|
He’s coming…
Official Memorandum to Meera Malik: This is hot.
accurate statement is accurate.
Oh God…… oh my God…. this is perfection. COME ON MONDAY!!!!
–BZ
(Source: jimmysyellowesteem, via thedailyreddington-deactivated2)
“Ours is a friendship forged once in this life and again in the next. Goodbye, my brother”.
<3 Dembe <3
By: Baby Z
As mentioned previously, these Unanswered Questions will be focused on each particular episode, and the questions that arise each week. For the show’s overall unanswered questions, please see my VOL. 1 article.
Unanswered questions arisen in “Gina Kanetakos” (S1:E6):
Have a tutti fuckin frutti day,
-BZ
By: Baby Z
By: Baby Z
“Hakim, remember me to your wives, all of them.”
Have a tutti fuckin frutti day,
-BZ
By: Baby Z
Moving forward, I’ll focus more on episode specific type questions. With regards to the unanswered questions about the show overall - please see Unanswered Questions Vol. 1.
Regarding episode 5, “The Courier”:
By: Baby Z
“The Blacklist” is that specific type of show that from the pilot episode, viewers are reeling with a million questions. Since the list of questions just seems to continue to grow, I thought perhaps I’d cover some of the main questions that I have.
1. Obviously, one of the most major unanswered questions about The Blacklist is surrounding the true identity of Tom Keen. Is he who he says he is and Reddington is setting him up for some reason? Is he the double agent mentioned in the Angel Station case reports? If so, who does he work for? Is he a good guy or a bad guy?
2. Along the same lines of identity, who is Raymond Reddington to Elizabeth Keen? The writers sure seem to want the viewers to think he’s her father, but are they being too blatantly obvious in attempting to make us think this so they can bamboozle us later with a completely different plot direction?
3. Who is Tom Keen TO Reddington? Have their paths crossed before? Why is Reddington so insistent that Lizzie think Tom is actually a criminal/double agent/whatever? If she’s his daughter, it makes sense that he’s trying to protect her/look out for her but he’s been keeping tabs on Lizzie for quite a long time so if his intentions were to protect her, seems he’d have done so - I don’t know - prior to her marrying the guy?
4. Why is Lizzie so important to Reddington’s long term agenda with suddenly working with the FBI? What role will she play in this agenda, or what role is he hoping she’ll play?
5. What’s the deal with Lizzie’s scar? She tells Reddington she got it when she was 14 and it was a fire, but then she tells General Riker’s daughter in the first episode that when she was a little girl her scar made her brave because it was from her daddy. Also - have you noticed that the scar matches the symbol on Tom’s secret box?
6. Who is monitoring Lizzie & Tom Keen’s home and what part do they play in the plot? Are they monitoring Tom? Lizzie? Are they good guys or bad? What are they hoping to gain by the 24/7 surveillance?
7. Who is the woman in the photograph that Reddington removed from The Stewmaker’s photo book? There’s a date on the photograph of December 1990, which is when Reddington disappeared into thin air, leaving his wife and daughter behind, could this woman’s disappearance be what prompted him to turn to his life of crime? And why didn’t he want Lizzie to see this one photo in the book?
8. 042983 - In the Wujing episode, Reddington’s “payment” for services was a piece of paper with just this number on it - what is its significance? (Unrelated, 4/29/83 is the actress who plays Elizabeth Keen’s birthday in real life!)
By: Baby Z
“Perhaps this is an opportunity to let our new friends at the FBI carry the water.”
By: Baby Z
“The Courier” episode begins with the Keen’s having some, shall we say, sexy time in the bedroom, only Tom is all too aware that something’s up with Lizzie. So, as almost no man would do, he stops what he’s doing not only to ask her what’s going on, but when she gives the pretty much female-standard response of “Nothin” - - he completely stops trying to “get some” in order to talk, which should have been hint #1 about what’s to come.
Quick update from Baby Z:
There’s some great Reddington quotes (as usual) from “The Courier” episode this week currently being compiled - - will be posted, along with the episode recap, this weekend!!! Might be introducing a new “The Blacklist” weekly feature as well!!!
-BZ
By: Baby Z
Here’s the second edition of “Kick Ass Reddington Quotes” from Episode 4: The Stewmaker!!
“Lorca’s a vicious little drug lord thug. Certainly nothing there to hold my interest. But their request is of great interest because it concerns you.”
By: Baby Z
Just when you think The Blacklist cannot possibly get any better, an episode like “The Stewmaker” comes along and calls you a silly bitch.
We begin the show with a guy checking into a hotel, followed by him unloading a few huge metal suitcases, then his teeth and hair! He jumps in the shower and proceeds to shave all his head and facial hair. When he’s done, he sprays room down with presumably some sort of sanitizer, then covers the entire room in plastic and it’s at that point that I get a little confused and wonder briefly if I accidentally loaded “Dexter” rather than “The Blacklist”??
