The Blacklist gives us a woman who has been put in an impossible situation. Even worse, Natalie Luca finds herself in Red’s crosshairs when it’s discovered that she’s the one behind the death of his accountant. Meanwhile, Samar and Aram have interesting discussions about equal pay in the workplace.
When Red’s accountant is murdered, the case leads the task force to a woman with a rare ability. Natalie Luca is an asymptomatic woman with Lucien’s disease. One touch from Natalie gives her victims acute meningitis, which is highly lethal. Her victims don’t survive longer than minutes before dying a brutal death. But why would she have any motivation to kill Red’s accountant?
Natalie and her boyfriend, Malik, are leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. It seems like they are trying to find a cure for her, but their scheme is actually deeper than that. Natalie and Malik are looking for a way to make Malik asymptomatic as well. That way they can finally touch and be together. Unfortunately a medical company wants to use Natalie as a weapon, surprise, surprise. When a chase ensues, Malik gets shot in the crossfire. As he’s dying, he lets Natalie touch him for the first time. They were willing to do anything to be together, and it was almost touching, aside from the creepy factor.
Now why did Natalie kill Red’s accountant? Natalie and Malik needed money to fund their research, and it turns out that Natalie is a pretty effective assassin. Red goes to ask Natalie who hired her to kill his accountant. When she tells Red that Isabella Stone hired her, Red is visibly scared. For how terrible the blacklisters have been thus far, it should be interesting to see who Isabella Stone is to have Red so scared. It’s clear now that she’s going after his business, but I’m still wondering if Mr. Kaplan has a hand in this. Does she want Red to suffer for what he did to her?
Samar and Aram have had an interesting relationship ever since she joined the team. Aram has always had feelings for her, but she only just started to reciprocate them. This week, Samar finds out that she’s making 32{3a19833c997fa52158a43c449fe089ff048ac0506a335cac10721cfa396ff282} less than Aram. She knows that they have similar qualifications, and she risks her life in the field. Samar decides to go to Harold Cooper to see if she can reconcile the situation. He offers her a 16{3a19833c997fa52158a43c449fe089ff048ac0506a335cac10721cfa396ff282} raise, and she’s appalled. She tells Aram that it’s an insult and turns down the raise.
Later, Samar finally understands what happened. Aram went to payroll and offered up 16{3a19833c997fa52158a43c449fe089ff048ac0506a335cac10721cfa396ff282} of the extra salary for Samar, so they would be paid equally. It is then that Samar realizes that Aram would do anything for her. Aram thought giving her the money was fair, but she never wanted his money. She’s just happy to have him in her life. After seeing the sacrifice that Natalie Luca and her boyfriend were making to be together, she is happy to have someone who will always be there for her.
After Tom got a chance to play a spy again, both he and Liz know that he needs this in his life. For the first time since Liz and Tom got back together, they have no one to fight. Tom knows that his family is the most important thing, but Liz knows that they aren’t going to work if Tom can’t be who he really is. Is this how he’s going to be able to leave his family to work with his mother on The Blacklist: Redemption?
