The Brilliance of The Blacklist

She's back on the mic — for real this time.

After months of recording with just her headphones (no pressure, no script, no agenda), Michaela Mae returns to the full setup in Episode 32 of The Ms. Michaela Mae Show — and she's bringing one of her all-time favorite shows with her.

The episode opens with Michaela sharing what the last several months have looked like behind the scenes: grieving the loss of her horse Capone, feeling creatively and physically depleted, and slowly building herself back up through fasting, warm lemon water, kelp for thyroid support, magnesium citrate, and morning pages. It's honest, it's real, and it sets the stage for everything that follows.

From there, Michaela dives into The Blacklist — a show she's been watching since she was 16 years old and just recently rewatched in full as a 30-year-old. What she discovered on that second watch surprised her. A show she had written off as getting weaker in its later seasons revealed itself to be something far more nuanced and far more true.

She explores the idea that we never watch the same show twice — because we're never the same person twice. The lens we bring to a story is shaped by everything we've lived, and when we change, what we see changes with it. This time around, she saw Raymond Reddington's surrender in the final seasons not as weakness, but as wisdom. She understood it in a way she couldn't have before losing Capone — because she was finally living through her own version of it.

And then there's the line that stopped her cold. When Dembe tells the FBI that Reddington's greatest resource isn't his empire or his connections — it's his mind — Michaela realized she'd been handing that same resource away without even noticing. The mind is the horse, she says. And she'd let the horse run the show.

This episode is equal parts personal reflection, pop culture deep dive, and a quiet but powerful reminder that the most important thing you'll ever own is already yours.

Spoiler alert: there are Blacklist spoilers in this episode. Michaela warns you up front — and she also shares her one true spoiler devastation (Dobby. Always Dobby.).

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• The Blacklist (NBC) — available on Netflix
• Morning Pages practice from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
• The Barn Off of Colfax Lane by Michaela Mae — available now

KEYWORDS

The Blacklist review, Raymond Reddington life lessons, personal development podcast, grief and creativity, morning pages Julia Cameron, pop culture and self growth, the mind is your greatest resource, Ms. Michaela Mae Show, creative block recovery, rewatching shows with new eyes, James Spader, letting go of identity, Dembe Zuma, holistic wellness podcast, emotional resilience

