Every once in awhile, The Blacklist can impress with how much fun it can be, or it can have interesting moments that make me understand why people watch it. But for the most part, there are episodes like “The Cyprus Agency” that showcase just how dumb, boring and completely lacking of fun The Blacklist truly is.
At its core, the “The Cyprus Agency” is profoundly stupid, even for The Blacklist. Up until last week, the show had seemingly completely forgotten that Elizabeth and Tom were planning on adopting a child together. Now, apparently the adoption has been progressing throughout this season, they just haven’t said a word about it. So with the Keen family anxiously looking forward to their new child—crib and baby seat all ready to go and Elizabeth even considering taking time off work to spend time with the new child—things are going to be great for the Keens, right?
Cut to Reddington giving Elizabeth the next group on the blacklist which is—get this—an evil adoption agency. WHAT ARE THE ODDS!? The Blacklist tries to wipe away this idiocy by some crap about how weird coincidence is, but in actuality, it’s just incredibly lame storytelling.
The Cyprus Agency lets couples pick what features they want their child to have and then finds a child right for them. In actuality though, they are kidnapping women and using them as hosts for inseminated eggs to create these ideal babies. Oh, and if that doesn’t sound evil enough, Campbell Scott is the face of the organization. Look, families looking to adopt, if Campbell Scott is telling you he can get you your dream baby, just walk away. It’s clearly a trick.
Scott’s character ends up being a con man who was once an adopted kid who was returned for odd reasons and now does this as some weird form of revenge. In what is played as some huge twist, it turns out he is also the father of all the babies, but that seems immediately obvious from his first scene in the episode. Also, I can’t help but imagine that Scott must have tried out for the part of Reddington. I mean, who else was trying out for that role but him and Spader?
We also see that Reddington’s mole hunt just never ends, as he questions Malick, who says she can find the true mole. We eventually find out its Diane, a character we never even met until the attack on the post office was happening, who Reddington shoots. In her dying words, Diane points out she knows what happened to Reddington’s family. But he knows if she knows, someone else must too and decides to shoot her a few more times just for good measure. But hey, at least we have another unanswered mystery that won’t get answered in the foreseeable future!
As with every happy opening to an episode between Elizabeth and Tom, there has to be a sad ending to bookend it. Of course, after seeing dozens of tranquilized women being forced to have babies, in addition to the still fresh uncertainty over her husband looming over them still, Elizabeth backs off on the adoption, leaving her husband to run off to hang out with his new lady friend.
Everything in “The Cyprus Agency” is just … awful. The writing is filled with unnecessary exposition and an ending twist that doesn’t surprise in any way. The acting is abhorrent at times, and as with almost every episode, the whole thing is tied up by another shootout. Plus, we don’t need any more mysteries or convenient missions to help nudge Elizabeth’s story one way or another. Even a person who has never watched television before could watch “The Cyprus Agency” and think, “Hmm, that seems contrived.” This is the last episode of The Blacklist until after the Olympics, but I’m sure those events will be far more action-packed, exciting and interesting that anything The Blacklist has given us thus far.