The Blacklist
An Evening in New York
Season 1 Emmys Panel Video

4/22/2014

So I just realized it's Monday (now Tuesday, because I didn't get to finish this yesterday), which means The Blacklist is finally back. I say "finally" even though the last new episode was only two weeks ago, because there have been an incredible amount of breaks for this show. The longest was six weeks in the winter, followed by just two or three new episodes, and then another three weeks off for the Olympics. It seems that most shows this season (at least the ones I love) have had more time off than usual, not including the Olympics. Or maybe it's just me noticing and caring more now in an unusual year where I fell crazy in love with multiple new series at the same time. That just never happens.

An Evening in New York With The Blacklist streamed live on April 2. It was at 8 PM, so I couldn't watch, but they made it available the next day. Annoyingly, I only got half way through before I had to do something else. Then I tried multiple other times over the following weeks and was always interrupted. I'm finishing it today no matter what before the next thing, likely Blacklist-related, grabs my attention.

Now for the one person out there that hasn't seen this or those who are just now bingeing on the show, here are the highlights of this panel. You can see the full panel at Emmys.com. It's much more fun hearing the words from the actors themselves rather than just reading them, and they have a lot more to say than just these few select quotes.

I think that if you care and you breathe, and you keep caring and you keep breathing, something happens.

I found out today I know a lot about architecture... In my head I was like, 'So when I was in graduate school studying tech and engineering, I had an architecture requirement course, and it's coming in handy to get this Blacklister this week.'

Any backstory with Aram is a great thing. Hopefully, the secondary characters will come to the fore a bit more when there is room for it, because I want to know more about Aram, Meera, and Dembe.

I think the bad guys are good.

I never like the questions of good or bad. Just about everyone has the capability to be both at any time depending on circumstances. Whether Dembe is good or bad doesn't matter much to me unless he does something irredeemable, say killing an innocent for no reason and without regret. I don't see that happening unless the writers want us to turn against him. What matters is that Dembe and Red are loyal to each other; there is good in that.

I remember the first thing you said to me after I read the other side was, 'Wow, man. You're a dick.'

Some of my best friends are ruthless killers.

As we all do when we're in love, sometimes we're blinded to things.

And this is why I was always on her side. A criminal comes into your life and tells you to be careful of your husband, of course you're not going to believe him until you have some evidence. As Megan said, and I always wonder how people don't realize, she has a history with Tom that we as the audience do not. Why would she be mistrutful of her husband? We're on the outside and get to see what she doesn't. It always amazes me when people say a character is being written stupidly when it's really that they are being written as human, not omniscient. There are great manipulators in this world that even the keenest of us don't see for what they are until it's too late.

We try to peel back the layers on Red. We try to expose his vulnerability as much as we can, and you've seen it; you've seen it in series. And James is absolutely incredible at playing that, at playing those moments, and that's what humanizes the character.

I'm sure I'm repeating myself from all my other posts about The Blacklist, but that vulnerability is mesmerizing, and James was the right choice to expose the profound damage of Red's heart and soul.