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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 "victim": Cooper himself, as well as his one-time boss who is now an Bureau higher-up looking to become the FBI's 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."
Jolene: "I love talking to you directly in your face about men cheating on their wives like I always do, regardless of what city we're in."
Tom: "I have some cream cheese on my lip from this continental breakfast! I am so Tom Keen, it's adorable."
Jolene: "Get a load of my Crazy Eyes some more at this continental breakfast."
They have a fight with some other teachers about whether or not students should be reading Lolita, because just like every other dumb person who hasn't read that book they think they know what that book's about. Then they turn to chisme about the love lives of their peers, specifically cheating on spouses, because that is the one thing that Jolene likes to talk about. Another thing Tom thinks is very cool about her.
RED VISITS THE PO
Red: "Lizzy, look at this paper about the finding of this man. And then I will give you a long, weird speech."
Liz: "What if you just told me what you want to tell me instead of..."
Red: "-- No! Long weird speech!"
Mark Hastings is a US Attorney from Maryland who, twelve years ago, indicted the head of the Reynoso Cartel and went missing. But if it was a retribution killing, why is he still around? In body, if not in spirit.
Red: "Because who had him captive was not the Reynoso Cartel, but a mythical figure."
Liz: "I dare you to go on."
Red, verbatim: "Every culture has a justice myth, an avenging angel who exacts retribution for the weak and innocent. Golem for the Jews, Tu Po for the Chinese. The Ancient Greeks had Adrestia, the Goddess of Revenge. And we have The Judge."
Liz: "'We' meaning whom?"
As Red explains the myth of The Judge, we see it play out in realtime: When your appeals are all done with but you know you're actually innocent, you pass a note through the helpful grapevines of jail begging for one last try. He gets the info at specifically a book depository at the Federal Penitentiary in Monroe, Virginia, and then decides whether or not you get justice. (As defined by The Judge.)
Liz: "I feel like we are going to go to this depository and they're going to be like, This building has been abandoned for over forty years."
Red: "But maybe not. If The Judge is real, you get an eye for an eye."
Liz: "It seems like The Judge is less about justice and more about revenge."
Red: "I am not the guy to talk to about that, but I see your point. In any case, you should probably just do what I am telling you to do, since for some reason I suddenly care about this. Please don't inquire as to why."
POST OFFICE
The team discusses everything Red just said, and Cooper doesn't seem nervous yet. But I will tell you that this case is all about Cooper, which makes it more interesting. Not that a crazy horse lady keeping lawyers prisoner in a Cracker Barrel isn't already interesting, but it does raise the stakes for the team, considering all the guys she's keeping prisoner are misusers of power, and this whole show is usually about kind of the opposite.
That is, this show is usually about people outside the system controlling the system, and we have to take them down, but this week it's about a person doing Red kinds of retribution, a meta-Reddington supervillain, so the only way to make the concept work is if it's personal. Otherwise it's a hall of mirrors that becomes about whether or not Red's vigilantism is a good thing, a pet monster, an "ends justify the means," or whatever other interesting questions the show likes to ask. This week, it can't be like that, so it has to be about Cooper.
My best friend is a PD, and when she took the bar she told me something that forever changed the way I look at justice, defense, criminal law, the whole thing: She explained that, as an Officer of the Court, you are held up to a higher standard legally, which runs parallel to your powers as a human person. Basically that by entering into the system -- of law, governance, war, whatever it is -- you give up the right to be a shitheel in return for the power to operate as a superhero.
If a lawyer on one side of a criminal case goes to the guys on the other side of a criminal case and says, "Yeah yeah, but just trust me on this," they can come to an agreement: They are working in a liminal space above us, ethically. And that carries weight and responsibilities that the rest of us don't carry, which is why crimes in those arenas carry a greater weight. It's the same thing as how killing a person is murder if you're a civilian, but casualties in war are not murder. In both cases, you're taking a vow to stand apart from the normal civil give-and-take. That resonates profoundly with me, great powers meaning great responsibility and so on, and it plays into this episode in a major way: If nobody's watching the watchmen, then we're all fucked.
