Time to recap The Blacklist! We begin in Prague when a man is picked up in a limo speaking to a contact about something. He tells the contact to tell Reddington that everything is fine. He takes a drink of water from the limo bar and passes out. The next thing that happens is the guy wake up in an apartment with a dead male escort. The guy was a politician running for office who had to withdraw to concentrate on his defense.
Reddington is talking to another guy who is also from Prague. Reddington says their politician was setup. The Czech guy says the person who did it is the same guy who has been plaguing Red for months. Red’s allies are getting nervous and worried that whoever is after Red is going to screw with them as collateral damage. Red is in trouble.
Meanwhile, Liz has the pictures from the safe deposit box that put Red at the hospital with her father on the day he died. I’m still a bit confused by the last episode where Tom and Liz went after each other and then Tom just left. She shows the pictures to Ressler who says this doesn’t really prove he was visiting her father. Neither of them know what to make of it.
Liz goes to meet with Red. She wants to know where Tom is. Red lets her know that he is in New York and his men are watching him. But they have more pressing business. The Kingmaker. The Kingmaker is in the country. I am sure that means he is right up the street from the post office. The Kingmaker is single-handedly responsible for the rise and fall of high level politicians. He sabotages opposing campaigns and does whatever is necessary to insure his client is elected.
The Kingmaker seems to be a bit of a germaphobe. When we next see him he is in a very expensive hotel room with an entire team of people scrubbing down every inch of the place as he pontificates on the subject of dust mites and other such nuisances in hotel rooms. Later, he meets with a client named Patrick on a bridge where they will be staging a car accident which will send Patrick’s car careening into the water 25 feet below. Why? I have no idea. Sorry, I am rather unfocused today, my mind is preoccupied with a personal situation. I’m trying to get into this episode but so far, I’m kind of bored.
Aram has done another one of his miracle computer searches to identify The Kingmaker and the hotel in NYC where he is staying. Guess who else is in NYC? Tom.
Red is meeting with Alan Alda, I mean Alan Fitch to get him to team up with him toward his enemy. Red blackmails Alan into working with him. But later, when Alan goes to his alliance with the request, opinions are mixed and they call for a vote.
Patrick, who is down with the swirl, takes his wife and their daughter to the bridge. The wife is confused by the travel route. Patrick and his happy family are driven off the bridge into the river and the car begins to sink. Patrick and the kid live. The wife dies.
Resseler and Liz look at some surveillance footage from the hospital which confirms he was there on the day her father died. According to the timestamp on the footage, Red left at 4:37, her dad died at 5:30. I’m thinking the timestamp is off due to daylight savings time or something. Ressler gets Liz to admit she and Tom are fighting. That’s an understatement.
Ressler and Liz go to see Patrick. Patrick has little to say and leaves to go to his daughter at the hospital. The bumbling duo get an ID on the van and the owner but The Kingmaker gets to him first and kills him. Ressler arrives to find the driver’s body.
Alan goes to his people (who are his people exactly?) and tells them they need to help Red with his problems with his enemy.
The Kingmaker meets with Patrick who is upset that his wife was killed in the set up incident. Patrick is afraid and wants to stop. The Kingmaker says that they can’t stop now and must go into the next phase.
The Feds traced one of the dead guys incoming calls to a payphone. Red and Liz go to the location. They walk into a pawn shop where Red identifies himself as Mr. Gibbons, or else that was the password and the two are led into a secret cigar bar. While they wait to speak to the owner, Liz asks Red what he was doing in her father’s hospital room on the day he died. Liz asks if he stopped her father from telling her something that he wanted to tell her before he died. Red says he went to see him to say goodbye. Then the owner walks up and confirms that Mr. Kingmaker was in a few nights ago and was complaining about the heat at the hotel room he was staying at. Suddenly Ressler and Liz are at the hotel looking for him. Of course he is gone, but they do find some sort of surveillance system in his abandoned room.
