Spaders Red's Family Was Murdered as Told to Madeline Pratt
Excellent. The midseason opener gives us an Indiana Jones plotline of stolen artifacts and some juicy morsels of backstory on Lizzie and Reddington. Granted, both characters threw salt on the ground and said they were lying, but didn't the tales ring true to you? I think it's that old adage that the best lies are wrapped in truth. We tin can speculate on how much is true afterward. The lurking question at the root of this episode is: What happens now that Diane Fowler has been killed? Some wheels are starting to turn in the college ranks of the agency and information technology'southward looking like things could get ugly for our people at the Post Office. (I experience like there's a "going postal" joke to be made here.)
We open up on Istanbul. At the Turk Nazlan Bank, where a young Meryl Streep is mourning the loss of her husband by prying open up his prophylactic deposit box. (Are safety eolith boxes still a matter? Do yous become more mysterious when you rent one or is that something that depends on how long you've had it, like interest on an investment? Ponder.) Well, young Meryl Streep gets a existent evil smile when she sees the contents of the box, and then we get a real furrowed brow when the bank agent calls her "Mrs. Reddington." Whaaaat? As she leaves the building, wrapping herself in a silk scarf, the bank's alert goes off and she disappears into the ocean of street vendors.
Cut to Reddington getting acupuncture. It's then nice to see a human being get then much pleasure out of life's little indulgences, y'all know? We could all accept a cue from Red on this. In between administering deathblows to terrorists and spymasters, he tin can still observe the time to decompress with a lilliputian Eastern medicine. But he is not pleased to detect out that his box in Istanbul has been cleared out. Dembe delivers a note from Mrs. Red: "Windsor Lounge, 8pm, — M."
We know Red well plenty to know they're not actually married, just plain there'southward a history here. The lounge exchange confirms this. It also confirms that young Meryl Streep is working out a personal vendetta against Red for the time he stood her upwardly in Florence, which turns out to be a bigger deal than we starting time realize. The former adult female scorned storyline. But that'due south all nosotros get for at present, because we are forced to spend sometime with Tom and Liz.
Even though the procedural aspects of the show can be weak, that tin can exist forgiven. The real thorn in my side is the saga of Tom and Liz's union. The show has given united states of america no reason to believe in their relationship. We don't love Tom and Liz. Let'southward hope they 86 Tom presently, which might happen next week! Thank God.
And so we're back to bitching virtually the baby. Or no infant. But there's notwithstanding a sad ultrasound picture of the maybe baby on the refrigerator, taunting everyone. Enough. She tin can't fifty-fifty brand it home for dinner. What makes them think they should have a child? Simply that's not today'south problem. Today, nosotros are granted a reprieve from the chat considering Tom gets hotheaded when Liz brushes off the news that their friends are having a child and he storms out. Please don't come back, Tom.
Cadger allow Tom stomp away and rushed over to meet the main homo in her life, Scarlet. He's pacing effectually Jordan Belfort's beautiful domicile. Some stockbroker who's dodging the feds has left his house unattended, and Cerise knows the housekeeper (obviously). Simply Red is in a huff because he can't stand the Vermeer in the living room! The woman in the painting is rather homely. It must be one of the earlier Vermeers, before he met Scarlett Johansson. "She'southward breathtakingly unattractive, but she'south worth over 40 million dollars," Red says. "I got up in the centre of the night for a snack and she admittedly ruined my ambition." I would sentinel a whole show of James Spader complaining almost his first world problems.
Now nosotros finally get young Meryl Streep's name, Madeline Pratt, "a thief and a woman of…singular talents." Cerise tastes the word "singular" equally he says information technology, practically licking his lips. Jeez. Pratt is the next proper noun on The Blacklist and she has enlisted Red to assistance her with some Indiana Jones plot to steal an Egyptian relic. Then comes the exchange where Liz and Red accept to size each other upward for the mean solar day. Who is going to win the deflection game?
Liz: "Now you want something of hers and you look the FBI to help you go information technology."
Red: "It was the correct determination. Not to have the baby."
Liz: "What did she take from you?"
Red: "I'm sorry for your suffering."
I'd say information technology's a depict.
With no persuading Liz agrees to help Red with Madeline Pratt, so they caput off to run across David Lee from The Good Wife. David Lee tells them that they are looking for "the figure," which holds within of information technology a list of Soviet spies called the Kungur Vi and finding the spies would be "the holy grail of The states counter-intelligence." I mean, Indiana Jones right?
At the Mail service Function, Cooper and Malik are abuzz over the disappearance of Diane Fowler. Malik is getting Cooper all riled about it and throws Reddington under the motorbus. I don't understand her game. She turned Diane's proper noun over to Reddington, knowing full well that he was going to handle her like her handles all of his Blacklisters – with swift and deadly justice. Then why is she acting all ruffled about it now? She seemed to agree that Diane was a traitor, and so isn't it best she's been eliminated?
