It looks like our Blacklist guy this week will be played by Dr. House’s BBF on House. He doesn’t look the part of a bad guy but he just poisoned a whole train car full of people! All before the credits even start! I guess on this show he is a bad guy that leaves suitcases armed to deliver chemical attacks on seemingly random train cars. His name is Frederick Barnes. Red says he is the most dangerous man in the world!
Liz is still really pissed off at Red for saying that her husband Tom is a bad guy. Red still maintains his position.
The deal with Frederick is that he had a baby with his lab assistant a few years back and the kid had a rare disease that is incurable and causes your arteries to harden and then you die. He was a brilliant medical researcher that wanted to create a cure for the disease. No one would back the research because it is so very rare that there are only a handful of people with the disease. So, I suppose in an effort to save his son, he is infecting lots of people with an amped up very that is fatal in minutes rather than years. A lot of media attention and more causes would make the research more appealing to investors.
Red goes to Cuba to a guy he thinks can get him the radioactive chemicals Frederick uses in the chemical attacks. It’s a high level security risk and only a few people can get access. He is hoping his guy can tell him the name of the source. Oh wait, he is duping his buddy telling him he has a client that will pay $10 million if he can buy back some of the chemicals he sold to his last client (Fred). He puts a super-duper phone tracing thingy under the table traces the call. He is at the courthouse right up the street from Liz. Because all the blacklist bad guys hang around where Liz and the douchebag FBI guy are. Every episode, the Blacklist guy is like four blocks away. But even so, they arrive too late because Fred already killed an entire courtroom full of people. Liz could not catch a bad guy if her life depended on it. Ditto douchebag. So he got away. He took the security guy hostage and Liz put her gun down when Barnes told her to and kicked it away. He shot out a bunch of windows causing mass confusion and escaped. Douchebag told her boss. Now she is in trouble.
One young black woman survived being in the courtroom with the chemical spray. The FBI thinks he conducting tests on a wide variety of people to see if reactions vary. Barnes shows up to the survivors room and changes her IV bag, which knocks her out. He takes a bone marrow biopsy to hopefully get a sample of her immunity to the disease where he can hopefully create a cure for his love child.
Liz calls Red for help and he tells her that Barnes will probably go to try to off the survivor. She finally gets a clue and calls Barnes baby mama , but ALAS AND ALACK! It is too late! Barnes is already there. He knocks the baby mama out and tries to get to the kid with the antibodies he has in a syringe. The kid runs! Oddly the kid does not scream. Why not? And where is the husband/fake father? Oh now he is screaming. So Barnes chloroforms him and just as he is about ready to deliver the cure, Liz shows up and once again has him at gunpoint. Barnes tells her it is his son’s only hope. If he does nothing he will die anyway. Liz is all self righteous about experimental medicine and killing a bunch of random people and legal stuff. And she shoots him before he can deliver the cure. Which I think is dumb. Eleventy billion people died for that vial. Might as well let him poke the kid with it and THEN shoot him. Liz never does anything right. And where is douchebag during all this? Off tattletaleing again?
Red says it’s a pity that Barnes is dead. Liz doesn’t get it. Red says that someone who is willing to burn the whole world down to protect the one person they love, that is something he can relate to. Liz says, “Is that meant to be directed at me?” Because Liz is dumber than a box of hair. Red says she is presumptuous.
Also during this episode, Red bought a house. It was already in escrow but he had his female agent drop by with double the asking price in cash, just in cash escrow “fell through.” At the end of the episode, Red goes to see the house he bought. The agent can’t understand the urgency of him buying such an ordinary property. He says, “I raised my family in this house.” As they leave, the agent says he must have a lot of memories here. Red says he spends everyday trying to forget what happened in that house, but this should help. And he blows the house to smithereens.
Next episode it looks like Red will probably kill Liz’s ailing “father” because he wants to make some sort of deathbed confession to Liz.
i like how they identified the guy at the train. Viewing who got on stations ahead with said suitcase and left without it all by stairway cameras. Then they watch 4 different camera angles of the people dying on the train. Why didnt they just use traincar footage to see who left the suitcase?
i really like james spader, sucks the actress playing lizzy isn’t better, she always looks like she has to poop or something. i think they picked her because there is a sort of resemblance to red. i dislike douche’ bag agent, he is annoying and well a douche. i do love spaders side kicks though, they are great and perfect in their roles. i did wonder why all the black list peeps are always so darn close, maybe they are going on the theory that the worst crime is near the police station????
