Awesome / The Blacklist

Season 1

• Liz moving forward by eventually confronting Tom about the cache of passports and money that she found in their residence.
• Red's complete destruction of Floriana Campo. First he hires the Freelancer to take her out, getting him to only poison her glass. Then he waits until after she's drank the poison to turn him in. Then when Floriana thinks she has the upper hand he completely destroys her, gloating about how she's dying and forcing her to admit her crimes. He even accurately predicts what the headline will say.
• Reddington tossing The Stewmaker into his own chemical stew.
• Ressler driving a nuclear car-bomb into the sea to contain the radiation, with less than a minute before detonation, and succeeding.
  • He gets another earlier when he walks into a meeting with a druglord and Reddington introduces him as an FBI agent. Despite being held at knifepoint, he overpowers the guards and sells the druglord on the lie that he's a Lawman Gone Bad and Red's man inside the FBI. And this despite always being played as not that bright.
  • And in 'The Courier' when he pretends to be the title character in front of a contractor and even cuts himself with a broken wine bottle to prove that he is the real deal (as The Courier is known for his inability to feel pain). Sure, it doesn't work, but it's still awesome.
• Liz and Reddington are talking to a crooked plastic surgeon who refuses to reveal the new identity of a terrorist who had his face surgically altered. Liz identifies herself as an FBI agent and reveals that Reddington is now working for the FBI. Faced with the threat of jail time, the surgeon caves in and gives them the information they need. As soon as they have what they came for, Reddington and Liz fake outrage at how easily the surgeon failed their Secret Test of Character and now they will have to find another plastic surgeon to work with who won't betray his clients' secrets as soon as the FBI is mentioned. As they leave, the surgeon is begging Reddington to give him another chance.
• Liz kicking all kinds of ass during "Anslo Garrick".
  • From the same episode: Reddington saving Ressler's life with an impromptu blood transfusion.
• Reddington proving that he has Nerves of Steel when the attack against the Post Office begins. When Ressler goes down, he calmly searches for the key to his restraints, snatches up Ressler's sidearm, picks up a shotgun and performs a successful tactical retreat with the wounded agent to the Post Office holding cell, efficiently distracting and eliminating several of the mercenaries bearing down on them with a combination of gunfire and a perfectly timed flashbang grenade. Later, Red has fun casually mocking an incredibly unstable Anslo Garrick, who is only prevented from killing him by the bulletproof glass around the holding cell.
  • Like him or hate him, it is certainly impressive than Anslo Garrick can overwhelm the entire FBI SWAT task force in the building within minutes and stand unmatched.
• Aram manning up to shoot the mercenary threatening to kill Liz.
• Ressler killing one of Anslo's soldiers, despite having a large shotgun wound in his leg.
• Red killing Anslo with a well placed stab in the back on the neck.
• Mr. Kaplan's team. One minute a bunch of normal-looking guys show up. The next minute they're storming the observation outpost, curbstomping everyone in their way.
• Throughout "The Good Samaritan Killer" we see what happens when you truly manage to piss off Raymond Reddington.
  • Especially epic is the montage near the beginning of the episode, set to "The Man Comes Around".
  • When Red barges into a restaurant where one of the people who facilitated the operation is having dinner, he rapidly decimates the man's security detail with some perfectly timed shots from his M1911A1, preventing them from getting even a single round off.
  • Reddington's threat to Aram, who supposedly sold secrets to the Garrick operation. He takes a gun out, but he doesn't threaten to shoot him. He disassembles the gun and empties the magazine. He informs the guy that if he doesn't make an untraceable transfer of five million dollars to Reddington before Reddington finishes assembling and reloading the gun, then he will shoot him. The best part? Red didn't even want the money, he was just trying to prove that Aram wasn't actually the mole, with a demonstration that he's perfectly capable of covering his tracks.
    • Even more Awesome is that that scene is a full-blown homage to Swordfish.
• Red finally meeting the mole, Diane Fowler, and tying off that loose end with some well-placed bullets.
• Madeline Pratt actually manages to manipulate Reddington in order to carry out her heist. Though Red gets her back.
• Tom Keen finally gets several when he breaks cover, revealing that he's the assassin Red made him out to be, has memorized the layout of the post office, beats Jolene Parker half to death before asphyxiating her and executes The Cowboy. Not bad for a character that at times has been a The Scrappy of the show.
• The Pavovich Brothers get one for being able to secure badass Professional Killer Tom Keen.
• Tom gets one when he gives an epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Liz and overpowers her after she handcuffs him and breaks his thumb.
• In a nice Pay Evil unto Evil moment, Liz reveals to Vogel that she's infected him with the same virus he's been using to coerce people into aiding Berlin's plan in order to force his cooperation.
  "That's how blackmail works, sweetheart."
• Red's escape from federal custody. All Alan can do is arrange for him to be transferred, which gives him a chance to escape. Red just says, "That's all I need." Despite being heavily guarded, he busts out without even killing anyone. He may seem like the type to sit back and pull the strings from afar, but when it comes time to get his hands dirty, Raymond Reddington is an utterly dangerous man.
• Red raiding Berlin's safehouse in "Berlin: Conclusion". He just shows up and eliminates all the guards without breaking stride.