Meanwhile, at an FBI Storage Facility, Lizzie signs in and is told that the guard has to run her through clearance. She says she’s in a hurry and could she just go in while he runs it and the guard agrees. OK - first of all - NOT. That wouldn’t happen. At the same time, Cooper is asking Ressler the latest about what she’s been up to regarding the case, and Ressler says the files have been redacted and that there’s no way she can find out about that case…. but back at the storage facility, we see Lizzie searching for the case number among the rows & rows of evidence and she comes to box marked “Case No 12-11579: Name Angel Station: Date June 23, 2012.” She attempts to grab the box when the guard starts heading in saying “Hey you’re not allowed in here, who’s your supervisor?” as she runs away. Um, doesn’t he have her name in order to do the clearance search?
Cooper tells Ressler they need to keep an eye on her and that she’s scheduled to testify in court today from her time in NY regarding Hector Lorca, a Mexican drug dealer, and adds that he wants Ressler there in the courtroom as well.
Back in her office, Lizzie jots down the name and date from the evidence box when Ressler comes in. She tells him she’s got court today and he asks if he can go with, says that nothing would make him happier than to see Lorca go down, to which she responds “Why do i get the feeling you’re less interested in watching Lorca than in watching me?” and so he asks her if she’s hiding something. Agent Malik interrupts this awkward exchange and informs Lizzie that RR wants to see her alone.
(By the way, anyone realize that Ressler was the guy Rachel McAdams was fooling around with in “Mean Girls”??? Look!)
Once again, Lizzie meets RR at a park (and again he is in a fantastic suit) and is accompanied by his black security guy. As Lizzie approaches, the security guy leans down and tells RR that he’s due in Port-au-Prince at noon if they’re going to make RR’s appointment, and RR tells him to bring the car around.
When Lizzie sits down, RR reads a newspaper headline that indicates it was due to her work as a profiler that Lorca was captured. She says “You’re aware then that I’m due in court in 3 hours.” and he informs her that her case is about to go sideways. He tells her that Lorca’s people have reached out to him and that normally he wouldn’t give them the time of day but that because it involves her, he wanted to forewarn her.
When Lizzie inquired as to what his people were asking for, RR responded that he wanted transportation out of the country, new identity, passport, bank account, credit cards as well as the proper introductions to reestablish his operations elsewhere, and he wanted it by tomorrow night. For whatever reason, RR tells her, Lorca is under the impression he’s about to be a free man. When Lizzie says she’s got a witness who’s got him cold and Lorca’s not going anywhere, RR simply responds that something IS going to happen, grabs his jacket & leaves.
Back at Creepy Dude Hotel, the guy from the beginning of the show is seen opening up one of those cloth medical tool organizers, and again I wonder if I’m watching “Dexter.” We also see one of his big metal suitcases is full of gas masks and a chemical, and he has one of the masks on.
At the Washington D.C. US District Court, we discover that Francesca Ravino was abducted from a school parking lot, Lisa Molinera was taken from a movie theater, Miguel Romera kissed his wife goodbye one day to go to his job. The prosecutor says there have been 109 victims over 6 years, members of US and Mexican law enforcement agencies, preparing cases against the criminal cartel run by Lorca. They were witnesses prepared to testify against him, and they are all presumed dead, none of them have ever been found. Then she refers to the father of one of the victims, who said his son (Pena) worked border patrol, and that he was taken. He said he saw who did it, he saw Lorca. And just as he yelled “I KNOW WHO KILLED MY SON” one of the juror members begins having what appears to be a heart attack. The judge orders the bailiffs to secure the prisoner, get the paramedics in there, and for the courtroom to be cleared.
Keen escorts the witness out of the courtroom and hands him over to 2 US Marshals. When the witness asks about his wife, Keen tells him she will go find her and bring her back there. She runs down the stairs, while the camera flashes back to the witness who is brought into a room where there is an ACTUAL US Marshal lying dead on the ground, and he realizes that the 2 men that have him are not his friends. One of them grabs Mr. Pena and injects him with something in the neck.
Meanwhile, at the ground floor of the courthouse, Keen is met by Ressler, who tells her that they have the witness secure and that according to the EMT, the juror’s heart attack was chemically induced, the juror was poisoned! (OK - - HOW did the EMT know this so quickly, it’s literally been maybe 2 minutes since the incident….) Ressler/Keen run back upstairs to the “secure” ‘room and all that’s there is the previous dead US Marshal. They run down the back stairs, outside and see nothing.
Over in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti RR is in the middle of a meeting with what appears to be a money counterfeiter, selling him what he calls a replica of the FIM-92 when his security guard receives a call from Lizzie who demands to speak with RR, who says “Sweetheart, not really the most convenient time for me.” Lizzie asks where he is and he tells her he’s in Haiti. You know, doing what he DOES. She tells him a man’s life is at stake, to which he responds that is always the case, and reminds her he didn’t sign on to help with run of the mill drug lords.
