Madeline Pratt (No. 73) 

Most reviewers will start off a review telling you what they know. This more or less establishes the pecking order in a review. Who talks. Who listens.

I prefer to start this one telling you what I don't know. Spader was, I believe, a "brat pack" member as a younger actor. He never gave a bad performance. But he never gave a great one either. He did a film with Susan Sarandan the name of which I have completely forgotten. (Remember the "what I do not know" theme here.) It was fun. At the time.

I cannot readily name or identify his body of work over the last two decades. I do not know which other actors read for Blacklist except to add that millions of viewers should be grateful "they" did not get the part.

I do know that as the series progresses his acting is on an entirely different level of magnitude than his cast associates. And he just keeps getting better.

I gave this episode a low rating by the standards of the series, a high rating by the standards of most other shows. The story lacks bite, it is bit hard to swallow (as compared with, for example, the earlier episode where the Bureau was hijacked, Red was in a locked cage, and Lizzie was about to be shot in front of him -- THAT HAD BITE).

However what this episode does have is the opportunity for Spader to show his dominance over the role and he does that in (ahem) spades. Simply to watch his performance is worth the visit.