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🛒 Shop the Stan Store: https://stan.store/msmichaelamae 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hey you, and welcome back to another episode of the Miss Mikayla May Show. I'm your host, Miss Michaela May, and the funny thing is the title of this episode is The Brilliance of the Blacklist. And while I was setting up, I had the song uh back back in the New York groove stuck in my head. And it dawned on me the first time that I heard that song was actually from the blacklist. And I feel like the reason that it popped into my head is the last like since October, so about um a little over six months ago, I've been recording with my headphones, which was great because for me, I really needed to, and I kind of talked about this in previous episodes. I really wanted to see if I still loved podcasting, and I really needed to make it fun again. And part of that was taking the pressure off. It was just showing up unscripted, talking about whatever I wanted to talk about, and it was also like taking away the mic because one of the things I was working on and am still working on in a lot of ways was my breathing and not going like right at the mic, which I can't promise you that's gonna be completely gone today, but we have been working on it. And so there were just so many things that was just making it unfun for me. And then today I'm back on the mic. I I do have my headphones in, so I can hear how I sound, which is a very interesting thing, but I also haven't heard that in a long time. Like my headphones right now are connected directly into my mic, so I'm in real time hearing what I sound like, which is really interesting. And so there were so many different factors that I just took away because I needed to make it fun again. And now what's actually fun is adding the professionalism back in, right? Like my hair is down, my and it's washed, which is amazing. If you've been around for a little bit, it hasn't always been washed and sometimes it's been wet. And I've got the mic back up and I just I have I've been really working on some things behind the scenes as far as getting my energy back. Um, some of you may have listened to the episode where I talk about my horse Capone passed away and in December, and one of the things that I've been joking about, but it's actually like it's a joke, but it's not a joke, you know what I'm talking about? Um, is I have so many emotional tools in my back pocket that I've been learning for or learning about in the last like however many years. My favorite emotional tool has been in Jerry's, and I don't know that that's ever gonna go away. And so just like not taking care of my body, eating more than I had been eating, like I was exercising and stuff, and like that all came to a halt. And I just really I felt really inflamed. And now I've been really slowly working on getting my energy back. I've been fasting at night, I've been uh doing like warm lemon water in the morning, which just really helps my digestion. But if you don't know, it's also a really great way to like alkaline the body first thing in the morning. And um, then I've also been taking kelp for my thyroid, which was all stuff that like intuitively just felt right for me. I don't believe that every protocol is like right for everyone, but that's something that's been right for me. Oh, and then I do take magnesium sight trade at night. So that's kind of been my protocol that I've been working on the last couple weeks, and I'll keep adding and taking away as I see necessary. But like as I've been getting this energy back, I've also one of my big focuses was I really wanted to get my creativity back. Like I really felt like I'd gone into a creative slump and am wanting to get my creativity back again. I knew like doing morning pages, which if you don't know what morning pages is is it's a process where um you just take blank, like a blank page, like in a journal, and you do like there's no script, there's no agenda, and just for three pages, you basically just cleanse your brain of all of your thoughts. And so we've been doing that, and as I would say in long story long, the process of me both getting my energy back, but then also doing things to actively help me like get my creativity back. I just feel so excited to be back. I feel so excited to be back on the mic, and I just feel like that scene in the blacklist where that song was playing, and you know, Reddington's like running from the cops. And if you don't know the show, I'll give you a little backstory, but I'm gonna finish this first. And it's just like he just doesn't have a care in the world in this song of like I'm back, I'm back in the New York groove, is like just playing, and it's just the energy behind it is just absolutely amazing. And so, um anyway, now to get into today's episode, just setting up the energy of today, which is we're back, back in the New York groove. Um, I started watching, so I'm gonna give you it. By the way, I am gonna have spoiler alerts in here. So for some reason, if you're just really want to watch the blacklist and you haven't done so yet, I I am gonna have spoilers in here, so just be warned. Uh, I tend to be a person, I can listen to spoilers. I'm still either gonna watch the show or I'm not gonna watch the show. The spoiler's not gonna like spoil. I think the only spoiler that like did devastate me, actually. So this is a Harry Potter spoiler if you haven't seen the series and play into, uh, Dobby dying was like a huge spoiler for me. I was not expecting that, and it was that was terrible. So that's like the only spoiler that I felt has like made or break me. But other things people say, like, I don't want to give it away. I'm like, I'm not gonna watch it. And like if I do, it's still like if I'm really immersed in it, it's