The Blacklist: The One Where Gina Zanetakos is a Bad Ass (S1:E6) Gina Zanetakos

By: Baby Z

BE SURE TO BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THE BLACKLIST’S EPISODE 6 “KICK ASS REDDINGTON QUOTES” ARTICLE, ALONG WITH THE “UNANSWERED QUESTIONS VOL. 3” ARTICLE, IN WHICH I WILL ALSO COVER SOME OF THE PREVIOUS VOLUME’S UNANSWERED QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS! 

“Gina Zanetakos” starts off showing someone doing cocaine, building a bomb, blowing up car while a woman witnesses it.  She asks the bomb builder if he can make it radioactive.  He confirms he can in 48 hours, she responds she wants it in 36 and walks away, thus indicating she’s somewhat a bad ass.

Meanwhile, Tom & Lizzie are having it out at their house, Tom is claiming no knowledge of the “secret box” or any of its continents, is angry that she would think he’s responsible for the Russian spy’s death at Angel Station.  He even calls himself “Tom Bond” at one point.  If I’m not mistaken, isn’t he doing every single thing that guilty people do, from getting angry & defensive, turning it around on the other person then they try to make jokes about whatever it is, this moves on to attempting to guilt the other person into feeling bad for doubting them, and finally attempting to call her bluff by challenging her to call the FBI.  Being a profiler - shouldn’t she know all of this?  Lizzie calls FBI, both Keens are brought in, Tom with Malik and Lizzie’s put on leave until further notice by Cooper.

So of course, she meets up with RR who tells her about this episode’s villain, Gina Zanetakos, a corporate terrorist, and the best of the bunch.  If Lizzie wants to find the truth about her hubby, she needs to find Gina, because RR tells her she is also Tom’s lover.

Tom maintains his innocence, that he was in Boston during the same time of the murder for an interview and gives her the name of the school that it was a Walter Burris he interviewed with.  Malik points out how odd it was that Walter had Tom meet him at Angel Station rather than at the school for his interview.

Ballistics confirm the gun was the one used to kill Folken.  But a partial print on one of the magazine casings was NOT Tom’s, nor did it bring up any matches in their database.  Cooper informs Ressler/Malik that RR has brought them another case, Ressler and Malik both have issue with Lizzie working while her husband’s under questioning, but Cooper basically doesn’t give a shit.

Lizzie’s briefing on Zanetakos:  She has an assumed name Shubie (really?) Hartwell, who reached out to RR the year before to broker a deal to have a Supreme Court judge assassinated who was the swing vote in a case that could have cost her clients billions.  After a quick search on Shubie, we discover she arrived in the US the previous day and her credit card had just been used an hour ago buying drinks.  Also, Lizzie tells Cooper she feels like she’s seen Shubie before.

Meanwhile, “Shubie” is about to have sexy time with a gentleman who upon the hope of getting a piece of Shubie ass, pulls out confirmation that her shipment is officially on its way, she takes off her shirt, revealing a kick ass outfit (and body) and while biting his neck, injects him with something that, of course, kills him.  I did my damndest to find a picture of said outfit and was completely unsuccessful.

During this, Malik is at the Rothwell School meeting with Walter Burris, she shows him a picture of Tom asking if he’s the one he met at Angel Station coffee shop to interview him and before we get an answer, we cut back to Shubie who’s covering her tracks in the hotel room, leaving a bottle of prescription pills next to the dead dude, removing her wig, etc..,  She walks out and as she gets to elevator it beeps so she 180’s it, and Lizzie & Ressler are literally about 2 seconds behind her.  Of course Ressler’s doing his weekly “I don’t trust you” routine with Lizzie about her even being involved in anything FBI-related right now.

