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The always-excellent Jennifer Ehle plays the title Number, a glamorous thief from Red's past who robs a Turkish bank to get his attention, so that he can help her steal an ancient Syrian artifact from the Syrian Embassy during a party. Since Liz is a master heister and wizard of close-up magic, this is an excuse for them to get all decked out and rain hell on the embassy in the middle of a party, eventually coming up with nothing because Pratt was using them as a stalking horse to get into the embassy's saferooms, where the artifact actually was.
Why this is a big deal is, the artifact itself contains a list of six Russian assets from the Cold War that are still in play. Turns out that Pratt's partner in crime, the Syrian Cultural attaché, is a Russian mobster on the side who has been tasked with retrieving the artifact, and Pratt decided to use Red and his crackerjack skills and team because he stood her up years ago in Florence. Watching the two of them talk about their rich lives back in the days when they were both Thomas Crown is amazing, like seeing two Reds going at each other with twice the random vague references to political figures and exotic locales.
As the Post Office team is discovering that the Russians aren't actually people, but nukes stored on American soil, Red and Pratt are kidnapped by the Mob and he finally comes clean about why he stood her up: It was just after his family was massacred, on Christmas Eve twenty years ago, and various other details that may dovetail with Liz's history or maybe is just weirdness he made up to make her cry.
(It is the second or third most Spader thing Red does this week, after a long-form improvised performance of a Duchess County queen (to confuse Syrian security) and an operatically bitchy ekphrasis on this ugly $4M Vermeer in the rich guy's house where he's been squatting.)
Come to find out he set up their entire kidnapping so that he could lure her into feeling bad for him, then get taken away for torture, so she'd offer up the information and he -- after letting the PO Team fight the Mobsters for the empty artifact -- could trade those nukes back to the PO, for the effigy itself. Which he then puts on his mantle, where the stolen Vermeer once was: The episode ends Pratt's appearance with a flirtatious note telling him to come find her and the Vermeer in Florence. Everything about the two of them was amazing. Their chemistry, her flinty beauty, his emotional breakdown, even the meow-meow back and forth -- the trickiest part, having two Reds in play at once -- was just perfect.
As was Liz. Tom throws a fuckin' fit about her doing her job, like he does every week -- but which he's doing especially hard now that she's decided not to have a baby with him, in case he is evil -- and runs off to yet another "conference," where of course that random lady that's seducing him randomly also is? So I guess it was a good idea for him to invite Liz along, since now his only option is adultery. But without Tom and his bag of bullshit, we got to see Liz do a whole robbery in a gorgeous ballgown, as well as an extensive amount of pickpocketing, both of which suited her quite well.
On the Diane Fowler front, we open the episode with everybody pretty suspicious of Red's sudden return to the Post Office, since we can all put two and two together and note that Diane Fowler disappeared moments before Reddington Zelda Rubensteined the PO, pronouncing it "clean" once again. Malik is tasked with solving Fowler's presumptive murder, with Red as the main suspect, but in the end the team gets shut down on that one too: A visiting Special Agent from DC tells Cooper , quite aggressively, to call off the whole thing. I guess that's more of Fowler's evil friends in Washington covering their tracks, but for now I prefer to imagine that he's actually Mr. Kaplan, in a very good disguise.
All in all it was a great episode, especially for one with so little serialized content. It had that Blacklist hallmark of making you feel like it must be the end of the episode and it turns out it's only been ten minutes, which I do love when that happens. So many things occurring all the time on this show, you can't catch your breath.
What did you think? Ehle was terrific, right? And Liz was about as cool as Liz gets, which I maintain is pretty cool. While I'm somewhat unnerved when Red plays gay, I also understand that he doesn't have our human constructs of "gay" or "straight" any more than he is limited by our mortal understanding of "right" and "wrong," plus it actually is funny to imagine him as Liz's codependent gay sidekick who just happens to be constantly snapping people's necks. It's not even that far off the mark if you think about it.
Week: Diane Wiest is some kind of mythical vigilante who runs a fight club tribunal for judges who've behaved inappropriately? I can buy that. Also, Red goes looking for Tom's illicit behavior, and actually finds some finally, over in Orlando. So that should be heartbreaking, I guess? One way to make a guy shut up about your work priorities is to shove a redhead in his mouth, as the saying goes. Mostly I'm just excited to see Red try to be sad and not just gloat about being right about one more thing, after all this time.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Red was not into Liz's idea that she should take time off for her baby, because he doesn't want her to have a baby, because he thinks or knows that Tom her husband is very evil. And just like whenever Red opens his mouth about literally anything, Liz immediately hit pause on the baby plans. Then Red went to Diane Fowler's house and straight up murdered the shit out of her, as the entire Anslo Garrick gambit was her fault: Making the Fitch faction's point that Red's not safe, even in the Post Office that was invented to keep him safe.