Lizzie attempts to guilt him into helping by telling him that the hundreds of families of Lorca’s victims deserve to know what happened to their loved ones, which prompts RR to ask, “Did you say hundreds?” Lizzie responds that no bodies were ever recovered, they never got to say goodbye, etc.., and, again, RR mentions that there are hundreds of people and not one has ever been found? Lizzie asks what he’s thinking and he responds that she should go home, her witness is most likely dead and that he’s pretty sure she knows this already.
Meanwhile, Dexter… er… I mean… creepy dude from the beginning is unzipping a body bag containing Mr. Pena, Lizzie’s witness. He takes a picture of him, puts on gas mask, drags him to the bathtub and pours some chemical into the tub.
Meanwhile at La Casa de Keen, Lizzie is looking through the Lorca file, shuts it in frustration and moves on to something much less upsetting - the bullet’s ballistics report & piece of paper she wrote down the name & date that were on the evidence box from earlier. She seems to be quite carefree when it comes to little details surrounding the mystery of her husband, with him being in the next room and all. But this doesn’t stop her from doing a Google search of “Angel Station” just as, of course, Tom comes into the kitchen asking how she’s holding up. While they’re talking, she manages to cross out “Angel Station” on the piece of paper. Lizzie responds that she’s fine, and Tom tells her he always knows when she’s lying, walks up to the table and says “What’s this?” about the piece of paper with now only the legible June 23, 2012 date on it. She “uhhhh’s” for a second and he continues “I mean…besides the best date ever….right?”
Even though it’s clear she’s not sure what he’s referring to, she agrees with him, and as he walks around the table to put his arm around her saying it makes sense that after such a bad day she’d want to come home and feel better by remembering better times, and at the same time she’s clicking on her laptop to a file named June 23, 2012, which contains pics of the two of them. Lizzie recalls that they were in Boston that weekend and that Tom had a job interview! She seems a bit relieved that they were together and in Boston on this date, like maybe this exonerates him from whatever heinous crime we will find out about at some point when her phone starts vibrating, so Tom grabs his coffee to return to the bedroom. He stops briefly and says that she’s an open book, and that it’s one of the things he loves about her is that he always knows what she’s thinking. Oooooo…. Hinty McHinterson, writers?
Her phone call informed her that they found out where they took Pena, and the next scene is her and Ressler at the Creepy Dude hotel that Dexter was at. A witness had seen a white van leaving courthouse, and that same white van was abandoned 10 blocks away, camera footage caught the license plates, and they were led to the hotel. The desk clerk told them she saw a large black duffel bag and I’m confused as to how the abandoned van led them to the hotel by running plates but……..ok…..
Malik comes out and says there was no sign of Pena. Forensics was going through the room but so far only found a hair & it didn’t appear to be human, and that the hotel clerk also confirmed there was a dog with Dexter. Malik said it appeared as though some sort of plastic sheeting was used, after all it was a HOTEL ROOM, there should be prints and whatnot all over the place but there was nothing.
As Keen enters the hotel room, she receives a phonecall from “Nick’s Pizza”, which - of course is RR who tells her he’s been thinking about her case, asking what they have so far. She tells him she’s at the crime scene and they don’t have much, so he asks if there’s tape residue on the walls which she confirms. He instructs her to look in the tub and run her fingers around the drain… then asks what she smells, to which she tells him she smelled chemicals. He pontificates that now he’s interested.
Back at the FBI offices, RR has returned from Haiti and is telling them “The Stewmaker” is a TRUE Blacklister. He says he’s the only fellow to engage when one has a particular disposal problem and that he’s a chemical expert who turns his victims into chemical stew, hence the name. He leaves nothing behind, no DNA, nothing.
But, RR continues, it’s much more than his proficiency that gets him on the list, he’s also a trophy collector, rememberances of his victims…. he tells Lizzie that they’ve lost their witness and the case but that The Stewmaker is the key to so much more. He says he’s served the needs of international syndicates, repressive regimes, anyone with a need and the means to pay. The Stewmaker knows where all the bodies are, he’s got the answers to hundreds of unsolved murders. He’s notoriously cautious, RR doesn’t even know who he is or where he bases his operation. He adds that he himself has even tried to find him to no avail. Lizzie realizes that Lorca must know something…if not his name he knows how to make contact. RR agrees and they pull Lorca in for questioning.
In the Interrogation Room Malik, Lizzie, Lorca and Lorca’s attorney are all present and Malik tells him they know about The Stewmaker. Lorca’s attorney says his client has no idea what she’s talking about and Malik counters that if he cooperates they can discuss a plea agreement, to which Lorca says THEY were responsible for Pena’s safety and that they have probably offered many others protection in exchange for info & testimony.