So the question becomes -- like Internal Affairs on a cop show; like superior officers in a military show; like JAG or whatever; what happens in the halls of power stays in the halls of power -- not what Red or the Blacklisters do with their shadow powers, but what we do about glitches and gaps in the system of how things are supposed to work. The loopholes that we have to close, and what happens when the word comes down from the top that we're not allowed to do that. The people who stand outside the circle of power and decide once and for all what is okay. Very not Red's agenda, and therefore a fascinating thing to put up alongside Red's agenda.
And now that Diane's gone, that means it has to be about Cooper, because he's the biggest boss of the show: If he is a righteous man, that's interesting in one way because it means he went outside the boundaries for righteous reasons that maybe balance out. But if he's in danger for crimes he should not have committed, that's a very different story we're telling: Pursued deeply enough, it would justify everything Red has ever done. It would mean that -- in the universe of the show -- there is nothing but chaos. And Liz would not survive that, which means Cooper's going to end up okay.
(The funny part about that, to me, is how this exact same question played out on Dollhouse -- with the same actor -- and the way that resolved itself also shored up the universe of the show, in a very different way.)
Anyway. Aram's theory is that this Mark Hastings kidnapping wasn't about the Reynoso thing but about a different case around the same time: A man named Leonard Debs who was sentenced to 14 years for armed robbery when he was 28. Hastings covered up a witness at the time, and eventually Debs went free after all but two years of his sentence. If this is The Judge, that means he took away twelve years of Hastings's life for screwing up twelve years of Debs's life, for whatever reason. They name several others, all missing still, and then name their suspect for the book depository liaison: Convicted killer Frank Gordon, who now works for the prison-literacy project out of Monroe.
BOOK DEPOSITORY, MONROE VA
Old Lady: "Frank's been with us for six years, since his conviction got reversed. He doesn't deal with prisoners directly, but his job is fulfilling their requests, so."
Ressler: "And he just happens to live down in this pitch-black boiler room like a murderer would, in the basement of this book depository? I feel like there's a story here."
Old Lady: "I am super weird apparently, but we're not going to get into it."
Ressler heads on in there to ask Frank about some stuff, and it's dark and Liz says Ressler's name like a million times and then before you know it, Frank has conked Ressler on the head and vanished. Moves quick for an old creepy man!
Later, after somebody has gotten Ressler an Italian ice for his hurt feelings, the FBI goes through all of Frank's shit. There is a fabulous note -- "DEMAND FOR JUSTICE GRANTED" -- and all the things that you would generally expect to find in the spooky warren of a prison-crazy book loaner and Judge devotee. They even find a file folder all about what seems to be : A death sentence case named Alan Ray Rifkin.
Rifkin was an American college student who dropped out to join the Army and ended up in Afghanistan. In 2003 he was convicted as an enemy combatant, Taliban, and his execution is scheduled for tomorrow. The story is that Rifkin and a few dozen Taliban fighters destroyed an Afghan village. His lawyers said it was friendly fire and the American military blew it from the air on accident, but the military denied the whole thing.
Aram: "You know what's interesting though is that the investigating officer, the Senior FBI Agent in Afghanistan at the time, was our boss Harold Cooper."
Liz: "I hope he doesn't get kidnapped to a Cracker Barrel! Let's ask him about it."
COOPER
Cooper: "OMG you guys it's like, not even okay for you to ask me about this."
Liz: "I am taken aback by your vehemence."
Cooper: "Okay but think about it. Red Reddington tells you about The Judge and then I just happen to be the person on the hit list?"
Liz: "May I remind you that Red is never wrong about anything, ever?"
Cooper: "The Federal Prosecutor on that case was Tom Connolly, a douchebag with a sterling reputation. Rifkin admitted to treason..."
Liz: "Girl this is not about if you are a good person! This is about if The Judge is going to come kidnap you. Please calm down and be cool."
Cooper: "I will not. Also, did I mention we're both going to witness Rifkin's execution? So probably that's where The Judge will kidnap us, if it goes down."
Liz: "Then maybe we should treat this as if it is real, since it's real."
