The Blacklist recap: Red and Vesco crash a treasure hunt for the 200th episode
The 200th episode of The Blacklist begins with one of the worst things that can happen in a restaurant restroom: an overzealous bathroom attendant. The chit-chat and the lurking and the literally pumping the hand soap? Torture. Also torture? What the bathroom attendant is now doing to a Mr. Browning, who may have solved some clues to a mysterious hidden treasure from the estate of Warren Bostwick (David Manis). Browning doesn't know anything, but he gets killed regardless. At least he hadn't tipped yet?
The treasure:
Red (James Spader) is cooking breakfast in Cooper's (Harry Lennix) kitchen at an ungodly hour, the result of drinking too much while doing a Revolutionary War reenactment and needing a place to crash in the middle of the night. I have so many questions.
Alas, there's no time, because Red is there to talk about the Hyena. The "lowest of low" Blacklister is a scavenger who finds the hidden fortunes of dead criminals by going after their loved ones.
While not a criminal, Bostwick was a wealthy financier who left hundreds of millions hidden somewhere, and Red knows the Hyena is on the hunt. How does he know? Listen, you're 199.2 episodes in, just trust that Red got the information from somewhere.
At TFHQ, Cooper catches Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq), Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff), and Malik (Anya Banerjee) up on the Hyena, whose actual name is Sean Bane (Greg Yoder). All due respect to the writers who gave the character a legitimate moniker, but I will only be referring to him as the Hyena, because it's way cooler.
The Hyena's next logical targets are Bostwick's triplet daughters (all played by Molly Bernard). Cordelia is in Bolivia and Alex has been off the grid for months, but Kendall is the CFO of the family business and lives in Connecticut.
Scott Gries/NBC Harry Lennix as Harold Cooper, Anya Banerjee as Siya Malik
In overlapping scenes, we watch Red tell Vesco (Stacy Keach) and Kendall tell Dembe and Ressler about Bostwick's treasure. Essentially, Bostwick was disappointed in his children and believed they were waiting for him to die. Hoping to make them work together, he dissolved his entire fortune into a single crypto wallet.
The passcode is in three pieces that can only be found through an original poem, a treasure map filled with clues from his personal life. Red has a copy of the poem because Kendall foolishly paid a cryptanalyst to look it over.
Kendall is a no-nonsense kind of oldest daughter (by 12 whole minutes, thankyouverymuch). She does not want FBI protection, she won't share the poem, and she wants them gone. Ressler does a classic grimace as he complies.
Clue #1:
To find the answer that you seek you'll need to sit with Hemingway. To have or have not your desire, just stay until the sun's last ray.
The Hyena kills Kendall. Ressler and Dembe realize they need to protect Alex, who lives in an 'urban off-the-grid' apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey. When they arrive, Alex is as paranoid as Kendall was dismissive and won't let them inside.
Vesco and Red both knew Bostwick personally (so, probably a criminal after all?) and that means they know about his favorite Atruro Fuete Hemingway cigars, kept in his study. They break into the mansion-slash-crime scene.
Following the instructions of the clue to sit with the Hemingways, our Sherlock and Watson puff and ponder about Bostwick's scavenger hunt. Red's take is that it might have been a welcome distraction so close to death. At the moment of his own demise, Red "just wants to feel alive."
Considering how often he's almost died over the last 199.5 episodes, one has to wonder if that is foreshadowing.
Vesco and Red figure out that the clue wants them to turn on the tableside Handel lamp as the sun sets, where they find the first passcode written inside.
Scott Gries/NBC James Spader as Raymond "Red" Reddington, Stacy Keach as Robert Vesco
Clue #2:
You can't define its radiance. You love it irresistibly. So find the stone I speak of and whisper to it softly.
Red knows Bostwick didn't care for special gemstones. In fact, he only cared about the diamond he bought his late wife. That ring was laser engraved with a security code, which our Hardy Boys think may be what they're looking for. They spot a photograph in Bostwick's study that confirms the ring was inherited by Alex, the Tinfoil Hat Triplet.