He then looks at Lizzie, tells her that Pena’s death is on them and that he had nothing to do with it. Lizzie turns off the camera, and the attorney closes his case file, assuming they’re done, when Malik says the government is dropping this case. She then adds that Homeland Security suspects Lorca of money laundering, to which his attorney responded that that was ridiculous and asked why would they think such a thing, to which Lizzie responds, “Because we told them he was.” HA!! Take THAT Lorca.
Malik continues that Homeland Security will stick him in a hole somewhere (good ol’ NDAA) while they investigate which, you know, could take quite a bit of time, or he could just give them The Stewmaker and they’ll set him up nicely. Lorca responds that he doesn’t think they understand who they’re dealing with and that The Stewmaker is much more dangerous than their agents, closing with the fact that he’d rather take his chances with Homeland (someone call Claire Danes, stat.)
Since he refused to help them, Lizzie is next seen escorting Lorca in prison garb and chains, to a helicopter and tells him that once she hands him over to Homeland, she can’t help him anymore. He pontificates that she thinks she KNOWS him, can profile him, when really she has NO idea… and just as she says this BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Someone shoots a rocket from a launcher on a nearby building into the helicopter sending Lizzie and Lorca flying back and hitting the ground, hard. A vehicle pulls up shooting, Ressler takes cover, mayhem ensues and Lizzie hit her head against the ground hard enough that she’s disoriented, but sees someone grabbing Lorca, only to then have a bag thrown over her head and they throw her, too, into a black van & take off.
HOLY SHIT THIS SHOW ROCKS.
Back at the FBI Offices, Ressler, Cooper, and RR are watching the surveillance footage from the airport and Ressler tries to get tough with RR threatening that if he had anything to do with this so help him….. ..but Cooper interjects about why Lorca would kidnap Agent Keen, what’s his play here? RR informs them that he has a contract with Lorca to personally deliver a new identity. Ressler tells RR that’s never gonna happen and RR points out that their witness is dead, they lost Lorca, and that Lorca took Agent Keen.
Cooper wants time to set up a sting, to which RR points out that (FUCKING DUH) Lorca’s been evading capture for years & will be more on guard than ever, and that any change in plans and they’ll lose him. RR insists on meeting Lorca alone, but Ressler says with an FBI agent’s life at risk, there’s no bargaining here. He insists on going with RR, so RR makes it clear that he takes no responsibility for Ressler’s safety and that the FBI backs off, meaning no surveillance, no wires, or they can find what’s left of Keen themselves.
In the following scene, Ressler & RR are in the car and RR tells Ressler that he’s just going to have to trust him or Lorca’s going to walk. Of course, Ressler bites back that he will never trust RR… know why? In Reddington’s words, “Because after tracking me for years you’ve come up with one undeniable truth. I only do what’s good for me, and that is a person you can trust on.” BAM!! You just got verbally served Ress.
They arrive at Lorca’s location, a bar/restaurant, both get searched, are led through the kitchen to a back room where Lorca and a couple friends are dining. When RR and Ressler walk in, RR says “Mr. Lorca, I’m Raymond Reddington” and Lorca says he wasn’t expecting 2 people, to which RR tells him, quite frankly, “Oh this is Special Agent Donald Ressler of the FBI” and before Ressler (or anyone) has a chance to say anything, Ressler is hit from behind by a guy with a gun. He falls to his knees and Lorca says “Must be open season on the FBI, I like it.”
In Spanish Lorca tells his men to be ready to cut off Ressler’s head, and then asks Ressler why he shouldn’t and in one fell swoop Ressler does a cool flip move on the dude that was holding him, stands up and tells Lorca that he’s the one providing a new ID that will get him past any checks, passports etc.., he concludes that he’s not the guy Lorca KILLS, he’s the guy Lorca PAYS.
Once this lie is confirmed by RR (with a huge smile on his face) RR shows Lorca his new identity and says he’s arranged for transport to Venezuela but that he has to wait 12 hours, which of course Lorca dislikes very much. RR explains that he can’t leave immediately, that it would be bad for business and Lorca’s made a mess, abducting an FBI agent and says “I presume she’s dead?” To which Lorca says he doesn’t know.
Ressler chimes in that RRs right, the FBI has every surveillance camera, every resource looking for him. RR tells him to just sit tight and let him take care of his mess, and asks where the man is who’s holding the agent. Lorca wonders aloud if RR has a problem with him disposing of this bitch (his words, not mine!) and adds that Keen will soon disappear, the price for taking everything he has.
RR then demands the name/location of the man holding Keen, again is met with denial of such knowledge so RR calls his bluff by telling him “Good luck then!” Grabbing the case containing Lorca’s new identity and pretending to start to leave when Lorca says he has a contact.
At the FBI office next day, Cooper’s on phone with Ressler and Malik who are driving, Ressler said Lorca’s contact led them to a maibox rental place and that the name was an alias, a “Bill Conners.” They found his drivers license at the DMV and matched his fingerprints to chemical purchases in Maryland. The Stewmaker’s name is actually Stanley R. Cornish, and he runs a dental practice in Maryland. They are on their way to Maryland to check it out.