Cooper: "I prefer to be in denial because of reasons!"
Actually the reasons are valid and pretty great, but they don't come across until the end of the episode. Suffice to say he's clamming up here not because he's hiding anything personally, but just the situation is complicated -- and even saying "it's complicated" is not something Cooper can do, so honestly his only option is to just sit around and hope he won't get kidnapped to Cracker Barrel before they find this Judge.
RIFKIN
Rifkin: "I'm sassy because I have nothing to lose!"
Dianne Weist: "I'm obviously The Judge, but that's going to be clear momentarily. For now I will just say I'm Ruth Kipling, an Amnesty volunteer."
They call it "Amnesty Collective," which somehow makes it seem even fruitier than what they're going for. I love it when TV shows go to this place, like, any animal activist that ever lived has blown up at least three research facilities and thrown blood at a celebrity. Every member of Occupy Wall Street is secretly a rapist in a Bane mask that is also a hacker. Any Amnesty volunteer you see has been probably driven crazy by compassion into kidnapping people to Cracker Barrel.
Liz: "I don't know how many ways you need me to say this, but I am not here in a way that is going to help you. It's not about your guilt or innocence, that is not my job. But please don't ask me what my job is, because it's spy."
Ruth: "I'm a spiritual advisor, a thing Death Row inmates need even more than most."
Rifkin: "I just say fuck you. Whatever is going on here, fuck it."
Liz: "Did you ask The Judge to kidnap my boss to a Cracker Barrel?"
Rifkin: "Not in so many words."
Ruth: "I think that The Judge is not a real thing! It is a fantasy and you should scram before he says something crazy."
Liz: "I actually don't feel like it'll be too long until that happens..."
Rifkin: "Yo I was beaten into confessing by FBI Agent Harold Cooper, under the orders of Assistant US Attorney Thomas Connolly."
Liz: "There it is."
ORLANDO
Tom: "Nothing, just moping at the bar because my wife is a real person. You?"
Jolene: "I am here to get tore up. You will be joining me."
They laugh, they talk, they gossip, they drink with purpose, they make their way to a men's room and commence making out pretty hardcore, until a little boy wanders in there and they jump apart, laughing. Tom has a crisis of conscience and sobers up real quick. Jolene shoots him the angry Crazy Eyes, then the sad Crazy Eyes, then she angrily busts a move... then she immediately comes back into the bathroom to slip her keycard into his shirt, because she is in it to win it.
I ask you who among us would do this any differently. You can't let the brass ring of Tom Keen go around as many times as she already has without committing to at least one solid lunge. Worst thing that could happen, you end up on your face, but guess what: Going after a married guy means you already are. So I say you double down, and then you better double down again: Happiness is a warm nihilism.
CRACKER BARREL
Frank and Ruth take a crockpot through the snowy yard to her barn, which used to house horses but of course now houses the weeping men of misused authority. It's pretty solid actually; all hardwoods and surfaces. They look like tiny saunas. You could do worse. I mean, you could do better, but you could do worse for sure.
Ruth: "That fucking FBI. And now you're worthless too. Well, I just called your substitutes to nap Connolly and Cooper if the execution goes down. My question is, how did they find you? And what the hell am I supposed to do with you now? I hope you like being an invisible janitor on a people-farm, because you got burnt."
Frank: "I want to say Hastings, but all I'm hearing is that he is butt-crazy and mute."
Ruth: "Frank, stop looking at these people with compassion immediately. You were in jail for twenty years because of their bullshit. Just like my father lost thirty years of his life, if you were wondering vaguely why I'm like this."
Frank: "I feel like they're going to find us and this is all rapidly going to hell."
Ruth: "So be it, baby. But I'm not going to stop being a crazy Batman villain until then."
A grimy prisoner grits out, "Goodnight, Mother!" in a creepy way where you can tell he doesn't really mean it, but also that they are all brainwashed and she is basically the leader of a cult and she doesn't even know it.