They discover dude’s dead body, Ressler leaves room to check security footage, just as Shubie is getting on elevator when, of course, she gets stopped just as the doors about to close by what appear to be an entire girl’s volleyball team.  And, as the door was closing AGAIN, Ressler stops it and gets on, He’s on his phone, Shubbie tries to remain unnoticed but when they get to main floor, Ressler is all of a sudden a gentleman and holds the elevator door open for the v-ball team, only when they exit, he sort of senses that 1 person is still there.  He barely gets his head turned around when WHAMMMMMO!! Shubie knocks him straight into next week and a bad ass elevator fight ensues.

I gotta say, I am loving me some Shubie - she’s one bad ass bitch.

Lizzie finds dead guy’s cell phone in his jacket pocket, Ressler gets his ass handed to him & briefly loses consciousness from a killer head lock a la Shubie and wakes up just at the same that Lizzie finds Shubie’s name in dude’s phone and calls the number.  Turns out, Shubie’s cell phone dropped in the elevator during the fight because it’s Ressler who answers. When Lizzie asks why he has her phone and  did he catch her and stop her, Ressler awesomely answers “Not exactly” while still laying on the elevator floor bleeding and ass kicked.

We discover back at FBI headquarters that upon analyzing Shubie’s phone, it was, and I quote, a treasure trove of messages, that she was in constant contact with a multinational company, but stating more worrisome than THAT was a call that came in 3 hours ago from Belgium stating a change of plans and they’d be going with Cobalt 60, so the FBI knows there’s a dirty bomb involved but has no idea the target.

OK can I just say that wouldn’t someone of her particular “level” of crime on the totem pole have safeguards against anyone so easily obtaining her messages? 

Lizzie/RR meet again and she tells him their best guess on the dirty bomb target is central US (based on the 4pm central time message they intercepted,) dead dude from hotel was Nidi Midris, an attache at the Turkish embassy. RR basically said Gina’s not going to detonate the bomb, someone hired her and asks if they have found proof of Gina’s connection to Tom yet, at which Lizzie lashes out that there hasn’t been one link between the two and that Tom is innocent damn it.  

Malik returns from her meeting with Walter Burris, and asks Tom if the man in a photo she hands him was the man he interviewed with and he was not. Lizzie’s watching from the next room and she says aloud to herself that he’s being set up.  Tom brings up that someone’s doing this to him, mentions the picture taken of him leaving the hotel and this sparks something in Lizzie. She grabs the photo of Tom outside the hotel from evidence board and, walking about 15 feet from him is what appears to be Shubie. 

Ressler/Lizzie arrive with several geared up enforcement agents at where I’m assuming Shubie was staying.  Of course she’s not there so the scour her room finding a plethora of guns, various papers, Lizzie sits down to read something and notices a silver hinge on the floor next to her, a hinge to a vent that contains an identical wooden box to the one she found in her & Tom’s home.  This box contains many “Shubie” passports but also several pictures, including that of the hotel dude she killed earlier and also one Viktor Folken.  

Lizzie comes to the conclusion that Gina was the one who killed Folken and that she’s actually an assassin, just in time for one of the geared up enforcement agents to procure a book by Shubie’s bed that contained a picture of Tom with someone’s arm around him, but the picture doesn’t show whose arm. Ressler takes the photo from her for evidence and is suddenly on her side again when he tells her that it’s admirable she’s sticking by Tom but that she needs to start thinking about protecting herself it looks like.

Next we find Lizzie/RR at a gazebo in a park, she tells him about Tom’s picture in “Shubie’s” book and says that even though Tom denies knowing her it’s clearly not the case and that part of her is saying that RR is behind the entire thing trying to ruin her life (uh, why exactly?)  Shes crying, if Tom isn’t who she’s thought he was, doesn’t know how she’ll handle everything without him.  They have a touching “you can trust me” moment, she tells him she needed him to be wrong about Tom and he grabs her hand.

