History Series / TheBlacklist

* BadBoss: So many examples, Garrick is one of the main ones as he didn’t seem to care about the deaths of his men. Ian Garvey has no trouble murdering Norman Singleton after the latter realizes he’s crooked. Henry Prescott in Season Five, at one point he actually hits Ressler because he didn’t obey an order. Anna Mcmahon in Season Six, she became head of Main Justice mainly so she could shut down Cooper’s team.

** The Alliance/Cabal can be seen as one for the Patriots in the ''Franchise/MetalGear'' series. Both are secret organizations that control various world affairs. They also intervene in them when it favors their agenda.

** TheMentor: Cooper, the senior FBI agent actually in charge of the Task Force, for whom mentoring seems to be a second

* CassandraTruth: Ressler have actually admitted to some crazy facts. He tells Elizabeth he was dumping a body in his new car, and tells Gale that he was brainwashed into shooting a secret agent. Both times he gets laughed off.

* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler: Liz, the main character, dies in season 8 following her actress Megan Boone's departure from the show. Previously, Liz potentially dying had been a case of LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt; after she faked her death once already, many fans weren't expecting the writers to actually go through with killing her off for real.]] Similarly, [[spoiler: Tom dies in season 5, despite having been a major character for the show's entire runtime.]]

The show has aired nine seasons, with a tenth that has been confirmed to be the final season having begun airing as of February 26, 2023.

* BaitAndSwitch: The season 5 premiere closes with a flash-forward montage of [[spoiler:Red and Dembe busting into the Keen home, with guns blazing, and Tom bleeding out on the floor. Red then appears to lean over him and pull the trigger]]. While all these images are genuinely present in episode 8 of that season, the full context gives them much more different meaning -- [[spoiler:Red and Dembe are there to ''rescue'' Liz (who is also injured) and to a lesser extent Tom, while their guns are being fired at the men who perpetrated a home invasion against them. And while Tom does die in the episode, it's not him that Red summarily executes.]]

** TheChick: Aram may be the IT guy, but he wears his emotions on his shirt, loves hugs, and always tries to make everyone feel better.

* BadBoss: So many examples, Garrick is one of the main ones as he didn’t seem to care about the deaths of his men. Ian Garvey has no trouble murdering Norman Singleton after the latter realizes he’s crooked. Henry Prescott in Season Five, at one point he actually hits Ressler because he didn’t obey an order. Anna Mcmahon in Season Six, she became head of Main Justice mainly so she could shut down Cooper’s team.

* IdiotBall:

* WhatAnIdiot: Seriously, the number of people that engage in stupid behavior is somewhat disheartening.
** In "Ivan", Abby Fisher, in the middle of a city-wide blackout, decides to leave home without telling anyone, on the word of who she believes is her best friend, who suddenly begins to demonstrate heretofore-unknown-to-her hacking abilities by lighting a set of specific streetlights without a problem. [[spoiler:Of course, it turns out to be someone who ''is'' an actual hacker.]]

The show has aired nine seasons, with a tenth set to premiere on February 26, 2023, which has been confirmed to be the final season.

The show has aired eight seasons, with a ninth premiering on October 21, 2021.

* ArtisticLicensePolitics: The Season 6 finale "Robert Diaz" shows a presidential debate happening in 2019. Presidential debates would not be occurring that early in the election cycle, only presidential primaries with multiple candidates. A presidential debate would realistically occur later in 2020, closer to Election Day once party candidates have been finalized.

** When Hitchen tells the Director to kill Keen, he responds:

** How Prescott got to Ressler, either Ressler obeys him or proof of Ressler's involvement in Hitchin's murder gets released.

* NiceHat: Reddington sports the "villainous fedora" variety.
** In the Season 2 premiere, "Lord Baltimore", we can tell when Red is in trouble based on whether he has lost his hat or not. This was lampshaded on "Late Night with David Letterman's" preview of the season:
---> Red loses his hat. Red looks at kid wearing his hat. Red longs for his hat. Red gets his hat back.
** He also compliments one of his investigators (Lance Reddick) on his cowboy hat.
--->'''Reddington:''' [[LampshadeHanging I love hats.]]
** Come Season 5, he trades a coin worth three million dollars for Winston Churchill's hat.

** "Konets: [[spoiler:Vandyke, one of Townsend's surviving men, shoots Liz in the back.]]

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: "Cape May" has Red dealing with Liz's death, traveling to Cape May to find answers. With the exception of Red, the rest of the main cast is absent. Likewise, "Ruin" has Elizabeth dealing with Tom's death, living off-the-grid in remote Alaska, also with the rest of the main cast absent. "Requiem" is a similar episode, focusing on Mr. Kaplan's tragic backstory.

''The Blacklist'' is a television crime drama that premiered on Creator/{{NBC}} on September 23, 2013, starring Creator/JamesSpader and [[Series/LawAndOrderLA Megan Boone]].

** In Season 6 Episode 3, while defending himself in court, Red tells the Judge that he once stumbled upon Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia while on a fishing trip. This is a reference to the series finale of Series/BostonLegal, which Spader starred on as BunnyEarsLawyer Alan Shore.

* ALighterShadeOfBlack: Invoked in "Luther Braxton", where "The Factory" — a secret American interrogation facility in the Bering Sea — is captured by a Blacklister. Though the inmates are heavily implied to deserve the treatment they receive there, it becomes a form of BlackComedy when the villains subject the heroes to some of it — three of the series regulars spend the episode suspended from chain nooses, attempting to keep some of the weight off their necks by standing on tiptoe on tiled blocks slick with the blood of executed inmates.

