The Blacklist Season 1 Finale Recap: Kill Them All, Let Reddington Sort Them Out…

NBC brought the #1 new hit drama of the 2014 season to an end on Monday with the shocking finale, “Berlin (Conclusion)”.  And boy, was there quite a body count!  Read on to see who made it out alive, and who didn’t…

WARNING:  MAJOR SPOILERS

The Blacklist started its first episode with master criminal Red Reddington willingly turning himself in to the FBI.  After he’s in custody, he says the only person he’ll talk to is FBI profiler Agent Elizabeth Keene.  Thus begins the premise of the show where Keene’s FBI task force goes after people on Reddington’s Blacklist, which targets some of the most elite and despicable bad guys on the planet.

From the beginning, there were a lot of mysteries.  What were Reddington’s motivations?  Why was he so interested in Elizabeth?  Why was Elizabeth being watched by a shadowy group of surveillance people?  Where did Reddington get his awesome hats?

Well, thankfully, we got answers to all these questions (except the hat one, I’m still on the edge of my seat waiting for that to drop!) in the episodes leading up to the finale.  Here’s what we know…

Reddington’s Secrets Revealed

Reddington knew there was a secret enemy who was targeting him for destruction.
Reddington compiled the Blacklist as a way of tracking down this enemy.
Reddington has a connection to Elizabeth Keene that only he seems to know about.
Reddington discovered his secret enemy learned of his connection to Elizabeth.
Reddington turned himself in not only to help protect Elizabeth, but to co-opt the resources of the United States government to help flush out his secret enemy by taking down members of the Blacklist.

Now that we know what Reddington’s motivations were, all the early episodes of the Blacklist make a lot more sense.  I was always curious why Elizabeth’s husband Tom was a mole, and what it was that made Elizabeth so special.  Here are some of the secrets that were revealed in the finale:

The Blacklist’s Big Bad Is Revealed

Reddington’s secret adversary, code named Berlin, is a former KGB superspy who blames Reddington for the gruesome death of his daughter.
Berlin has been waging a secret war against Reddington, and was the one who sent Tom undercover as Elizabeth’s husband in case Reddington made contact with her.
Berlin survived the plane crash by cutting off his own hand and disguising himself as a prison guard to evade capture by the FBI.
Berlin created his own Blacklist, focusing on member’s of the FBI task force Reddington was using, and sent hired killers after them.

The body counts quickly began racking up right from the start of the episode.  Lots of prisoners died from the plane crash, but the big deaths were those of series regulars…

The Bodies Hit The Floor

First, the team’s CIA liaison, Meera, dun went and got her throat slit by Berlin’s assassins.  It was a pretty gruesome death, but then again, Meera’s been on borrowed time ever since she was the one who betrayed Reddington to Anslo Garrick, who raided the task force’s blacksite and killed Reddington’s hot Asian assistant/girlfriend.  So I suppose this wasn’t a big loss, but Meera was considered a series regular, so her death did have some impact.

Then the leader of the task force, Agent Harold Cooper, gets garrotted in his car.  Somehow the assassin didn’t quite finish the job (lazy Communist work-ethic there) and Cooper is brought to the hospital in really bad shape.  Though I like his character, I feel it was a bit of a cop-out to leave Cooper alive and tease that he’s going to be okay at the end of the episode.  His death would have had a far bigger impact than Meera’s.

Finally Elizabeth kills Tom after he kidnaps her and uses her as a human shield when Reddington gets all Jack Bauer on Berlin’s assassin.  In a struggle with her betraying husband, Elizabeth shoots Tom in the gut with his own gun.  She then uses said gun to put two more in him for good measure.  (Sadly, she did not get to say “Consider this a divorce” at any point during the shooting.)  Before he dies, Tom and Liz share a tender moment where Tom whispers some secret to her.  Oddly enough, Tom’s body is not found when the FBI arrive, possibly leaving an opening for him to return at some point, though Liz specifically says he’s dead at the end of the episode.

