A Dirty Martini spy story
The Blacklist: Redemption is an American crime thriller television series that is a spin-off from the NBC series The Blacklist. It stars Famke Janssen as Susan Scott "Scottie" Hargrave, president of Halcyon Aegis, a private military company with teams of corporate operatives, and Ryan Eggold as Tom Keen, a character from the original series. After airing a backdoor pilot in the form of an episode of The Blacklist, the new series was ordered by NBC on May 14, 2016.
The show starts when Tom makes the decision to go to New York and discuss what will happen to Howard Hargrave's estate after learning that Hargrave is his biological father. However, Howard informs him that he's still alive and he created false information so that the public still believes that he died from a plane crash. Tom joins HA on his father's request, starting with a mission to save a CIA agent who had been kidnapped.
The series premiered on February 23, 2017 and aired until April 13, 2017 with a total of eight episodes. It's not renewed for another season, which brought Ryan back to the Blacklist.
The character page is found here.
The Blacklist: Redemption contains examples of:
- Ambiguously Evil: Scottie Hargrave is possibly working for the Big Bad of the series, but is mostly a Punch-Clock Villain from her appearances on The Blacklist.
- Artistic License – Military: Halcyon Aegis performs military operations in America, England, and everywhere else without regard to international law. This doesn't in any way reflect the actual laws restricting the use of mercenaries in the real world. It was explained in their Backdoor Pilot of The Blacklist that they were doing all manner of illegal things for whoever employs them with protection from them as a favor in return.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Hargrave Family consists of two MegaCorp billionaires plotting against each other and their son, Tom Keen.
- Cliffhanger: Kat Carlson, Scottie's secretary, reaches Tom and informs him of evidence that links Howard to something sinister with Whitehall at end of the show.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Howard Hargrave believes Scottie is working for a Greater-Scope Villain. The show suggests that he's using that line of thought to hide his activities with Whitehall.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: In the pilot, they manage to rescue a CIA agent and her child. However, the CIA agent doesn't believe this and agrees to be a suicide bomber for the already dead extortionist because she thinks he still has her child.
- Countrystan: Kyrkistan is located in the eastern part of Turkey and borders Armenia. Its leader is an Expy of President Erdogan, complete with a crackdown on all forms of opposition. It's depicted to have Arabic as a main language despite the fact that it's located in Central Asia and is right next to Armenia. It's a combination of Ruritania and Qurac with a bit of Commie Land mixed in.
- Deep Cover Agent: "Independence, USA" is about a mock Midwest American town hidden in Russia, designed to give Russian agents training to be this in the US. Specifically, to become doppelgängers of, and replace, already existing people. Howard is convinced Scottie is one.
- Downer Ending: The second episode, "Kevin Jackson", showed the series wouldn't shy away from the team outright failing. In this case, they not only failed to save the titular character but it was revealed he was a CIA agent all along rather than a journalist. In effect, making all of the government's charges against him legitimate. Worse, the "human rights abuse" stories he was working on was actually just intelligence for the US military.
- Fauxtastic Voyage: Scottie has an operative waking up in a cargo plane telling him they're over the ocean. When he refuses to give up his contacts in Russia, Scottie has the door opened and threatens to send the guy out of it. After the terrified man gives up the info, Scottie calls out "shut it down." The "view" transforms into a giant 3-D screen with wind machines and the plane is just a mock-up. Scottie informs the guy that they're still in Russia and he's getting handed to their security.
- From Camouflage to Criminal: The bad guys in "Borealis 301" are experienced Navy SEAL commandos who went missing after a mission in Iraq.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Howard Hargrave believes an organization called Whitehall sent Scottie to be a Honey Trap and take over his company. Which she's suceeded in doing at the start of the series.
- Except that Whitehall is revealed in "Whitehall" to be held in detention.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: The entire plot of "Borealis 301".
- MegaCorp: Halcyon Aegis is a multibillion dollar PMC that can ignore international law at will and is involved in numerous other shady dealings.
- Mistaken for Racist: Invoked in "Operation Davenport" when Tom and Solomon need to convince two police officers that a 911 call was a false alarm. Tom pretends to be the guy who made the call and Solomon pretends to be a black plumber. Tom makes it look like he saw a strange black man and called 911. Solomon feigns offense at this and accuses Tom and the cops of being racist and assuming that a black man must be a criminal. The cops make an apology and quickly get out of there without further checking.
- The Mole: Tom is working as one in Halcyon Aegis for his father.
- Operation: [Blank]: Operation North Star, a mission given to Halcyon by the military to infiltrate a Russian black-ops site.
- Operation Davenport, a black op mission to transport sensitive criminal/terrorist suspects through New York.
- Private Military Contractors: Halcyon Aegis is a mercenary corporation which does spy wetwork for the highest bidder.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Matias Solomon worked for the Cabal then switched to work for Halcyon Aegis. While sadistic and ruthless, he doesn't really care about his targets and only works for a paycheck. All of the team can technically qualify as none of them really care about who their employers are but Tom.
- Played with using Tom as the Token Good Teammate and Solomon as the Token Evil Teammate.
- Relationship Chart: Howard is seeing on a chart with photos and paper tied with String Theory to figure out if Scottie's up to something. The ending of the show suggests that it's him just making it look like he wants to snoop on Scottie for good reasons.
- Shown Their Work: DuMont's detailed explanation of the private encryption keys (in "Operation Davenport") used to secure the Internet's domain name system is 95% spot on.
- Spy Fiction: Dirty Martini variant. Is a Lighter and Softer setting than The Blacklist with a lot of glamorous locations, competence porn, and more spy-related activities than horrific criminals. The fact it's more Grey-and-Grey Morality with Punch-Clock Villain protagonists keeps it from being too cheerful, though.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Happens to the team TWICE in the first two episodes. Which does not make them look good.
- String Theory: Howard has a room dedicated to his theories about the potential Greater-Scope Villain.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Matias Solomon and Tom since the former kidnapped his wife as well as child.
- Undying Loyalty: Solomon makes a point of stating that Scottie has his, due to saving his life when the Cabal tried to execute him.
- Wham Line:
- In Whitehall: "[Whitehall]'s not a code. It's a man."