not gonna take it away or add to it, right? And so anyway, so spoilers long again, long story long. That's my that's my hint for spoilers. So the blacklist. The blacklist came out in I was a fresh, no, I was a sophomore in high school. I think it came out in 2012. Let's see, I started high school in 2011, so I think it came out, yeah, it came out in late 2012. I think it was the fall of 2012 that it started, and it was one of those, like I just saw the preview online and thought that show looked really good and really interesting. And so I decided to give it a watch. And then by I was three episodes in, I was just absolutely hooked. The interesting thing is so it started when I was 16, um, and it didn't in it didn't end till 2023. There was 10 seasons, and there was a little bit of a um a spread with COVID. They had a really weird break with COVID, and um so this show ended up like taking up a good chunk of my life. And I decided to, I'm 30 now, so it was yeah, my sophomore year of high school, and then it ended in 2023. So three years, so I was 27, 26, 27. So yeah, it took up a good chunk of my life, like 10 years of it. And I was very committed to this show. It was kind of funny. It's really interesting when you have something like that because it kind of becomes a marker for all of these other times in our lives. So, for example, like one of the markers that like sticks out in my head is I was watching this show and I lived in LA, but I was going to college, so I didn't want to pay for TV, but I went and bought an antenna so I could hook my TV up to the antenna so I could still watch the because there wasn't the like next day streaming things yet. Like I couldn't just go to the ABC, I think it came out that year, but I couldn't just go to the ABC website and like watch it the next day. And even if I could, I was so like, I'm watching it on the day it comes out because I am not seeing any spoilers online. So I was really committed to watching it, and so I went and bought an antenna and I hooked it up to my TV and like I hadn't touched an antenna in years. And I remember it was Fry's um electronics in Burbank, California, and I'm just hooking this thing up, and it's just crazy like when a show ends, and then with me just re-watching this show, like you can really go back and see like how much of your life had impacted, or you know, all these milestone markers, if you will. And so, anyway, huge part of my life, big fan of the blacklist, just absolutely love writing like Raymond Reddington as a character that's the main character in the blacklist. If you're new to the blacklist, and Reddington is a the most wanted fugitive in America in the show, and he turns himself into the FBI and becomes an informant for the FBI. Um, but what's really interesting is he's still running his criminal empire, and so he he's doing this work for the FBI, but then he's still running his criminal empire, and it's very fascinating. But James Spader plays Raymond Reddington, and the way that Spader brought this character to life is just I'm still just so mesmerized by it, and I'm just so in awe of how Spader brought this character to life. I mean, there there are just certain shows where when you watch the movie or the TV show or whatever it is, and you find out, like, oh, this actor was also up for this role, you say look, you think to yourself, oh, I I I could totally see that actor in this position. And in fact, I wish that actor would have been cast, you know, for this might be a bad example, but I do think I I actually like Kristen Stewart or Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan in Twilight. I I grew up in the Twilight era. And it it I think for me it just kind of is what it is. Like that's all I know. So but but there was a there's a part of me that's like, oh, I I kind of wish I could like Edward, like Edward Pattinson to me is Edward. There's a part of me that's like, I wish I could have seen someone else as Bella. Like, I don't necessarily feel like there was um another role that Kristen Stewart, gosh, I think it was called Speak. There were there was a book about it. I can't remember, but there was another role when she was younger, pre-Twilight, she played. Like, I felt like she was made for that role. Like it was perfect role for her. Bella, I don't feel that way about. Um, on a different, you know, side, uh, if you watch or have watched Lord of the Rings, there um was a different actor cast as Vigo, uh, Vigo Mortensen's character Aragorn. I can't imagine anyone but Vigo playing Aragorn. Like he was made for that character. Marty McFly in Back to the Future. There was a different actor originally cast for that. It's a very similar story, then partially through filming. They're like, this guy's just not the vibe, and and they they brought in um Michael J. Fox. And so I just can't like watching those movies. I just can't imagine another act. Like, and like those roles are made for that. And I I feel the same way with Spader and Reddington. Like, I cannot imagine anybody else playing playing Raymond Reddington, like James Spader just brought that character to life in a way that nobody else could. And you know, there's just these monologues and these stories he goes off on that Spader just embodied so well, and it they still give me chills when I go back to watch them. So, and I think just the stories that Reddington told, like they just leave a mark on you. And the and again, with the way that Spader brought them to life, like they just leave a mark on you, I think, and in a good way. But what's interesting is I've really been playing with this philosophy, if you will, that we never watch the same movie, the same TV show, or read the same book twice. And the reason, because again, like sitting here like I just rewatched the blacklist, it's like, well, Michaela, then