Warning: Spoiler Alert
The NBC series “The Blacklist,”coming off its largest audience ever on Sunday night, settled into its new time-slot on Thursday nights, with the episode broadcast after the Superbowl’s conclusion. We pick up moments after two United States fighter-jets, fired upon a Black-Ops Site, somewhere in the Bering Sea, by order of the Director of the National Security Council with three FBI Agents and Raymond Reddington in the site.
Our first image’s watching Agent Donald Ressler, fighting one of the men holding him and fellow agent Samar Navabi, captive before the airstrike. The two men battle to a draw, then Luther Braxton’s man runs off and Ressler frees Navabi from the chains that imprisoned her. They soon find Reddington, who just regained consciousness and he tells them Braxton escaped, taking Liz hostage.
Back at Task Force Headquarters, Aram Mojtabai tells Assistant FBI Director Harold Cooper, that they’ve received no radio contact from the site and are clueless about any survivors. Cooper wants to send a search and rescue team out there, but the NSC Director’s Liaison Kat Goodson, says that the site doesn’t exist and without any signal from survivors she’s unable to do that.
Liz wakes up in a chopper and asks if Agents, Ressler, Navabi and Red are okay and she soon sees she’s talking to Braxton, who says he could care less. He asks her how it feels she has information worth dying in her pretty little head and Keen says she doesn’t know a thing. Braxton tells her she knows and he’ll get the answers.
Red’s able to rig an SOS signal from the Black-Ops Site, rescuing Raymond and the two agents as well as two of the facilities guards, including the one that helped Reddington earlier. Aram’s able to get some sightings of Braxton and they’ve narrowed down the vicinity he and Liz are in. While Ressler and Samara follow Aram’s info, Reddington breaks off on his own.
Braxton landed the helicopter on the helipad of Grace River Hospital, Keen’s strapped to a gurney with one of Braxton’s men’s hand’s over her mouth. The gang come in with weapons raised, they get the drugs they came for and head off for Braxton’s hideout. Braxton tries waterboarding Keen to get the answer, but his Minister Of Pain says, if she’s got any memories, they’re deeply repressed, Luther knows just the women that can help.
The phone rings and Braxton thinks it’s one of his men, instead it’s Raymond and Luther starts laughing saying this is the second time he’s going to defeat the great Raymond Reddington. Red compliments him on his skills as a thief, calling him meticulous, however Luther has problems improvising and that’s what he has to do now and that’s how Red will catch him.
The NSC Director meets with the extremely unhappy members of the extremely powerful clandestine organization, whose lives would turn chaotic if the Fulcrum’s released. Many say that the Director assured them that by taking out the Black-Ops Site the problem would get eliminated and ask where’s Reddington. He apologizes for the failure of the air-strike and admits Reddington’s whereabouts are unknown, but once again assures him he’s got the Fulcrum situation under control.
Braxton kidnaps the child of a hospital psychologist that’s involved in blocking traumatic memories and replacing them with pleasant ones. The doctor, Selma Orchid treated him when he returned from the Gulf War and blocked some of his worst memories. He tells the doctor her son’s life depends on her extracting memories from Keen.
Red gathers together all of Luther Braxton’s business associates in a conference room and tells them that their working relationship with Braxton’s ended. He also says that, he will reach out to one of them in that room and when he does, they’re to call the number he’s provided, asks any questions and starts to turn away. There’s always one dimwit, in every situation and this one says, what’s in it for us? Reddington brusquely spit out your lives and left the room.
The drugs that Braxton obtained at the hospital are given to Liz and Dr. Orchid talks her back 26-years, to the traumatic night when she was just four-years-old that she’s blocked-out. The doctor tells her they’re going back and Keen starts to cry she doesn’t want to, however Orchid eases her fears. She puts her through an exercise and takes her back 26-years, we see four-year-old Lizzie standing there with her eyes closed and as the doctor counts down from three we see her open them.
The doctor asks Keen what she sees and she responds a little girl, whom she acknowledges is herself at four-years-old. A man says to the little girl it isn’t safe and stay here and he puts her in a closet, we see the adult Liz sitting next to her and the little girl’s holding a live bunny. She asks the toddler if he hears her and the little girl clasps her hand, we hear a man and woman talking, but it’s distorted, however, the man’s voice’s not Reddington’s.