Later between Lizzie/Ressler/Cooper:  Cooper’s telling Lizzie he thinks if she comes across incriminating evidence against Tom in the field, he thinks she’ll suppress it.  They discuss that from Gina’s’ hard drive they found money she wired to the bomb making dude (Maxwell Rudiger) in Belgium.  Despite pretty much hating her, doubting her, and at one point flat out calling her a possible accomplice, they’re gonna have to go ahead and continue using her so RR will track the bomb dude down mmmmkay?

Lizzie returns to RR’s place & he’s on the phone with Hakim again (whom he was conducting an art transaction with at the beginning of the episode) sternly telling him he absolutely will not ship the painting out with having received payment, out as he hasn’t received payment yet, and that his sources tell him the wire was diverted to New Orleans.  He hangs up on Hakim and has a chat about bomb dude, stating he’s a tremendous bomb maker. Lizzie informs RR of the wire transfer from Gina to Rudiger, so RR states that Rudiger then is the link - the one that can get her to Gina who can get her to Tom. 

After asking for his help finding Rudiger, RR jumps on a plane and the next scene he’s opening a bottle of wine with Rudiger, pontificating that he knows Rudiger’s using the Cobalt 60 and that they both know there’s only 1 reputable Cobalt supplier and that’s “their friend” Yuri.  He tells him that is a problem because once the bomb leads the FBI to Yuri, he will lead them to RR.  RR asks Rudiger for help in telling him about the device he’s made for Gina,  but Rudiger won’t betray her trust just like he wouldn’t do that to RR and RR tells him, oh well too bad so sad I have a really interesting deal going down in Syria and I’m playing all sides, thought there might be a part in it for you but…guess not, which - of course - gets Rudiger talking.  (And, I just typed that before seeing Rudiger’s reaction to this bait….let’s see if I’m right….)

DING DING DING DING… Rudiger’s telling RR all about the car that he’s turned into a bomb.  Contamination radius of 5 miles, detonate in 19 hours, doesn’t know where,  RR tells him to call Gina, says he just needs to know where she is and that him telling RR will never come back on Rudiger.

We assume this worked because in the next scene, Ressler/Lizzie and a slew of geared up and undercover agents are ready to raid Zanetakos’ location when Ressler says he knows Lizzie will want to kill her but she can’t.  She’s like “Uhhh..no… I want to TALK to her dumbass….”  Ressler orders no shots fired so as to avoid the news.  Um, how do you order no shots fired before you even know what you’re about to face?  Dumb.

Gina is seen strolling thru the park, as are Lizzie and Ressler and like 742 other FBI agents from the looks of it.  Not suspicious at all talking into their little wrist device things…

 
Annnnnnd of course Gina spots one of the unknowns doing just that and makes a break for it.  As in every episode, Ressler’s on foot pursuit of the bad guy, but Lizzie’s closer to her and follows her down a set of stairs to a bathroom.  When she finally kicks in the stall door that Gina’s hiding behind, we’re then treated to a bad ass cat fight, of which Gina’s got Lizzie hands down.  Just as she pulls out a knife, Ressler shoots her twice.  I thought he said NO SHOTS FIRED.  Fucking men.

Of course Lizzie immediately proceeds to try to keep Gina alive, telling her “Don’t die” while attempting to hold her hands over her wounds to keep her from bleeding out.

Arriving back at HQ, Lizzie’s freaking out on Ressler, Gina’s in surgery, the bomb’s going to go off in less than 4 hours, Lizzie asks what they know about the bomb, which is the same as what she does.  After asking if they know why Gina killed hotel dude and how the multinational corporation is connected, she’s told that they are the investor and that their company is in trouble.  What kind of company you ask?  Shipping - - AND - - they are run out of NEW ORLEANS!  Damn, I was RIGHT about RR’s signalling look during his phone call to Hakim earlier!  I am GOOD!

Lizzie calls RR, asks what he knows about New Orleans, and she figures out that since his money from said phone call earlier was diverted from Houston, Houston must be the target since Houston and New Orleans are the biggest ports in the Gulf and if there’s radioactivity in Houston, all shipments will be diverted to the Gulf - thus making Gina’s investing corporation’s profits soar.  RR hangs up, throws his phone to his assistant and says, “That’s my girl.” So the signalling earlier was for HER benefit… OK… that’s cool.