technically, technically, Michaela, didn't you listen to it twice, watch it twice? Well, okay, if we take it at face value, of course. However, I'm not the same person. You know, when I watched some of these episodes for the first time, you know, I'm 16, 17, 18, you know, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 years old, I'm 30 now. And so I never will watch that show twice because I'll never be 15, 16-year-old Michaela watching the blacklist. I'll always be whatever age I am today. And in that, you know, I'm not the same person. And so it was really interesting going back and watching the blacklist is there's so many things that I didn't appreciate about the blacklist the first time I watched it that I now get. So, for example, the first watch through, I was really upset with how it went. So I I felt like the first seasons were real the first few seasons were really strong. And then there's a point where one of the main characters dies off about halfway through, I think around season six, I think. And I felt like things just got weaker and weaker after that. So my first watch through, I just I'm like, man, the first few seasons of the blacklist, like there's nothing else made. It was the most amazing show I've ever watched, and then I get further into it, and I just felt like it got weak. However, watching it as present-day Michaela, if you will, I did not feel that way. And what's really interesting is because I have this different perspective around change and what makes a character powerful and what no longer makes a character powerful. And in my younger, if you've read The Great Gatsby, in my younger and more vulnerable years, I really thought I really was stuck on like the character only stays good if they stay in the same role. Meaning that character is always the hero, that character is always the strong one. Like the character, you know, if we if we go kind of stereotypical and go Star Wars, which I love Star Wars, so no shade against Star Wars. But one of the reasons I had issues with the the later movies, the sequels that Disney made, and I do still have issues with those, is I hated the way Luke changed. However, we're always gonna change. And that was just something like I I really, you know, that expectation that I put on the show on the blacklist or any characters in any show or TV I ever watch, movies or TV I ever watch, it was like I expected that character to stay the same all the way through. I expected them to stay the hero all the all the way through. And yeah, there are different forms of that, but the the kind of hero that I expected them to stay was, you know, the strong one always, you know, in the front lines. And the truth to be told is we do have that part in our journey where, you know, we're at the front of the line, we're we're the hero, we're you know, the forward-facing thing, like it's it's the main event. And then we have the times where we go to more of the mentor or the yoda, or you know, it's it's more of a little bit more of the behind the scenes character, or it's the character's time to just trail off. And that was what I was having a hard time with, I believe, and I I didn't have the words to put to it. My first watch through with the blacklist was Reddington, um gets more passive, it gets weaker, and again, these are where the spoiler alerts are coming in. So, you know, Liz, which is Reddington's like heartbeat in a lot of ways, ends up dying off. And the season after that, after Liz dies, Reddington was still a very strong character, but he was really focused on revenge, like finding her killer, and it was like after he found her killer, he really had nothing to live for. And the last season is very flimsy, it felt very flimsy when I first watched it, and then watching it again, I realized it was the character surrendering in a lot of ways. Like Reddington has had spent, you know, his whole life building this empire to protect Liz. Well, now that the person he built all this for to protect was gone, he had no reason to keep building it, he had no reason to keep it standing, and you know, it was he kept it going, but then once he found her her killer, it was like I I got nothing. And I really loved the ending episodes in a way that I never expected to love them because I finally understood it. And you know, for me, again, if you listen to my episode about where my horse died, you know, my horse died in December, and I I catch myself asking myself every day if I still want to be a part of horses because I don't love it like I used to. And I keep trying to, you know, find ways to make it work or make myself love it. And I I'm kind of, you know, at the point, it's like it's also okay if you just don't love it anymore. Like it'll come back if it's meant to come back, and if it doesn't, like that's okay. It made you who you are, it created like so many things in your life. And so I I kind of understand the ending seas, you know, seasons of Reddington in a way I never understood him before because I I didn't really realize I was holding on to horses primarily for my horse that passed away. And in him passing away, it does feel like a permission slip of like you're it you are allowed to give this up if you want to, like you don't have to keep hanging on. And what I felt like my horse did was like, and don't hang on for me, right? Which is really hard. Like I've I've struggled with it a lot, especially, you know, the horse the the few horses I have now, I've got one rescue horse that I I I could re-home him. Like I felt like I've done my service for him, and then I've done I have my old horse, I won't get rid of her, like she'll be with me till she passes away. But then I have a young horse that I I love him, I love him, and and I don't want to get rid of him, but I'm also in the in this limbo of like, but do is it