Tadashi Ito (Alex Shimizu), our favorite criminal techie, tracks down Alex's off-the-grid address through her single login into a conspiracy-laden chatroom. The treasure hunters decide to take advantage of Alex's fears of ultra-sonic surveillance.
Three groups begin to converge. First, Malik picks up Cordelia, the final sister. She's been convinced to fly back from Bolivia to enter an FBI-guarded safehouse.
Meanwhile, Dembe and Ressler are staking out Alex's building when they spot Red and Vesco. Red playfully thumbs his nose at the van, which Ressler takes personally. Dembe stops him from following because the Hyena might be nearby.
He is! He's right there, actually, and he spots Red as he calls Cordelia. Yup, it turns out the Hyena was hired by the middle sister to find the passcodes. She doesn't care that the FBI and Red are involved, she just wants him to bring Alex to her.
Red and Vesco secret password their way into Alex's apartment and discover she's sold her mother's ring… but her adorable poodle is named Diamond. And just like Bostwick tagged his prize racehorse, the poodle has a discreet ear tattoo. Passcode number two!
The Hyena cuts off the power to the apartment, which sends Alex scurrying out of her secret apartment exit and straight into his arms.
Once they're back on the road, Red ignores a call from Cooper, ignores Vesco's concerns about the trained killer hunting them/hunting the treasure, and instead focuses on the last clue.
David Giesbrecht/NBC Diego Klattenhoff as Donald Ressler, Hisham Tawfiq as Dembe Zuma
Clue #3:
Every story must reach an end, such sadness that it doth impart. To finish mine, drop to a knee and read what's carved upon my heart.
Cordelia has killed the two agents in her safehouse, much to her kidnapped sister's horror. Alex hands over the passcode from Diamond's ear and Cordelia levels a gun at her. The last task, she tells the Hyena, is to destroy the third clue before Red can get to it. We hear, but don't see, the gunshot.
At Bostwick's grave, Cordelia uses a mallet to break apart the facing of her father's monument. The passcode was inlaid on the rose quartz, she smugly tells a late-arriving Red and Vesco. Red points out the Hyena isn't one to share a pot, but it turns out Cordelia didn't kill her sister — she shot the assassin and intends to share the money with Alex.
Cordelia thinks she's covered all her bases, but our resident Poirot and Hastings remind her of the first part of the clue. The story that ended and made Bostwick so sad wasn't his own death, but the death of his wife. Red reads her simple marker (and shoots Cordelia in the foot to prevent her from doing the same), and they leave with the final part of the passcode.
X marks the spot:
At the bathhouse, Tadashi uses the three passcodes to access the wallet. In addition to the expected treasure, he also finds a video file of Bostwick congratulating his daughters on completing the hunt. It's a sad irony, especially overlaid with scenes of Kendall at the morgue, Alex giving her statement to Malik, and Cordelia being led into detention by Ressler.
Despite their past treacheries, Red and Vesco easily split the money. Three ways, rather than just two. Back at the TFHQ, a stunned Alex watches her digital wallet grow. It's nice to see that even hardened criminals like our two Grumpy Old Men still have soft, gooey centers. Their history of betrayals, Red later tells Cooper, are over.
Maybe, maybe not. In a parking garage, Vesco is approached by a Wujing employee who hands over a card and information. Vesco now knows that his arrest was orchestrated by his old friend Red.
The Back-list:
Red's improv chatroom handle: CosmicMuffin.
I can't be the only one who thought the plot was a little bit… Lear-y? Except in that play, Cordelia was the loyal one.
Dembe refusing to give up his onion rings to Ressler was a welcome bit of comedy and also absolutely justified.
You've now watched 200 episodes of The Blacklist. Congratulations! Never forget, the role of Raymond Reddington was offered to Kiefer Sutherland first, but luckily, the part ended up with exactly the right actor.
Who's your favorite Blacklister of all time? Let us know in the comments!
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