Season 2

• The Introductory Sequence in 'Lord Baltimore'. Seemingly kidnapped by a Smug Snake African Warlord who is waving a gun in his face, Red calmly shows who's boss by deploying the Hellfire missiles he recently purchased and to top things off smugly sets fire to the gigantic pile of money, knowing that the Warlord won't be able to stop him.
  • The Mossad kidon team nailed Reddington by surprise.
  • At the same time, Lord Baltimore in person leads an operation to take out the US Marshals guarding Naomi Hyland by using blitzkrieg-like tactics before Liz can call for backup.
• Niko's attempt to blackmail Reddington in 'Dr. James Covington', with Reddington managing to do the same and killing him.
• In "Mombasa Cartel", Liz manages to make Reddington cooperate more by having Ezra, one of his snipers arrested by a FBI SWAT team.
  • The Reveal at the end when Tom is shown to be alive and locked up by Liz.
• Red manages to return Berlin's real daughter near the end of "The Scimitar" and thus puts the man who wished to kill him most in a serious bind.
• Berlin being able to capture Fitch by using his men disguised as Homeland Security agents in "The Decembrist".
  • He then achieves a Pyrrhic Victory of sorts (before Red manages to eliminate him), securing a bomb around the man's neck which stays on long enough to be detonated. Counts as a Death by Irony due to the fact Fitch had ruined his life by killing several of Berlin's Soviet-era associates with a bomb.
• In "Luther Braxton", after Liz is captured by Braxton, Red grabs a gun and mows down everyone and everything in his path to getting to her, reminding us once again that you do not mess with the people Red cares about.
  • Earlier, while planning their counter-attack against Braxton with some prisoners, a cartel member asks what his job is. Red's response?
  Red: You don't have a job. You're here because of what your cartel did to Felix Morales and my people in Reynosa.
  Bang
• Ruslan's successful plan in capturing a CIA agent masquerading as a Russian Orthodox priest in "Ruslan Denisov".
  Ruslan: Would a simple servant of God have this? You're no more a priest than I am. [Tosses sat phone to the fake priest] Here's your burning bush. So talk to your God.
• Reddington was able to save Liz from being potentially indicted near the end of "The Kenyon Family" by offering to help the witness to save a relative of his via organ transplant overseen by him personally if he can withdraw his witness statement to the police.
  • Also in "The Kenyon Family", Samar walking up to a seven year old suicide bomber through a police barricade and calmly persuading him to drop the detonator and surrender, never raising her voice and never showing anything but the utmost compassion to the boy.
• In "The Deer Hunter" Liz displays a cool head under pressure and surprisingly good combat skills by goading the second Deer Hunter to get physical by reminding her of her abusive husband, the first Deer Hunter, and effortlessly subduing her using only her legs, while suspended from the ceiling, to the point that she easily could have killed the Deer Hunter if not for Ressler showing up when he did. She's clearly learned a thing or two since season 1.
• Reddington's mercenaries securing the warehouse where Reddington was being treated for his gunshot wound despite the overwhelming number of assassins sent out to outnumber them in "Leonard Caul".
  • Tom and Dembe join in the fight to even the odds a bit, the latter using a human shield. Reddington finishes some of them with a revolver Mr. Kaplan left him. The sheer cool factor of seeing Red, Tom, and Dembe — three of the deadliest fighters on the show — working in sync with one another only adds to the enjoyment.
• Liz blackmailing the Director to his face and forcing him to call off the hit on Red under threat of total exposure.
• Reddington's plans to get Kenneth Jasper to talk. It consisted of Navabi revealing herself to be loyal to the NCS Director and shooting Dembe when they confront each other so that Jasper would know that she's a "friendly".
• "Karakurt".
  • The Cabal implements a successful operation to raise diplomatic tensions between Russia and the USA and eliminate a new threat, namely Elizabeth Keen. They do this with a series of false clues, and use of Director Cooper to make it seem that Keen is a Russian spy who assisted in the assassination of an anti-Russian Senator.
• "Masha Rostova."
  • Lizzy's Rage Breaking Point. She's finally had enough of being manipulated and seeing her colleagues played for fools. So when the attorney general flaunts his power as part of The Cabal by threatening the entire task force with disbandment and criminal charges, she shoots him.