Meanwhile, RR is looking at the evidence board at the slip of paper regarding the K9 hair found at the hotel, he takes the paper and tells his security person it was time to go.
Next, from 1st person view we are driving a car, on a long road, then a dirt road, then thru a forrested type area, and we know we are in the middle of nowhere. The Stewmaker arrives, gets out and opens trunk where Lizzie’s tied up & blindfolded. As he’s walking her up the dirt driveway she’s telling him her name and that she’s a person and she has a husband, she says she wants him to know who she is.
Meanwhile, RR (also headed to Maryland) is in the backseat of a vehicle with the asian security chick that was on his list of approved security…
..when he asks the black security guy driving to please dial the Maryland State Office of Animal Control (which - the dude has on his SPEED DIAL apparently?) RR tells Animal Control that he’s Cornish, he’s lost his dog, and the cell phone with tracking code, and tells them that he needs the code and for them to reboot the application for THIS mobile device. He adds that the dog is an emotional support dog, and asks that they hurry because his heart is pounding and he’s having trouble breathing.
Cut back to The Stewmaker’s house, he’s got a creepy record playing and Lizzie’s in a wheelchair, still blindfolded. She keeps trying to get to know him (and him, her) on a personal level, either trying to buy time, or get him to change his mind about killer her, but whatever her motivation is behind her tactics, he’s cool as a cucumber and isn’t stopping his plans.
We then witness Ressler, Malik and other agents storming a house to an unsuspecting woman & child. They confirm the woman is Stanley Cornish’s wife and she doesn’t know where he is.
Back at The Stewmaker’s house, we learn he’s a father and has an 11 year old son. He asks Lizzie if she’s a mother, and she tells him she’s not. When he responds, “That’s good.” as viewers we can see just how scared she is. While all this conversation is going on, he is continuously moving about, getting everything ready, preparing tools, etc.., and then he tells her he was asked to make her suffer. He apologizes and says it’s his job, to which Lizzie responds that it’s her job to read people and he’s not a killer.
He informs her that there’s a nerve cluster just underneath the shoulder, and that the pain should be quite intense as he walks behind her with some sort of pointy medical tool. She’s crying and as the scene closes he’s inserting it into her shoulder!
Ressler and Malik find out from the wife that her husband is a dentist and would never do anything wrong. He asks the wife if she knows where he might be and she informs them of a cabin farther north, in the middle of nowhere, the roads don’t even have names, hell some of them are just dirt roads for God’s sake. Ressler orders a chopper and a team of people who know the area that their summer home is located.
Meanwhile, as RR and his security people are getting close, RR tells them to go to a store to get meat (for The Stewmaker’s dog, I assume).
Back at La Casa de Stewmaker, Lizzie asks him how the whole thing works, how he makes them disappear so perfectly. When he turns around he’s seemingly naked and has sores all over his chest/stomach/arms. He responds “It is perfect isn’t it? walks over and injects her with what turns out to be a sedative that will eventually cause paralysis but will maintain her sensitivity to pain. He wheels her over to a sink and after being asked why he’s doing this when he doesn’t take life, he cleans up death he tells her that everything changes, everything evolves and that this is HIS evolution. She tells him that she thinks idea of him vanishing people to aid nature is a lie, but actually he’s trying to solve something else, his past maybe? Whatever horrible thing that twisted him up inside, and just after saying this, she’s freed herself from the plastic ties, stands up and hits him, then stumbles outside… into the wooded area.
The FBI has a huge team assembled now to comb the area and Lizzie rolls down a hill and crawls behind a tree to hide.
She peeks around the tree and BAM! There’s his dog barking at her. The Stewmaker walks up, punches her knocking her out and drags her back to the house by her arm. He puts her back in the wheelchair, takes gas mask off, and takes her picture. Just before she passes out she tells him she was wrong about him, he’s not perfect and just as she loses consciousness, The Stewmaker turns around to a swift REDDINGTON PUNCH to the face knocking HIM out while the camera pans over to the dog, who’s feasting on a big chunk of meat.
RR carefully places Lizzie’s feet on the wheelchair holsters, she’s looking at him (barely) and he assures her that she’s going to be OK, the affects will wear off shortly, pats her on the head and wheels her into the next room. He turns back towards a now-conscious again Stewmaker and says "OK - are we ready to get started?”
He tells the story of a farmer, that, in all honesty I got so lost in Spader in this moment because the way he delivers the monologue is breathtaking, that the details of his farming analogy are irrelevant. At the end, it’s clear that RR is about to kill The Stewmaker when Lizzie chimes in “No, Red, he couldn’t help it.” RR isn’t buying it, and flips The Stewmaker into his own chemical concoction, and even though Lizzie didn’t witness it being in the next room and all, you can see on her face that she’s mortified. RR comes into the room she’s in and puts his hands behind his head as the FBI comes in. Ressler asks where Cornish is and RR says they’ve had a little incident and that Agent Keen needs medical attention.
