A flying saucer lands in the backyard of an elderly suburbanite with memory problems, who forms a bond with the scared alien inside.

Raymond "Red" Reddington, one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives, surrenders in person at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He claims that he and the FBI have the same interests: bringing down dangerous criminals and terrorists. In the last two decades, he's made a list of criminals and terrorists that matter the most but the FBI cannot find because it does not know they exist. Reddington calls this "The Blacklist". Reddington will co-operate, but insists that he will speak only to Elizabeth Keen, a rookie FBI profiler.

In the fictional town of Neptune, California, student Veronica Mars progresses from high school to college while moonlighting as a private investigator under the tutelage of her detective father.