TURK NASLAN BANK, ISTANBUL
Jennifer Ehle is looking full-on crazy and balls-to-the-wall glamorous in her gloves as she explains to the bank guy about how her husband, Raymond Reddington, has recently died and that means she has to come open this safe deposit box with a key she stole off Red back in the day. She pretends to be super sad, clearly enjoying the drama, and then once she has whatever it is in there, she hightails it out grinning like a maniac and disappears into the crowd.
SUPER SQUAT
Red is living today in a ridiculous mansion that has art everywhere, and what he is doing is getting needles to the face. He's kind of excited that messes are happening, and even more excited when he sees the note left by Catwoman:
Windsor Lounge, 8 pm. M.
WINDSOR LOUNGE
You can tell by the Dave Brubeckian music playing that we are having a swanky meetup with Red's equivalent of Irene Adler: A comparison that you would do well to remember, since I'm pretty sure that's what we're going for.
Ehle: "I got that key from you in Macau, last winter. I am always doing stuff like that!"
Red: "Man, I hate Macau. Also I hate that you stole the equivalent of $10M in whatever Macguffin documents were in that box."
Ehle: "It's because you stood me up in Florence one time."
Red: "It's so fun that we can have these vague conversations about exotic locales and I've trained the audience to just let their imaginations run free about what happened there."
Ehle: "Do you want to do a heist? Also we can do it if you feel like it."
KEEN
Whatever the opposite of glamorous Thomas Crown-on-Thomas Crown action is, that's the Keens.
Tom: "Oh nothing. I was just avoiding telling our friends Brian and Katie that you are ruining our lives together by not wanting to neglect our imaginary baby."
Liz: "That's cool, I'm busy."
Tom: "No big deal, they just are having a baby. Like how we're not having one."
Liz: "We should get them a gift or have them over for dinner! Like how humans are."
Tom: "How dare you! Peace out!"
He stomps out of the house, just livid at the very suggestion that they should be good friends to their friends!
SUPER SQUAT
Red: "See that Vermeer over there? It is worth over $40M but I think it's worthless trash. For somebody who's known for inventing photorealism you'd think he wouldn't pick such ugly bitches to paint."
Liz: "That is kind of harsh. Although I agree that she is a dog on two legs."
Red: "Look how she's playing the concertina! Probably a dumb song about how ugly she is. Probably she can't even play it right. Who could ever love her?"
Liz: "You are being fucking amazing right now. But if you hate her so much, why spend $40M on it? Just to moan about it?"
Red: "It's not mine. I don't live here, I am squatting. I don't even know if the tasteless douche that owns her even knows I'm here. Hedge funders are all the same. Buyin' ugly bitch paintings and letting known criminals chill in their giant houses."
In Red's defense the lady is pretty gross looking. She has that Jane Austen Bowling Ball hair that every sister in a Jane Austen movie has, with the curls on either side by your ears. When you see that you know the lady is going to be a total monster.
Liz: "Can we get to the point? I mean, in your balefully circuitous way that you do?"
Red: "Can we talk about SIGINT? You young Americans with your Snowdens and your PRISMs and whatnot. My old friend Julian Assange, raping people all over the place. Always thinking that information is useful, when it's hipster olds like me and Madeline Pratt that understand the value of good old-fashioned HUMINT. Spies fucking spies, Cold War handjobs, ladies showing side-boob. That's where the real spycraft is. I bet you've never even seen Silk Stalkings."
Liz: "Madeline Pratt? She is a famous jet-setting philanthropist."
Red: "Also a thief like you would not believe. And now I want her on the Blacklist."
Liz: "Obviously because she has something you want?"
Red: "Sorry about your baby. But not that sorry. I'm sorry you're sad, but not sorry that you're not tying yourself to Tom Keen so that when I eventually have him killed..."
Liz: "Oh so it's something of yours that she stole, and you want the PO to steal it back."
Red: "I love how you always understand what I'm saying. Except when the plot demands otherwise and it takes you the entire episode to understand what I'm saying."
Red takes her to see Zach Grenier, aka David Lee, who is some kind of antiquities person, and they explain to her about what the deal is.
Red: "Let me just be upfront with you that I have had sex with Madeline Pratt all the different ways."
Liz: "At this point in the show I'm not even trying to hide how awesome I think you are, but let's keep it moving."