POST OFFICE
Ressler and Meera explain things, Liz asks questions about the things, Aram restates obvious things that have already just been explained. The only thing that differs from the norm here is Cooper staring down from the catwalk, trying to figure a way to get everybody out of this one without getting kidnapped to Cracker Barrel or owing Red Reddington anything. Spoiler alert, both of those things are happening for sure.
The team's gone through Frank's materials to figure out why The Judge supports Rifkin, which as usual has yielded exactly one clue: The timelines don't match up, in that a stateside journey from Andrews AFB to a holding facility in Alexandria should have taken two hours less than it did. During the trial, the US Marshal on transport said it arrived on schedule, and a forged event log supported that testimony. So if Rifkin did get beaten into confessing, it would have happened then. Liz heads out into the snow to question the US Marshall, William Munson, to see why he lied or what happened.
MD GENERAL SVCS
Liz: "Can we get in your car? I'm freezing my balls off here and I really need to be on my A-game if I'm going to get you to fully sell yourself out like this."
Munson: "Okay but can I just say up front that I told Amnesty Collective about those forged event logs?"
Liz: "...Wait. Okay cool. Back up though. You were there with Cooper at Andrews..."
Munson: "Me, Cooper and the prosecutor, Tom Connolly. He met us on the tarmac, hollering about the Rifkin evidence and how he couldn't convict, and he couldn't ruin his burgeoning career over a high-profile case..."
Liz: "He sounds like a peach."
Munson: "He's the worst. Anyway, he told Cooper to beat the shit out of Rifkin, and I guess that's what he did. I changed the timelines and got a doctor to come to Rifkin's cell instead of sending him to the infirmary. I mean, they said he was betraying our country so I was like whatever, but now that he's getting executed today it's like, Maybe we should have done things by the book."
TOM CONNELLY
Cooper: "Hi Tom. I'm getting a little nervous about all this."
Connelly: "Hi Cooper, nice to see you. I'm oily as hell."
Cooper: "You remember that time we beat a confession out of Alan Ray Rifkin?"
Connelly: "Yeah, it was awesome."
Cooper: "Okay well I think maybe we are going to be murdered. Or at least kidnapped."
Connelly: "Maybe, but probably not. I think you are talking about an urban myth."
Cooper: "I feel like you're being blasé about this."
Connelly: "After fifty years of being a rich white man in government, I kind of feel invulnerable. Consequences are for other people, you know what I mean?"
Cooper: "Kind of but not entirely. Okay, see you at that execution later."
JOLENE'S HOUSE
The Cowboy goes through her shit, taking pictures of money in many nationalities, many hotel pens from various locations, an entire kitchen cabinet of bottled water which is so nuts I knew this had to be Jolene's house, several identities, luggage tags and whatever.
Cowboy: "I found a flash drive. Also she has been to the following places..."
Red: "Hang on, I am having tiny flashbacks to each of those places."
Cowboy: "She is tracking somebody for sure. Causing trouble. My feeling is that this Jolene either has lots of little targets, or one real big one."
Red: "Surely you have connected the dots to who that might be."
Cowboy: "I said Don't tell me how to do my job!"
COOPER'S OFC
Liz: "Mister, I need you to level with me right now about Rifkin."
Cooper: "I already did, okay?"
Connelly menaces his way out of the inky darkness of every area on this entire show. His toothy, smug-ass smile tells you all you need to know.
Cooper: "Agent Keen, this is US Attorney Tom Connolly. He is the worst."
Liz: "Actually can I talk to you in private?"
Cooper: "Anything you say to me you can say in front of him. Not to be a total cliché."
Liz: "Okay well, you got ordered by this tool to beat a confession out of Alan Ray Rifkin, and the second he's executed you are both getting kidnapped to a Cracker Barrel."
Cooper: "Yeah okay I beat him into confessing but that doesn't make me a bad person! I am unable to hear what you are saying because it hurts my feelings!"
Liz: "I know that and we can talk about your feelings later but right now I would like to solve the case of the..."
Connelly: "Imaginary Judge? You are so fucking dumb, and also a woman."
Liz: "You act like I'm trying to stop a person from getting killed by the state! A thing I would never do! I am simply trying to..."
