Cabal by the throat and Matchett gave him a golden ticket to get a grip.

There’s a bit of a pattern emerging through the first three episodes and this third entry was probably the most obvious. The Blacklisters are all really just a means to an end—defeat the Cabal. We don’t know if Red would have given up the Troll Farmer (Aaron Yoo) if he didn’t need a bargaining chip with Ressler, but then again the Troll Farmer might have sealed his fate just by breaking ties with Red in a way that didn’t set well with our favorite international criminal mastermind. On the other hand, Marvin Gerard (Fisher Stevens) was someone Red seemed to truly need. And while Marvin doesn’t seem like someone Red would betray—quite the opposite actually—Marvin is still a means to the Cabal’s end. Eil Matchett fit the mold once he made the mistake of creating a public spectacle of his disgust of Verdiant. He was an expendable stepping stone to a destination. One that attacked the Cabal by hitting them in the wallet.

“Verdiant launders money for the Cabal. Hundreds of millions of dollars a year. If we get those files, we have leverage over Verdiant. We have leverage over Verdiant, we have leverage over the Cabal.” ~ Red

That’s crafty writing and well played by the writing team at The Blacklist. Red has mostly used Blacklisters or employed them to a greater end in most cases. There’s always a bigger picture. It just so happens that we get to see it play out from Red’s point of view so far this season.

Our only itch with the course of action was not knowing at the beginning just how vital timing was to this fortuitous opportunity Eli Matchett created. Red had to act fast once he was aware. The pursuit of the FBI was secondary which seemed like a big risk. Had he made a simple statement about missing a window or striking while the iron was hot, or something much more creative than that, we’d have understood the need to take the risk. We didn’t need details. We just needed to know that it was urgent. Susan Hanover (Cindy Katz) certainly understood the magnitude of things when Red confronted her at the end and we got to see Red at his finest.

“I knew Matchett was a mistake.” ~ Susan

“Never met the man. Wouldn’t judge him too harshly, though. He seized his chance to terrify the world, shine one glorious spotlight on the dangers of planting the same seed in fields all over the globe. Progress. It’s a bitch.” ~ Red

“What do you want?” ~ Susan

“I came here to ask you to deliver a message to your friend, the Director. This is only the beginning, and I won’t stop until his own people realize that their only way forward is to exonerate Elizabeth Keen and to leave the Director to me. Please. Tell him I’m coming.” ~ Red

James Spader was captivating as always, but this scene definitely let him drive his point home with flair. Check. It’s your move Cabal.

This is the life Liz. It’s not easy and mistakes only pull you in deeper.

The life of the criminal is often glamorized and glitzed. That is until bullets are flying and people are dropping like flies. Yes, Red’s traveling cargo container is ritzier than most of our homes, but the life of the crime lord isn’t always luxury suites and Mai Tais. No, the business of being a criminal is a slippery slope and once one starts down, there’s often no way to climb back up. Shooting the standing Attorney General of the United States, who also happens to be a puppet of the most dangerous criminal organization in the world, is one thing. Especially when he’s about to destroy your world and everyone’s around you. Killing an undercover cop because he picked the wrong time to have a meal is another.

It’s telling that Red didn’t argue when Liz insisted they take him to the emergency room. Had they not, the man hunt for her would have only escalated, but we suspect that’s not at all why Red did it. He does see the struggle she’s going through and we wonder if his path didn’t follow a very similar forced road as hers. As the two of them talked through it near the end of the episode with Modest Mouse’s “Wicked Campaign” suggesting in the background this wasn’t the plan, Red encouraged Liz to step beyond the moment, remember who she is and accept her situation without forgetting her good heart.