Season 3

• In "Marvin Gerard", Red lets Ressler know that Liz is not safe with the Russians; she's actually about to be killed if they can only get her out of the US. By himself, Ressler rushes to save Liz, running the Russians off the road and dispatching the guards with a little help from Liz, all to protect a woman he's trying to capture. Liz doesn't know this, and tells Red later that she thought Ressler was trying to kill her; Red (who has no love for Ressler) corrects her, telling her Donald was trying to save her.
• The means by which Tom captures Russian terrorist Karakurt definitely belongs on this list. When confronted by Karakurt, his brother, and a few of his underlings, Tom elucidates what he considers to be the most likely combat scenario, which will result in Karakurt's capture. Almost immediately after he says this, the battle unfolds - exactly as Tom predicted it down to the last detail, and in about five seconds to boot. The episode ends with most of Karakurt's associates dead and with Karakurt in Tom's custody.
• Red's bank heist in the same episode also counts. The look on Director Kotsiopulos' face when Red informs him of it is priceless.
• Dembe's Big Damn Heroes moment in "Arioch Cain" rushing in Guns Akimbo to save Red and Liz, with a bullet in his side, no less.
• Tom, Dressler and Karakurt's shootout against Solomon and his men, ending with Cooper's arrival to knock the socks off Solomon with a well-timed punch.
• Aram stepping in and pointing his gun at the Director to prevent him from taking Liz away to kill her. Guy's shaking like a leaf, but he doesn't step out of the way until Liz begs him to do it.
• "The Director": The payoff for all the scheming in the first half of the season. First, the capture of Karakurt. Second, trading Zal bin Hassan for a meeting. Third, stealing a "care package", which turns out to be the brand-new printing plates for U.S. money from "General Ludd". Fourth, all that goes into keeping Liz alive until all the pieces are in place. Tom delivers Karakurt, while Reddington enlists the help of a Venezuelan official in exchange for the plates. They dress up the eighth floor of an office building to look exactly like the sixth floor, on which the director and his wife's therapist has his office. Samar and Cooper dose the director's wife so she has what appears to be a panic attack. She goes to the therapist, who calls the director to come in. Aram causes the elevator to deliver him to the eighth floor while appearing to stop at the sixth, where the director is injected with an anesthetic. They spirit him away before his security detail can catch up, and then the final piece is revealed: They're on a Venezuelan plane on their way to have the director tried for war crimes. The whole thing would be a monumental humiliation for America, so Laurel Hitchen agrees to Red's terms (presented by Marvin Gerard), exonerating Liz for all crimes except the one she did commit, killing the AG, with a slap on the wrist for that one. The director, now a liability, is publicly declared a member of the Cabal and left to Red's tender mercy, and subsequently falls through the roof of a Dutch house.
• Liz uses her "status" in "Mr. Solomon" to help Reddington secure his tactical bag full of guns since Mr. Solomon gave clear orders not to shoot her.

Season 4

• Double with the funny in "Miles McGrath" when Reddington shoots his courier when the former tells him to screw himself. This made him very very afraid of the man.
• Aram turning the tables against the mole sent by the Thrushes by hacking into the laptop in "The Thrushes".
  • Liz baiting Kirk by telling him that the FBI is going to the meeting place on purpose so that she can leak the actual location to Reddington.
• Liz masquerading as a thief in "The Harem".
• Reddington in "Dr. Bogdan Krilov" has a safety measure when he meets Werner von Hauser for a long time. One of his recruited bodyguards was used by Red as a safety measure in case things go bad.
• Aram defying a grand jury over threats of locking up due to not testifying when he later admits that the task force has gone good work for America despite the deal they did with the DOJ.

