Jon Bokenkamp was not bluffing.
Stormare, the nihilist with the “nice marmot” fromThe Big Lebowski.
Stormare, the white-suited Satan fromConstantine.ThePeter Stormareand his backstory is a Greek tragedy of horror.
Credit: Virginia Sherwood/NBC
What an excellent addition to an already stacked cast.
I can’twaitfor next season.
But before we get to season 2, we had to get through quite a bloodbath.
We opened the show with bodies on the ground.
(It’s safe to assume every extra on this show is a criminal.)
Lauer reports that the plane crash has resulted in a wave of escaped prisoners infiltrating New York City.
Only one minute in, and we’re already bathing in blood.
Gary gloats over Red as they cuff him to the bars of his cell.
“You are going to disappear.
The girl, Agent Keen, was she was worth all this?”
The FBI task force is piecing together intel on the crash.
Meanwhile, some horrific looking Russian with no eyebrows is doing calisthenics in his gulag of a bedroom.
(Shout out:he’s watching theTodayshow.Because hello, NBC’sTodayis for everyone.)
“Are we still going ahead with this?”
The Russian just leers.
Luckily, smug looks good on Red.
So Alan agrees to give Red a “transfer,” a.k.a.
a means for him to escape “by accident” without alerting the rest of his Alliance cohort.
“Everyone on the task force is now a target,” he tells Red as a last warning.
Guess who’s waiting in the car during the transfer?
“Of course it would have to be youbecause Lady Luck just adores me that much.”
Ohh, Gary is so bitter.
“Two shots to the jaw is all you get, and make it count.
One shot is all Red needs.
He clocks Gary and then strangles the driver, who crashes the car.
But Reddington spirits away.
Malik and Ressler separate; he takes the VIP lounge, and she cases the dance floor.
Malik sees a hulking mobster in a suit watching her, and follows him down a dark hallway.
She clutches her neck, blood seeping between her fingers, and falls to the floor dead.
Keen goes to tell Reddington that Malik is dead and asks him why they are being targeted.
“I’m afraid just by association I’ve made you all targets,” he says.
“It was Tom,” Liz says.
I’m trying very hard not to be surprised when you say something clever.
Red assures her that his only connection to this was as her father.
Can’t blame her; Red lies easily.
That person wanted Berlin and the rest of the prisoners, and Red wants to know why.
Another potential criminal for season 2?
(Shout out:Ressler mocking the Russian’s accent.
Persuasion looks a lot like eating peaches with the Ambassador’s Yorkie puppy.
As he’s talking, the little Yorkie whines.
“If you hurt him…” the Russian says.
“Oh, no, no, no.
So we get the manifest.
Using the manifest, the Feds can account for all but four prisoners.
One of these must be Berlin.
Their best lead is the one-handed guard who is recovering from surgery.
As Ressler and Keen charge off to question him, Cooper tosses Liz an evidence bag.
It has the bracelet that the little girl in the pilot gave her.
“I thought it might remind you of all the good we’ve done,” Cooper says.
Thanks, Coop-a-loop, you sentimental man.
At this point, it becomes pretty clear that he’s actually Berlin.
Peter Stormare should do crime fiction audiobooks.
His husky voice is entrancing, alternating between a harsh whisper and a rumbling growl.
He recounts the story of Berlin.
But he had a daughter who fell in love with a dissident, so she was thrown in jail.
It had her picture inside.
So now he’s on a vengeance mission to murder the man responsible for his daughter’s death.
Clearly, he thinks this is Reddington.
(Could Reddington be the dissident she was in love with?)
Meanwhile, Agent Cooper and Scary Gary are having a pow-wow at the waterfront.
Gary is sporting his shiner from earlier.
Cooper is confused and, frankly, a bit put out by all this flip-flopping.
Reddington is obviously the only asset in this task force.
It’s not hard to believe the FBI sees that.)
“I don’t want Red.
