More than twelve hours have passed now since The Blacklist series finale aired on NBC, and we are still left with a complicated mix of emotions. It is always bittersweet watching a show fade into darkness, especially one that produced so many feelings and reactions. There was joy, humor, adventure, and sadness. There was certainly frustration at times, and that is certainly clear with reactions to Raymond Reddington’s final fate.
No one other there can be surprised that the character met his demise; the way it happened, meanwhile, felt both garish and rather outlandish. Maybe it befits a larger-than-life character to die in a larger-than-life way, but perhaps the weakness of this final scene is accented further by the beauty of what lied before.
The greatest moment within the final two episodes, and perhaps the greatest moment of the entire final season, was the discussion between Cooper and Dembe set amidst the famous poem by Dylan Thomas: “Rage against the dying if the light.” No words accent further who Raymond Reddington was through much of his life, and he taught us a lesson we should all know and understand: Enjoy life for the adventure. Fear not of the end, for it comes for us all. What is different is what we do along the way. It may be the greatest monologue of Hisham Tawfiq’s career, and we write this article still choked-up upon listening to it for what feels like the eighth or ninth time.
Should we not view the monologue as a microcosm for the series? Should the journey matter more than Reddington’s inevitable end? Or, should we at least remember this character for the moments he shined the most? Our final image of him will be not of us death, but him looking out on that field in Spain as Tawfiq read his final lines of the series. It was quiet, and a perfect way for Reddington to take for stock of his life. Even if he collapsed in that moment, it would have felt in some way better than the actual ending we received mere minutes later.
The Blacklist series finale was beyond imperfect. The lack of a Liz mention was disheartening and in some ways disrespectful to the character’s legacy. Meanwhile, we wanted more longtime characters and to better understand the future of the Task Force. Don’t even get us started on the identity “reveal.”
Reddington was never a prototypical villain; he did not need to die. Yet, does come for us all, and we will look back most fondly at Dembe’s words. We will therefore rage against the show’s death into the light, and instead focus more on that journey. No ending can take away the adventure that we had along the way.