fair to keep him if if this is not something I wish to pursue? And trying to find other um avenues around that that I have not figured out yet. But um, but it's been a struggle, and me, like because you know, having horses has been such a big part of my identity for so long, it is not an easy thing for me to let go. But in watching Reddington in the last few seasons of the blacklist, I saw and understood a version of him that I didn't see and understand before because I hadn't really lived through that, I hadn't experienced it. And so back to what I was saying is we never really read the same book twice, we never watch the same movie twice, we never watch the same TV show twice because we change and we transform and we have things happen. And when those things happen, we have a different set of experiences that we never had before. And because of those experiences, we have a different perspective that we've never had before, and when we have a different perspective, we never look at things the same way again. And so when we can't look at things the same way again, of course we can't read the same book twice, of course we can't watch the same movie twice, of course we can't watch, you know, the same TV show twice, um, because of this new lens, because of this new perspective. And so I really saw a brilliance in the blacklist as a whole that I had never seen before. Again, I was really focused, you know, my first watch through of how the first few seasons were just so amazing and how after that they weren't. But then they're only not amazing if I compare the last few seasons to the first few seasons. But if I look at the whole show and the character arc, because Reddington's clearly my favorite character, and I look at that arc and like all the things that he went through, the show is brilliant. The show is absolutely brilliant. Like watching someone who comes in, you know, again, part of the purpose because like his empire wasn't strong enough to continue to protect Liz on its own in the criminal world. So he comes into the real world or the the FBI world to continue to protect her, to build his empire and his resources for her even bigger than they were before. And then, you know, to have this, you know, part of his life being the driving factor, and then to lose that driving factor, yeah, I just experienced and saw it in a way that I never saw it before. And then there was one last thing on my re-watch that really I did not pick up the first time, and I think it was because you know, prior to I was always working for someone, like when I had re-watched it, I think I was at the end of my yeah, because the last season played late 2023, like the summer of 2023, and I quit my job in April of 2023. So again, I was always working for someone I'd never like just try to work for myself. And at the end of the um last season, Reddington really has fully surrendered as far as like giving up his empire. Like he even turned his empire into the FBI, like they found him out, but he purposely did it. And um at the end, he really to the outside eye would appear that he is down to nothing. And so his right-hand person, Dembe, had become an FBI agent and was now working for the FBI, so the FBI is now in charge of finding Reddington. And one of the characters, I can't remember if it was Donald or Harold, said, Well, he's gonna be easy to find because he's now just given up all of his resources. Like he literally just turned his information intelligence network over to the FBI, like he doesn't have the connections, and Dembe, who had worked beside Reddington for years, said, No, but like I they said something to like his something to the effect of like his greatest assets are gone or his greatest, I think it was his greatest reason. He doesn't have his greatest resources anymore. Like he's lost out on all of them. And Dembe was like, You don't understand. Raymond's best resource is his mind, he will find a way out. Like, don't assume this is easy because he's lost all these other things because he still has his mind. And that like blew me open and like changed my perspective on so many things in a way that it never had before, because we can get so stuck into the perspective of we have to have a certain amount of dollars to make our dreams come true, or we have to have a certain amount of uh followers on social media to make our dreams come true. Like we have all these contingencies of what we have and have to have, but at the end of the day, we always have our best resource, which is our mind. And if we don't have full control and full um, I would I would say like knowledge and navigation, honestly, of our mind, like knowing how to navigate it and really like this was something, this is something I've been thinking about for a long time is when I was a kid, and I don't know if you felt this way too, there was this it was almost like an imagination kind of a thing. Like if I go back to like 16-year-old Michaela's perspective, there was this assumption, assumption would be a good word actually, that once I turned a certain age, it's like I would have everything figured out. Like the adult brain would click on, I would get the perspective, and I would just know, I would just know how to do things. It would all click. And I think I got to about 25, 26, where I finally realized I'm like, nobody has it figured out. Like we're all just figuring it out as we go. The only thing that I think some people have that other people don't is I think some people have mastered their own bullshit other than others. I really think that's it. I think the people that we see that are like successful, they've just figured out how to navigate their own bullshit. And their bullshit meaning their limiting beliefs, their um emotion, like that stuff. They've figured out how to get over it to, but it doesn't mean