Author: Allison Keene

Episode Synopsis: Liz poses as a hacker so that she and Red can prevent notorious Chinese spy killer Wujing from taking out any more CIA operatives. Meanwhile, Liz also sets up her own investigation regarding her husband Tom’s multiple identities and potential criminal past. 

Episode Highlights: Liz is developing a distinctive personality that is starting to include some humor, like when she called Red out on speaking frankly about government secrets in front of his haberdasher. She also showed why her partnership with Red is so important when it come to justice — though he tells her (and us) that not all of the people on the blacklist will be apprehended, she makes sure that Wujing was by tagging his car. The show also continued with its whirlwind intensity, which sets it apart from other procedurals. 

PHOTOS: NBC’s 2013-14 Season

Criticism: The central “why me?” mystery is growing tiresome, especially since Red doesn’t seem to have a good reason for avoiding Liz’s questions. The subplot mystery regarding Tom is progressing, slowly, but the show really needs to throw viewers a bone with a big reveal soon. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to develop some of Liz’s co-workers further so that viewers become more interested in (and distracted by) their personalities instead festering on the puzzle aspect. Also (unrelated) for someone so paranoid about security, Wujing was particularly lax about letting Liz and Red out randomly in the street, wasn’t he? (which ultimately led to his downfall). 

Biometrics, Pros and Cons: Pro – better security. Con – criminals remove your entire hand to unlock your phone/tablet/laptop. 

Grey Matter: Sad to see Wujing’s guy who Liz accidentally set up take the blame for her messages. But it echoed the show’s overarching theme by having Liz be party to something Red routinely does — that is, to do something bad in the service of something good (or in the case also, for self preservation). But if Red isn’t expecting to have each of these criminals apprehended, what is his end game? Another mystery … 

Big Brother Is Watching: Neat trick with the surveillance crew hiding when the friend came through the house, though that sudden surveillance setup has been seen recently on both Homeland and Scandal. It’s becoming so frequent, in fact, it hardly makes one bat an eye. “Of course the painters are about to bug your entire house! That’s what they do.”

Product Placement: Ford spot that started one commercial break had a couple is looking for Chinese food. 

Quote of the Night: “I like to play by myself. In private.” — Red 

Bottom Line: Another fun week of suave talk from Red and plenty of action from the villains versus the FBI, but the show needs to start delivering some answers to any of its many mysteries — or at least give viewers a plausible reason why we, and Liz, can’t know more.

Will Hart/NBC

Episode Synopsis: Reddington continues to outsmart everyone with his intricately laid plots, carried out with the smoothest of demeanors. The connection between him and Elizabeth is still in question, but she is currently more concerned about the potential treachery of her husband. Meanwhile, Cooper fights with superiors and other agencies when it comes to convincing them Red is no ordinary criminal and that acquiescing to his demands does not mean submission.

Episode Highlights: Watching The Blacklist is like drifting along a Lazy River. There’s a strong trajectory that moves in a linear fashion (the show is very brief on flashbacks), and the events — and their many twists — just wash over us. Even if you had guessed that Floriana Compo (Isabella Rossellini) may not have been entirely on the up and up, the way it played out was exceptionally fun to watch unfold.

PHOTOS: NBC’s 2013-14 Season

Who’s Your Daddy?: The biggest mystery right now is the connection between Elizabeth and Red. The father/daughter idea seems too heavy-handed for a show that likes to trade on surprises, but maybe the surprise is how obvious it would be. There’s still plenty to unpack when it comes to Elizabeth’s past and her father’s criminal background, regardless. Interesting, though, that the bureau didn’t press her on that — or the scar — in her lie detector test. Seems like information they could use. 

Current Events: The FBI doesn’t have funds for surveillance or investigation during a government shutdown. 

Department of Arrogance: There had to come a point where Cooper would start standing up for Red against the wishes of his superiors, but I like that The Blacklist made it about departmental and agency posturing than about personalities. Yes it’s a question of doing it by-the-books versus not, which is a trope, but it was nice to see the other departments get snippy with each other over territory and glory. Felt real. 

Best Cameo: Isabella Rossellini brings so much vitality and class to everything she does (even those “Green Porno” videos about bugs having sex). The show did a nice job of tying her story in with Elizabeth’s (Compo as someone she long admired) and also with Red’s bodyguard Dembe, who bears the scar of being one of the sex slaves. It showed that Red’s motivations are personal, despite Elizabeth’s profile of him, and he does seem out for some kind of specific retribution. 

RECAP: ‘The Blacklist’ Pilot

White Hats Asleep At The Wheel: The FBI profiled the face of every person in that restaurant except the all-important host.