The surveillance system was observing a senator’s house. The Kingmaker wants to kill the senator so that Patrick can run in the special election. The Kingmaker has the senator at gunpoint at the precise moment that Ressler and Liz arrive. Because the writing is just that bad. The Kingmaker shoots the senator causing a flash of light because everything on this show happens in the dark. Ressler and Liz spilt up because, it’s a bad idea and they always choose the worst possible way to handle situations. They do not bother to call for back up or bring any backup with them because that would have been too logical.
It occurs to no one that this nice house is wired for electricity, so no one turns on a light they just continue to bumble around from room to room with their weapons held out like Charlie’s Angels.
The Kingmaker gets Liz and begins to strangle her. Ressler kills the guy with one bullet in the back of his head. Still no one turns on a light.
Alan and Red are meeting in the dark as well in some sort of a residential library. Alan tells Red the alliance is not going to back him. Red gives a long speech letting Alan know he has made a big mistake. When the time comes that the alliance needs him, he will not provide them an assistance.
Liz calls and says the found The Kingmaker. Red wants 10 minutes alone with him. He has to find out who hired him for the hit in Prague. Liz says that won’t be possible. Red becomes the closest he gets to agitated and tells her it is the entire reason he brought her the case. She tells him The Kingmaker is dead. He hangs up and throws a glass in the fireplace. He is very upset by the news.
The senator on the other hand is not dead. The media are swarming outside of Patrick’s house as he gives a statement offering thoughts, prayers and hope for a speedy recovery for the senator. Liz walks up on camera and places him under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder.
Aram calls Liz to tell her that her father was discovered dead at 5:30 but that the time of death was about an hour earlier, when her father was there. But wasn’t daddy hooked up to all those machines that go off? How could someone die in a hospital and not be found for an hour?
Liz walks in on Red and Dembe playing cards. Liz asks him if he was in the hospital room when he died. She asks if he killed him. He says yes. He explains that her father was in a lot of pain and was not thinking clearly. If he was he would never have wanted to tell you anything. It wasn’t his choice to make. We said goodbye, and I put him out of his misery. Liz says, “We’re done. I’m done. This ends right now. You’re a monster.” And she walks out the door.
Liz goes home to her demolished apartment and takes of her wedding ring, crying. Red sits in the dark drinking scotch, teary-eyed. Liz goes to Ressler’s apartment.
Next week: Liz has an epiphany! The Blacklist is all related! And it all traces back to one person. Berlin. Next week Berlin arrives in town, as they all do eventually.
I found this episode with poor dialogue and incomplete scenes. I agree TT that the scenes with Liz and Ressler acting alone are ridiculous. It makes the scenes look like a cheap crime drama. It’s as if they can’t afford backup actors plus it seldom happens like that in life.
Alan’s “crew” appeared to me to be representatives from different countries.
I enjoy Spader but Blacklist will lose me if the writers and director doesn’t start getting it together. The scenes actually suck, to dark, to barren and not enough drama.
I do not know squat about production or writing but this shows lack of it is bothering me. It’s seems they think, we have Spader so he will carry the show.
I agree with Calipatti. With all the bad writing and production I was still intrigued. This is the first episode that I didn’t like Red anymore. I always was lukewarm about Liz. If I don’t like something about the main characters, I quit. At this point, I am only interested in what Tom is really up to. I didn’t give a damn about him before. They will need to do something drastic and believeable to reel me back in to another season. I sort of have a history of being a 2.5 season fan, then get bored, same old rehash.
Agreed! Without Spader this show would have been cancelled already. The writing is rather bad, and I really don’t care for the Liz character. Tom was growing on me, and I wonder if he’s coming back for a turn as a “good guy” and ally to Liz. (May I dare to go off topic and ask if y’all watch Bates Motel? I dvr it, and Every time I finish an episode, I think of how great a TT recap of it would be!)
Does anyone know where I can get the Blacklist whole season?