Red: "Okay. She is trying to get me to plan a heist of the effigy of Atargatis, which disappeared from the British Museum in 1983 and then showed up two months ago at an estate sale in -- get this -- Henderson KY. Feds raided the auction, paraded it back to the Syrians, and now I have friends who want it."
Liz: "Friends like are into antiquities?"
Red: "Friends like inside the effigy is a list of Soviet spies, the Kungur Six. What is interesting about that is, they are still active. Also they are super hardcore. Finding these guys would be the quote holy grail of US counterintelligence."
I will tell you upfront that, even for Red, an absurd amount of what those boys just explained is lies.
POST OFFICE
Meera and Cooper try to pretend they are sad about Diane Fowler, but mostly they are excited that Red Reddington is finally okay coming back to the Blacksite. That way they get to act like they hate him, but also they get to hang out with him and listen to him say awesome, crazy things. Meera knows that Red probably killed Diane because she's the one that sent him to her house, but Cooper just assumes that Red killed Diane because Red is constantly killing people at every hour of the day. Also he doesn't know that Diane was evil or caused the breach or is part of the Fitch group, so he's a little sadder than Meera due to thinking a normal, possibly non-evil coworker was murdered, and that as usual Red gets to do whatever he wants in this life.
Meera: "So this time around, Red gets to vet everybody that comes onsite?"
Cooper: "Technically that's how he agreed to come back, yeah. But if you say it like that it sounds like I'm not in charge."
They enter Cooper's office, where Red is making himself at home.
Red: "I was just admiring your wife and children in these pictures! To creep you out."
Cooper: "Where is Diane Fowler?"
Red: "Who even is that? Did you ask her butt-buddy Meera Malik?"
Meera: "Don't get cute."
Cooper: "You told Liz you wouldn't come back until the mole was dead, and now Diane is missing and you are back."
Red: "Wait, I said what?"
Liz: "Cut the crap, Dad."
Red: "Fine. Madeline Pratt. And I just want to be upfront with you guys, I have had sex with her all different ways."
"The Madeline Pratt you all know and love is politically active, influential, a good citizen. But the Madeline Pratt I love stole $6M in blood diamonds a while back, just for fucking kicks. She is a Czech counterfeiter just for grins. She makes friends with powerful people in the daytime, and then at night uses those connections to spin webs of chaos of mayhem throughout Gotham. Because she thinks it's funny."
Red: "So she thinks her profile is too high right now to steal this effigy, but it's going to be repatriated from our Syrian embassy here in DC like ASAP, so she came to me, her equal but not her better, to help steal it. A grab that would normally take months to plan."
Meera: "Of course, if Syria knew what was in there..."
Red: "...It would be Damascus by now. So I'm assuming she's working for the Russians."
Cooper: "You want me to sanction an op where we steal Russian intelligence and a precious religious artifact off Syrian soil? Do you not follow the news? Those are literally the two worst people to fuck with at the moment. Also I am the FBI, not a supervillain."
Red: "Yeah, but the rest of us are supervillians so just be fucking cool. I am going to need Liz for this, because that's what the show is about and also because she has secret criminal powers we haven't mentioned before this."
Liz: "I don't wanna talk about it. And no, I'm not blushing with pleasure!"
Ressler, so into this: "Oh my God Liz is he for real? Are you a supercriminal?"
Liz, loving it: "I don't have a criminal record."
Ressler: "Because you never committed a crime, or because you were never caught?"
Liz: "Yes?"
Cooper takes her at her word -- because believing that Liz can do whatever she sets her mind to do is a very important part of his job -- and reminds her that the embassy is not America and that they will disavow her ass Mission: Impossible style if she fucks it up.
Red: "I think we all know that if she fucks it up, I will just kill everyone in the building no problem. Right? I mean we're all onboard with how this works?"
CATWOMAN'S LAIR
Pratt: "Tell me a little about you, like for example how are you qualified to do this?"
Red: "Tell her about the time with Frank!"
Liz: "Um, okay. This guy Frank and I used to be grifters in Omaha and one time I gave a pharmacy night manager a handy in an alley. Therefore, I am a master thief."
Pratt: "That is a pretty cool story!"
Liz: "DON'T YOU CONDESCEND TO ME!"
Liz walks out because she is not there to fucking audition, and Pratt is like, "Kitty's got claws!" and then promises to pay her double because she's so impressed by Liz's story about the time in Omaha with Frank, so Liz is like, "Call me. On your phone!" Which she then produces out of thin air, which kind of belies her whole point about auditioning. I mean, that's showmanship. The whole time Red is like, "Attagirl! That's my daughter or whatever!"