Next Stop, Denial: The walls between Elizabeth and Red are breaking down slowly — one great example was how she consulted him privately, twice, about her husband. Red tells her there are two ways this could go: she could turn him in, or confront him. Or just deny she saw anything. But that’s surely not the last of the issue. Were her tears watching the video because she believed in her husband’s love or because she was horrified at the depths of his treachery? 

Quote of the Night: “What is it with you and hotel rooms and pens in people’s necks?” — Red 

Bottom Line: A great second week for the show, which is settling into a “Villain of the Week” formula that somehow doesn’t feel tired. The fun of Compo being found out was nothing compared to that acrobatic chase scene with the Freelancer. James Spader also continues to excel in smarminess, while allowing for a touch of weariness to Red as well.

Larry David‘s new HBO film Clear History is in some ways a more successful reboot (and atonement?) of the 1998 film Sour Grapes, which he wrote and directed. David often has joked about that film’s failures, but he seems to have learned from mistakes in a way his characters never do. Clear History covers similar ground to Sour Grapes — money, greed and vengeance — but David taking the lead role this time is what brings the whole work together. He also has collaborated with some of the writers (Alec Berg, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer) from his long-running HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, and for that reason, among others, Clear History will feel for some like an elongated episode of Curb. But under Greg Mottola‘s (Superbad) direction, this time David’s brand of humor and improvisational style feels somehow friendlier and overall more accessible.

In Clear History (whose title really should have been Sour Grapes), David stars as Nathan Flomm, a marketing whiz who loses his job at an electric car startup after vehemently disagreeing with his Fountainhead-loving boss Will Hanley (Jon Hamm) over naming their new design the “Howard” (as in Roark, from whom Flomm later draws his own inspiration). Ten years later, thanks to Flomm’s bad luck, the Howard seems to have solved the energy crisis. The car’s ubiquity also signals the most difficult truth for Flomm to stomach: Because he cashed in his 10 percent stake in the company when he left, he lost out on what eventually would have amounted to $1 billion.

PHOTOS: 40 Years of HBO

As his name becomes nationally associated with “idiot,” Flomm, penniless, moves east to Martha’s Vineyard and becomes a caretaker, and friend to the working class, under the name Rolly DaVore. But when Hanley and his new wife, Rhonda (Kate Hudson), begin building a monstrous abode on the island, Flomm schemes with some of the locals (played by Danny McBride, Bill Hader and Michael Keaton) to blow up the house and get even with Hanley for ruining his life.

The plot essentially is as straightforward as it sounds, but does contain a few twists and engaging (though nonessential) subplots, such as Flomm’s friendship with Jennifer (Eva Mendes) and his encounters with a Chechen thug (Liev Schreiber, channeling the intensity of his character from Ray Donovan). But one of the greatest bits, and a perfect example of Flomm’s obsessive nature, is a recurring joke about whether or not, and to what extent, his ex-girlfriend was intimate with the band members of Chicago at a concert 20 years earlier (the movie also is rife with Chicago references). 

The story still boils down to the familiar Curb concept of “Larry David is an asshole surrounded by even bigger assholes,” but that’s a good thing. Despite the guise of a scraggly beard and hippie hair to start the film, David instantly is recognizable thanks to his trademark obsessions and confrontational attitude over minutia, like an idea for cars to have a pee-flap, a desire to put wall sockets higher (“are outlets like genitals? Do we have to hide them?”) and the sanitary practices of a diner that puts silverware directly on the table without a napkin. 

While some of the comedy feels too broad for David’s regular style (particularly the backwoods bomb-squad characters played by Keaton and Hader), and the format too long for his usually extremely layered humor, Clear History does reflect David’s desire to deal with complex themes in his work, from a fable about corruption brought on by revenge, to the more redemptive moral of perseverance through difficult times. The shallow laugh is the irony that Flomm left the startup just before it took off, but the sad undertone is how he went on to make a new life for himself only to ultimately fall prey again to the obsessions of his past. For that reason, when the consequences of his actions play out, there’s not a sense of empathy so much as a fair resolution — a change of pace from Curb. 

Clear History also marks a comedic change of pace for HBO, which has loaded the year with a heavy lineup of dramatic original movies. With its seaside setting and lighthearted fun, Clear History is a kind of pleasant, late-summer gazpacho, enjoyed to the sounds of Chicago and debates about whether there is a racial preference between black and white dwarves. That last part should prove that while Larry David might look and feel a little different in this project, he could never be mistaken, like Flomm is, for anyone else.