Connelly: "We're done here. You go back to darning socks or whatever and let the men rest in the glory that they are untouchable."
Liz: "Argh! I feel like The Judge right now! Exactly like The Judge! I am going to tattle on you to the Federal Clemency Officer as my last-ditch defense within the system!"
Connelly: "Cool, we golf together. Do you not get how this works?"
RIFKIN
While they're strapping Rifkin down and taping him up and murdering him, Liz fails at getting anything done to stop it. Who is in there is, Rifkin and Ruth, and Connelly and Cooper. The last thing she says to them is, "Even God won't forgive you for this." The last thing Rifkin says to her is, "Good night, mother."
On the way out, Cooper is adorably coy with Connelly about Liz, the Post Office, his actual FBI job, and also his secret weapon. He half-grins and stares at the ceiling and almost whistles, it's amazing.
Connelly: "I mean, who cares though. We did the right thing."
Cooper: "True. But we did it the wrong way and that makes me feel less jovial."
Connelly: "Whatever you're doing, or how you're doing it, when I'm the Attorney General you're going to be the Director of the FBI. And then you have to tell me your secret weapon."
Cooper: "Okay, but not until then... Oh, we're about to get kidnapped to a Cracker Barrel. Shit."
They are. Vans drives up to grab them just as Cooper's going into FBI Agent mode, discovering the dead drivers and trying to get between Connelly and the various kidnappers. But it's too late! They are nicked.
CRACKER BARREL
It's so quaint, all wood paneling and American flags and Ruth's long hair like a farmer lady. She smashes Cooper around the face, like a boss, and they have words about whether or not Rifkin confessed properly to being a terrorist, but you can tell she's not interested in semantics. She is into justice, or what she thinks of as justice, because of some vague thing having to do with her dad that we are never actually going to know what it is.
Just like how Red can say "Paris 1997, a bottle of 1983 Petrus and six limber art students" and you're like, "Okay, tell me about that some other time but I get the gist," so it is with the unfairness of whatever happened to Mr. Kipling thirty years before whatever else happened that caused his daughter to go crazy and become a mythical figure of America.
RED
Red spends the middle part of this episode on a plane, just vrooming around from who knows where to who knows where, doing his Red thing and languidly solving kidnappings.
Liz: "So Cooper got kidnapped..."
Red: "Oh no! By whom, Lizzy."
Liz: "Uh, by The Judge. Because of Alan Ray Rifkin."
Red: "What on Earth? What does that have to do with Harold Cooper?"
Liz: "Oh, uh, he beat a confession out of him."
Red: "Bummer! Are you sure?"
Liz: "Yeah he told me so."
Red: "For no reason except that it's a plotpoint and I do this out of nowhere in every episode, you need to think about Hastings, that first guy we haven't gone back to yet."
Liz: "How come?"
Red: "Because he's going to say or do something while you're investigating that is going to spark some intuitive process in your head that leads you directly to The Judge."
Liz: "Okay then why can't you just tell me that part?"
Red: "That is not how this show works. I am just the first domino. I say something completely random and that leads you to solving the case in a howlingly coincidental fashion. That's what we do."
Liz: "But I mean she is going to kill Cooper! Eye for an eye!"
Red: "Just shut up and do the random thing I'm telling you to do already, Lizzy!"
He hangs up on her, trusting her to be a magic wizard like every week based on no information of any kind, but meanwhile he is still the first domino: He tells Dembe to turn the plane around, because in fact he knows secondary things about the Rifkin case that are actually going to be what solves this crisis. We don't know that yet, but kind of don't we?
CRACKER BARREL
The inmates of the Cracker Barrel like to clunk on the walls very loudly and rhythmically, which is just genius how it works in the scene, which is like something out of a Hobbit movie or like at the end of Freaks. She's got Connelly and Cooper all tied up and is still into tormenting them. Mostly by being annoying, or what she thinks of as righteous, declaiming various things like the sheer power of her words is going to cause them to self-explode of guilt.
Unwatched Watchmen: "Gooble gobble! Gooble gobble!"
Ruth: "You dicks. Alan Ray Rifkin is a woman's son! A woman's husband! A father, a brother! A good man! All of those things!"
