Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 54 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT To Mr. Goodbar, With Love
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 15 | Aired on 03.03.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.This random AUSA is found wandering the highway after being missing for twelve years, and Red decides -- in between sending Lance Reddick to check up on the lady who has been following him all over the world and is now trying to seduce Liz's husband Tom -- this is the work of the mysterious "Judge," a shadowy personage who watches the watchmen and punishes those who misuse their power. (But in actuality is Dianne Wiest, a horse farmer and kidnapper of people, who is dedicated to justice because her father was wrongly accused a long time ago.)
The Post Office tracks down the book depository employee who passes the requests of desperate inmates for her help, but he vanishes, leaving only enough evidence for them to find the next "victim": Cooper himself, as well as his one-time boss who is now an Bureau higher-up looking to become the FBI's next director. It seems a man scheduled for execution was beaten into a false confession by them back in the day, and the Judge is expected to come calling for one or both of them.
It takes Liz a while to get Cooper to admit his involvement in the case, but by then it's too late: The Judge has kidnapped them both and, once her client is killed by the state, she's ready to destroy him too. Only a random clue from Red, of course, can get Liz to the point of figuring out where they are being held, and she and Ressler arrive almost in time.
Who does arrive in time, though, is Red Reddington, whose Naval Academy roommate -- blacklisted after Red's whole treason fiasco -- is able to get him evidence that the executed guy in question was actually an agent-turned-al Qaeda, who was responsible for a much larger and worse crime than those of which he stands accused. Red talks the woman into giving herself up -- where she's welcomed as an angel and queen by the other inmates of course -- and even gets the old roommate's career back on track as a favor from Cooper.
What Red says is that the Incursion, Diane's death -- and the Jolene stuff he's not talking about yet -- are all part of a larger war that is brewing, and that he'll need Cooper's help when the time comes. Meanwhile, he tells Lance Reddick to lay off and see where Codename Jolene is really headed with all this spycraft.
Where it is, is, into Tom Keen's pants. Although he does make out with her at their teacher's conference in Orlando, he immediately changes his mind. Then he gets drunk and goes to her hotel room, but just to reiterate that he is not a cheater. Which is when she drops the bomb: "Wrong answer. Elizabeth Keen is not your wife, she's your target." After a little bumbling around, Tom flips angrily into that scary Mr. Hyde you always knew he had in him, and agrees: "I told you I was in love with her because that is exactly what I am supposed to be. That is my job."
So there's that. Tom is some kind of evil spy, Jolene is possibly part of his same spy group but is getting on his nerves right now, the entire two-year marriage is (at least in part) a lie, and Red was of course right about everything. (It's okay though, Tom, I think we can still make it work.) Anyway, in two weeks a ninja acquaintance of Red's busts out of jail, and Tom finally takes off those glasses and gets to work kicking what seems to be an absurd amount of ass. AKA, the best day ever.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Tom Keen went to a teacher's conference early because he takes Liz's priorities as a personal attack; his new BFF Jolene has been tracking Red for some time, for reasons unknown. Red refused to go back to the Post Office, until Diane Fowler was dead, but her shadowy faction is still massing against him for what we're being told is a coming war.
OUTSIDE HARRISBURG
A hobo with a paper sack is walking through the howling wind. Whatever happened to him, it was bad and seemed to go on for a fair amount of time. A trucker honks at him, which is friendly but not that helpful; soon enough a civilian stops to render aid.
Dude: "Bro you look like you're going down in flames. Can I help you?"
Zombie: "No because I am a zombie that is just walking."
Dude: "You dropped your sack with all your stuff in it. Hey, this says you're an AUSA."
Zombie: "I don't know what words mean."
ER BAY
A nice cop escorts a tetchy lady into an ER bay, where the man is shivering and in a million pieces.
Cop: "Apparently he has been experiencing severe trauma for twelve years and now he is totally out of it."
Wife: "I'm just glad he's okay!"
Zombie: "That is an overstatement."
Wife: "Where have you been for twelve years?"
Zombie: "Clearly someplace great."
THE COWBOY
Red Reddington smirks his way through the snow, looking glamorous in a fur collar, and gets into a car with a black cowboy played by Lance Reddick. Red is very giggly today.
Red: "I love your car! I have memories of Cadillacs."
Cowboy: "I am no-nonsense. Give me a picture of your person you're investigating."
Red: "She's Lucy something but she is now going by Jolene Parker. I hate her. What I do not hate, though, is your hat."
Cowboy: "I will find this girl just like I found you once on a sheep farm outside of Dingle."
Red: "I can't believe you just said that to me. Listen, I know where she is right now because she's in Orlando with my Lizzy's dumb husband. I want to know where she has been. I think maybe she has been spying on me forever."
Cowboy: "I am so intense it is unbelievable."
ORLANDO
Tom: "I love how you're so sassy! And how you got the Crazy Eyes."