What’s Worth Watching: The Blacklist Returns in Coveted Post-Super Bowl Slot

The Blacklist Season 2
David Giesbrecht/NBC
The Blacklist Season 2

The Blacklist, “Luther Braxton” (Sunday, Feb. 1, approx. 10:30/9:30c, NBC)

The stakes couldn’t be higher: for cagey master criminal–turned–FBI informant Red Reddington (James Spader), certainly, but also for NBC and its highest-profile and most original hit drama, The Blacklist. Having been rewarded the coveted time slot following the biggest TV event of any year, the Super Bowl, The Blacklist is roaring back from a long 2 1/2-month hiatus (and a sluggish first half of the season) with a game-changing two-parter. It will set up the show’s strategic move from Mondays to the battleground of Thursday nights, where starting February 5 the show will take on Shonda Rhimes’s guilty-pleasure lineup on ABC, going head to head with Scandal at 9/8c.

Which is why they’re not pulling any punches in this elaborate episode, which begins with Red being arrested and detained in a remote facility by feds (who haven’t a clue about his work with the underground task force), while Red’s FBI colleagues—including Liz (Megan Boone)—attempt to rescue him and protect their own cover. Complicating matters: an encounter with fearsome thief Luther Braxton (Sons of Anarchy‘s Ron Perlman), who’s not exactly Red’s biggest fan. Expect a cliffhanger that will have you counting the hours until Thursday’s conclusion.