RR walks over to shelving unit and grabs a photo book full of the people The Stewmaker has turned into stew. He pages thru it and removes one of the pictures. It’s not Keen as its in the middle of the book.
Ressler assists Keen out of the house and she turns to him and hugs him, sobbing.
While sitting on the edge of an ambulance, RR gives her the book of photos so that she can give peace of mind to the families, and she tells him that he is no better than The Stewmaker, and follows that up with calling him a monster, to which he agrees and she asks him how he can live with that? RR responds with a simple, “By saving your life.”
The ambulance doors close and pull away, leaving RR and Ressler. RR tells Ressler that he gave Lizzie the book of pictures, which should help put Lorca or many of his kind away, when Ressler informs him that Lorca got away. RR pontificates that that’s the cost of doing business, but Ressler counters that RR wasn’t just going to let him get away, that Lorca was offensive and RR didn’t like that. RR responds, “He IS on my jet…”
Back in DC we witness RR on a bridge, pulling out the picture of the mystery woman (see below) while back at Lizzie’s apartment she’s sitting on side of tub when Tom comes in with yet another “things have been…weird…between us lately” speech and tells her that he thinks they could really use getting out of town for a few days. He tells her he booked them a 3-day trip at the same place they went in 2012, and he pulled out the little pamphlet about the trip. They kiss, and then she opens the pamphlet, the inside of which contains a description for “Angel Station Hotel” and thus ends episode 4, adding another however many questions to this puzzle of a show.
Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for this week’s “KIck Ass Reddington Quotes” - - there’s some real GEMS from this episode!!
(Mystery woman’s picture:)
Have a tutti fuckin frutti day,
-BZ
By: Baby Z
Due to the sheer genius of James Spader’s ability to execute a brilliantly written 1-liner, I’ve decided to do a weekly “Kick Ass Reddington Quotes” feature for “The Blacklist”.
Hope you enjoy these Spader/Reddington gems as much as I do each week:
“I prefer to play with myself in private.”
–Reddington to the Wujing minion at the park, prompting the minion to leave.
Have a tutti fuckin frutti day,
-BZ
By: Baby Z
YOU GUYS!! I just spent the last 2 hours writing an awesome recap of episode 3: Wujing (which, I KNOW, is already an episode late!!) and I had maybe 10 minutes to go when the system just - DIED and I got that little sad TV face guy on tumblr and the entire article is GONE!!!!
Therefore, for episode 3, you will be receiving a scaled down recap from its original. I apologize, I love this show SO much and want to do it justice, which a scaled down/short recap could never do, but - - there’s just no way to recover or redo what I lost and I have a to do list that won’t allow me to spend another 2 hours rewriting the original article.
I have also learned to hit “Save Draft” when posting articles here, and to click it often. FUCK!
ALSO - - THERE’S A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT AT THE END OF THIS RECAP ABOUT A NEW “THE BLACKLIST” FEATURE I’LL BE DOING FOR EACH EPISODE!! BE SURE TO CHECK IT OUT!
Episode 3: Wujing begins by showing an American man getting into his vehicle in Shanghai, China, only to be delayed by a Chinese man riding a bike in front of him. Said Chinese man turns toward the car and shoots the guy right thru the windwhield, thus teaching HIM a little lesson in patience. A couple motorcycles then pull up, shooting him again thru the passenger window, taking the briefcase that was on the passenger seat, and driving away.
This is followed by a Chinese man attempting to gain access to something on a computer when he reaches over and grabs a bloody hand (just a hand, no body!) to use for the “fingerprint-required” access, and when this does not work, he orders someone to “Get Reddington!”
Oh yes, get Reddington indeed.
Back at La Casa de Keen, Tom is fast asleep in their bed, while Lizzie is once again going thru Tom’s secret box even though he’s like 10 feet away.
She grabs the gun from the box, a bucket and like 3 huge phone books (seriously, who does this?) and heads outside where she then fills the bucket with water and the phonebooks and then shoots the gun into the phonebooks, obtaining a bullet & casing, which she brings to work and has forensics run it against any crimes, etc..,
Meanwhile, Raymond Reddington (RR) is at the park in a dashing suit, a man approaches and attempts to hand him an envelope to which he responds “Good God, not here.” without even looking up. I just want to lick him he’s so cool.
Long story short, RR informs the guy that his “normal” guy is not available, he’ll be going thru a different “tech” and that he should let Wujing know, do their due diligence and get back to him.
Back at Lizzie’s, they’re having breakfast at the kitchen table when Tom asks her if she’s alright and attempts to talk about the man who, you know, tortured and stabbed him. Of course, Lizzie can’t discuss it but assures him that the guy is dead. A friend comes over to bring some food and to bring Tom to physical therapy, and when thanked she says “Friends don’t let friends starve who have been stabbed by psychopath killers.” Ba dum bum! I’m thinking….too soon for the stabbing jokes, friend?