Maybe Hulu Plus? We used to subscribe, but we cut it out when we realized how many things we subscribe to. If not, maybe the NBC website.
I love this show! And I’m so glad you do these recaps! Thanks so much for all of your hard work.
Off Topic, sort of … Did any of you notice how HOT Tom was in the “red” mustang commercial at the beginning of Blacklist? His wording sort of mimicked the show?
I love the Mustang commercials with Tom. They’re quite funny. And yes, he’s HOT!!!
Love the Mustang commercial. That’s what he was driving when he was trying to escape from the Pavovitch Bros last week. Great product placement in preparation for his hot commercial which leads me to believe he will have a bigger role on the show.
Yeah, sorry. Got a man on the brain. Don’t you hate how they do that?
On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 10:33 PM, Tamara Tattles wrote:
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I like this show and I love your recaps I literally LOL when you write about all the dark scenes :)))
I did something and now I’m reinvented somehow. Anyhow, I can tell you weren’t feeling this episode because usually your recaps are sprinkled with witty observations like ” really another phone booth?? ” or something about the pawn shop restaurant. Hope that personal situation works out for you. We need sassy sarcastic TT recaps, especially when the show is bizarre which this show can be. I am now curious about who Tom really is and how the writers will work him into a good guy. I think they are making this up as they see opportunities for plot twists.
Tut, tut! To the naysayers of the infamous Raymond Reddington. Okay, I concede the “Lizzie/Tom” physical altercation was shit in the previous episode. I would not even attempt to portray myself a fan of Agent Keen. To be honest, Red could slit her throat in the next episode and I wouldn’t even pretend to care. Her scenes are outrageously exaggerated and her acting mediocre at best. James Spader could pull great ratings on his own but it would be so much more riveting if they cast an actress slightly close to his caliber. With that being said, if I had to choose between The Blacklist and lets say…. ummmm…. one grown woman taunting and instigating another grown woman with a bullhorn until the first female takes the second one to the ground by her weave, then proceeds to convulse on the ground while yet a third female is trying to calm her by covering her mouth and nose.<~hypothetically speaking and all! Bawahahaha!
I had two or three episodes where I thought they had gotten the writing together. Somebody was out sick for this episode. The best part was Red staying true to his word that he would never lie to Liz. I thought sure he would lie about killing her father. Even though the “are you my father?” storyline has taken a backseat for awhile, I think back to the payphone call where he denied being her dad. Tough confessions like this make me think that he is telling her the truth when he says he isn’t her dad.
The rest of the episode was Red handing out homework assignments. Go here. Go there. Ressler gets an “F” for not saying “Freeze!” or hitting the guy over the head before shooting him dead.
Did anyone else think Alan Alda was part of the U S government trying to cover something up? Maybe I got that wrong, but where did the Chinese come from?
Tamara, every time you mention how dark a scene is I think of Dr. Suess’ Green Eggs and Ham.” Would you, could you,in the dark?” The lighting is so distracting I would say, ” I would not, could not, in the dark!”
Here’s hoping next week is better.
TT, I love how you re-cap this show! “I am sure that means he is right up the street from the post office.” Great line and I think that same way. Then your insights of the Senator’s house scene-priceless! Love Red, what a great character!
Does anyone have any idea of what the coffee cup/teacup pattern that was in the scene where Red and the Prague guy are talking? It has little balls for feet.
Yes, it was a variation of Blue Willow which is made by several companies (I happen to collect it). I don’t know who makes the golden footed kind. You could probably google blue willow images and find it pretty easily.
Thank you! I found it!! Gilman Collamore Gold Trimmed Blue Willow Cup and Saucer.
I noticed that beautiful china also. Such attention to making a detail special but the big picture, the writing, is crap. Makes me think of people writing down different scenarios on sticky notes, throwing at a story board, the one that sticks is used in the next episode. I quit on Revenge 3rd season, because they did too many senseless character twists.
Karen, I collect blue willow also. Where did you find the Gilman Collamore???