In true heist fashion, Madeline explains the heist while we see the heist actually happen in the future just as she is describing it. It is a very complicated thing! Basically the statue, according to Madeline, is in this vault on the bottom floor, so the deal is that she has to break into the vault in between patrols, using an embassy official's credentials. That part takes the longest out of the entire sequence, because it is adorable and you want to soak in the details of watching the PO be adorable out on the street.
But also because of Red's point about HUMINT vs. SIGINT, I think, because the show is after all very clever: It is nice to have safecracker technology and be very sneaky in a crouched position, but there is also a very Blacklist pleasure in watching Liz bump into this man on his way to get his coffee, nab his credentials, get them (and, secretly, Madeline Pratt's SIM card from the phone swipe) copied by raging heterosexual Aram Mojtabai in a nearby van, then returned to his lapel in a second "brush pass" on his way back from getting coffee like 90 seconds later. You got Meera just chilling by the coffee cart, whispering into her hair like she does; you got Ressler bumping into him in a clutch play to delay him, and then Liz bumping into him for the third time in two minutes.
It's great, and very satisfying, and you understand why this is the first time the show's taken a breath since the opening scene. I mean seriously, we are less than a third through the episode and already think about how very many things have happened. My favorite thing about this show (besides Liz, and of course the beautiful face of Tom Keen) is how much show there is in the show every week -- remember when that genetic scientist lawyer got hit by a bus and it was like five minutes into the show and there had already been an entire Law & Order episode by the time that happened? -- so it's worth it to drop briefly from 110 to 80, in order to enjoy everybody being a part of a team. Even ol' Ressler got to help, without killing anybody.
KEEN
Tom: "I just remembered I am a grown fucking man and should not have pissed my pants about their stupid baby like that or ran out during a conversation. My bad."
Liz: "I don't actually care, but I know I'm supposed to."
Tom: "You look hot as hell."
It's true. She looks hot as hell. She is going to an Ambassadorial Ball at the Syrian Embassy and is simply a vision in red. Also Tom says the cutest thing.
"Hey, is this like an undercover thing tonight? Because if you need a partner, I've got some pretty good fake IDs."
I love that we can laugh about that time you got tied up and stabbed to death and I totally turned you in to the FBI for treason and terrorism. We should laugh more, Tom. We should make light of more situations where you are constantly in danger or getting interviewed by ghost people for jobs that don't exist or I randomly handcuff you and take to FBI blacksites and then we can't leave our house or we'll get murdered by a team of snipers directly across the street from our home. I mean, what a story to tell our kids one day that we aren't having.
Tom: "Do you want to come to yet another teacher conference with me? This one is in Orlando."
Liz: "Sure, meaning no."
Tom: "But Tom Keen in a bathing suit!"
Liz: "Uh, Orlando's landlocked? But sure, I'll agree to run away with you and then later on when I call to say I'm not coming, you'll understand this tone in my voice that says clearly I have no intention of doing that."
Tom: "Then do you want to have sex right now?"
Liz: "You do seem like you could use a win."
Actually he says, "Do you want to maybe go undercover before you... go undercover?" but I don't know how you would respond to that. On the one hand, boner killer. On the other hand, we are about to get divorced in about five minutes or you are getting killed, so either way you better grab what you got while you got it. The way Tom Keen breaks up the stream of constant bitching by being a human work of art is basically the main thing about Tom Keen. The opposite of Red's Vermeer.
SUPER SQUAT
Red's upstairs getting natty while he and Liz have an adorable yelling conversation; she's out there by the ugly Jane Austen lady, assiduously avoiding her basilisk's gaze.
Red: "Problem! The notorious playboy Rasil Kalif is a cultural attaché in the Syrian embassy and Madeline's dating him!"
Liz: "Don't be a hater, Raymond."
Red: "The thing is that he's a mobster also. Russian Bratva."
Liz: "You can get a bunch of tattoos if you're that insecure about..."
Red: "No but like listen. He's the one that got her to steal the effigy, and she's coming to this shindig as his date!"
Liz: "But her profile was too high! Oh, I get it. She's stealing it also. Why are we both stealing it?"
Red: "You look hot as hell! Cute blue clutch, also."
(It is.)
Liz: "Hey, are you jealous and that's why you're wearing that nice tux?"
Red: "Kind of. I am going as your date."
Liz: "Did you know you are a wanted criminal?"
Red: "Yeah, it's the Syrian Embassy? Trust me, we're tight."
