A Review Of NBC's, The Black List....
A Review Of NBC's, The Black List….
James Spader, the star of the brilliant new NBC tele-series, ‘The Black List’ has been around for some time… so much so that I remembered when he had all of his hair. We know Mr. Spader from his stellar thespian work in movies like Less Than Zero, and moreover, his hilarious take as the brilliant lawyer on David E. Kelley’s Boston Legal. The Black List is a different role for Spader because, so far, in the two episodes that have aired… Mr. Spader is a character hybrid: he is an ex naval officer who went rogue over twenty years ago, abandoning his wife and young daughter and turning to the lucrative selling of secrets to both sides of the ideological divide. And so after twenty years of being part of the FBI’s most wanted list, Mr. Spader nonchalantly walks into a FBI headquarters and simply turns himself in.
Right from the get go, the question that begs itself is why would a career criminal who abandoned his country and family would suddenly turn himself in to the FBI? This is where Megan Boone, who plays a newly minted FBI agent, who is about to start her job as a behavioral analyst, is summoned because James Spader’s character will not speak to anyone - but the young FBI agent, Miss Boone. The reason why the FBI is interested in what Mr. Spader has to say is because he has intimated that he has a list - The Black List - which has a list of ‘bad guys,’ some of whom our own CIA and FBI do not even know about. Moreover, Mr. Spader, in providing valuable, material Intelligence, is willing to assist in capturing or killing these bad guys, but curiously only if he could work with the young FBI agent, Miss Boone.
Adding to the intrigue is that The Black List is action pact with the FBI agents chasing down the most nefarious of bad guys and succeeding because of Spader’s contribution… but nagging in the audience’s respective minds and that of the FBI’s is what does Mr. Spader want, especially when the back-ground check on Miss Boone shows no correction of note to Mr. Spader, yet, Mr. Spader’s character seems to know secrets about her father, childhood, and husband. Incidentally, Miss Boone’s husband seems also to be in the cloak and dagger spook business because he has hidden in the floors multiple pass-ports, cache of money, and a weapon… all attributes of being a spy.
The beauty about Mr. Spader’s acting is that even in a smile… it can be part bone chilling and laugh out loud funny; he is that rare actor that can cause you morally to feel guilty for rooting for him, even knowing how wicked he can be in his roles, including the one he is currently playing in The Black List. I find myself yearning to know what is the end game for Mr. Spader’s character and wondering if he is the real father of Miss Boone; I am also salivating on thoughts of learning about the bad guys and being privy to crimes they have committed and seeing how they were associated with Mr. Spader’s Black List and how they are going to be captured or killed.
