Aside from the discovery of other doofuses that have been romantically involved with Elizabeth, The Blacklist offered more substantive hints about the nature of Agent Keen’s relationship to Red and her place in Red’s battle with the Cabal. Dembe, who got more lines in this one episode than all previous installments of The Blacklist put together I think, directed Liz to Red’s secretest secret hideout, where the decoder device to read the Fulcrum awaited.
What else awaited Liz there? A picture of her in a graduation cap, and another framed photo of herself as a little girl being pushed on a swing by a man whose face was bleached out by lens flare. That seals it, Liz’s real father is J.J. Abrams! Seriously though, isn’t that the type of stuff you’d expect a secret father to keep on his secret daughter in his secret hideout? The end of the hour does nothing to deflate the tension between Red and Liz, and after Red confesses the details of his hiring of Tom to protect Liz from getting involved in his world, Liz gets angry when Red adds that there’s still more to the story. Hey, when it comes to Reddington, a partial truth is better than no truth, right?
In other news, Liz’s never before referenced mother was mentioned, perhaps opening up other new mysteries for the show to explore. After getting The Director to stand down with the revelation that the Fulcrum’s been decoded, he tells Liz that he had never noticed before but Agent Keen looks a lot like her mother. What a curious thing to say. Just what exactly does The Director know about Liz’s mom?
The Cabal itself welcomed a new member, the newly minted Attorney General Tom Connolly. I remember speculating a couple of episodes ago if Connolly and his never ending series of impressive favors with strings attached was a sign that he was involved already in the Cabal, but I guess he was still holding on to his amateur status as a Machiavelli figure. It’s a hardly surprising development in any event, but with the Fulcrum out there, attention will soon turn to just what the point of the Cabal is in the first place. Who are they really, and what is their mysterious goal now just two years away?
Maybe the lack of new Blacklist these last couple of weeks made the heart grow fonder, but let’s assume that after a long deviation into more soap opera elements concerning Tom and Liz and do they or can they really still love each other, it was nice to get back to something more substantive and consequential. This time last year, The Blacklist started promoting the idea that there’s more to the list than just a random bunch of people Red wants something from, so where do we go now considering that Red has what he wants? Stay tuned.
