The Blacklist: Dr. James Covington No. 89

This week we began with a guy named Wyatt eating at an outdoor restaurant. Unbeknownst to him, this is his last meal. He was snatched away by a kidnapper who he knew was looking for him. The guy takes him to an operating room in some hospital where this week’s blacklister, Dr. James Covington, informs him that his time is up. Did he owe them some money or something? He proceeds to put him under and then disembowel him and toss him in the alley.  Did I mention I am eating soup? Because, yuck.

OMG! Tom is back! He has a gun on Liz and tells her that she can’t trust Red. He says that Red knows where he is. He says that Red is using Liz and when Berlin is dead he will kill her. Tom looks like a crazed serial killer with a full beard and everything. Tom said to ask Red about the fire and the real reason that Red turned himself in. Red walks in and shoots Tom dead just when he was about to tell her about the night of the fire!  We were finally getting somewhere, dammit! Red asks Keen who she really wants? What is that supposed to mean?  And it was all a dream. Keen gets super jumpy and attacks some random person she thought was following her.

Red is having a meeting with one of his international investors to tell him they are tripling their investment in Indonesia to try to get control of the port systems. The dude is not happy about this and says Red feuding with Berlin is just going to put them all in more danger. It’s not a time to take risks. About Berlin, that was a code name, right? And Red supposedly had no idea who the guy was. But now we know they have a long relationship. Why is this random investor calling him Berlin instead of whatever his  name is? Like say, Grandpa.

Liz shows up and wants to talk to Naomi. Red wants to talk about the dead guy Wyatt instead. Obviously this is the new case. It seems Covington takes out people’s organs and sells them on the black market. Lovely one, this Covington dude. But why does Red care about him?

Meanwhile back at the post office, (why do we call it that again?), Samar is introduced as part of the FBI task team. She was the woman working with the Israeli forces last week who helped Keen. She has some sort of connection to Red. She is Iranian, which makes it odd that she was on a Israeli black ops team. Keen is super suspicious of Samar.

The autopsy reveals that Wyatt was himself a heart transplant recipient. Maybe he didn’t pay up so they came to collect the heart back. Keen and Ressler go to talk to the wife who is terrified that she will be killed next. Oh, I see. Covington rents the heart to the client for $500,000 a year. They could no longer pay so it was repossessed.

The investor dude and some of the other members of Red’s syndicate meet to discuss how to handle Red. Suddenly, they are interrupted by PEE WEE HERMAN! I’m not kidding. It’s really Paul Reubens. His character, Mr. Vargas works for Berlin and he is there with a “once in a lifetime opportunity” that Berlin has to offer them. Peewee is scary as fuck in this role!

The task force figures out that Covington gets paid through WellBright Fund, a charity. They find the name of doctor who was receiving payouts from the charity. Keen and Ressler go to talk to him. He’s a medical examiner who is on the site of a suicide where some dude has hung himself. When they ask about the charity he bolts and tells them to call his office.

Meanwhile, the syndicate guy, Rico, tells Red that Berlin is trying to buy his people and bring them over to the dark side. Or the darker side, maybe.

Liz calls Red to borrow Mr. Kaplan. She examines Wyatt’s body. They go back to the medical examiner and he admits he supplies the organs to Covington. He’s willing to cooperate in exchange for protection. In a matter of minutes Keen, Ressler and the M.E. concoct a plan to call the courier Covington uses to come pick up a heart. They are using a pig heart that just happened to be on hand. Because, plot holes. They use an actual accident victims identification for the heart. The accident occurred 30 minutes ago and they have all sorts of paperwork on the heart. Because, governments are known for their speed and precision. The courier comes and Aram and Samar do a facial recognition background check on the guy. The courier says everything checks out. The courier is off with the heart on a motorcycle with Keen and Ressler in hot pursuit. Ressler is driving and probably on his downers. This does not bode well.  The bike cuts in and out of traffic and takes off. Eventually the courier gets in a fatal accident. Dead couriers tell no tales.

Nico shows Red a picture with two of the other syndicate members chilling with Pee Wee. Red goes off to talk to the two rogue investors. He’s pissed that these two didn’t tell him about Berlin’s offer. So he has two thugs drag them away.

It seems that the courier did manage to tell a tale. He had in his possession information about the person who was receiving the transplant. It was called off, obviously. Liz runs to Daddy, I mean Red for help finding him. Red gets information about Covington’s location from BB by putting Viagra in his bloody marys. Genius. Poor BB is going to have a coronary (and a rather splendid erection according to Red) unless he hands over Covington’s number.  Being the sweet soul that he is, Red has two paramedics on stand by to save him if he makes the right choice.

The task force shrink says she is worried about Keen. Keen is paranoid and Cooper is concerned. He says his door is always open to her.

Aram uses the number to locate the general area where Covington is about to perform another surgery. Keen and Ressler go to hunt for him.

Pee Wee is buying automatic weapons out of a car trunk. Nico is double-crossing Red. Nico wants Red dead. Pee Wee says that if Berlin wanted Red dead, he would be. Nico is insistent. Pee Wee says to set up a meeting. I don’t get the point of this whole storyline.

Keen and Ressler discover the operating room a few doors down from the post office. There are lots of little kids there hooked up to medical devices. It’s some kind of underground children’s hospital. Keen finds Covington performing a lung transplant on a child. Covington lost his license for transplanting adult lungs into a child. He’s like the Robin Hood of children’s transplants,  he steal organs from bad guys and gives them to kids.  And I guess sells them to rich people for money to fund his operations. Liz lets him finish his lung transplant already in progress.

Nico confronts Red and lets him know he is about to kill him because he has become a liability to the syndicate. I can’t see this ending well for him. Nico brags about double-crossing Red and then Pee Wee and another dude come in and point their guns at Red. Nico tells them to kill him.  But not so fast. Pee Wee doesn’t work for Berlin! He works for Red. It was all a test of loyalty.  Red tells a story (I love a good story from Red) about a summer job he had sewing carpets inside in the heat. He wanted to quit but his father made him stick it out because he said he had given his word. So he did. On the last day of the godforsaken job, the boss pulls him aside and says in 27 summers no kid had ever made it through the entire summer without quitting. He got a $40 bonus and a priceless less about life, “Value loyalty above all else.”  As he is telling the story a bunch of scary guys come into the warehouse.

Then he finally makes this whole storyline make sense. The Indonesian Deputy Minister of Transportation who was against giving them control the port died  because he was unable to get the heart transplant he so desperately needed. Once again, Red used to task force to eliminate one of his obstacles. Then Red shoots Rico straight in the heart. Pee Wee is greatly upset by the blood and tells Red he knows he doesn’t like being around the bloody stuff. Oh how I hope Pee Wee is on every episode this season!

Samar wants to buy Keen a drink to celebrate. Keen says no thanks. Keen says she doesn’t trust Samar because Red wants her there for a reason. She doesn’t know the reason. And that worries her.

Next we see Keen apologizing to the hot foreign man she shook down in the beginning of the episode. He’s too hot not have a longer story arc. Why is she still in a fleabag hotel? The hot foreign guy in the same fleabag hotel has a high-powered rifle in his room. Why do all the men around Keen want to kill her?

Red goes to see Naomi. The look at each other. Red says, “You are so different.” She replies, “Not as different as you.” Then she hauls off and slaps him across the face. It might have even been a punch.

OMG! Next week looks so good. It seems that Naomi is going to share some of Liz’s past with her. And better yet, I think Liz is holding Tom Keen hostage!  What did you think of this week’s episode?