The Blacklist Season 1 Wrap-Up

Though Team Reddington over at the FBI is now safe, they finally figure out that Berlin was the security guard who got his hand cut off, something which most audiences figured out the moment Peter Stormare showed up playing said guard.  The reveal probably would have worked better with a less recognizable actor.  Stormare never plays minor throw-away characters like that.  He’s too good of an actor, and does “super-evil bad guy” exceptionally well.  Though Berlin didn’t die in this episode, his beard did.  R.I.P. awesome Russian prisoner villain beard.  We hardly knew ye.

The episode winded down with Liz deciding to continue working with the Blacklist squad, despite the fact that Reddington killed her adoptive daddy, all due to the magic of a kid’s toy bracelet which reminded her that despite Reddington’s evil genius at work, they actually did a lot of good being his unwitting pawns in his entirely selfish plan for self-preservation.

As Liz sits with Reddington, we get a recap of how Liz remembers her real father rescuing her from a fire when she was young before handing her off to her adoptive dad.  Reddington reveals that her real father is dead and that she can never know who he truly is because that knowledge would put her in terrible danger.  (Though, to be fair, she’s kinda been in terrible danger a ton of times already, so not sure how this tease of a secret helps Liz in any way.)

Though Reddington has denied being Liz’s actual father, the episode ends with a reveal the Reddington has horrible burn scars on his back, which implies he was the one who rescued Liz from the fire she remembers, and that he actually is, in fact, her father – which would explain his connection with her and why she’s so important to him.  (I’ve theorized Red’s actually Liz’s father since the first episode, and there have been hints throughout the season that is actually the case, so this isn’t a huge shocker for me.)

My Theory About What’s Going On

So with a successful first season under our belts, I’m now prepared to offer my theory on what exactly is happening with The Blacklist.

First of all, let’s remember that Reddington started off as an officer in Naval Intelligence before assuming his career as a criminal mastermind.  He also never heard of or recognized Berlin before recent events.  We also know that Berlin was a high-ranking and ruthless KGB officer who was imprisoned in the gulag for protecting his beloved daughter from his enemies and getting her out of Russia.  His daughter is then kidnapped by Berlin’s enemies and pieces of her are sent to his prison cell to torment him, until he escapes and goes seeking revenge.  For some reason, he holds Reddington responsible.

The end of the episode has Reddington looking at a picture of Berlin’s dead daughter’s body, the same one that was sent to Berlin in his prison cell to taunt him.  Though one could read that as a clue that Reddington did kill her, I actually think it means something different.

I think that as a Naval Intelligence Officer, Reddington met Berlin’s daughter and turned her into an asset, which is why she had to flee Russia.  Reddington fell in love with her, and helped her to escape back to America, where he married her.  They had a child, which is Elizabeth.  Berlin’s enemies tracked them down and kidnapped Berlin’s daughter while setting fire to the house.  Reddington rescuse his daughter, but realizes she’ll never be safe because of Berlin’s enemies.  He claims she died in the fire while he hands her off to a trusted friend to raise her as his own, as Red goes off to rescue his wife.

Reddington eventually tracks down his wife’s kidnappers, but he’s too late.  She’s already been killed.  Reddington takes the photo of her dead body to remind him to stay focused on his revenge.  Knowing he can’t do what’s needed to the people responsible for this within the boundaries of the law, he leaves Naval Intelligence and becomes a criminal, hoping he take the focus of whoever was responsible for his wife’s death away from Liz and keep it on him.

What he doesn’t know is that his wife’s father is still alive and in prison.  When Berlin finally escapes, he eventually discovers Red’s connection to his daughter and blames him for her death, thus sparking his quest for revenge.  He does not know that Red actually loved his daughter, and that Lizzy is his biological grand-daughter.

What’s To Come In The Blacklist Season 2

That’s my rough theory about what’s going on here.  My guess is we’ll see more of this be revealed in season 2, where I’m certain Liz will at least figure out Red is her actual father.  I’m also willing to bet Ressler and Liz start getting it on, since they’re now both single thanks to the tragic deaths of their former lovers.

I’m also willing to bet we get some new team members in season 2, now that one regular has bit the dust.  And as Berlin’s quest for vengeance intensified, he’ll no doubt be hiring new Blacklisters to give the FBI some trouble.  Now we’ll get to see Red’s evil genius face-off with Berlin’s eviler genius, in what is sure to be an evil genius battle royal.

What were your thoughts about the finale?  What are your Blacklist theories?  let me know in the comments below!

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