Y’all KNOW I have a rule against stupid nicknames for celebs and Bravopuppets. But This is EPISODE SEVEN and I still have no idea what douchebag’s name on the show is. And since I am using it on a fictional character….. I am giving myself a pass. 🙂
On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 1:41 AM, Tamara Tattles
The character is Donald Ressler, played by Diego Klattenhoff. Douchebag Donald might get you around the rules, lest the term “hypocrite” starts flying around the blog again…….
FINE. If I remember I will call him Donald. And the rule is about REAL people not characters. 🙂
On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 2:35 AM, Tamara Tattles
Tamara, your blog, your rules, you get to call whoever whatever! You did get me thinking, though – I couldn’t remember the guy’s name, either! Douchebag seems so…accurate. And what about Diego Klattenhoff – doesn’t that sound like an interesting family history?
Steve, I’m guessing that they didn’t know how the chemical was delivered until they noticed the briefcase/suitcase had been left behind. The briefcase wasn’t obvious in the pictures from the inside of the subway car.
I agree with therealdeb – wish they could have found a better Liz for Red. And Red and his crew ARE good – smart and quick. Red’s comment about “being willing to burn the whole world down…” ? It made me catch my breath. Lizzie IS dumber than a box of hair. Tamara didn’t recap the brief moment when Red told Liz that he was tired of playing her holier-than-thou game – but it was good. He seems to have a very good sense of how much of Liz’s nonsense he’s willing to tolerate.
Watching Red’s face is the most interesting part of the show for me. He seems so genuinely happy to meet and talk with regular people – the Asian restaurant workers a few episodes back, the lady selling cakes in Cuba this episode – and then his eyes can go dead cold and serious. Can’t we take up a collection for a better Lizzie?
Omg I was supper pissed lizzy didn’t let that little boy get that shot she let Mike (that’s his name on homeland) get into her head lizzy is not a good agent or actress with that being said I love this show lol
if Lizzy let the dr dude inject the kid then ONLY that kid may be saved. This way other drs can look at what was in the shot and make more to help others with that rare disease. That way so many people didnt have to die for one kid. Now maybe all with that can be helped.
Love Red, don’t like Lizzy. She reminds me of Kristin Stewart (Bella from Twilight) as far as being a TERRIBLE actress in a show where i like everyone, BUT her. She just ruins some of the scenes for me. It is hard to believe that someone who is an FBI agent with special training on profiling can’t figure out a thing about anyone!!! She can’t see anything about her husband, can’t figure out Red…..I love the show because Red is sooooo good!
What is the deal with the women on these shows and the men way out acting them? Liz constantly looks constipated, as does Lucy Lu as Joan Watson on Elementary. They have one expression and it says “I need to take a dump.” Now Maria Bello in Prime Suspect was perfection.
You KNOW that Lizzy’s husband is up to no good. I don’t believe he didn’t know about the box in the floor. I believe Red about him.
I really like this show, it’s probably because I love James Spader who brings so much to it. For that reason, the stretch with ALL the most deadly killers in the WORLD being in or just around the corner from D.C., I’ll give that a pass, although how hard would it be to travel in this show?
I realize these weekly blacklisted madmen are just a subplot to the season’s story arc: what is the relationship between Red and Lizzie, what is the truth about her hubby, and why did Red risk a carefree, criminal life for it all. I thought originally Red is her father, but that is so obvious, I’m expecting a twist. But then again, he could be the Naval Academy star who disappeared one day, and maybe Lizzie was young enough to believe her mother’s new hubby was her father? Or maybe, Red was her real father’s best friend and promised to take care of her, and he found it mutually beneficial to do so when she went with the FBI?
Second, after many passes, Lizzie and her wig are just plain lacking, especially highlighted when she’s with Red.
I have trouble getting over the stupidity — NO virus (it’s a virus, not a chemical) can act nearly that fast. And, even given it exists and is so potent, why didn’t it spread outside the subway car (once the door was opened) or the courtroom (ditto)? Makes no sense. Stupid, stupid, stupid.