I just noticed that my last recap of The Blacklist got a whopping FIVE COMMENTS. What the fuck is wrong with you people? I am trying to lead you to salvation! I usually save this show for a night when my brain has not turned to mush from recapping RHOBH and Vanderpump Rules, but I have been waiting all week for this episode. I wish one of you was here to hold my hand, but I reckon that would make blogging hard. So hold me, I am going in!
There is that scary disclaimer again! /drinks. Wait whut? I thought he killed the black guy last week? And this week he is speaking in Arabic and last week I didn’t understand a word. What is going on? Oh wait it looks they did kill him they just did not show it again. I am not smart enough for this show. Now they have Lizzie and hot middle-eastern looking guy. Red will NOT allow this! Scaryface dude ain’t gonna kill his baby girl. Red threatens to kill Doofus after saving his life numerous times in the past few hours. Doofus gives him the code:Romeo.
James Spader talks like one of my college sweethearts although he looks nothing like him.
Sadly the ridiculous writing comes back into play. Anslo who has executed several people already takes Red into custody for no apparent reason. He also takes Liz with them, which makes sense since Red showed his weakness for her. Hot middle-eastern guy is still alive for now. YAY!
Um, is Red’s right hand guy dead or not? I thought I saw them blow his head off last week? Still confused on that issue. I thought I just saw him standing. I may be just WISHING that were true. Anyway, Doofus just saved the life of the head of the FBI stuff. YAY! Perhaps I will call him Agent Ressler now.
They somehow leave in an ambulance (Imma need to watch this again!) and as they are trying to pull his chip Red says something to Liz “The Emissary Hotel in Chicago, Mr. Kaplin.” Then Liz uses the cardiac panels on the person trying to remove Red’s chip and shoots the driver. She gets out and commandeers a vehicle and they are in pursuit and on the phone. Meanwhile, the whole ambulance scene was stupid. The chick was putting blood on gauze to swab his neck. So bizarre. Suspend disbelief and bear with me here. Really bad writing. But oh so good James Spader.
Oh Hot Middle Eastern guy’s name is Aram. They got the chip out and passed it off to a guy on a motorcycle, because um, sure, that could happen. So Liz and the random guy in the Mercedes are led off the track to find his chip in surgical glove. Liz still has her hand tied together with Gladbag closures. Hell she will never get that shit off.
They have taken Red to a Chamber of Doom conveniently located near FBI headquarters, perhaps blocks away from where all the other Blacklist folks were captured or killed. Le sigh.
That bitchy chick who is in charge of the FBI (not the black guy who is apparently just in charge of the Reddington task force) says she is over it. This never happened, sorry, hope Red dies. Liz ain’t having none of THAT. She gets Aram to help her go save Red.
Anslo wants to know who Lizzie is and why Red would place her life above his. This should be good. Meanwhile, Lizzie called Mr. Kaplan. She then reunited with her maybe bad guy husband. He wants her to quit the FBI. He sure seems like a loving husband to me. Sigh. Mr. Kaplan is calling her back during this touching moment. He doesn’t want her to answer. I WANT HER TO ANSWER THE PHONE DAMMIT!
Oh lookie! The address of the mole is across the street from Lizzies house. Oh LAWD.
Meanwhile, the reason Anslo didn’t just kill Red is because he is the hired help to bring someone in to do it themselves. Red has lots of enemies. Some dude shoots him up with something that is the opposite of anesthesia making him feel even more pain. Lovely.
So Lizzie goes to the house across the street and finds the setup of computers monitoring her house. And an apple. For her teacher husband? Then dude comes in and puts a gun to the back of her head. There is some hand to hand combat and she kills the guy. um, lol. Then she returns the call to “Mr. Kaplan” By the way, Kaplan is a well-known name to most teachers, they do a lot of prepping for academic testing. That probably means nothing. Things get weird again. First Liz calls Cooper the head of the task force, then she hangs up and calls Mr. Kaplan. A woman arrives at the house. Lizzie lies and says she didn’t call anyone else. The lady says she has two directives. Protect Liz and find her employer (Red). She is extracting the bullet so there will be no ballistic evidence. She tells Liz to find his car.
