The Blacklist recap: The Task Force's secret is exposed
I had no idea that I needed to know what the various members of the Task Force wear to bed, but it turns out that the writers of The Blacklist know me better than I know myself.
Red (James Spader) starts this episode by making middle-of-the-night wake up calls for an impromptu meeting at TFHQ. Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq) and Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) both sleep in T-shirts (disappointing), but Malik (Anya Banerjee) is passed out on top of a bed still wearing last night's hot pink satin cocktail dress (perfect, 10/10, no notes, she is LIVING).
Neither Cooper (Harry Lennix) nor Herbie (Alex Brightman) are asleep because of their kids; Cooper is relearning algebra for Agnes, and Herbie is holding a wide-awake Sue.
When they all gather, Red explains that he's gotten a tip from a drinking buddy that the Freidman Report is going to get stolen. No one has any idea what that is — and for good reason, because it's a top-secret Air Force report detailing the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Ressler grumpily demands to know what's in this case for Red, but the criminal mastermind protests that it is just a win for the Task Force.
We all know that can't be true, but it's 5 a.m. for these folks, so I'll cut them a little slack for not realizing that Red is, once again, playing them like puppets.
Will Hart/NBC James Spader
Speaking of manipulation, let's check in on the increasing villainy of Congressperson Arthur Hudson (Toby Leonard Moore). He's still leaning on Jonathan Pritchard (Mackenzie Astin) to help him spy on the Task Force. Pritchard is obviously reluctant to betray his sponsor and friend, but Hudson argues that the Raymond Reddington connection must be exposed.
Hudson gives his recruit an NSA phone tap that needs to be uploaded to Ressler's cell. Despite his protests, Pritchard is clearly wavering.
Dembe and Ressler meet with Margo Rutherford (Jenna Stern). She's the deputy director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and thank goodness we're living in a post-business card world because that would never fit on one tiny paper square. Rutherford is livid they even know about the report, let alone that they have information she doesn't.
She gets more on board when they discover that General Freidman (Daryl Edwards) took a secure laptop to work on the report at home.
Inside the general's house, we see the remote worker in his bathrobe and slippers booting up the laptop. That's right, four-star generals are just like us! Outside the house, the would-be thieves are getting ready to enter.
Luckily, Dembe figures out the signal jammers most thieves use block data, but won't block cell phone wi-fi. They video call just in time to get the general into his panic room. The heist crew starts to use a blowtorch to get in, but a mysterious boss calls the team and aborts the mission so they can escape before the FBI show up.
Will Hart/NBC Alex Brightman as Herbie Hambright, Diego Klattenhoff as Donald Ressler
Dembe and Ressler figure out a neighbor has a brand-new security camera, which leads them to a picture of one of the thieves. but Ressler is interrupted by an emergency call from Pritchard.
After being interrupted by an emergency call from Pritchard, Ressler meets him at a diner and does an excellent job of talking his sponsee through a fight with his wife and his urges to use drugs again. Pritchard borrows his cell to fake-call his wife and uses the NSA device to download the tap onto Ressler's phone.
I guess he got over his reluctance and is on team betrayal now?
Herbie figures out that the man in the security picture is part of the cleaning crew at the U.S. Capitol building. Looking at security feeds of the miles and miles of underground corridors, they find an odd dead spot.
Malik and Ressler go there to find the missing area and end up at the titular Room 417. When they get the door open, they are horrified to find an absolutely epic level of surveillance.
A massive bank of computers and monitors show live feeds of dozens of offices, including the offices of the speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader, the Supreme Court deliberation room, and more. All of the most important public officials in the country are being actively bugged and monitored.
As the stunned security officer who opened the room says, "This is… I have to alert someone... everyone."
The only clue they've got is the fax machine — yes, I said fax machine — sitting in the middle of all of the high-tech spy equipment. Harold is the only Task Force member who remembers the 1980s, so he is also the one who knows how to reprint the last sent fax.
The last communication out was the information about the Friedman Report to an unknown phone number. Herbie suspects that Red may actually have gotten this fax from someone rather than the story about a drinking buddy.
So close, Herbie! So close!
No one can get a hold of Red, so the team works on the phone number. It turns out it's part of an off-grid telephone exchange, a relic from before the mergers and breakup of the Bell telephone systems. Kids, ask your grandparents.