Cooper tries to threaten Ruddy for information on Diane. If ever at that place was a definition of futility, it'due south trying to get information out of Reddington. Blood-red does his "I'1000 then bored by what you're proverb I'll just have my own chat" thing, cut Cooper off mid-diatribe: "who decided on this wood paneling?"
Cooper: "If I find out you had annihilation to do with the disappearance of Diane Fowler, you lot'll spend the rest of your life in a box."
Red: "You smell nice. Something new?"
Cooper: "Did you hear me?"
Red: "Madeline Pratt."
Poor Coop. No 1 is scared of him. The pretty ginger used to be the distressing one, but now information technology's Coop. He gets bossed effectually by Red and later by Special Agent Scary Gary, who pulls major rank on the Fowler investigation. He should simply become back to being Boyd and handle the Dollhouse. He was much better at that.
Madeline Pratt turns out to be a jewel thief parading as a socialite. She likes to steal pretty things and sometimes things that affect national security – this effigy hits both of those marks. Currently the gold statue is existence held at a secure fly of the Syrian Diplomatic mission and Ms. Pratt doesn't desire to exercise the job personally, so she'south asked Reddington to practice information technology. (Insert skeptical side-heart hither.) Red thinks Pratt has a Russian buyer for the figure, since the Russians want to protect the identity of the Kungur Half dozen. Coop does his duty and says "hell no," but changes his mind 15 seconds later when Reddington throws Agent Slap-up's name out there, calling her an "ace of spades" at thieving. Ressler, who is e'er so quick to presume Dandy is guilty, demands to know if she has a criminal record. "So you don't have a criminal record because you've never committed a criminal offence or because y'all were never defenseless?" He asks and she replies, "Yeah." Instead of going, "that wasn't an answer," Cooper is like, "Great, let'south go this heist rolling."
Liz goes in for the jewel thief interview with Madeline Pratt, and she passes with flying colors because it turns out she is a thief! Red prompts Liz to tell Maddie most Frank. Liz quickly picks upwards the line and says Frank was a guy she knew in loftier school with whom she'd grifted. Could be true, could be false. Merely and so Red says, "Tell her about Omaha," and Liz looks visibly shaken – Scarlet definitely struck a chord. Liz tells a story about how she and her beau were stealing from a mall store when the security baby-sit almost caught Frank. To save this boy who she thought meant everything to her (hmm sounds like another human relationship nosotros detest), 17-year-old Liz takes the security guard outside and "kisses him off." To prove herself further, Liz palms Madeline's telephone. Finally, something really interesting about Lizzie! She was a lilliputian crook as a trivial girl ad she can practise hand magic. I like this side of her.
NEXT PAGE: Madeline and Liz become down to planning There's a party at the Syrian Embassy to which Liz will be invited, and she'll sneak into the vault in that location. Madeline has everything covered except for a security badge that Liz needs to get from some poor schmuck who wears his primal card on his outer jacket lapel and gets his coffee at 4 p.thou. every solar day. (Their security is closed.) And then Liz does a "brush past" and swipes the bill of fare. Aram sits in a van and duplicates the bill of fare, but they need a lark to buy a niggling more fourth dimension, so Ressler jumps out of the white van and runs directly into the Syrian, spilling coffee everywhere. And so, like this poor human is in a pinball auto, Liz does a second "brush past." As if he wouldn't find that he'd been pawed in the chest three times in his walk to the coffee cart. In the meantime, Gluey Fingers Liz reveals she swiped Madeline's SIM menu when she palmed her phone, and then they can search her phone records. Dainty going.
Equally Lizzie is slipping into her surreptitious evening wearable, Tom proposes that they spend the weekend in Orlando, since he has to go at that place for a conference. What exercise you recall she says? Honey, you know I piece of work 24 hours a day catching international offense bosses, so I won't be able to make information technology? Honey, I'g deeply suspicious about your murky past, so no I don't want to go to Florida where all freaky, unsolved crimes happen? Nope. She says yep.
The showtime sign of trouble starts when Reddington tells Liz that Madeline is dating a Russian Mafioso and the two of them volition be at the political party tonight. "Why would she hire us to steal the effigy when she's obviously planning on stealing information technology herself?" Lizzie asks. At that place'southward only one reply to that question, but they don't bother dwelling on information technology. Full speed ahead.
Meanwhile back at the P.O., Cooper tells Malik he wants her to investigate the suspected murder of Diane Fowler. "Who did he talk to? I want to know everything." Cooper says, not realizing that it's Malik who talked to Reddington. Behind the curve once more, Coop.
At the party, the heist begins with Cherry telling Lizzie: "You're not a cop this night. You're a criminal. Just be yourself." Subtle, Cherry. Real subtle. Lizzie tells Ruddy she fabricated upward the Omaha story, just he doesn't buy that and neither do nosotros.
