Warning: Spoiler Alert
We’ve dispensed with our normal recap for the last couple of weeks for the NBC series “The Blacklist,” mainly because these last two episodes have been far from the norm for the show. Last week the series told us that one of the show’s co-star’s Megan Boone, who portrayed former FBI agent Elizabeth Keen died. This week we watched the protagonist Raymond Reddington take an indefinite hiatus and took a cab to Cape May, New Jersey as he attempted to go off and lick his wounds.
The episode opens with a conversation between Reddington and Dr. Nick Korpal the physician who allegedly failed to save Elizabeth Keen’s life in the previous episode. Nick gives Red a play-by-play of how he delivered Lizzie’s daughter Agnes and then explained how some of the amniotic fluid had gotten into her bloodstream and he didn’t have the proper equipment to save her life.
Raymond’s face is a mixture of disgust and disdain as he tells Korpal to stop talking, however Nick says one more thing in his own defense. He says he kept Lizzie alive long enough to save the baby, Reddington basically says that Nick’s grabbing for straws. Korpal looks terrified as he tells Raymond he doesn’t want to die, Reddington responds that we all die eventually.
We never find out how their conversation ended, instead we now see an elderly Asian woman waking Reddington up from a deep sleep. Raymond says he needs more rest, but the woman refuses telling “Mr. Red” that it’s Friday and he needs to leave. She then hands him his fedora and a pistol, Raymond takes the hat but leaves the gun behind.
Raymond then makes a call to one of his associates, telling them he’s taking an indefinite hiatus and to put any projects they’re working on hold. He says that if they require any funds during his absence, Dembe’s got power of attorney and can write a check from Raymond’s accounts.
Lost in thought, Raymond crosses the street without checking and a cabdriver slams on his brakes to avoid hitting him. The driver opens the window and asks Reddington if he’s looking to get himself killed? Red opens the back door of the cab sits down and tells the driver he wants to go to Cape May, New Jersey. The cabbie says it’s 200 miles away and Raymond reaches into his pocket and peels off six Benjamin’s and hands the wad to the driver who naturally agrees to take the fare.
Red keeps reliving the last few moments he had with Lizzie throughout the trip. Cape May’s a Summer Resort Village on the ocean’s edge and it’s pretty much a ghost-town off-season, giving Raymond the solitude he desires. He then purchases the drivers taxi, so he’ll have transportation if needed. Raymond’s about to embark on a journey through time and to explore what would have happened if he chose to try to save Katerina Rostova instead of her infant daughter.
It’s at this point of the episode that the line between reality and fantasy started to blur. Raymond goes into a diner and sees a young attractive redheaded woman sitting in a booth and looking rather pensive. Suddenly a vehicle pulls into the parking lot and she gets out of her booth and leaves the diner through the back door. The man who pulled into the parking lot, enters the diner looks for her and then leaves. Raymond realizes immediately what’s going on but when he tries to find the woman she’s vanished.
Raymond grabs a lounge-chair from the resort and sets it up on the beach, when he suddenly sees the redhead sitting about 50-yards away on a blanket. As he settles into his chair he notices an elderly beach scavenger looking for hidden treasure under the sand with a metal detector. He then looks over and sees the woman’s now standing up and takes off her coat and folds it neatly on the blanket. Then when she removed her jewelry it started to become quite clear what we were witnessing.
Reddington described this exact scenario to Liz a few weeks ago when he told her how her mother died. Raymond however didn’t realize the real motivation that caused Lizzie’s mother Katerina Rostova to take her own life. This was Raymond’s chance to alter the scenario and save Katerina from drowning. As he sees her enter the ocean he sprints after her and pulls her limp form back onto the sand saving her life. She lies on the sand her body heaving as she cries.
Red helps the woman make it to the boarded-up resort and then sets up a makeshift bed for the woman on the floor. After he gets her setup and covered, he crawls under the covers next to hear and asks her what pushed her into trying to take her own life. She starts babbling that she’s being hunted because of the things she said to a man just before he died. Is she referring to Lizzie’s father and did this conversation take place just before the four-year-old shot him? Also what possesses Raymond to climb under the covers with a woman he believes at this point’s a stranger?