* BombDisposal: Inverted in "The Decembrist", although [[spoiler:Fitch]] takes a sort of HeroicSacrifice.
* BombproofAppliance: Inverted in "The Decembrist", when they need a safe place to contain a bomb, they use Reddington's metal cage from the pilot. [[spoiler: It works [[YourHeadAsplode quite well.]]]]

* CIAEvilFBIGood: Invoked in Episode 2, with FBI agent Donald Ressler and CIA agent Meera Malik, who sweetly informs the Freelancer that she's CIA, so she can do things the FBI can't do openly. Such as torture him by poking around his broken leg.

* CorruptTheCutie: Thanks to Red's influence, Elizabeth (and to a certain extent the rest of the team) seems to be becoming significantly more morally grey.
** [[spoiler: She goes well and truly AntiHero when she kills Tom Connolly, though to be fair, she did it to prevent him from killing her and her friends, making it a case of PayEvilUntoEvil.]]

** Julian Gale, with Mr. Kaplan’s help, getting a grand jury to indict the whole Reddington Task Force.

** Reddington is a traitor, ConsummateLiar, and is clearly using the FBI to further his own unknown agenda, but the information and assistance he's providing is so valuable that the FBI and the Justice Department have no choice but to work with him for the forseeable future.
---> '''Liz''': (hears her phone ring) Speak of the devil, it's the devil.

* DecapitationPresentation: With [[spoiler:Mako Tanida]], via FingerInTheMail, but subverted as it is done as "head on a platter" rather than "this is what happens."

** The Corsican attempts to use a suitcase bomb to destroy the UN building, which would kill countless diplomats and ambassador. He comes incredibly close to it.

* EpisodeTitleCard

** This is what drives the title villain of "Frederick Barnes".

* InTouchWithHisFeminineSide: Aram, on occasion.

* LukeIAmYourFather: Inverted, maybe.

* LuxuryPrisonSuite: The FBI would prefer to keep Reddington in a spartan maximum security cell. However, when they need his help, they have to transfer him to more luxurious accommodations. After the second episode, the FBI has given up on keeping Reddington locked up, because of his successful argument that in order to use his contacts and information, he would have to continue his business as usual. Reddington himself is seen in all sorts of environments, from hotels to simple houses.

** Invoked in "Wujing." The titular villain accuses one of his mooks of being a traitor, then proceeds to give him a {{no holds barred beatdown}}. Reddington then shoots the mook and claims that he did it to spare him from more suffering, since Wujing was just going to beat him some more before killing him. [[spoiler: In actuality, the mook discovered the device that Reddington and Liz used to set him up, and was going to expose them to Wujing. [[ShootTheDog Reddington killed him before he could say anything.]]]]

* MultitaskedConversation: While Liz is setting up in Wujing's base, she communicates to Reddington via text on her computer screen. He, meanwhile, has a natural sounding conversation with the workers while asking questions to Liz indirectly.

* NeverTrustATrailer: Inverted. ''The Blacklist'' is one of few shows where the trailers, even when it makes grandiose claims, actually ''underpromotes'' the show. ''The Blacklist'' is consistently better than what the trailers shown.

** Lampshaded by Reddington in "The Courier." The high-level criminals and government agents that deal with Reddington cannot really trust each other. Thus, the Courier is hired to keep the people involved from double crossing each other. If the deal is betrayed, he kills everyone on both sides of the deal, no exceptions.

* NotQuiteDead: Happens almost too regularly.

* RetCon: In the flashbacks of "Ruin," Scottie Hargrave shows up out of nowhere to take care of Agnes. Her presence is hand-waved with a story about Tom "testifying against my husband." Which doesn't make any sense, since Scottie was the one who was arrested at the end of TheBlacklistRedemption, not Howard. When exactly Tom did this is completely unknown.

* SexyDiscretionShot: Most notably in "General Ludd", where we see Liz joining Tom in the shower as the camera pans tastefully away; followed by a big dose of squick as we cut to the sinister surveillance team's location and see that the couple are being video-monitored even in the bathroom.
* TheSiege: In "Anne", Neville Townsend personally leads his men to lay siege to the Cottonwood Falls Police Station after Reddington tries to seek refuge. It doesn't work since Townsend was willing to kill the officers inside. Plus, there's not a lot of them inside.

--> '''Daniel Hutton:''' You were a traitor treated like a patriot, and I was a patriot treated like a traitor, so that's what I became.
--> '''Cooper:''' It's you? You're the Simoon?
--> '''Daniel:''' It's a pleasure to meet you.

* TrustMeImAnX: Inverted.
--> '''Lizzie''': I'm supposed to believe you?
--> '''Red''': Of course not! I'm a ''criminal.''

* VillainousFriendship: Type 1 between Reddington and Dembe.
* VillainProtagonist: Reddington.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Inverted big time when it comes to Red. Whenever his enemies have him at their mercy, they simply ''cannot'' just shoot him and get out of there. They have to gloat, rub his nose in it, order a pizza and invite all their friends over to witness it, etc. Red is snarking right back at them like he's daring them to do it the whole time. Hell, you get the impression some of them would sell the event on pay-per-view in order to get the most satisfaction out of it. They ''have'' to bask in the glow of outsmarting the great Reddington, despite knowing that he always has a back-up plan when things go south. Red always manages to turn the tables or find an opening. Shit, you'd think he'd spent his entire criminal career pissing off his enemies as much as he possibly could ''just so this trope would be in play.''

** Invoked by Reddington in Part Two of "Berlin"; a man hears a disturbance in his home and finds Reddington sitting at his kitchen table, eating peaches, and holding his dog. The man asks what Reddington will do to the dog if he doesn't get what he wants.