So, why was Red so invested invested in Powell’s memory recovery serum, or whatever it was? Because he knows a woman with a traumatic memory from her past that he needs to recover. It’s been sometime since the mystery of the Fulcrum has been addressed in a place more direct that in the periphery, but wasn’t the point of recovering the memory to find the location of Fulcrum? And didn’t Liz already find it in her old bunny? And doesn’t Red know that she has it even he doesn’t know what it is?
On the other hand, maybe memory recovery for Liz isn’t such a bad idea, because why else would she entertain calls from Tom? Even in spite of the fact that he came back of his own free will to get her off the hook for the death of the harbormaster Ames, he gets no credit for taking responsibility for the murder he committed. Still, Tom’s great love of Liz seems to save him again when the neo-Nazis he was infiltrating in Germany come looking for him, torturing him and his mentor McCready for information about the operation they were committing. Apparently, Tom was trying to find out who killed Sarah Hastings, whoever she is.
When the gang threatens to go after Liz if Tom doesn’t give up the information they’re looking for, he acquiesces and makes an enemy of McCready, a turn that ends up sending Tom to find support from the last person who should give it to him: his ex-wife.
Oh Liz, why are you indulging Tom? I already assume that this is the direction that things are going to go in, and Liz will hide Tom from the growing list of enemies he’s making. Why? Because she does absolutely foolish things so far as this man’s concerned, and in no way is it convincing that she still has feelings for him. At least Tom’s desperation is believable, and at least it staves off sorta icky implications of a Liz/Russler romance that this episode teased at.
One mystery that admittedly was rather compelling was the ultrasound with Liz’s name on it that Tom was carrying. Was Liz pregnant at one point, because I don’t think that’s ever been mentioned at all. Or maybe it was the ultrasound of the baby Liz and Tom almost adopted? But then wouldn’t the birth mother’s name be on it? Well, at least it took my mind for a minute off the list of ways that time on The Blacklist could be better spent on things that have nothing to do with Tom Keen.
To end on an upbeat note, let’s salute the appearance of Kevin Weisman, who to me was channeling a lot of Marshall Flinkman in playing FBI coroner Dr. Jeffrey Maynard, especially in that scene where he’s telling Liz and Russler about about the transgenics of jelly fish and glow-in-the-dark bunnies. Weisman was always a consistently solid player on Alias, even when that show had gone to seed and stood a pale shade of its previous greatness. The Blacklist isn’t there yet, but a step in the right direction might be to dump Tom and make Dr. Maynard a regular character, because the show really needs some kind of dynamic move to get its mojo going again.