Red sets a fire and turns on the hot-water heater, he tells the woman they should have hot water within hours. The woman asks Raymond what brought him to Cape May in the middle of the winter and he opens up to her. Reddington tells her the story of two women, both were doomed and both would die. He could either let them both go or choose to save one of them and he chose the child.
However as hard as he tried to protect that child, she too would go through a life filled with misery that eventually led to her death. She gave birth just before her passing, but the child’s father (Tom) made it quite clear that Raymond would have no contact with the infant. He’d been cut-off from his remaining connection to Katerina and Lizzie. The woman suggests she make them both dinner, saying there’s plenty of wine and she can make risotto.
Raymond raves about the meal, although the woman apologizes for the canned mushrooms. Suddenly there’s a knock on the door and then the front buzzer starts ringing. Red opens the front-door to find the local sheriff standing there, he says he got some calls from some of the local neighbors after they saw lights on in the resort. Raymond tells the lawman that he was close friends with the owners and has a standing invitation to use the place anytime during the offseason. After presenting a phony ID to the sheriff, the lawman leaves and apologizes to Mr. Donnelly for disturbing him.
She tells Raymond that he’s got to leave, there’s a band of assassins heading to the resort to take her out. He says he won’t leave without her, but she tells him she can’t leave. She then tells Reddington that she’s got a daughter whose being raised by others and that every breath she takes means her daughter’s one step closer to death. Apparently that was the true motivation behind Katerina taking her own life, as long as she lived her daughter would be in constant danger.
However the scenario that was taking place was what would have occurred had Raymond prevented Rostova from drowning. The pair then go about setting up the resort with traps, that will negate the advantage their adversaries have in soldiers. Just before the enemy’s about to raid the resort, Red says to the woman that she never told him her name. She looks at him as if he were daft and says don’t be ridiculous Raymond. If you’ve yet to realize that this woman’s Katerina Rostova, this eliminates all doubts.
The mercenaries arrive and although the pair’s vastly outnumbered, they take out the entire team. Raymond says they have to clean up and get out, the woman tells Red to get the car and she’ll meet him out front. Raymond goes out to the garage and the only vehicle in there looks like it hasn’t been used in a decade. He runs back into the house only to see the woman through the window running back towards the ocean. Raymond suddenly realizes that the resort’s not damaged, as the battle he just fought took place only in his mind.
Red runs back down to the ocean’s edge and he sees the elderly beach scavenger’s still looking for treasure. He asks the man if he just saw a woman run past him and into the water and the man says no. He asks him if he’s certain and the guy looks Raymond in the eye and tells him that Red’s the only person he’s seen on the beach in the last two weeks. Suddenly he finds a locket buried in the sand and Raymond knows exactly what it is, he asks the man if he can have it and pulls out a wad of bills. The scavenger says it’s not worth that much but Raymond insists it is to him.
Red goes to the edge of the water and washes the sand off the locket and he sees Katerina’s name inscribed on the back. Suddenly she’s standing next to him and she tells Raymond he ended up saving her after all when he saved Masha. She then disappears. Red decides to head back to civilization.
So where do we stand after the information revealed in Cape May? Apparently Raymond had been truthful with Liz that her mother was dead, although the reasons behind it seem to differ from what he told her. We also learned that Red’s visit with Tom and Agnes ended with Tom telling Raymond he wants Reddington to stay out of his daughter’s life.
The episode also ended without our knowing the fate of Dr. Nick Korpal, although Raymond may have revealed Nick’s fate in his conversation with Katerina. She asked him if he ever killed anybody and he responded that he’s killed many, but every one of them deserved to die. Although Raymond’s mind’s clearly affected by overwhelming grief, he realizes that Korpal doesn’t deserve to die.
I certainly didn’t expect Lizzie’s fate to be revealed in this episode. We have three episodes remaining in this season and I don’t expect to see Elizabeth Keen among the living until this season’s final episode, or possibly the final moments of Episode 21. We don’t have any idea whose behind Matias Solomon attempting to kidnap Masha Rostova. It could be the new BIG-BAD that the series is promoting, a man named Mr. Kirk who may take the place of the CABAL as Raymond new nemesis. Or it could be another character that we’ve met earlier in the series, right about now I’m enjoying the ride too much to worry about our final destination.