Meanwhile, in Houston - the entire FBI is there again with Ressler and Lizzie to find the car before it detonates, and of course there’s only a bazillion storage containers at the port.

At HQ - Malik/Tom: She tells him his girlfriend’s been shot and he says “What?  Liz?”  Um… no, dumbass that’s your WIFE…. so she throws down pictures of Gina who he, of course, denies knowing and she asks him what he knows about the bomb.

Back in Houston:  searching, searching, searching.

Annnnd return to HQ: Malik asks Tom “What about a ship… a manifest… a crate number - help me!!” and Tom’s all:  WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

Return to Houston: They are no longer searching, but instead are standing around talking about the port being 25 miles long.  Lizzie pontificates that they’re missing something and realizes what Nedi Midris’ role was in the whole thing.  Turns out, it’s illegal to search diplomatic cargo so he used his ambassadorship to get the car in without inspection, therefore Lizzie orders all manifests for the last week to be reviewed for anything signed my Nidi and wham bam thank you ma'am - they find the car.  One of the random agents points out that the bomb is fabricated and is not just INSIDE the car but - IS the car.  Um, yeah, that’s what bomb dude SAID moron.

Now they discuss an evacuation plan, only it’d take hours to evacuate and they don’t have hours.  We’re reminded everything in 5 mile radius would be dead.  Lizzie, once again to the rescue (is she the only person who knows how to solve things in the FBI?) suggests getting the car into the wide vast ocean that they’re like 10 feet from because radiation can be contained in water, so they bring in a big ass crane to do the job.  They crane it in, Ressler jumps in with 30 seconds on the timer, floors that baby and just before it goes off the dock, he jumps out - the car goes into the water at 2 seconds and BOOOOOOM! Crisis averted.

Meanwhile, after Gina’s surgery, Ressler and Lizzie tell her that because they contained the bomb, the DA is willing to work a plea agreement with her with her cooperation.  She agrees.  They ask if she killed Folken, she confirms.  When asked why, she said that he was a Russian KGB agent defecting and someone didn’t want what he knew to become known in the US so they hired her to take him out. Folken had info on the route Chechen guerrillas were using to move their supplies to their soldiers on the Russian border.  The guy who hired her was making millions off those supplies.  Turns out?  His name was Red Reddington.  Lizzie then shows her the pic of Tom and asks her if she knows him and she confirms she’s never seen him before in her life.

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

Upon releasing Tom and a heartwarming embrace with Lizzie, he glances at the evidence board and points to RR’s assistant, informing them that he was the one that Tom interviewed with for the teaching job.

DUN DUNNN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

Shortly after, Lizzie returns to RRs and barges right in announcing that they are DONE.  She said Gina confessed to RR’s involvement, that the money from Tom’s box was traced to an offshore acct that was in RR’s name and the passports were forged.  She continued that he put Tom’s picture in Zanetakos’ apartment, he hired her to kill Viktor Folken, he set her husband up by having his “errand boy” lure him to Boston (RR:  "Is that what Tom said?“), After telling him she didn’t understand why he would do any of this, she followed it up with telling him to go to hell and leaving.

Final scene is apple-eating surveillance guy, who is told by his "day shifter” that the only thing he found out was that Tom doesn’t work for Reddington.  Apple eating guy then asks “Well then who does he work for?” and the show ends on this note.  Once again, leaving all the Tom-doubt we all have growing, leaving us DYING TO KNOW Reddington’s grand scheme and what role everyone plays in it, and finally - how the whole thing will end up at some point tying together.  We ARE only 6 episodes in to a 22-episode season and personally?  I can’t wait to see how the season progresses. 

Have a tutti fuckin frutti day,
-BZ