In “The Blacklist,” a “Silence of the Lambs” meets “Homeland” procedural on NBC, James Spader chews all the scenery, smacks his lips and looks around for more.
His character, Raymond “Red” Reddington, is a fugitive who turns himself in at the start of the pilot episode, and shortly thereafter insists that he work with newbie FBI profiler Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) to avert a terrorist attack on a general’s daughter.
Why her? Red’s fixation with Keen is never entirely explained in the first episode, although there are hints that she and her husband Tom (“90210’s” Ryan Eggold) aren’t the happy young couple they initially seem.