Season 5

• "Greyson Blaise" Way too many including Red extorting a vacation home for the FBI to use. Talking a master counterfeiter out of retirement by stroking his ego. Calling Interpol on Greyson and then immediately he and Liz raid his house scaring the staff with talk of agents showing up. Followed up by the reveal that Red was using the fake painting to ensure the title character gets released then having evidence for the FBI to incarcerate him with when Cooper is desperate for a Blacklister.
• "Ian Garvey": In his last moments, Tom manages to pull one of these. Despite being heavily wounded and stabbed several times by Garvey, Tom manages to rise up and kill most of the assailants right before Reddington arrives to finish the last few off.
• "Sutton Ross" Liz manages to pull off what could possibly be the most impressive Batman Gambit on the show so far. As the only person other than Red who knows the truth about the bones, she uses theatrics to fake a kidnapping and her knowledge to get Ross out of the FBI blacksite, after which she is taken to a warehouse and given the bones and DNA report by Jennifer (Liz's half-sister), whom Garvey gave the bag to through Ross. Knowing Red will likely trade his life for Liz, she makes Ross give her visible injuries to continue the ruse when Red shows up to make the trade. While the original plan was to have Ross threaten to kill Liz to make Red reveal the secret, it changed when the FBI stormed the place to rescue her. After this, Liz lets Red shoot Ross, take the bag, burn it and leave him believing that things have gone like they usually do and that she has no knowledge of his real identity.

Season 6

• The very first thing we see Red do this season is hijack a bank robbery, leave the robbers for the police, and steal a deposit box containing a valuable stolen painting just so he can return it and tell the bank manager to return it to proper owners. And why? Because he's about to turn 60, and he wanted to see if he's still got it.
  Red: And it turns out, I do!
• Realizing the public defender he's been stuck with isn't good enough, Red decides to represent himself in court. And not only does he put Cooper in a position where he has to confirm the existence of Red's immunity deal (which Cooper's superiors wanted to deny) but makes such a decent argument for the good the deal has done that the judge is convinced to uphold it. The only reason Red doesn't walk free is because of a loophole regarding the gun he was carrying when he was arrested.
• Red decides to challenge his arrest while being held in prison by representing himself despite the odds stacked against him.
• While in prison, Red is accosted by a former associate, who threatens to kill him. Red's response? Set the task force after the Blacklisters of the week, whose garage full of stolen merchandise includes proof that the inmate in question is innocent of the crime he was put away for, resulting in him going free... at which point Red has Dembe tip off a cartel boss who wants the criminal dead, thereby leading to his assassination.
  • Red MacGyvering a means of communicating with Dembe on the outside, involving a rat and some string.
• Liz's Elevator Action Sequence with a suspect.
• Liz takes advantage of Red's habit of sending the task force after Blacklisters without bothering to fully explain why by sending them after the person who is the probably key to her own secret investigation into Red's true identity, claiming the lead came from Red, all while Red himself is incommunicado in a federal mental hospital pending review. She then subtly undercuts the investigation enough that she can get to the suspect alone before Ressler and Samar arrive to arrest him, giving her a chance to get the information she needs.
• Red is asked by the warden to arbitrate in a growing conflict between two prison gangs, involving a member of one being tasked to kill a member of the other, which he is reluctant to do because he wants to serve his sentence and get out. Thanks to Red, the situation is resolved peacefully... only for the reluctant gang member to get killed by his own people for his perceived weakness. Incensed by this, Red gets a job in the prison kitchen, where he's able to snag a heated meat thermometer and uses it to stab the gang leader who ordered the hit, doing it so masterfully that no one even realizes he's responsible.
  • For bonus poetic points, the gang in question styles themselves on the Cyclops, which Red previously pointed out is a poor choice since that story ends with the Cyclops getting stabbed in the eye with a heated stick. The method of attack against the gang's leader is Red making a point.
• Red sends the task force after Minister D, whose blackmail stash contains a recording that proves that he or rather, the real Reddington was framed by the Cabal and Katarina Rostova. They succeed, and he uses it to win his trial fairly, and in a perfectly legal manner.
• Red and his old mentor, Robert Vesco, team up to steal some pirate gold hidden under a New Orleans opera house, using the opera itself as a distraction. And then Vesco steals all the gold for himself from under Red's nose.
• Samar's brutal fight with an assassin sent after her.
  • When Cooper tries to get Mossad to call off the hit against Samar, he's told that they're considering it a non-issue (meaning, they're washing their hands and pretending they don't know anything) and that there's nothing they can do to help. In response, when Red abducts the agent who actually placed the hit and kills him in retribution, Cooper smugly tells his angry Mossad counterpart that it seems to be a non-issue, and there's nothing the FBI can do to help.
• Liz, aided by Red's teenage hacker associate and a strike team, manage to break the task force team out of the Post Office after Ana McMahon frames them for treason and has them arrested.
• The team is captured by the Secret Service and is being driven to an isolated spot to be "shot trying to escape"... and then Red's car rams their van, leading to a shootout that ends with McMahon about to shoot Red, only for Dembe to appear and shoot her instead.
• Red, Cooper, and Panabaker convince the First Lady to expose her husband's crimes.
  President Diaz: (in disbelief) How can a common criminal take down a president?
  Cooper: (firmly) With pleasure.