“I shot a cop.” ~ Liz

“Yes, you did.” ~ Red

“And killed the Attorney General of the United States.” ~ Liz

“Yes. And when you did that you crossed a threshold, leaving your world, entering mine. Bad things are gonna find you now, Lizzy. This life has a mind and a momentum of its own. That’s a reality you need to accept. Bad things happen to good people.” ~ Red

“Am I a good person? I’m not so sure anymore.” ~ Liz

“I’m sure.” ~ Red

We’re pretty sure Liz is a good person too. Eyes are a window to the soul and Megan Boone has shown us time and again through hers that the good person Liz is inside hasn’t ever left her. Yes, she’s decisive when she needs to be. But even when she’s tried to operate outside the law she’s been over her head and hasn’t had the heart to be truly brutal. Just ask Tom. She couldn’t bring herself to kill him. She cares. Here, she didn’t hesitate drawing down as Red confronted Los Segadores at the beginning, but there’s a purity to her that just doesn’t ever leave. Megan Boone has created that good core to this character and no matter her mistakes, she truly does have a good heart. That’s very much why this life she’s sliding into bothers her. It rubs against that core and just doesn’t fit.

That purity is also likely part of what attracts everyone to her like moths to a flame. Especially Red and Tom who both hold her in an esteem that feels very much like either of them would sacrifice themselves as protective shield around her if they ever needed to do so. That’s one of the charms of the Blacklist and watching Liz’s life turned inside out as she tries to hold on to some thread of that purity has been fascinating. Any of us would struggle far more than she has. She’s been strong, but what will happen when Red isn’t there to be her sin eater? Can she keep her soul and retain any of the purity that we all love about Liz? We have a feeling we’ll find out at some point this season.

If the dogs are hot on your scent, throw them a bone.

It would seem Eli Matchett was a pawn in Red’s game. Well, as it turned out a pawn in a fight between two kings, but pawns do have some power in the right location and in the right circumstance. Many a game of chess has been won by the crafty use of a pawn at just the right time. Alas, Eli was not one of these. His sacrifice by Red was a play to put the Cabal in check. The FBI will chase Red all over the country and that might actually be to the advantage of Red and Liz. If the FBI and Ressler “conveniently” show up in enough places that disrupt the Cabal’s criminal activities, that will put pressure on the Cabal they don’t want. More specifically it will put pressure on The Director. And we know that’s attention he doesn’t want. Red outlined it pretty well to Susan.

“I know about the Genesis project. By now, so do the FBI. At the risk of sounding immodest, I’m on their Most-Wanted list. Number one with a bullet. They came here looking for me. Unfortunately for you, what they found were dozens of internal Verdiant documents which will lead them to your warehouse in Silver Ridge, and I don’t need to tell you what they’ll find inside.” ~ Red

How many times can Red lead the Task Force directly to interests that truly hurt the Cabal before they attack the Task Force more openly? That’s not a bear rug Ressler is circling. He’s unknowingly poking a very large, live bear. If Red doesn’t warn him, Ressler may get swatted in half. If the Cabal and Karakurt (Michael Massee) didn’t hesitate to take out a building full of CIA agents and a Senator just to set up Liz, they won’t take long to move against Ressler and the rest of the Task Force. Tommy Connolly (Reed Birney) had a plan to do just that. Liz cut that plan down when she shot Connolly, but the Cabal is much bigger than Smiling Tommy. And they are far more ruthless. Case in point, Dembe’s brutal torture. Red has pushed the Cabal and put the Task Force in the middle by handing them a Blacklister that tied directly to hurting them. If Red does that too often, that sin is going to come back to roost at some point just as it has in Red’s own house. It looks like things are only going to get more sticky as the season goes on.

FINAL VERDICT: Life as the FBI’s most wanted is a constant dodge from one peril to the next, but they play by the rules. There ARE no rules when the most dangerous criminals in the world want you dead.

The Blacklist has played it smart in completely shifting gears this season. Things feel much the same, but different enough that we’re fascinated with where this will all go and how Red might exonerate Liz in some way. We say that because we just feel like that’s going to happen. We could completely be wrong. After all this is The Blacklist. But we believe in the purity that Liz just exudes. Megan Boone has made us believe it and we can’t see her losing that completely and adopting the life of Red. Who knows, if she survives all this she’s likely to be a far more capable agent in the end for the experience.