Liz tells him to take this heist seriously, as though she has never met the man, and reiterates for him/us that they are going onto foreign soil to steal a priceless artifact with no backup, and also there's a "digital net" over the embassy that will block even Aram from seeing what's up inside there. She acts like he is supposed to care about any of this, so Red has to once again explain that if she fucks up, he is going to kill everybody like it is no big deal, so maybe stop getting so precious about your big heist.
POST OFFICE
Meera: "...Is this about Diane Fowler?"
Cooper: "Yeah, close the door. Look, I hated her. We all hated her. But she was the founder of this team and that means something."
Meera: "So you definitely think she's dead?"
Cooper: "Oh, come on."
Meera: "Okay, fine."
Cooper: "He was clearly convinced Fowler was our mole."
Meera: "After a certain point he was, that's true."
Cooper: "But he's not judge, jury, and executioner! He's not Dianne Weist in week's episode, he can't just make the call. That's not the way it works."
Meera: "Well, except that the untouchable elite class is above the law, so maybe he didn't have a shitload of choices... Fine, I will pretend to investigate this."
EMBASSY
Liz: "There's Madeline. I wonder if she already stole it?"
Red: "Focus. You have two minutes left in the security window. Let's dance!"
(They dance!)
Red: "Lizzy, I know this must be very difficult for you, but we can't both lead."
Liz: "Ha! Good one. Listen, how did you know about Omaha?"
Red: "I actually didn't."
Liz: "You brought it up, though."
Red: "That was a pretty good story you made up on the fly, though."
Liz: "Uh, for sure."
Red: "You're not a cop tonight, you're a criminal! It is going to be epic."
Then he sort of flings her toward a platter of champagne flutes (grid control!), which she dutifully smashes out of the guy's hand and -- awesomely, without even a brief pause -- then swans off toward the security door.
While she's doing her spy things, Red and Madeline have a dance of their own.
Pratt: "I love to dance very sensually with you! But I wonder, why are you here?"
Red: "No, why are you here?"
Pratt: "No, why are you here?"
Red: "Valid. Let's run away to Tegucigalpa. I have a plane..."
Pratt: "Where did that girl come from?"
Red: "Fate."
Pratt: "Are you boning her?"
Red: "Gross."
Pratt: "Why did you ditch me in Florence last summer?"
Red: "Don't worry about it. Come with me to Tegucigalpa."
Pratt: "But Florence though."
Liz trips the safe alarm, and also the safe is empty. Everything goes apeshit everywhere at once. Madeline's Russian mobster boyfriend the cultural attaché whisks her away to the saferooms and the whole place is bedlam. Red fires a gun in the air just to freak people out even more, and heads downstairs to save Liz from whatever fuckuppery she has accomplished, but then meanwhile Madeline heads over to the case in the saferoom where they're keeping the effigy, and snags that thing in her purse along with the names of the spies. Again, she grins like a lunatic, and again it is very thrilling. Then she starts yelling about how Red Reddington has done it again.
Red, meanwhile, has located the place where they are keeping Liz in custody for being a safecracker in a ballgown, and launches into some kind of performance. I am not in love with the gay joke as a rule, but when it's Red Reddington it's like who even knows, man. "Red acts somewhat gayer than usual" is not really that offensive of a concept.
Red: "There you are! What the hell happened to you? You just leave me stranded with that awful Algerian? He's been hitting on me for twenty minutes!"
Security: "This is a secure area!"
"Not secure enough if you ask me, sister. You know what? Why don't you ask Rasil? We wouldn't even be here if it weren't for that troublemaker. Always an agenda with him. Cultural attaché? Culture my ass. The things I do for this one. Gallivanting around the globe for your little assignations with you-know-hmm-hmm, carrying her furs and bikinis as if I wouldn't rather be back in Dutchess County with my shelties. Hey, don't take anything for granted! Everything you have was bought and paid for by your boyfriend! Do you have any idea whose horn this tramp is blowing? Let's just say it starts with 'Bashar' and ends with 'al-Assad Gassing You Faster Than A Sunni.' So let's get her out of the hot seat and into a limo..."
Is that the darkest joke Red has ever made? It still makes me laugh uncomfortably, 24 hours later.
Red: "Good God! Crumbs up! Your cummerbund, pleats up! Ya look like Bob Yoshimura in eighth-grade swing choir!"
He fiddles with the guy's cummerbund for a second, then chokes the mother out. Even Liz is like, "Far be it from me, but what was the point of that whole fucking dog and pony just now?" Not even Red knows, this time. He is just simply giddy.
While they talk about how Pratt and the effigy are both long gone, Pratt's being amazing some more, grinning and calling her employers to tell them where she's stashing the thing, which is some kind of gorgeous Brutalist-ish place that I wish I knew where it was, I'd have my wedding there. It looks like the end of Last Crusade. Fort Totten, maybe? Whatever it is, I'm freakin' into it.