they don't have it. They've just learned how to navigate it. And so that's like to me, when you know, they're talking about like why Reddington's greatest resources is mind, is he knows how to navigate his own bullshit, but he also knows how to navigate like other peoples around him as well. Which just, you know, and we all have that capability. Like Reddington built one of the greatest empires, the greatest resources, not because he had resources, but because he had the resource which was his mind. And because he had such a brilliant mind, he was able to build all of that stuff. And it just, it just impacted me so much because I I realized, like in re-watching, you know, I just finished it like probably a month ago. In re-watching that, I realized how many times I say I don't have the resources to do what I want to do. And it it finally, like, in hearing Dembe say that about Reddington, it dawned on me, like, oh, I already have my greatest resource, which resource, which is my mind, which is my brain. And right now, like that was kind of the thing that got me to like, okay, I gotta start getting my energy back, I gotta start getting my creativity back. And this is also like, you know, we talk about self-help podcasts and all of this stuff, and it's like, but this show is like obviously I'm learning my tools from people, but hearing that, you know, Dembe say that, that was what really like, you know, sent me into action was knowing that and like watching this and just knowing it was true. Like, even if it's in a fictional story, like we know truth, like we can feel it, it resonates with us, and I just knew that was the truth. And so that's what like kicked started me on this journey of like, okay, I've got to get my energy back, I've got to get creativity back, my creativity back because I have to get mastery over my own mind because the mind is our greatest resource when we have like total mastery over it. And I really I haven't for some time. Like my mind has definitely been running the show for some time, so it's like, okay, um, back in the New York groove, back in the saddle, and we're gonna get this thing going because I have my greatest resource, I just have to use it properly because I have not been using it properly, and um I think it's just a good reminder that you know the the the mind is the horse, and we're you we're the rider, and the horse is either, you know, we're going off for an adventure or or we're we're taking a great ride. And so it's like which one do you want to do? But yeah, that that to me, and that's that's why I wanted to see in the title of this episode, The Brilliance of the Blacklist, because that is the brilliance of the blacklist, is you know, the truth that Reddington shares that Spader brings to life, but then also just fictional or not, showing the capabilities of what one human can be capable of. And even that's why there's people that have some issues with the ending, but that's why I actually think the ending is so brilliant, is because no living person ever defeated Reddington. Like his certainty in himself was so strong that still at the end, no living person defeated him. Um, I actually am not gonna tell you how he went out, I'll I'll let you watch that episode, but which is just the last episode. But I re-watching that show, I really saw a brilliance in it that I had not recognized before because again, I was looking at it through a different lens. The last time I watched it, I hadn't lost my horse yet. So there was like a grief and a misunderstanding or an understanding that I had not had before, and then after you know Capone died, I had those things, and it was like, huh, I get this character on a level, and actually, for what I was so mad about, how the character I felt like the character just went out so weak, and like actually he didn't, and it was one of the most brilliant. There's still a couple of things I I have issues with, but obviously, um, but overall, it just gave me a new respect and love, honestly, for the show, and I really think it's just one of the most brilliant shows of all time. So if you've never watched it, I really encourage you to go watch it. It's been one of my favorite shows. It was great to re-watch it. Um, maybe in a few years I'll re-watch it again with a different lens and perspective and stuff. But uh for now, yeah, the the blacklist is just absolutely brilliant. So um, thank you for tuning in. It's been a bit, it's been so good. It was so good to get back on the mic and just talk about one of my favorite things that I love, which is the blacklist. And also, I am starting to record my audiobook this week. So it was good to just test. That was one of the reasons I wanted to get um, I wanted to get uh on back on the mic specifically and not just my headphones today, is I wanted to do like a trial run for the audiobook and just see how it was going and then see if I I knew how to breathe, um, which is always like breathe without and who knows, maybe I didn't, maybe I totally miss it, and you're gonna be listening to this episode and be like, Michaela, you've gotta go take a breathing glass, and I'm gonna be like, ah, bro, I'll add it to the list. So anyway, um, thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Miss Michaela May show. I really appreciate you being here. Um, as always, I'm here with my Corgies, Tank and Willie. If you found value out of this episode, if you appreciated this episode, I'd absolutely love if you could rate and review. Um, leave me a review, let me know what you loved about the show, what you'd want to hear more of, what actually you can tell me what you want to hear less of, but I'm probably not gonna listen. Um, so there's that. Um, but either way, I appreciate you being here, giving me feedback in real time. And Willie, Tank, and I will talk to you next time.