TV Review: THE BLACKLIST: Season 3, Episode 17: Mr. Solomon [NBC]

NBC‘s The Blacklist Mr. Solomon TV Show Review. The Blacklist: Season 3, Episode 17: Mr. Solomon treats viewers to a high-octane race against time and a look at a softer side of Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone).

After a month-long hiatus, the show jumps right into the heat of things. Cabal operative Matias Solomon (Edi Gathegi) is being transported by US marshals when the truck he is riding in suddenly stops. His captors bring him out and he quickly deduces their plan to make his death look like a justified homicide. The leader confirms Solomon’s suspicions and is about to kill him when a mysterious figure opens fire on the corrupt marshals. Thus, the wily mercenary is able to escape assassination at the hands of his former colleagues and disappears back into the underworld.

Of course, this incident does not go unnoticed by our heroes. Learning that Solomon has been contracted to hijack a nuclear weapon, Agents Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) and Navabi (Mozhan Marno) move to intercept the thieves. This task is made even more difficult by the fact that the military vehemently opposes any attempt by the FBI to coordinate with them, even as Assistant Director Harold Cooper (Harry Lennix) pleads with the Pentagon’s General Baxter (John Rue) to reconsider this misguided policy. Watching Cooper go back and forth with the general is especially entertaining since, for all the butting heads the task force does with other government agencies, we have rarely seen them cross paths with the military, if at all.

As potentially disastrous as all this sounds, Liz is not too bothered by it. On the contrary, she is positively beside herself with excitement at the fact that she is remarrying Tom (Ryan Eggold), who has sworn off his shady past. Unfortunately, as Tom himself points out, his shady past hasn’t sworn him off, as Gina Zanetakos (Margarita Levieva) and his old mentor, The Major (Lance Henriksen) corner him in their old apartment. It is precisely for this reason that Raymond Reddington (James Spader) warns an incredulous Liz against remarrying Tom, a warning that she dismisses before dismissing the Concierge of Crime himself. Reddington isn’t gone for long, however, as he quickly realizes that Solomon has been paid to capture something other than the bomb: Agent Keen.

At times, it may seem too much is going on in Mr. Solomon, but the episode wisely gives audiences enough time to digest each plot point before moving onto the next big thing. Seeing Agent Keen be happy at something as simple as getting married after being targeted by a wide-ranging conspiracy and falsely labeled a Russian agent is also a simple but pleasant sight to behold. Whether this sense of mirth will continue is something that future installments of The Blacklist will show.

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