Meanwhile, Red’s torture continues. He is resisting the drug somehow even though his blood pressure is through the roof and his temperature is 103.7.
Liz who is across the street from her own fucking house finds the car while her hubby who is across the street, apparently has no idea what she is doing. Never even peeps out the window. Mr./Mrs Kaplan ran the dead guys pic against “her database” they have no idea who he is/was. Both are in his car. Well lookie there, hubby watches them drive off as they go to an industrial area just up the street to look for Red. They get to a place from the GPS on dead guys car. Black dude jumps in the backseat right after Mr/MrsKaplan says stay in the car, my orders are to keep you safe. Because everyone knows being a sitting duck outside a place with guys with AK47’s keeps you safe. I can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys at this point.
Wait. Was that just a pretend gunfight? Now they say they are in the wrong place? Didn’t the bad/good guys just say it was the right place? WTF? Anyway, the real guy who paid for the pleasure of killing Red is finally there.
Dear God. I am so not smart enough to recap this. Now the FBI is there. Wherever “there” is. Liz is explaining to her boss that it is some sort of criminal outpost. I am lost.
Anyway, head of task force dude goes to head of FBI bitch and explains they are all being watched, looks like task force is back in effect.
Oh shit it is ALAN ALDA! Don’t kill James Spader, Alan Alda!!!!! Noe!!!! He says he know what will happen if Red turns up dead so they haven’t killed him, YAY ALAN ALDA! But Red says that he has not told anything to the FBI and his reasons have nothing to do with him. The Alan Alda guy says he wants to make it abundantly clear there is no where he can go and be safe from him. Alan Alda listens to me and does not want to kill him but Anslo does. Alan Alda is worried “it would trigger whatever he has in place.” So Anslo says to Red he will kill Lizzie. Why does he call her Lizzie? Poor writing again? I hate that this show has such bad writers. IT’S JAMES FUCKING SPADER, shell out some money for writers!
Whoa. Red just killed Anslo a needle or something. You don’t threaten Lizzie to Red. And *poof* despite a billion “anti-anesthesia” shots where he feels increased pain. Red is gone. Just at the FBI shows up and Liz declares” He was here.”
Liz’s good guy husband just wants to move her to Nebraska and raise corn or something.
Doofus survives. An ex shows up at the hospital. She is engaged.
Fuck. Is the husband the mole? How could he be the mole? What would he know? Red calls Lizzie… he says he is gone for awhile. She says they urgently need him… Red says “Lizzie wherever I am whatever I am doing I will be there for you if you need me.” /sigh
HOLY SHIT! She asks him if he is her father. He says no! But tells her to be careful of her husband! I can’t with this…. just take her with you, Red!
I love this show and agree with your opinion on the writing. So many stupid coincidences, I can’t figure out why I keep liking it. Your recap points out a lot that I missed, you are smarter than me so a lot goes over my head. I think Red lied about being her father to protect her. Lizzie’s husband must be a bad guy because Red is always right.
I like that they are giving old gray haired actors work, being gray myself.
I do not like having to sit here until January 13 for next episode. They are making us wait for Red to recuperate.
ive watched this show but sometimes its just hard to keep it straight. When i heard Mr Kaplan my mind went to welcome back kotter and Gabe Kaplan. What kind of bad guy activity would hiding as a schoolteacher be a good cover for?
Do you think he was telling the truth about not being her father?? And her husband is SHADY!!!! Get away from him Lizzy, get away!!