People do,” Gary says.
Cooper calls after him.
Nearby, the eyebrow-less Russian crosses Cooper’s name off his hit list.
The Feds pick up the hulk and Ressler gets to question him.
Ressler wants answers from this scary cat who is not properly afraid of his clean-cut good looks.
“I used to be a real boy scout,” Ressler says.
“I followed all the rules.
And I realized that sometimes that’s okay.
Like when some greasy Russian starts murdering my friends.”
He uses his coat sleeve to choke the Russian into talking.
Yes, Sexy Ressly!
The hulk gives up the eyebrow-less man as Berlin.
Which is a ruse, though our heroes don’t know that.
Red passes this info along to Alan Alda, who sets about tracking this guy down.
“So Sam raised her as his own, sheltering her from the truth about his biological father.”
Liz presses him again for the truth.
“I remember him pulling me out of the fire, saving me.”
Red insists knowing her father’s identity would put her in grave danger.
“I loved Sam.
NEXT: Which body parts would you rather I shoot?
That’s way harsh, Tai.)
He straps him to a chair.
“You want to know the key to finding people, remembering their names.
Even with all these names, he doesn’t have any idea who Berlin is or what he wants.
So we turn to the gun.
“Being shot in the hand is just an absolute bitch.
All those little bones.
At least it goes right through.
Worst part, honestly?
Is needing someone to help zip your fly.
Being shot in the hip, on the other hand, Jiminy Cricket.
Thick bone, big artery, not to mention the fact that it makes walking upright forever impossible.”
Eyebrows finally breaks: “Beirut, 2010.”
Liz is waiting in the car while Red tortures the Russian.
Suddenly, in jumps her husband, Tom Killer Keen.
“Hey babe,” he says, all smokey and villain-y.
Arghhh, not the “babe!”
Too good.The Blacklistis excellent at making you feel excited, scared, eager and anxious all at once.
Things start to get really out of hand.
Tom is threatening Red.
Eyebrows is yelling for Tom to shoot Liz.
Tom is clearly trying not to shoot Liz.
Liz is begging for her life.
Red shoots Eyebrows in the head and goes, “Well that simplifies things.”
Tom shoots at Red, but the bullet only grazes his arm.
Liz whips around and suddenly bang!
she fires two shots into Toms’s stomach with his gun.
When Red lifts his weapon to plug Tom in the head, Liz stops him.
“No, hey go.
I’ll finish it.
This is between us.”
Don’t die, Tom!
Luckily, when the FBI comes to check out the crime scene later, Tom’s body is missing.
All that’s left of the task force are Ressler, Keen, and Aram.
When Keen relays the news to Reddington, he is unsurprised.
“I need Berlin to believe that I think he’s dead.
That gives us an advantage.”
She chooses option B.
During the ending montage, Liz sits in her now clean house and flips through photos of Sam.
Her stuff is packed; she’s leaving town.
As Ressler sits by Cooper’s hospital bed, he notices his hand twitchso Cooper will live.
As Reddington is putting his bags in the car, Liz pulls up.
When Red sees her, his whole face lights up.
She’s choosing option A after all.
They sit and talk, and Liz reveals what Tom whispered to herthat her father is alive.
Red says that her father died in that fire; there’s no uncertainty.
It shows Berlin’s daughterthe same picture that he has in his pocket watch.
He unbuttons his shirt to dress the gunshot wound he got from Tom.
As he pulls the shirt off, we see that his entire back is covered in burn scars.
So he was definitely the one that saved Liz from the fire and deposited her to Sam’s door.
He would never have hired the Stewmaker to melt a woman.
So the question is, who is the Russian who ordered the prison plane to round up Berlin?
Is that the same man who murdered Berlin’s daughter, the woman who was possibly Reddington’s lover?
Why is Tom Keen working for Berlin?
Who the hell is Liz’s father?
But most importantlywhat to do to pass the time until season 2?