POST OFFICE
Cooper: "Okay so then where is Red?"
Liz: "Finding Pratt."
Cooper: "Unless this whole thing was not a trick on him but a trick by him, to get the spy list and destabilize the world's tense peace or whatever he's always doing."
Liz: "I mean, but meanwhile Syria thinks that Red stole the thing, thanks to her cunning plan of yelling Red's name while she was stealing it."
Ressler: "Luckily, you cloned her phone earlier and we can tell she's been making calls to a mosque outside Arlington. There's a Homeland POI tied to it, a cleric named Firas Ashear..."
Meera: "Whose family in turn is connected to the People's Liberation Alliance, an extremist organization out of Aleppo. Ashear's father is a local warlord with financial ties to them."
Cooper: "I was not paying attention to any of that. Just go do whatever."
ELEVATOR
Tom: "I am so excited about our vacation that we are definitely going on together!"
Liz: "Guess what."
Tom: "I don't even have to guess! But you guess what."
Liz: "You're going to do the equivalent of stomping out of the room again?"
Tom: "Exactly! I'm going a day early, without you! To Orlando! Your job is your life!"
Liz: "Or you could, I don't know, act reasonable for once?"
Tom: "YOURJOBISYOURLIFE! CRUMBS UP!"
Liz: "I would prefer to actually be a grownup and talk about this instead of..."
Tom: "I want to be separated! For the length of this Orlando trip. You are not allowed to come to Orlando!"
Liz: "I feel like the sound of your words is meant to imply that I am somehow being punished."
Tom: "It's not always about what you want, Liz! Say hi to your empty womb! And I will be back in three to five days because you pay the rent."
I mean, she just graduated from Quantico five minutes ago and I guess it's true that what is for us literally their entire life is, for them, proportionally five minutes of a new kind of very stressful life where you are getting tied up and stabbed and having imaginary babies snatched from your hands. I joke about Tom bitching but honestly, they are a cute young couple whose entire life has been torn apart by the weird machinations of Red Reddington. Tom's not wrong.
It's just that he squinches up his face that way and rages against the machine and it's like, maybe not today but probably at some point, probably things will calm down one day, at the end of the Blacklist. Do you want to be the guy who was constantly forcing the issue those few intense months of a new job, because you had to eat noodles alone and maybe put your random baby dreams on hold for a year? How many episodes of this show does she flake out over work stuff before adultery becomes your only option? (A: Infinity. Crumbs up, for God's sake.)
The vows are forever, not just "until you get jealous of your wife's success at work." Not just "until you no longer feel like participating in adult conversations and working through a stressful time, as a team." Not "until you suddenly remember that your life is more important than her life." If you didn't want to marry a surgical resident, for example, you wait until he's an attending. If you can't handle the campaign trail, wait until the dude's in office. I don't get the inability to see past a stressful time together into a time when things are not so stressful. There is nothing more romantic than weathering a storm with the man you love and knowing he'll have your back, and what Tom's saying is that he would prefer not to have that experience together.
Ressler: "Do you want me to rough him up for you?"
Liz: "Yeah but no. I sure do hate this job. Or more specifically, I love this job but I hate how squeaky it makes his voice and his little beady eyes when he pressures me into making promises we both know I'm not going to keep."
FIRAS ASHEAR
Ashear: "Madeline Pratt called me last month, I don't know who she is or how she found me. It's true that my father stole that effigy from the British Museum, because he is a Syrian patriot who revered Atargatis, he thought it belonged in Syria."
FBI: "Two valid reasons. Then why put it up for auction?"
Ashear: "He didn't. The Americans raided our compound when I was seven. He put a list in the effigy, put it in my arms, and told me to protect it always. But when the Americans found me later, they ganked it."
FBI: "What happened to your dad?"
Ashear: "I presume he retired to Boca Raton, you fucking moron. Crumbs up."
Okay so the CIA sanctioned a covert raid on that compound in 1983, after getting credible intelligence that Ashear met with a former KGB agent. $3M for the location of the Kungur Six. Twist, though! Russia snuck several nukes into America back in the Cold War: The Kungur Six are bombs, not people.
There's a spot on my alma mater's campus, maybe every alma mater's campus, where freshmen are told resides or once resided a nuclear silo. It has only just occurred to me, 17 years later -- fuckin' half my life -- that this is a ridiculous concept to even think about believing, or even questioning such a thing. Crap like that, you let it go by without comment. "Right here, to the student center? Is that healthy? I mean, because of radiation."