In the first few minutes of this episode, you see Liz and Aram finding each other and trying to disable the jamming equipment that is blocking the “come help us” signals from the safe house. Aram shoots one of Anslo’s crew. That’s the gunshot you hear at the end of the first half of this episode. Dembe doesn’t get shot, but moves away from the big glass box. Anslo’s crew has an ambulance waiting to confuse possible pursuers, and to facilitate removing Red’s locator chip. The red-brown liquid is Betadine or something similar – an iodine-based cleanser used for skin prep before surgery. When Liz and “Mr. Kaplan” get to the safe house where they think Red is being held, the guy who jumps in the back seat is Dembe. The crew that hits the safe house to try to rescue Red is Red’s crew, called in by “Mr. Kaplan”. The last of the real bad guys sets off charges to fry the servers that are in the chain-link enclosure. The FBI figures out that the outpost served as a data collection site for an unknown group that was not only watching Red, but the FBI task force AND the FBI higher up (Jane Alexander). While Red is being let down from the hook, so that he can talk with Alan Alda, Red momentarily sags against the medical guy, and pulls a pair of scissors out of the medic’s left front breast pocket. He conceals the scissors on the inside of his wrist, inside his restraints. That’s what he uses later to drive into Anslo’s neck to kill him.
The recap and comments helped because so much went over my head. But it is laughable that they steralized the incision spot to remove his chip. What criminal is gonna take the time to do that? Did I spell steralized right. It doesn’t look right.
+1 for that point Bev.
And it’s a wrap…
oh.
On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 3:12 AM, Tamara Tattles
HOW in hell’s holy name did you catch all that? Most importantly, did TV show Red Dipping in the Doc’s candy jar for scissors? When? Thanks for your insight
OMG! That episode was sooooo good. I was very happy to see Alan Alda.
I know the show has bad writing, but my biggest pet peeve is how LIzzy has NO IDEA about her husband. She is a Federal Agent who is a profiler…..really? She has absolutely no clue this guy is bad news??
Mister Kaplan is a reference to North by Northwest by Alfred Hitchcock. the show is full of old movie reference like the one when red said “we ll always have paris” in a previous episode refering to casablanca
Mr. Kaplan –
This was a tribute/reference to George Kaplan – a non-existent character in one of the greatest spy thrillers of all time.- North By Northwest. In that Hitchcock film – George Kaplan is even checked into a Chicago hotel just like the Kaplan in The Blacklist last night.
In The Blacklist – Kaplan turned out to be woman (an unexpected twist).. In North by Northwest – Kaplan was not real – hotel rooms were rented in his name, as were train reservations – but there was no Kaplan.
He was just a made up person to keep the movie plot in motion – someone for the good guys to chase..
Despite that so much of The Blacklist is preposterous – this was rather clever.
LOVE this show. Great recap.
It’s interesting that, as the possibility for violence becomes protracted – more a daily threat rather than an unlikely possibility – Liz is growing up a little, getting tougher, FINALLY starting to think. The girl who disarmed herself for a kidnapper becomes the woman who tells Aram, “just pretend they’re paper”. I really appreciate that Red understands other people’s motivations. It’s one of the ways he survives. And Red is compassionate in his own way – does anyone doubt that Red or his minions are the ones who contacted Audrey for Ressler? The whole smart/fast/funny package makes Red pretty charismatic for me – your mileage may differ.
Hey, Beverly – sterilized. It’s implied that this is a better class of criminals, supposed to deliver the goods relatively unscathed.
Tamara-your blog has gotten much attention @ my newspaper in Philly due to a co-worker sharing Fishbowl Ed and his cohort Mary’s podcast with us in the office. Would you be interested in an interview on this blog? Would you like a chance to counter Ed’s accusations that you are a scammer?
I think I said pretty much all there is to say on the Ed story here. http://s17948.p858.sites.pressdns.com/2013/11/24/i-hate-hate-hate-blogger-wars/ My attorney has publicly stated that she was paid. She was also aware she was being paid in large part by the donations from my website. Despite all of these facts, Ed has chosen to believe some rumor he heard somewhere.
Glad that y’all are reading TT in Philly, but it must be a reeeeaaaallllly slow news day.
How does a woman the seems to have insight of a teenager get to be a CIA profiler, or whatever she is supposed to be?!? So much more fun if leading lady were admirable like in most shows. This must be the twist for this one – bad guy is good, heroine is dumb brunette in spy type job, and is so stupid her husband is a bad guy spy. Plus all espionage happens from her doorstep to just across town, in DC, the most protected city. (I would think it is, being politicians are cowards, even to constituents demands.)