We commend Writers Lukas Reiter and J.R. Orci for letting Eli Matchett fade into the background, but never letting us forget him. This episode started like so many others, but before long it completely transformed into a story of how Liz and Red could use Matchett’s very public display of making Verdiant far wealthier. That’s a pretty slick turn of the corner. We realized somewhere along the way that it didn’t matter that Matchett wasn’t present anymore. He wasn’t the focus.

RELATED | The Blacklist 3×02 “Marvin Gerard” Review

But the real dialogue gems of this episode were from Glen. We’ll own the fact that we weren’t fans of Glen in his first appearance. But just like the pesky investigator he is, he just won’t go away and grows on you. Clark Middleton has created a completely unique character unlike any on this show, or maybe any other show, and he had dialogue from Reiter and Orci in this episode that just jumped out of the screen. We’re starting to see why Red keeps going back to Glen. He’s like that shot of penicillin that you dread when you need it, then hurts when you get it, but is the only remedy for what you have. Trust us Clark, that’s a compliment.

Director Steven A. Adelson put together a solid episode of The Blacklist. It had its good moments and though there weren’t any that dropped our jaws, that’s as much from the script as anything. Nothing Earth-shattering happened to our characters this episode that grabbed us and just wouldn’t let go, aside from Dembe’s battered defiance of Mateus—we hope Dembe gets to reverse that role at some point by the way. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a well crafted hour of television. Almost every episode of The Blacklist is and this one was no different. He pulled out good performances from the cast from beginning to end and moved all these characters along quite well in their respective stories.

We wish we had some idea where all this was going, but then that would take the fun out of watching it unfold. The Blacklist keeps us on our toes. We’ll be interested to see if the pattern of the first three episodes continues and the Blacklisters continue to be a means for an end to Red and Liz. Despite reservations going in to the season, it’s working for us. And Red is right. Liz has to come to grips with her world in order to survive. Red may not ever be able to live a normal life again, but perhaps there’s a chance yet that Liz might. That is if Red can get his house back in order and whatever Tom and Cooper are cooking pays dividends. We kinda doubt it will be just like the one she’s lost, but we don’t have any doubts that Jon Bokenkamp and John Eisendrath can keep us entertained no matter what they decide to do starting next week on The Blacklist!

Questions, Comments, Concerns and My Reaction on Twitter…

• Ooo. Tom and Ressler match. Winner gets Liz??
• We’re not in Kansas anymore Liz. Well, close I guess. Iowa.
• Corn is the root of all evil. Who knew?
• If you only knew Red. Dembe is in deep shit right now.
• The next one goes in your leg. She’s warming up to this thug life isn’t she Red?
• I can hear you dropping a steamer through the phone. Glen has grown on me. I gotta admit, I laughed out loud at this.
• Sure is one hell of a sardine can. Navabi’s right. Red DOES travel in style. 😉
• Damn. That’s a big crater in that building. o.O
• Well, that was a beautiful story Red. Up until Mugs got shot and killed. ???
• Sometimes Red’s stories come outta nowhere.
• Called him?? Uggg. You don’t taunt the agent hunting you Keen. You, of all people, should KNOW that.
• Small lexical distinctions can apparently lead to very bad Glen moments. And who uses lexical in a sentence?? lol
• Wow. That’s a much bigger problem than just devaluing stock.
• Despite the new locks and the new partner, Liz just isn’t a criminal at heart.
• I think we just saw Susan drop a steamer on TV. She’s not looking to good right now.
• Please. Tell him I’m coming. Mr. Director, your razor blade is getting more precarious by the moment.
• Am I a good person? I’m not so sure anymore. I’m sure. We are too Red. But she’s got to be more careful. This is going to get worse before it gets better.
• Beautiful moment between Ressler and Cooper.
• Mr. Vargas sighting! All of Red’s closest are getting nabbed. You better keep your mitts off Mr. Kaplan Mateus.
• You’re a liar, a thief, and a murderer. Which is exactly why you’re perfect for the job. What job indeed! What are you up to Cooper??