SOME STREET OF ROMANCE
Red: "Madeline, you need to tell me about those coordinates!"
Pratt: "I don't know what you mean."
Red: "I talked to* the cultural attaché and he told me you did sex things** with a trouser belt, which burned my feelings because I thought that was our special thing, and then he told me about the Kungur Six."
*(Tortured?)
**(Offhand I can only think of two things you could do to James Spader with a trouser belt, and neither of them seems very wholesome. I am not a sex expert though.)
Pratt explains to Red that she used him and Lizzy as her stalking horse because she is pissed at him for dumping her last summer in Florence, and then asks for I think the fourth time in this episode why he did that.
Pratt: "Florence was everything, our way out, a fresh start. But to you, it's all just a job."
Red: "Kind of but not really. I have a lot of things going on generally."
Pratt: "You're too bald to run away with to Tegucigalpa!"
Red: "Am I balder than I was last summer in Florence? It seems like you're just being mean. Crumbs up, Madeline."
Then they both get tasered by Syrians and hustled away in a van. She wakes up later and they're in what appears to be a kind of jail, and her first question is if Red's all right, and not "Obviously Red would not just get his ass kidnapped off the street like that, so clearly this is a setup." She must not watch this show! Although I admit I was also curious how he possibly could have allowed that to happen. My faith in Red was also momentarily disrupted, in the moment: Another good thing about how fast and much shit goes down on this show is that you don't have time to wonder what is happening. By the time it reaches your brain, ten more things have also already happened.
POST OFFICE
Meera: "Scramble a NEST unit! We have six RA-115 suitcase nukes from back in the day, 50 pounds of high-explosive material, blast radius of nearly 2,000 feet. Very dirty, fallout-wise."
Ressler: "In other exposition, Rasil Kalif is definitely more than a simple attaché."
Meera: "So the spies are actually suitcases, but the attaché is actually a spy? That's hilarious."
PRETEND JAIL
You can hear in Madeline's voice that she has kind of had it -- and she confirms for Red that she's already stashed the effigy and told the Russians where it is -- so he gives her the gift of some honesty. It actually does explain why he left her last summer in Florence, and jibes with what we already know, although of course by the end he'll be maddeningly vague about whether or not it's even true. It is sad.
"I ran out of gas. I was so excited to get home I didn't even bother to look. My head was just... I ran out of gas. It was Christmas Eve. I pulled off to the side of the road. Seemed like it'd been snowing for days. No traffic. No cars to come help. Just me and a car full of gifts. It was more than 20 years ago. I must have walked four miles, five maybe. It was so still. Just cold and white. The whole time, all I could think about was them in our house. The warm light in the windows, the smoke from the chimney. The sound of my daughter at the piano. The smell of the tree and the fire, oyster stew on the stove. I was so upset to think that I'd ruined Christmas for them, being late, leaving the gifts in the car. But the closer I got, the more I realized how funny the whole thing was, how much they'd love the story, Daddy running out of gas, how every Christmas they'd get such joy from telling that story at my expense. And then finally I got there. I walked through the door. And there was just blood. All I saw was blood. All there was, was blood. I can still smell the nape of her neck... feel her little fingers on my cheek... her whisper in my ear. That's why I didn't show up in Florence. It's why I haven't shown up in a lot of places, over the years."
That's when the guys come and drag him away. Madeline, weeping right along with him, screams at them to bring him back, and finally demands some paper so she can write down the location of the effigy. (And maybe the Kungur Six coordinates too? I'm fuzzy on the sequence of events there.) The second she hands it over, he reappears, unharmed. Not even really gloating, just sort of there, mostly fed up with her bullshit.
Pratt: "You'll never get to it in time! Damn you, Raymond! You son of a bitch, was it even true? That story about your family? Was any of it true?"
Red: "We should have gone to Tegucigalpa. Well, we should have saved Lizzy from Syrian security and ditched the effigy and then gone to Tegucigalpa."
FT TOTTEN
The Post Office shows up with a million guns, assuming that the Russian Mob is already there for the artifact, and there is a great deal of gun violence and Ressler gets to kill a million dudes, and then they get the effigy. Which is, of course, empty. Just sand.
POST OFFICE
Cooper: "ERT examined the statue and there was nothing inside, so..."
Red: "That darn Madeline!"
Cooper: "Also we went to that fake jail and she wasn't there either..."
Red: "I'm tellin' ya!"
Cooper: "Okay fine. Just say whatever you wanna say instead of the answers to questions."
Red: "Thanks, I will. Now either it never actually contained anything, or Madeline doublecrossed the Russians and kept the nukes for herself, or..."