Dudes: "Uh, he had every shot at proving his innocence."
Ruth: "To whom? To you?"
Dudes: "No, like, to the justice system? You know, like how this is America?"
Unwatched Watchmen: "Gooble gobble! Gooble gobble!"
Ruth: "You jerks framed him in the first place! A bunch of kangaroos, that's what you are. If you did your job right I wouldn't have to do mine!"
Dudes: "Who even elected you the boss of us, though? Like you've got a hotline to America herself that only you can..."
Ruth: "Shut up! How do you plead?"
Dudes: "Not guilty. Meaning fuck you."
Ruth: "Wrong! You are guilty! I sentence you to some very rural justice in a minute!"
Unwatched Watchmen: "One of us! One of us!"
NAVY RECRUITING OUTPOST, MILLINGTON TN
Red runs up to Richard Abraham, a very decorated Admiral in the twilight of his career thanks to his association with Red before everything went to hell. They were roommates in the Naval Academy, which means that on this show that is entirely about people Red used to be friends with, we might have reached Friend Zero. Richard's in no mood for Red's vulpine nonsense, and they have this entire conversation just in the middle of some stairs with everybody around, Red in his pimp cocktail-hour outfit and Abraham in uniform.
Red: "I wish I saw you more often but I never go to class reunions, due to being the FBI's Most Wanted."
Richard: "Red, not today. Did you know my wife left me because of you? I got sidelined in my career because of gossip that we all facilitated your treason. You leave a shadow."
Red: "Did you know my wife and daughter were murdered? I think I got the raw end of that fuckin' deal. But sorry about your divorce."
Rifkin's story is that a Black Hawk killed all the civilians, but CENTCOM disavows that Black Hawk entirely. The Admiral was in Kabul at that time, so he would have known about any choppers in the sky overhead. The Admiral is not listening, because he is still resentful of Red's sad story, so then Red explains that the people who need this info can totally help him out and get him back on track.
It's always so surprising when Red's eyes clear and you can see him being authentic. I mean, not that he's ever lying, just times when he says, I can help you fix this and what he means is, I'm sorry I broke it. The very Red Reddington idea that destruction, in enough quantity, might finally redeem him.
HASTINGS
Liz climbs right up the ass of our catatonic first vic, getting no response, until his beleaguered wife finally tells her to GTFO and turns off the lamp. This triggers something in his head and he says, "Good night, Mother." Which to his wife is just another sad thing about her broken, confused husband, but to Liz is the one clue that Red always randomly gives her without knowing it.
POST OFFICE
So let's talk about Ruth Suzanne Kipling: Single, 62, attended Vassar College (LOL), cofounder of the Amnesty Collective, a prison-specific nonprofit. Liz connects that group to the Marshal, which is how Kipling got the last bit of damning evidence she needed to make her judgment, and... Oh, there's her address. Problem solved!
This happens also in nearly every episode -- the Samaritan's house with his mom, even that cyberpunk club lady with the Courier -- that you just find the address and go there and that's where the shit is going down. But that only makes me laugh a little, because it's actually realistic: The connecting part is figuring out who the person is in real life, which is why Red blew up his old house and lives on a plane or in various luxury squats.
CRACKER BARREL
The gooble-gobbling continues as Frank and some droogs strap Cooper into a hideous and frightening, homemade electric chair. There's a loud generator that sounds like a chainsaw, totally scary, but not as scary as the wire-hanger halo that hangs above the chair. They put his feet in a big wooden pasture bucket full of water, and things are looking pretty darn scary for Harold, when the SWAT team shows up and Ruth starts getting a Waco look in her eyes, but then Red calls Liz and Liz calls Ressler and then tells Ruth they have a fascinated visitor that wants to come talk her down.
Red: "So I am here with some interesting information. Nice to see you shitting yourself, Harold Cooper, but cheer up! I am about to laugh in this crazy woman's face for being addicted to revenge, in a sly way of undermining her before I really get to it."