Remember when I mentioned in my episode 2 recap that RR’s HAT has played a role in the first 2 episodes, and wondered if this would be a recurring theme? Well cue to the next scene where Lizzie’s meeting up with RR in a HAT STORE, filled to the brim (ha) with fedoras. RR informs her that he’s been hired by Wujing to decode a file, most likely containing the name of an Agent Wujing will then kill.
We learn that Wujing formally works for the Ministry of State Security and that while he’s not officially sanctioned by the Chinese government, unofficially he’s contracted to take out rival agents, American, British, etc.., RR tells her that he’s set it up with Wujing that she’s (under a cover, obviously) the encryption specialist “tech” that he mentioned to the dude in the park.
Back at the FBI offices, Cooper, Ressler and Malik all think they should move forward with RR’s plan, while Lizzie’s like, “Uh…. you want me to SPY on a SPY KILLER while pretending to be a specialist in encryptology, of which I know nothing about…. no thanks.” Ressler reminds her that in that case, the next Agent killed by Wujing will be on her hands, and - of course - Lizzie gives in.
Meanwhile, back at her apartment, immediately upon Tom and their friend leaving for physical therapy, we see that the building is being watched by someone eating an apple across the street, followed by a team of people going into their apartment and installing what is assumed to be cameras all over the place.
Lizzie meets up with RR and lets him know that she’ll go along with his plan, on the condition that he tells her why he picked her. They return to the FBI offices where RR tells them that 6 years ago a radio station building was purchased by a corporation funded by the Chinese government. Wujing operates out of this building, and is where they will be meeting him. Lizzie, again, reminds them she knows nothing about encryption, so CIA agent Malik and Lizzie meet up with a Chinese dude that Malik calls in.
There’s a lot of techie talk during this scene so I’ll just summarize: basically, Wujing will give her a file that, when she plugs it into her laptop she will be prompted for a 4-digit code, which her computer will provide. She just has to have a satellite signal for this to work. If she doesn’t have a satellite signal, she’s given a little chip thing called a “remote mirroring program” that will give the FBI/CIA outside remote access to be able to take over and decode.
While waiting for RR to come get her, Agent Malik sticks what looks like a nicotine patch onto Lizzie’s arm, telling her that it will be able to track her up to 300 yards, and is made of a material that’s undetectable should she be ‘wanded.’ Her and RR head to the radio station where…guess what? She’s wanded.
She makes it past the wanding, however due to the chip in RR’s neck, he does not, but he tells the “wander” (same guy he met at the park earlier) that it was implanted by Somali pirates that imprisoned him for 3 weeks and that if the dude had a clean razor blade and some morphine he would gladly remove it. Because the dude knows RR is not a threat to them, he seems OK with this explanation, but then announces that he has to run a biometric print scan on Lizzie. When she asks what system it’s being run against, the 'wander’ says "All of them" and she looks as though she’s going to pee her pants.
However never fear! The FBI/CIA next door intercept the biometric print scan request and ensure that the results show she’s not found out.
RR and Lizzie are led to an elevator that takes them so far down into the ground, I begin to think possibly they are headed to hell… and when they get to the bottom, they’re met by Wujing.
After the first set of taps, she typed out that there wasn’t enough time to deliver in person, that the agent would be killed. He tapped again and she typed out that she needed access to Jin’s computer and asked if he had any suggestions, to which he threw the word “distraction” into his small talk, and she typed “Yes - distract them!”
RR walked over to the security monitors and started freaking out that Wujing had put them in danger, that there was an FBI van right outside, etc.., etc.., and while all of this was going on (Wujing ordered one of his minions to check the van out, etc..,) Lizzie inserted the “remote mirroring program” chip into Jin’s USB port (that totally sounded dirty to techie nerds!)
The satellite program worked and they were able to decode the file (and a lot more according to the FBI/CIA IT guy next door) from Jin’s computer. The next victim for Wujing to kill was named Henry Cho, however it turns out, Henry was not an Agent. Henry Cho is actually an architect that owns a pretty major construction company and the CIA asked for his help because he was contracted to build some Chinese government building in Shanghai.
According to his passport, he was currently in DC and not Shanghai, so after a quick call to a stupid receptionist at Cho’s company, Wujing tells her Cho’s brother’s been in an accident and he must reach him and she tells him where Cho is at (with his son). Wujing orders his minions to that location at the same time Ressler and Malik are doing the same.
Meanwhile, RR and Lizzie are like, “OK so…we have to be going now…” and Lizzie has an opportunity to motion that she needs to grab that remote satellite mirroring chip from Jin’s computer, but RR says to leave it. Suddenly, alarms start going off in the room and Wujing emerges from his office saying that their system is set up to inform them if any communication to a government server takes place from one of their systems. He says that RR must have been right about the FBI being there, only they weren’t outside but rather right there in his dungeon, to which RR warns him to be careful about who and what he’s accusing. Wujing assures him that it’s not HIM he’s accusing but rather Lizzie and his minions run up and have their guns pointed at her.