I bet these writers still use coloring books for art projects.
Pretty much all the FBI agents are written as buffoons and not nearly as smart as the criminals they hunt. The real FBI must hate this show.
On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 4:08 PM, Tamara Tattles
my dvr has been busy recording and then me watching what i missed because my beloved seattle seahawks played and won monday night football. so, i almost got lost a few times on this one, it moved in some really bizare directions. i think red’s crew called resslers ex, i am glad he bent for lizzy, he is her father! he can lie, but he is. i still don’t know how dembe didn’t get killed, and i think aram is the mole, i just get a bad feeling about him. and the hubby is bad, he is so damn strange, i don’t trust him a bit.
I think if this weren’t Network TV, the writing would be much better. With that said the episode was excellent and introduced the “NWO” folks. I think they will play into the Endgame if they ever get there (chances are bad). Network execs are spoiled on Reality TV where production is probably 1/3 that of shows like The Blacklist. That’s why we get a nobody playing the 2nd lead. They rely on Spader to carry the show which he can until the writers and “Lizzy” can settle into their jobs. The show is great. I’m sick of reality of TV. I want something to get me thinking. Hollywierd assumes we are all morons…
OMG Surely they won’t let the middle eastern dude be the mole. God I suck at picking me.
On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 8:26 PM, Tamara Tattles
I thought this might be a possiblity as well. Although he was a little too helpful to be the mole. Remember he is the one who led the FBI to the guy who was spying on Lizzie which ultimately led to the others spying on the FBI. If he was the mole, he might not want them to find that stuff out. IMHO
I was wondering if anyone else had the impression that Lizzie was not only surprised that Mr. Kaplan was a woman, but that she recognized her/had met her, in a previous episode. I say this only because of the way she said ” YOU’RE Mr Kaplan?”
I, too, love James Spader and think they did him a disservice in casting Lizzie. I think she’s a horrible actress. She is totally unbelievable in this role. I want to fast forward through her scenes. And, Manny Petty is right. The show would be much better if on cable. The writing would be far better.
I don’t agree with knocking the actress as much as I as a writer (I don’t mean here lol) think the writing is somehow deliberately horrible for the NOTJAMESSPADER people.
On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 8:55 PM, Tamara Tattles
I like Lizzy’s role. She is smart to FBI stuff but just becoming aware of street smarts, growing up. Lizzy, I believe was to appear sweet and naive until Red came into life.
I have a feeling Lizzy’s husband is a professional in this mess maybe to even in the marriage.
I was surprised Red had a boss or bosses or whatever Alan Alda is to him. Me to … Alan Alda!!
That did not fit into the image he had of being his own man.
I don’t have a problem following the story but it seems like sloppy writing. Needs to be tightened up.
In a previous episode, Red spoke to Lizzy’s father about keeping the secret Red was her father or implied he was. Lizzy’s Dad was going to tell her the truth before he died from cancer that had returned. Red suffocated him in the hospitable.
The two men had been friends for years. I think Red gave him Lizzy.
What’s with the Post Office? Why is that important? Is the Box and FBI offices located inside an old post office? Busy tweeting about the show when it aired. Missed a lot. Watching now..it’s BRUTAL
Thanks to all for clearing things up .After “desk jockey” Lizzie turned into super commado, I lost focus and was confused most of the episode. Is the writing only good for James Spader or is it bad for all and he is just a superior actor?
Love this show. Lizzie bores me but Red is awesome
LOL, I love your recap. I can never remember their names and refer to these people like what you’re doing here.
Btw while you were drooling over middle eastern guy, you’d made a mistake. When Lizzie went home to her husband, that phone call was not from Mr.Kaplan but from middle eastern guy. Aram triangulated the calls to a house address just opposite hers and then she went over. After shooting Apple guy, she made a call to the assistant director black FBI guy but hangs up. She then call Mr.Kaplan to take care of things