Turns out he's sympathetic, in a way that maps the show pretty decently, to her whole Knight Templar thing she's got going on. Problem is, this particular case breaks her ethics in half, because there's shit nobody knows except Cooper, and because of his particular code and oaths, he can't tell her either.
Red: "In the spirit of full disclosure, it's a felony for me to have this, and for you to see it, but let's breeze past that. Turns out there was a Black Hawk over Guldara that day, but they were there to pull an asset who'd gotten compromised. Rifkin's Taliban pals heard about it and went in to kidnap the spy, but he or she was gone by the time they got there. Instead of going back to their caves or whatever, they threw a tantrum that destroyed all the people in the village, and since the Pentagon didn't want to further compromise the asset or set off a war, they covered everything up."
So Rifkin was a bad guy who -- if anybody does -- deserved the death penalty, but because of this black-books aspect of the situation, nobody could ever know that. The beating was just expediency: Not around the law like it seems, but alongside it. Since he couldn't ever confess to what really happened, he needed to confess to something that didn't. Which means that Ruth's law doesn't come into play, and Cooper doesn't need to die.
Ruth: "I am crazy as all get out! How do you know which way I would go with this?"
Red: "Because you let Mark Hastings go. Even though it might come back on you, like it has, you kept yourself to the letter of your code. You wanted to be about justice, not revenge. That was a beautiful thing, and a true thing, and you can't diminish that by falling back on it now. Situational ethics are for people less strong than you and I."
Well, he's right, and everybody gets out in a slow-mo action of Ressler getting to do things and all the monster dickfaces in her kennels going free. The cutest part, though, is when they let Connelly out and Red's already gone, so Cooper gets to be smug about how Tom still doesn't know what the secret weapon really is. He was right there under your nose! Guess you have to make me Director of the FBI, then. You tool.
Which is funny and shows you how much Cooper thinks about the system and his place in it: He's not a blind rule-follower, although sometimes he can seem that way. But it also tells you an interesting thing about Cooper with Red, which is that while he's still interested in nailing Red for Diane Fowler -- who is the Rifkin in this scenario, if you think about it; a bad guy who died for the wrong reasons, which makes them right -- and chomping at the bit that the Bureau won't let him, and overall very ambivalent about the plea-bargainy situation at the heart of this show, he's still able to acknowledge that a Red is a very nice pet to have sometimes. Something Liz could have told him ages ago, not that either of them would ever admit it.
POST OFFICE
Liz: "Dude there were five prosecutors, a federal judge, two cops... Ten total in that Cracker Barrel! That's insane."
Cooper: "What are you handing me?"
Liz: "The rest of The Judge's pleas Frank was researching. Should we..."
Cooper: "-- Just give them to the DOJ, okay? Due diligence at least. Oh, and Keen. You know I feel shitty about beating that dude, right? So if you want to tell on me..."
Liz: "Right thing, wrong way. Not all expediency is automatically evil, and besides, you did your time. If there's nothing to be gained by justice then it's just revenge."
Cooper: "Sometimes I feel like we have a lot in common, just generally. Sometimes I feel like I'm teaching you to become me, or fighting Red to see who gets to be your dad. But occasionally, it's like you're here to remind me of who I actually am. Usually in the fifth act."
COOPER'S OFC
Cooper: "I am so mad at you for saving me!"
Red: "Why whatever do you mean."
Cooper: "You just randomly gave us The Judge and then I just coincidentally..."
Red: "If you're saying I wanted leverage, I'm not gonna lie. That's always been obvious and it will always be a factor. But I'm going to be honest with you, so pay attention."
"Harold, a war is coming. I believe the incursion of this facility and the rather sudden disappearance of Diane Fowler were just the beginning, and I'm certain that things will get considerably worse before they get better. I do want your help, but not now. Later. And when I do, I hope you'll remember what happened today."
Cooper: "Ugh, fine! But I'm not gonna thank you."
Red: "That's fine. Can you do me one solid though? Can you fix Admiral Richard Abraham's life? I kind of broke it."
Cooper: "Dude, even I can tell that this is you being awesome in some way. Consider it done. But never forget that also I hate you!"
Red: "No, you totally love me."