The heist unravels when Lizzie triggers the alarm on the prophylactic. Clearly this was a fix by Madeline, who and then fingers Ruby-red as the thief, and amidst the chaos she pinches the effigy from the safe room. But the best scene in the prove is when Reddington pretends to be Lizzie's gay friend in lodge to distract the gun-toting guard who's got her tied to a chair. "Do you have any thought whose horn this tramp is blowing? It starts with Bashar and ends with Assad gassing you faster than a Sunni."
The break-in was a boggle and Cooper is T.O'd, guys. Where is Red? Off dealing with Madeline in his own way. Well the Feds want to be doing something too, and so they round upwards a human whose male parent stole the effigy from the British Museum years earlier. (Where was this amenable informant yesterday?) From their conversation with him, they realize that the Kundur Six isn't a list of names, information technology's a list of coordinates for nuclear weapons hidden across the United Sates past the Soviets. Whoa, upping the stakes.
NEXT PAGE: Red tells Madeline how he lost his family Cooper isn't the merely one with a bee in his bonnet over that embarrassing heist failure. Reddington doesn't like to be played either. So he catches up with Madeline, hoping to strong arm some information out of her. Well, she starts to lose it on him, yammering well-nigh how he stood her upwards in Florence and how dare he? This adult female is an international thief – would she really jeopardize a deal this big because Reddington slighted her in one case? Before nosotros have time to exist annoyed past this conversation, some Syrians whip out stun guns and kidnap both Cherry and Maddie.
Cut to them in cells, Reddington lying in a heap on the floor after being tortured for information. Sweating and haemorrhage, he begins to tell Madeline the long, sad story of how he came to lose his family. It was Christmas Eve and he was stranded on the side of the highway when he ran out of gas afterward doing some last-minute Christmas shopping. Forced to walk v miles home in the snow, he opened the door to his house to find blood everywhere. He works his jaw effectually as he thinks about it, like he's chewing on glass to revisit these memories. Spader knocks these growled monologues out of the park.
"I can yet experience her little fingers on my cheek," he says thinking about his lost girl. "That's why I didn't testify up in Florence. That's why I don't show up a lot of places." Nosotros watch Madeline's confront through a square grate in the cell wall as she hears this story. Tears stream downwards her cheek. When the Syrians come to take hold of Reddington over again, she breaks down and says she'll tell them what they want to know and writes the effigy'south location on a pad of newspaper. Reddington miraculously appears from the next room in a perfectly pressed conform, like he'd just stepped out for lunch. Gotcha b**ch. Simply I feel a little bad for Madeline. She evidently really loved him. When she asks if whatever of it were true, the story about his family, he doesn't reply. What exercise you think? I call up it was true, apparently just a small fragment of a much larger story, but all the same a true moment.
The FBI shows upward at the site Madeline had written downwards, just as her beau the Russian Mafioso is making the effigy option-upwards. Gunfire ensues and they become the statue, merely the figurine is filled just with sand, non coordinates. Hey, wait a minute…that tricky Reddington. He has the nuclear bombs list because he sugariness-talked them out of Madeline before he spirited her out of the land. So he offers Cooper a trade, the nukes for the figure. He wants the pretty gold statue for his mantle. It actually ties the room together.
Equally STRFKR, "Rawnald Gregory Erickson the 2d" plays, softly chanting "all my life/in that location you go/oh please stay/merely this one time/anyhow," Liz calls Tom and gets his voicemail. He's left early for Orlando afterward announcing that some time apart is what they really need correct now. Finally some sense-talking from Warby Parker, except that "fourth dimension apart while in Orlando" is a recipe for disaster, sure enough Jolene is also at this Florida briefing.
But at that place was a actually sugariness scene, when Agent Ressler sticks around the office to give Liz some emotional back up afterwards she tells him that Tom is probably going to leave her. When can this relationship happen??? Sexy Ressly is the best. What a plow-around from his early on days as the annoying ginger who had to do everything by the books. To cease the montage, Liz works on her sleight-of-hand past hiding and revealing the ultrasound pic of the mayhap baby. Deep thoughts.
Nosotros shut with poor Coop getting paid a visit from Special Amanuensis Walter Gary Martin, whose nickname on the force is definitely "Scary Gary." Scary Gary tells Coop that he needs to stop looking into Diane Fowler. He drops some pretty heavy bureaucratic spy jargon on him. "I've been cleared level four. I'grand going to need all your case files. The D.C. Field Office is running point. It'due south protocol." Yowza. Well, if it'south protocol then I'd better practice it.
The Blacklist - Season two
The Blacklist
James Spader is Raymond "Red" Reddington, a mastermind criminal who teams upwards with the FBI.
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Source: https://ew.com/recap/the-blacklist-episode-14-madeline-pratt/
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