Point being, this phone number is privately operated by a company called Evelyn Strategies. There's an incorporation address for the company (which Malik finds oddly familiar sounding) and they head out.
At Evelyn's offices, Dembe and Ressler find a room full of fax machines. One is still powered up and prints a message from room 417.
Dembe is more alarmed to realize that the other fax machines all have different country codes attached to them. He laughs almost admiringly as he puts the pieces together: They've found a worldwide analog system of information gathering that has been operating expertly and anonymously for decades.
And that means it can only belong to one person. "Donald, what you are looking at is Raymond Reddington's intelligence empire," he says. "Or it was."
That's right! Like the world's fanciest garage sale and the Morgana Logistics Corporation going-out-of-business adventure, this is another part of Red's criminality that he is letting the Task Force "catch."
It is a terrifyingly big piece, though — the way he always seemed to know what was happening at the highest levels of power.
While we ponder that, Pritchard is throwing the NSA spyware back on Hudson's desk. He also defends Ressler's honor, telling the congressperson, "He's a good man. You probably think you're a pretty good man, too." To his minor credit, that thought seems to shake Hudson a little.
Dembe and Ressler call in to their team. Cooper is aghast to learn that Dembe didn't know about Red's fax-farm, but the agent points out that Red only told him so much over the years. He does bring up the time Red took him and Elizabeth to his Latvian intelligence outpost (if you remember, that was analog as well and had plenty of fax machines!).
The team realizes that Red has been in charge this entire time, down to providing the security camera sweepstakes to General Friedman's neighbor. Malik has also remembered that Evelyn was one of the fake companies that Morgana operated, so they link that to him as well.
Cooper, finally understanding that Red has sent the Task Force to essentially destroy the most important parts of his work, is baffled and all riled up about Red's continuing duplicity.
Will Hart/NBC Anya Banerjee as Siya Malik
Meanwhile, Hudson is working with a tech savvy NSA Agent (Will Dagger) to get Ressler's phone tap up and running. Their timing is horribly perfect — they splice right into the current call.
Cooper, unaware he's being recorded, essentially admits to a truckload of crime. He not only confirms that they've been working with Red for 12 years but that they've protected him while he committed massive seditious and criminal acts, and "in a way, we've been his partners in treason."
It's like Hudson rubbed a magic lamp on Christmas Day at his own birthday party.
The Congressperson works himself up in a lather as he realizes that Red isn't corrupting a single task force because his status as a criminal informant means that top officials must have sanctioned the operation. The corruption, as they say, goes all the way to the top!
Cooper goes home and is not surprised to find Red sitting at his kitchen island, pouring him a much-needed welcome-home scotch.
Red admits to everything they've figured out and further explains that he shut down his operation in this way to make sure his employees were wealthy enough to have good fugitive lives that didn't require signing up with other, less competent criminals.
As always, working for Red is dangerous, but there are really nice benefits.
Cooper is more focused on how shutting down his network means no more juicy cases for the Task Force. When he brings up the immunity agreement, Red laughs. He reminds Cooper that he deleted every trace of that immunity agreement, even if the attorney general doesn't know that yet.
Cooper pushes Red to explain why he's doing any of this. Red responds with the story of President Garfield's assassination. Aww, a meandering history lesson in lieu of a direct answer! I'm gonna miss this character so much.
Anyway, it took Garfield more than two months to die from his gunshot wound. Various doctors and scientists came up with radical new treatments trying to save him, many of which probably led directly to his death.
Red pauses. "This is where you usually ask me if I have a point."
"I'm tired of encouraging you," Cooper replies wearily.
Red gets to his point, ambiguous though it might be. "Things end. Sometimes despite our best efforts and best intentions, or sometimes because of that effort and intent. Things end."
That is sadly proven in our next scene. Pritchard sits on a bench with a bottle of pills, considering them. He ignores a call from Hudson and dry swallows a handful, ending his hard-won sobriety.
Hudson sits in his office and listens to Cooper say the word "treason" over and over again. He's got his smoking gun.
The only question now is what he'll do with it.
The Back-list:
Red sweetly takes an FBI pen as a keepsake.
The color of the TFHQ walls? Anvil gray! Herbie has checked!
Malik on Red: "I feel like we don't say it enough, but that man is so strange."
Herbie on locating the culprit: "If they're still communicating by fax, you might try a Steely Dan concert."
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