Photo Courtesy Of NBC
Warning: Spoiler Alert
Warning, getting the Cabal angry at you can be hazardous to your health. Unfortunately for FBI Agent Elizabeth Keen, she put a target on her back a few weeks ago, when she threatened the United States Director of National Security. She informed the Director that unless he called off the men on the verge of executing Raymond Reddington, she’d send a copy of the Fulcrum to the New York Times. The Director gave in to her demands, but informed the agent that she acquired some very powerful enemies with her actions.
This week’s episode of the NBC series “The Blacklist,” the Cabal struck back at Keen and ironically Reddington unwittingly led her right into the trap. The secret organization, containing some of the planet’s most powerful people, left a trail of breadcrumbs that they knew Red would discover and he took the bait. That resulted in Keen getting blamed for the death of a high-ranking Government Official.
We start the evening on a college campus, as an older man hands out leaflets calling to put an end to the NSA surveillance state. One student accidentally bumps into the man and his papers drop to the ground, he helps the man pick them up and tells him repealing the Patriot Act’s a pretty tough goal to shoot for. The man then tells the student about another proposal he has and the young man signs his petition.
As he walks away the man starts looking at his watch, while keeping an eye on the student. Seconds later the young man starts convulsing, then bleeding from his eyes. He falls to the ground and a white foam comes out of his mouth, as people try to help him.
Liz meets her ex-husband Tom at a diner and Tom says he wants to apologize, he says he should have done it long before. He then asks her to join him on his boat and leave everything behind. She tells him she doesn’t even really know who he is, as the man she was married to was just a persona he put on, like a suit. After eating breakfast she says she needs to meet with Reddington and takes off.
Raymond tells Keen that a Russian spy named Karakurt, recently came to Washington and he’s working for the Cabal. He will attack some Government security site in the next few days and the Cabal will blame it on Russia, heightening hostility between the two nations. He tells Liz that there’s a CIA Task-Force, that’s been tracking him for years and he suggests that she and Ressler, pay them a visit.
Red’s holding a Russian Consulate employee prisoner and the man’s getting tortured by an elderly associate of Raymond’s who’s hooked up to an oxygen tank. His methods prove effective and he gives Reddington an address that Karakurt’s staying at. Dembe and Red head to the apartment and Reddington says that the spy made bombs in the place.
A woman walks in looking for Karakurt, she’s a neighbor with a sick baby and she wanted to apologize for the child crying all night. Raymond gives her a card and tells her he’s private investigator looking for the man. He’s got a gambling problem and he left his wife out of shame. The woman said that she saw him in a white moving truck that morning and she thinks he maybe ready to move. Red asks her to call him if she sees the man again.
Keen and Ressler talk to two CIA agents from the Task-Force, the younger one warns them that his boss isn’t known for being cordial. The head of the Task-Force says that Karakurt’s not in the country, or he would know about it. He’s not receptive to any information they give him and he walks away after just a couple of minutes. The younger agent suggests that they talk to a former Soviet spy, who now owns a restaurant that’s frequented by Russian intelligence operatives. She asks the agent about Katerina Rustova and he says she’s just a myth, likely a composite of about five female Soviet spies from that era.
Aram and Navabi are trying to track the white moving truck filled with explosives and they realize the truck’s parked right outside the CIA facility. They call Ressler and he starts to warn Lizzie about the truck when it explodes. They’re a little battered and bruised, but other than that they’re okay. The same can’t be said about the 14 CIA Agents inside the building, they died instantly from the blast.
Television reports show Senator Hawking blaming Russia for the attack. Keen tells Red that Tom Connolly, the new Attorney General will likely drop by the building soon and she plans to tell Connolly, that they’re three steps behind. She’s unaware that he’s doing the Director’s bidding and working for the Cabal.
The neighbor calls Reddington and tells her the man with the truck’s back, he calls Liz and she and Ressler start to head to the apartment. However they’re orders are changed by Harold Cooper at the insistence, of Tom Connolly, as the Attorney General tells him the Director wants Karakurt free. He tells Cooper to send his agents to Union Station, when they get there a man in a hoodie blindsides Liz knocking her to the ground.
The agents get a copy of an audio tape, of a conversation between Karakurt and a Russian scientist, Dr. Leo Andropov, whose specialty is biological weapons. They raid his place and they find a test tube filled with a virus. Liz and Red visit a female biologist, who tells the pair it’s a designer virus, specifically designed for just one person. The virus will attack the victim’s central nervous system and they’ll die within minutes of contact.
Red calls Aram and asks him to find all the cases of people getting admitted to the city’s emergency rooms killed by an unidentifiable virus. Aram tells Red that could take hours, but then he gasps and says that they’ve sent a sample of the virus to the CDC. Red speaks to Navabi and tells her to talk with the victim’s mother.
Turns out that the young man had a very famous father, who never acknowledged him. The mother tells Navabi that years before she worked for a young up and coming Congressman and she had an affair with him. She subsequently got pregnant, but he paid her off to stay quiet and a monthly stipend to raise her son. Connor’s father’s Senator Hawking, who’ll be one of the featured speakers at a memorial for the slain CIA agents, that afternoon.
Karakurt dyes his hair dark and puts on glasses and he has credentials as a photographer at the memorial. Liz and Donald are scouting the area for the Senator, even checking cars. However Hawking got impatient with the traffic and walked the last few blocks to the memorial. Karakurt calls to Hawking and he’s just about to shake the Senator’s hand, which would infect him. However Keen nearly tackles the Senator to keep him from Karakurt and she and Ressler spirit him off to their car.
They inform Hawking of what Karakurt planned to do, but suddenly he starts having seizures and bleeding from his eyes, then dies right on the seat next to Keen. Could Karakurt infected Hawking in some other way, than by touching him?
The spy’s taken into custody by the FBI and Liz and Donald interrogate him, but he denies that he’s Karakurt. He says he’s a photojournalist for a European News Agency. Ressler says he can stick to his story, but his blood will show he was the carrier of the virus.
Reddington meets with the restaurant owner that the CIA agent told Liz about and the elderly gentleman’s genuinely pleased to meet him. He remembers Raymond as a US Counter-Intelligence Agent, saying he thought that Red was the KGB’s biggest enemy. Red laughs and thanks him for remembering, then he makes overtures to the man about working for Reddington.
The man says he was contacted the day before by an FBI Agent named Elizabeth Keen, about Katerina Rustova. He told Red he never met Rustova, but he remembers the legends about her quite well. He then says that a few months earlier, a couple of men from the Justice Department came around asking about Rustova, but kept asking about her daughter. Red’s face turns pale and he tells Dembe he needs a phone.
Ressler gets a call from the lab, saying Karakurt’s not infected, then Keen’s phone rings. It’s Red telling Lizzie she needs to get out of the building, that the Cabal set her up. Karakurt wasn’t the carrier, she was and that’s why Hawking died. He tells her your mother was a Russian spy, now they’re trying to implicate you as one. She hides behind a post as Tom Connolly and his men enter the building.
The Season Finale Airs on Thursday May 14, at 9:00 pm on NBC.
