Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Endgame’ On NBC, A Cat-And-Mouse Game Between A Criminal Mastermind And The Only FBI Agent That Can Take Her Down

There’s a reason why a mostly-generic, mainly nonsensical procedural like The Blacklist has endured for so long — a compelling lead in James Spader and just enough story ridiculousness to keep viewers wondering what they’re going to do next. But any in-depth look at the show reveals one-dimensional characters and lots of wooden dialogue. What happens when you have a show like that but don’t have either the compelling lead or the insane storytelling?

THE ENDGAME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “I have a little story to tell you. A fairy tale,” a voice says as we see a scene in the woods of Ukraine. A graphic says that it’s shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The Gist: In the flashback, a young woman shots an RPG towards a truck, using all the skills her father taught her. She clips the back, and the truck rolls over. A young girl escapes, and the father and daughter go after her.

In the present, a heavily-protected plane lands, and the cargo container within it is taken to Fort Totten in Queens, NY. Gathered at a secret location are U.S. Attorney General Reed Doblin (Kelly AuCoin), FBI Director Rogelio Réal (Mark D. Espinoza) and Homeland Secretary Joan Bradbury (Jenna Stern). Out of the container walks Elena Federova (Morena Baccarin), an arms dealer and one of the most elusive criminal masterminds on the planet. They’re questioning her on dozens of federal crimes committed by her organization. “I’m just a businesswoman,” she tells them.

At the same time, the first of a number of bank robberies is taking place. Dispatched to the scene of the first one is FBI Special Agent Val Turner (Ryan Michelle Bathe), but not before her husband Owen Turner (Kamal Angelo Bolden), a former agent who is now in prison — his crimes were actually reported by Fitzgerald — asks her for a divorce. When she gets there, her partner Anthony Flowers (Jordan Johnson-Hinds) tells Val to lay low, but their boss, Patrick Doak (Noah Bean) finds her and tells them to work the case from the office.

As the cabinet members question Federova, more bank robberies happen. At a certain point, as Val chases down each robbery’s lead, she finds out from Doak that Federova, whom she tracked down on assignment in Africa and has a massive file on her, is being held in Queens, and she’s told to go there and brief the team. Then she questions Federova, who has been basically holding out for Val to show up.

Federova wanted Val because she wants her to help her with something. She won’t tell Val what message the bank robberies are trying to send, but she did help push Owen to decide to ask for a divorce. Federova definitely wants something from Val; perhaps having to do with her husband, Sergey Vodianov (Costa Ronin), whom everyone believes died back in Crimea. But what?

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Nicholas Wootton and Jake Coburn, and directed by Jason Lin, The Endgame seems to have the feel of The Blacklist and one of Coburn’s former shows, Quantico.

Our Take: The Endgame is more or less a two-hander, with Federova and Turner facing off to see who gets the upper hand and who get whom on their side. NBC’s press materials call the show a two-hander. Why do we emphasize that term? Because Federova and Turner are the only characters on the show who aren’t complete network cop show stereotypes. But because Baccarin and Bathe are saddled with such obtuse dialogue, it’s not like they have much more depth than the wooden supporting characters.

We know Federova is a criminal genius who knows that the feds can’t nail a thing on her, so she teases them while these robberies she’s planned go on in the background. We also know that Turner is such a principled agent that she turned in her own husband over his corrupt activities, activities that he may not have actually perpetrated. Many people in the bureau think she covered for him. The entire season looks like it’s being set up as a face-off between the two. And we just don’t care.

The flashback is supposed to be shocking, but all it does is serve to distract from the story, and it’s likely never going to be visited again. But our issue with the first episode isn’t that it’s confusing; it’s that it doesn’t tell us much about the actual story because it just seemed two people throwing obtuse monologues at each other.

Perhaps as the series progresses, we’ll find out more. But The Endgame starts off so generically that you’ll forget everything you’ve seen as soon as the end credits start to roll.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Owen and a man he calls “Sergey” talk about how Federova has started the ball rolling on a particularly complex operation. And there’s reason to believe that this Sergey is the man everyone thinks is dead.

Sleeper Star: None, to be honest. All of the side characters are so one-dimensional that there really isn’t anyone that stood out.

Most Pilot-y Line: The reason why the “surprise” flashback didn’t work is because if the “little girl” Federova mentions is the teenager who shot off the RPG, the ages are all off. The teen looks like she’s close to 18, when the “little girl” would have been closer to 10 or 11.

Our Call: SKIP IT. The Endgame is by turns boring and by other turns generic and nonsensical. It’s story isn’t compelling enough to follow beyond the first episode, and we’re figuring that the interplay between its stars isn’t enough to keep people watching.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Endgame On NBC.com