The Blacklist’s James Spader is back, and the body count on the TV show will go through the roof

JAMES Spader’s Raymond Reddington is as brilliant as ever as The Blacklist charges into the red zone, and will leave Australian fans gobsmacked.

THE BLACKLIST -- "Luther Braxton" Episode 209 -- Pictured: (l-r) -- (Photo by: David Giesbrecht/NBC) James Spader in The Blacklist. Supplied by Channel Seven

IT’S the episode which set American audiences buzzing when it aired after the Superbowl earlier this year, and will leave Australian fans gobsmacked.

Make no mistake — The Blacklist’s mid-season return — airing here as a powerful double-episode tomorrow night — is as brutal and brilliant as it is emotionally mesmerising. And the body count is through the roof.

James Spader as antihero ‘Raymond “Red’ Reddington is typically sublime. Co-star Megan Boone (who plays FBI agent Elizabeth Keen) belts it out of the park. And guest star Ron Perlman just about steals the show.

It’s a fast-paced and bloody watch — which Boone revealed was equally as savage to make — during one scene, surrounded by explosions and missiles, “I’m pretty sure Ron Perlman hit me in the face’.

Three-time Emmy winner Spader admits it’s ‘brutal’ — even by The Blacklist standards.

Two seasons into playing television’s smoothest criminal, Spader is clearly enjoying the subtleties of Red as much as his complexities.

“I’ve been able to see what some of his vulnerabilities are. And when the audience and myself first started getting to know Raymond Reddington, he seemed invulnerable,” says Spader.

THE BLACKLIST -- "Luther Braxton" Episode 209 -- Pictured: (l-r) -- (Photo by: David Giesbrecht/NBC) Megan Boone and James Spader in The Blacklist. Supplied by Channel Seven

“As I’ve become more familiar with him and as audiences become familiar with him, I’ve started to see how his priorities have shifted — in a way.

“I think he’s found himself — again, and again — vulnerable in a very practical sense, and in a physical sense, but also emotionally.”

The character is the role that brought Spader back to series television. Until it popped up he was determined to pursue film roles. It was the humour in the often-merciless criminal which most appealed.

“The sense of humour was such an interesting juxtaposition to what the realities of his (Red’s) life were,” says Spader.

“The realities of his life are — very often — very dangerous, and quite dramatic.

“And I thought that that was very dichotomous, the notion that somebody who’s life is — the stakes of his life are very, very high; and yet, he has a very acute sense of humour and irreverent view of the life which he lives.

“And I have done everything I can to try and explore that as much as we can on the show.”

Spader is ever-vigilant that Red doesn’t degenerate into total super-villain. To do so, he and show-runners know, could cost The Blacklist its intrigue.

FOR SWITCHED ON USE ONLY UNTIL NOVEMBER 12, 2014. THE BLACKLIST - Season 2 Gallery. Pictured: James Spader as Raymond "Red" Reddington Photo by Justin Stephens THE BLACKLIST - Season 2 Gallery. Pictured: James Spader as Raymond "Red" Reddington Photo by Justin Stephens Sony Pictures Television

“We’ve been very careful to never swing too far in either direction in that I don’t think that we can sustain this character for any length of time in the show if — all a sudden — you were to realise that the sort of humanity or more sympathetic aspects of his character are just a mask that cover just a straight-to-head villain,” he says.

“And to me, it just wouldn’t be interesting to play.

“I’m much more interested in the idea that you’re never quite sure what he is more, whether he’s more a good man who’s capable of very, very bad things or whether he’s a bad man who’s capable of very good things.

“It’s much more interesting and curious that you’re never quite sure which of those it is. It keeps us on our toes. And it keeps the viewer slightly off balance.”

CRIMINAL CATCH-UP

IT began with ‘Red’ Reddington sauntering into FBI headquarters after 20 years on the run, and surrendering. He asked for immunity, and cut a deal to secretly help the FBI catch his ‘Blacklist’ of the world’s worst criminals — but only if he could work with profiler Elizabeth Keen.

Lizzie still doesn’t know why, but between them they’ve put away a lot of criminals and played an addictive game of mental chess.

When we last saw them, Red — ever the keeper of secrets — had just discovered Liz had a whopper of her own. He thought she’d killed her ‘husband’ AKA spy Tom. Instead she’d had him locked up for months. What she doesn’t know is that Tom and Red have a history.

THE BLACKLIST -- "Luther Braxton: Conclusion" Episode 210 -- Pictured: (l-r) -- (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC) Ron Perlman in The Blacklist. Supplied by Channel Seven

The mid-season return sees Red’s luck run out when arrested abroad, and taken to a ‘black site’ prison which ‘officially’ doesn’t exist.

Among the inmates is hardman Luther Braxton (Ron Perlman). He is a formidable foe — and a threat to far more people than Red. Perlman, last seen as violent bikie patriarch Clay Morrow in Sons of Anarchy, proves a supreme villain — menacing, coolly efficient and prepared to kill anyone who stands in his way.

THE BLACKLIST

MONDAY, 9.45PM, SEVEN