All of a sudden the rabbit jumps out of little Lizzie’s hands and she runs to the back of the closet to get it and Keen chases her, suddenly they’re in the snow laughing and the little girl looks all excited as she sees her father, but Liz misses his face. They’re back in the closet when Keen decides, to go out through the closet’s front door, Little Lizzie, tries pulling her back in then finally runs back into the closet herself. Keen starts seizing and Orchid has to give her a shot to bring her back, when she awakens, she’s wide-eyed and said my father, I saw my father.
Of course the guy who hears from Braxton’s the wise-guy from the previous, meeting and he hands Red a device containing information about an off-shore bank-account that he wants Reddington to pay him a finders-fee, for turning in Braxton. Raymond says that perhaps he doesn’t understand, but Braxton’s holding a hostage that he wants to save. The guy looks at his girlfriend, then tells Red that another 15-seconds won’t hurt anything, Raymond gives Dembe a nod and seconds later he tells Red it’s completed.
The man tells Red that Braxton needed a place to meet an important person in a safe spot and gives him the address, Reddington looks at it, puts it in his pocket, then pummels the man’s face while his girlfriend groans. Raymond looks at her and says he’s right another 15-seconds won’t hurt and hits him again.
The room where Liz’s treatment’s taking place just has three occupants, Keen, Orchid and Braxton’s guard, when Orchid’s cellphone rings and it’s her young son, Luther soon gets on and says the doctor’s got until 9:00 pm. After Braxton hangs up, Orchid says that’s too soon but Liz says she wants to get the information, for herself, so she finally knows what went on that night.
Braxton shows up for his meeting and lo and behold it’s the Director, who’s trying to obtain the Fulcrum from him. Luther tells the Director that his price went up ten percent, after the artillery attack he survived. He said to the Director to have the money and get ready to meet at 9:00 pm.
As Braxton walks out to his Mercedes, he sees Red there, waiting for him. He pulls out a pistol, but quickly hears the click of Dembe’s gun behind him, his shoulders slump and he just says Son Of A B. Red then tells Braxton he barely remembers Belgrade, but this will be engraved in his memory for the rest of his days.
Red and Dembe take out the two guards on the stairs and then kill the guard in the room. Raymond tells Dr. Orchid she’s in no danger and asks how Liz is and what she remembers, Orchid says bits and pieces but we were so close. Reddington asks while she’s still under the drug can she go any further and Orchid says if they’re cautious and don’t push her. Raymond starts talking to Liz inside the closet and suddenly we hear a gunshot in the house that little Lizzie’s in and then smoke starts to seep through the closet. Keen tells the little girl she knows she just saw something awful, but there’s a fire and she needs to scream for help and they both scream together, we’re rushed through a blurry room and there’s nobody recognizable. Suddenly Liz wakes up looks at Red and says you were there.
Red and Liz talk as she starts to regain her bearings and she says they were arguing about the Fulcrum. Then she says you came in with that woman and those people looking for the Fulcrum, then you left my father to die in a burning house. Red’s eyes fill-up and he says a four-year-olds memories can be complicated, but she cuts him off. She says you came into my life because of the Fulcrum and you came back into my life for the Fulcrum, you’ve never cared for me, just the information I had. Then she said that all his charm and pretend caring didn’t work because she knows what he is, then tells him to leave her alone.
Red meets the Director and the NSC chief quickly loses his smugness, when he sees Braxton hanging on a hook like a side of beef. Red tells him you sent a thief to get what I had all along and you can see what I did with him, the Director asks if Reddington has any idea who he’s talking to and Red tells him all too well, the tells him he possess and has always possessed the Fulcrum. The Director says he believe Raymond’s bluffing and he’s going to hunt him down and skin him alive. Red just looks the Director right in the eyes and says, please call my bluff, PLEASE, call my bluff, then chuckles.
The next scene’s Ressler and Navabi in a room with a TV set and Donald says check this out, as Kat Goodson’s conducting a press-conference about the air-attack on the Black-Ops Site and Raymond Reddington’s whereabouts, are once again unknown.
Liz back in her apartment goes through the precious few possessions she’s got of her childhood and she pulls out the charred stuffed bunny, we’ve seen off and on throughout the past two seasons. However, this time, Liz notices something stuck inside her childhood toy, the Fulcrum.
The Story Continues Next Thursday, at 9:00 pm on NBC.
