The Blacklist crossed off now not one however two names on Friday, courtesy of a -hour episode that, amongst other matters, added Red’s trial to a hectic end. But the jury’s verdict was infrequently the handiest spotlight of this extremely good-sized installment: By the time the dust had settled on these full two hours, own family secrets and techniques had been revealed. Liz’s betrayal of Red took many surprising turns, and the seeds of a capability romance had been planted. Let’s recap the first happenings of “Marko Jankowics” and “Minister D”: * In the first hour, Liz sooner or later tracks down Marguerite Renard, the nurse practitioner who became inside the room while Red’s impostor went below the knife to become Raymond Reddington all the ones years ago.
But Liz and Jennifer’s plan to talk with Marguerite goes extraordinarily awry, ensuing in Jennifer getting abducted and crushed via a drug kingpin with whom Marguerite is involved. The only upside to Jennifer’s abduction? She receives some face time with Marguerite, who insists that she is no way, in reality, spoke to Red’s impostor or the Russian girl who arranged for the surgical operation to occur. Jennifer speedy portions collectively that Katarina Rostova — aka Liz’s mom — is the Russian woman in the query, and she or he’s careworn as to why Katarina could have been worried about Red’s impostor in any respect.
Jennifer’s kidnappers ultimately go back her to Liz, and Jennifer admits that this lifestyle just isn’t working for her; she stored Red out of her existence for years, and now she fears she’s turning into him in her pursuit of the reality. For that purpose, she’s taking herself out of the equation and leaving Liz to finish the activity solo. “This will cease,” Liz tells her half of-sister while hugging her goodbye. “And while it does, I’ll locate you.” * In an attempt to song down Jennifer’s captors, Liz is going to Red for assist — omitting, of a path, why Jennifer changed into taken within the first place, which could display that she and Liz had been trying to speak with Marguerite Renard. But even if he’s behind bars, Red has a way of locating out the truth. This time isn’t any exceptional: Later in the episode, he learns that Marguerite is tied to Jennifer’s kidnapping. He’s capable of connecting the dots that Liz ought to recognize he’s an impostor if Marguerite’s call is coming up at the end of those years. (Red, of route, continues to play it cool while he’s in Liz’s presence, resulting in a Friends-esque, “They don’t understand that we understand they know we recognise” state of affairs.)
Liz sooner or later reveals to Ressler that Red is an impostor, which places the usually straight-laced Ressler in a piece of an ethical pickle. He, in the end, decides to assist Liz in her pursuit of Red’s actual identity — and if I didn’t know better, I’d say The Blacklist is all at once placing Ressler and Liz up for a little romance down the road. Flirting? Check. Bonding over their preceding failed relationships? Check. Ressler breaking his own ethical code to assist Liz? Check, test and check. (Also? I’m taken aback via how a lot I all at once ‘deliver it.) * In the second hour, Dembe and Red finally listen to the 911 call that in the long run were given Red arrested. It honestly isn’t Liz’s voice at the recording. However, Dembe sooner or later tracks down the real caller: a homeless woman who had established $a hundred from a dark-haired woman in exchange for calling the police officers. December indicates the female Liz’s photo, and they insist that it wasn’t Liz who paid her to make the decision — however, Dembe later realizes that it turned into Jennifer who had paid the girl. They and Liz have to be running together to betray Red. Dembe confronts Liz with this accusation, and they admit (as an alternative fast) that she is indeed Red’s traitor. But she knows Red will by no means forgive her if he reveals out she double-crossed him, so Liz asks Dembe to hold this secret for her, just like he’s kept all of Red’s secrets and techniques for decades. Dembe reluctantly obliges, mendacity to Red later that day that Liz had not anything to do with the 911 name that got him locked up — and Red nearly doubles over in comfort after getting to know that Liz didn’t (well, “didn’t”) betray him, in any case.
The remaining order of business is Red’s trial for treason, resulting in this -partner. Red insists to the jury that he in no way betrayed the United States (which, as a reminder, is the best thing he stands accused of in this precise trial); instead, he changed into the frame with the aid of Katarina Rostova, who turned into decided to wreck Red’s reputation once he discovered she broke into a KGB officer and that she said to the Cabal. (Relatedly, recall the Cabal? Feels like a lifetime in the past.) Red’s potential acquittal ultimately rests on one critical piece of proof: a tape recording from Dec. 7, 1990, which have to show that Red — that is, the actual Red — became framed. Thanks to the trendy blacklister, called “Minister D,” the undertaking force does collect the tape in the query and presents it at Red’s trial. It’s a recording of a conversation between Katarina and Alan Fitch, the now-deceased former director of national intelligence (performed in the first seasons by Alan Alda). During their chat, Katarina famous that Reddington knows the whole lot, mainly that she answers the Cabal. Fitch tells Katarina to kill Reddington, but she insists that Red’s death would, in the long run, display the life of the Cabal, because Red is a naval officer and his suspicious demise would be investigated. Instead, she believes the higher play would frame Red for her treasonous acts and destroy his credibility. Not most effective is she doing this to hold the Cabal a mystery, however due to the fact “I love his daughter — my daughter,” she tells Fitch on the recording. The jury is satisfactorily swayed using the audio they’ve heard, and Red is observed now not responsible for this different price. But Liz — who also heard the recording — is stunned and harm to examine that her mom deliberately framed her father all those years ago. “Whoever you are nowadays, anything you’ve to emerge as — it’s due to the lies she instructed,” Liz tells Red, even though Red insists that Katarina turned into “among rock and a hard place” at the time. (And while I’m not sold on a few fanatics’ long-status theory that Katarina is Red’s impostor, I confess I’m a tad greater convinced after this episode. A tad!)