Cooper: "Or you have them."
Red: "You got me. While you were shooting those dudes, I was coming to terms* with Madeline. In a moment of weakness**, she gave me the coordinates."
Cooper: "So you sent my guys, including Ressler who is secretly your favorite, into a firefight knowing there was no..."
Red: "I'm sorry, did you not get major props for taking down a bunch of Russian mobsters on American soil? Crumbs up."
Cooper: "Don't threaten me with a good time, Red Reddington. Where are the nukes?"
Red: "I want the effigy, not a bunch of rusty Russian firecrackers from the '60s. Let's trade."
*(Fucking? Torturing? Something with a trouser belt?)
**(ibid.)
LIZ
That STRFKR (go on with your bad self, NBC) song "Rawnald Gregory Erickson The Second" from the Target commercial plays while Liz gets Tom's voicemail: ("all my life / there you go / oh please stay / just this once anyway"). Which is very sad in this context. So while he is in Orlando checking in to his stupid conference -- and guess who's there, coincidentally/right on time? -- Liz just sort of feels crazy within herself.
And she doesn't even know that she's been basically forcing him to go on dates with ol' Jolene/Lucy the Hired Killer all over these United States, so mostly she just thinks, or I would presume, imagines him in his hotel room stewing in his usual Tom feelings and having imaginary fights with her and generally just gearing up to come home a bigger mess than when he left. The truth, however, is worse. Worse because who even is this lady and what is she going to do to Tom, specifically the face part.
Back at the Super Squat, Red finds the Vermeer missing and puts the effigy in its place, to a note from Madeline inviting him to come and get both ladies some time in Florence. It's pretty great, especially if this is the show's way of saying he has a future to find when all this is over with: Just go be in Florence with Irene Adler and everything can start.
Ressler drops off some files and notices Liz having uncontrollable emotions and then, unbidden by her self-control, she just kind of blurts that for sure Tom is going to leave her leaning-in ass. Ressler decides to skip dinner with Audrey so he can talk Liz through this, which is kind of like recapitulating the same problem again. "I heard people don't like getting ditched for dinner so I ditched you for dinner to talk about how Tom doesn't like getting ditched for dinner." Or would be, if Audrey is half the crumbs-down whiner Tom is.
BONUS PRESSURE
Special Agent Walter Gary Martin of the DC Bureau (Paul Franklin from Homeland, that guy under the scum-sucking Martin Donovan lawyer) drops by Cooper's office to smile very largely for a while before the claws come out.
Martin: "Let me just start by saying the Director really values all the work you're doing here. Personally, I can't think of anyone better suited for the job!"
Cooper: "You want to talk about Diane Fowler or what."
Martin: "I mean, how great is this Post Office! It's like a crazy movie!"
Cooper: "I'm certainly not blushing with pride! But that is very cool of you to say."
Martin: "Hey, you asked Meera Malik to investigate Fowler's disappearance?"
Cooper: "Yeah, why would that be a problem?"
Martin: "The disappearance of the head of the Criminal Division is a situation we need to manage carefully. So I'm gonna ask you to stop. Politely..."
Cooper: "[Not having it. The idea of nailing Red is just too delicious.]"
Martin: "Okay now I'm just gonna gently go into Straight Fucking Terrifying Mode. Crumbs up, shut the fuck up, and leave it alone. Okay? This comes from the top. I can tell from your face that you think I'm kidding and I want to put your mind at ease on that point immediately. I am not at all kidding. I came here from DC to tell you that this is going away. No longer your problem. Feel me?"
Cooper not only does not feel him, but does a crap job of indicating that he does feel him. Which sucks for him but sucks way worse for Meera, because now she is serving like four different interests. She's already working with Red in a general extortion way, and then also was instrumental in both the breach and Fowler's death. And she's secretly working for Cooper, who is not going to let this go. But they all work for the FBI, so there's that. And then too, she is in very scary trouble with whoever these guys at the top actually are. Especially if they are Alan Alda, because either way somebody is going to pay for Fowler's death, and it's not gonna be Red. Not directly.
WEEK
Dianne Wiest has apparently been running an underground fight club for dirty judges or something? Mostly I'm interested in the fact that Red is somehow going to team up with Lance Reddick to witness Tom boning his sidepiece in Orlando, which sounds thrilling from every possible direction you can think of. Also the War starts, whatever that means. I hope it means we figure out who Jolene is working for, but Tom somehow still retains plausible deniability. That would be ideal. Until then, keep it thumbs up and crumbs-up for me.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, True Detective, The Blacklist, and Pretty Little Liars for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook.