A second chance
The baddies are trying to do good and get on the nice-guys list in spin-off show The Blacklist: Redemption.
Season 1 Wednesdays (from 8 March) M-Net (*101) 21:30
Criminals will steal your bag of chips and eat them while you cry. But not on new action show The Blacklist: Redemption (2017- current) – the spin- off from The Blacklist (2013current) turns the baddies’ moral compass 180 degrees and they’re trying to redeem their past indiscretions. Leading the pack is Tom Keen (Ryan Eggold), who fans of the original show know is a shady operative. He’s roped into a top-secret mercenary team by his mom and they do dirty work that the government isn’t prepared to tackle.
TEAMWORK AIN’T EASY
“Redemption is a spy show, whereas flagship series The Blacklist is more of a cop show,” says exec producer John Eisendrath. “We have like a Mission Impossible-type gang, each with their own specialty.” And while the team is made up of three core members (for now), they’re experts at their jobs.
Tom is a genius at lying and manipulation. In The Blacklist, he had his wife Liz (Meghan Boone) wrapped around his lies – she didn’t know that he had a box full of passports stashed under a floorboard, that their marriage was a lie or even that his name wasn’t Tom – it’s Chris Hargrave! His tactician mom Susan “Scottie” Hargrave (Famke Janssen, Jean Grey in the X-Men movies, 2000-2012) heads up Grey Matter, the mercenary team of shady organisation Halcyon Aegis. And along for the ride is hitman Matias Solomon (Edi Gathegi, who’s reprising his Blacklist role). Did we mention that Tom and Matias hate each other and want the other dead? So much for honour among thieves…
MOMMY ISSUES
It’s not just crimes being redeemed on the show though. Tom didn’t know his mom growing up and while mastercriminal Red Reddington (James Spader) told Tom in The Blacklist that Scottie is his mom, “She refuses pointblank to accept it.” Executive producer Jon Bokenkamp adds that “when the creators were hatching The Blacklist, they intended for Tom to be killed off, but the writers found him to be a dynamic character. That’s driving this series, combined with the feeling of abandonment for and from his mother. Add the deadly missions in-between and you’ve got drama!”