Cooper: "Just get out of my office please!"
COWBOY
Red meets with the Cowboy again and they look at a USB thing he found in Jolene's house, which is pictures of everybody in Red's life such as Red and Lizzy. Those are, of course, the headliners. There's also Grey, Dembe, Luli. All the hits. Red's like, "Actually, let's see what happens. Maybe she's finishing an operation and we should see how it plays out." I feel like what he is really saying is, "Maybe she will kill Tom Keen and I won't have to, but either way I am glad to know we can break into her house whenever."
JOLENE
The cover of "Jolene" we all knew was coming finally starts playing, which means two things: Tom is going to fall one way or the other, and there's going to be a classic Blacklist montage of everything getting sorted out:
Tom messes with his wedding ring in the hotel bar, and finally heads upstairs to be sad and make more messes. Meanwhile, Jolene's crazed eyes open like she is a vampire with ESP powers that knows he is in her thrall, and she levitates off the bed in a decidedly spooky and horny fashion. He goes down her hallway looking totally normal, and she undulates and acts super weird/magic, like she is summoning him to her through sorcery.
The first victim zombie Hastings learns to read with his family all around him, becoming a person again. I hope that he learned his lesson!
They take Ruth to jail and all the women lay palm fronds and smiles and flower petals at her feet, because she is their queen. I loved that part, it was so neat and eerie and scary and beautiful.
Back in Jolene's hotel room, she is doing vampire sex dances at herself in the mirror because she is the creepiest person who has ever lived, and before he even keycards in there she is like, "I feel your presence!" and then she floats across the room on a magical cloud of sexy death and kisses him for a minute but then he tells her to get lost because he is no kind of cheater, he just wanted to give her keycard back. That is when things get even more amazing than the vampire-witch behaviors.
Tom: "Why I came here is to tell you I can't come here."
Jolene: (Same sequence of angry Crazy Eyes, sad Crazy Eyes, hurt Crazy eyes, super crazy Crazy Eyes.)
Tom: "I know but sorry, because I love my wife."
Jolene: "Wrong answer, fucko. Elizabeth Keen is not your wife, she's your target."
Tom turns, offering a sequence of Crazy Eyes of his own. First, disturbed and grumpy because this lady is so thirsty, and then confused baby deer eyes of confusion, and then radically different Tom eyes of a Tom we have never met but could easily be a serial killer or government agent. YES.
Tom: "What? Fuck you. Did they send you? Those jerks, really? This whole thing was what, a test? You're testing me right now?"
Jolene: "Go on, dude."
Tom: "I told you that I was in love with her, because that is exactly what I am supposed to be. That is my job."
His intensity is a whole new Tom flavor and it is delicious. I think probably he is not evil, he is a spy who got in over his head and fell in love with the person for real, and so he's been under pressure this whole time of having to both retain his cover and also try to protect the person that is his mission, because he loves her. Which means it will all be okay and we will never lose Tom, just get more and more Tom that we didn't know about.
Or alternately, he is super evil and Red is going to murder the hell out of him. But that was going to happen either way, I guess. Which means the whole triangle between them -- with Red always going after Tom because he loves Lizzy and Lizzy ignoring it because she doesn't want him to be right -- is going to get no more complicated, but a lot more powerful, because if I'm right and Tom is actually okay (just shady) and Liz can handle it, which I absolutely assume she can, then all that matters is what side of the War Tom ends up on.
Because you do not want to make Red choose between himself and his Lizzy: That choice is always going to result in the annihilation of everyone else in the building, and all three of them know it.
IN 2 WEEKS
week is the premiere of Believe, which I might actually watch based on the surprisingly dirtbag quality of that show's lead-slash-John the Baptist, which I wasn't expecting. But in two weeks, a Japanese crimelord escapes prison and comes looking for revenge, while Tom finally admits his two-year marriage was a lie and then does a bunch of ninja stuff to a bunch of ninja people, including Jolene and who knows who else. I always knew when the glasses came off it was going to be bonkers, but now that it's finally here... Don't you feel like a wild thing? Two weeks is too long.
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.