Wujing says he knows exactly who the traitor is, and we’re supposed to believe he thinks it’s Lizzie but he turns around and punches Jin to the ground, then proceeds to beat the ever loving crap out of him. At one point, Lizzie almost (stupidly) thinks she needs to step in and stop him, but RR stops her from doing so. Wujing stands up from the beating, grabs Jin’s laptop and slams it to the ground, which is when Jin notices the little chip thing that Lizzie inserted and JUST as he’s about to point this out to Wujing, RR snags a gun from a close standing security person and BAAAAAAM!!! Shoots Jin dead.
Wujing, who I’m assuming wanted to question Jin some prior to killing him, grabbed a gun and pointed it at Lizzie saying “You killed one of mine, now I kill one of yours” and RR basically tells him that Jin was useless to him, that Wujing would’ve beat on him for 20 more minutes before killing him himself, but that killing Lizzie would be bad for business, making contractors think that they shouldn’t work for him.
Wujing thinks it over and decides RR’s right and that they need to get out of there because the FBI will be there shortly, so he leads them out via a different exit and they jump into a truck with Wujing, who drops them off after a few minutes.
While all of this was going on, Agent Malik was able to reach Henry Cho on his cell phone just in time to warn him about Wujing’s men coming after him, she instructs him to hide and just as they hang up, the elevator is coming to their floor. Henry grabs his young son, they high tail it to a flight of stairs and go to the floor below where the bad guys now are. He hides his son under a construction/paint tarp on the balcony, instructing him not to come out, kisses him on the forehead and then tries to run and hide himself when the elevator appeared. The bad guys are searching for him when Malik and Ressler arrive. Ressler engages in a fight scene with one of them, who he ends up flailing over the side of the balcony off the building (another running theme of this show!!) He starts fighting a 2nd bad guy when a 3rd finds Henry Cho’s son, so Henry Cho comes out of hiding and just as bad guy #3 is about to shoot Cho, Malik shoots him and Ressler beats #2 unconscious. All is well and Malik actually says to Henry Cho, “Thank you for helping the CIA.” Uh…… yeah…. no problem!
Back to Lizzie & RR: turns out Lizzie removed her nicotine patch tracking device and stuck it on the door of Wujing’s vehicle prior to them getting out, so the FBI were able to bust him afterall. She and RR had a conversation about their agreement: her help in exchange for him telling her why he chose her and he said “Because of your father.” She asked him what he meant by that and did he know her father, and he responded that he wished the answer were as simple as it seemed, which annoyed her and she got out of the car (probably the most unrealistic thing someone would do in this scenario, no?)
Back at the FBI offices, Ressler tells Lizzie, “I may have had doubts about you but what you did today was good work…. if you couldn’t handle this job, Cho wouldn’t be alive. Whatever else went down you should feel good about that.” When he leaves her office, she sits down and sees the ballistics report on the bullet from Tom’s secret box gun on her desk.
We then see her drive home, and after pulling up in her car, she grabs the ballistics report, opens it and finds “Classified Information” as the “results” on the bullet. Wuh wuhh wuhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
However back at the FBI, Ressler goes to Cooper’s office and tells him that because of his suspicions about Lizzie, he put in an order that anything she requested should be reported back to him, so he, too, received a report about the bullet. He told Cooper that at her level, the information was classified, but not at their level. Cooper opened the file and said “This isn’t just classified - the debriefings on this homicide include the Secretary of Homeland Security!” He asked Ressler who else knows about this and the scene cuts to Lizzie walking in to her apartment to find they’re having a little party, she’s told, to celebrate Tom being alive still.
Back at RR’s hotel, he opens the envelope that he was given by Wujing as payment for decoding - which contained only this:
And finally, back at La Casa de Keen, Lizzie and Tom have a brief conversation whereby he apologizes for asking about the man who stabbed him, saying that he gets that she can’t tell him shit because of her job. He’s then wheeled away by a friend, and Lizzie’s left standing in the middle of a room full of people, but looking as though she feels completely alone.
The camera then pans out to directly across the street where we see the apple-eating man from earlier watching a bunch of security monitors of their apartment. And, as usual, the episode ends with the viewers having 432 more questions and no answers.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Because Spader’s character Raymond Reddington has such awesome 1-liners in this show (excellently written by the show’s writers but brilliantly executed by Spader) - I will be doing a weekly “Kick Ass Reddington Quotes” series of articles for each episode, beginning with this episode. Keep your eyes peeled for Episode 3’s Kick Ass Reddington Quotes article - - which will be posted soon!!
Have a tutti fuckin frutti day,
-BZ