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So there's this Chinese national by the name of Wujing, who has this nasty predilection for killing CIA agents and stealing their secrets. And when he kills yet another CIA agent but is unable to decrypt the late agent's secrets, he calls on Reddington to help him out. You know what that means—another would-be bonding opportunity for Reddington and Keen, as she poses as a encryption expert in his employ.
Well, the FBI eventually get their man in a plotline that feels fluffed up to fill an hour's worth of network TV. It turns out Wujing is on the hunt for some architect who's been feeding information to the U.S. government. The architect is saved by Agents Ressler and Malik – there is as much shooting and punching involved as you might imagine – and Wujing is captured. But this is merely a sideshow: The only reason Keen involved herself in this chickenshit operation is to get Reddington to tell her just why he's so interested in her. "Because of your father," Reddington says of Keen's not very law-abiding old man. Keen wonders if the two of them met somehow. "I wish the answer were as simple as the question seems," Reddington says. Well, thank you. That's very enlightening.
Almost, but not quite as fruitless is Keen's search into just what her husband is doing with all those passports and that gun. A ballistics test turns up a redacted report as to the provenance of that weapon. But not to worry: Keen's FBI overlords have the unredacted report, and let's just say that they are very interested into why Keen is poking around this particular hornet's nest. Also interested: the nameless, faceless apple-chomping crew that's been placing all manner of surveillance equipment around the Keen household to get the skinny on both the FBI agent and her husband.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The episode begins in Shanghai, which you might also recognize as our country’s current leaseholder. A steely-eyed white dude -- who’s not exactly blending in with the locals -- strides purposefully to a black Range Rover, gets in, and drives off. I'm guessing he’s not a tourist. His drive through the streets of Shanghai comes to a screeching halt when a man pushing a wagon rolls in front of the Range Rover. Apparently, they are very serious about pedestrian right of way in Shanghai, because the wagon pushing man whips out an automatic weapon and lets loose with a volley of gunfire.
Two scooters pull up alongside the Range Rover and add their gunfire to the mix. Our driver is now very much dead. One of the scooter drivers reaches in and grabs his briefcase; the other slices off his hand, which just seems like piling on, really. Also, ick. Anyhow, our bad guys are going to need that hand because the suitcase they swiped contains a computer that has a biometric security feature. Unfortunately for them, this particular dead man’s fingerprint tells no tales. While access to the computer is granted, everything stored on it is still very much encrypted. This news is relayed to our Bad Guy in Chief, whom we’ll learn is called Wujing. "Call Raymond Reddington," he hisses to his flunkies. Why? You need his fingerprint, too?
Meanwhile, back in Washington (not pictured outside the Capitol Building: a giant "Gone Fishin" sign), Agent Keen is starting her day as most of us do…sitting in her darkened home, with the carpet rolled up so she can stare uncomprehendingly at her husband’s secret cache of passports. Lizzy, honey, it’s been two episodes now, maybe you ought to join a support group for women whose husbands are secretly enemies of the state.
But Keen’s not much of the joiner type, as it turns out. Instead, she takes the gun from her husband’s secret spy cache, goes out into the backyard, fills a bucket with some phone books and water, and fires off a muffled round into her stack of phone books. We learn two things from this exercise: 1) Keen now has a gun casing to run a ballistics test on the weapon that was in her husband’s possession; and 2) She is the only person under the age of 40 to keep multiple phone books in her house, presumably for emergencies such as this.
Reddington is in the park playing chess all by his lonesome, when he’s approached by a representative of Wujing, who would like to secure Reddington’s services in decrypting the contents of that computer he went to all that trouble to obtain. Reddington agrees, but he’ll be bringing an associate of his choosing along (bet you it’s someone female and employed by the FBI who’s got new found trust issues with her husband). The scene also gives Reddington the chance to dismiss Wujing’s bag man by saying "I prefer to play with myself in private" because we’re all apparently 12 years old here.