Season 7

• Imprisoned and paralyzed in a fake hospital, Red deduces the truth from his surroundings and coerces his nurse into helping him escape. He's recaptured in short order, but does remarkably well considering all the disadvantages he's at in that moment.
  • Special mention should go to the badass line he gives to his chief captor when the paralytics wear off and he rises out of his wheelchair:
  Red: If you want to convince me my spine's broken, you better damn well break my spine.
• When Katarina's forces attack Dom's cabin, he, Red, Dembe, and Francesca manage to hold them all off despite having significantly less firepower, keeping them at bay until the FBI arrive.
• Doubles as Heartwarming, "Gordon Kemp" is about Reddington wanting the Task Force to go after a legitimate businessman, the titular character, because Red feels he's responsible for guns flooding American streets. Not because of some Hidden Agenda, but because he was present to the shooting death of a teenager who had literally been accepted to college a few minutes before. When they fail to do so, he delivers some old fashioned and karmic justice by killing Kemp...with one of his company's own guns.

Season 8

• A subtle reminder of Red's firm control over his organization: when Liz goes rogue and starts calling up his associates to try and turn them on him, it doesn't matter which of his secrets she reveals to them (that he's an informant, that he's a Russian Double Agent, that he's Secretly Dying). All Red needs to do is talk to any of them for a minute or two, and then they're firmly back on his side.
• Liz still manages to pull one over on Red. After cutting a deal with Marvin Gerard's assistant Skip, she claims to Ressler that Marvin himself has sold Red out to help her, knowing that Ressler will tell the task force, who will tell Red, who then turns on Gerard, handing his control of Red's finances over to Skip. By the time he realizes what's happened, Skip's used this new authority to transfer 35 million euros over to Liz and escaped with her.
• "Godwin Page" has Red snatching the entire containment box used to detain Liz in the Post Office.

Season 9

• Before Marvin was released from prison (but with immunity conditions), he ensured that Wujing is "released" when he's suppose to be extracted by the MSS.

Season 10

• Panabaker shows she's no helpless politician when she pulls a gun on the man who's holding her Secret Service bodyguard at gunpoint and whom she believes is trying to assassinate her. And it's not a bluff, as she does shoot him in the shoulder.
• Red springing Robert Vesco from prison by poisoning him with an arsenic-laced copy of Oliver Twist, then having the Four Guns sneak him out of the hospital he was subsequently transferred to.
• Red's Kansas City Shuffle to take down Wujing and patch a blindspot in his relationship with the task force: He builds a decoy of the Post Office facility and has the task force take the Troll Farmer there before letting him escape, so he can lead Wujing's forces there, at which point the task force will arrest them all... except not, because while the FBI is waiting at the decoy site, the Troll Farmer (whom Red bought the services of before Wujing could) leads Wujing to the real Post Office, where Red is waiting to ambush and eliminate him. He then talks Wujing's mercenaries into siding with him by justifying his alliance with the FBI on an Even Evil Has Standards basis, kills Wujing's Mook Lieutenant Zhang Wei, and has the Troll Farmer hack the task force's files to delete any reference to himself as an informant, making sure no one else can ever make a play to expose him.

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