The Blacklist pulled out all of the stops in its fall finale with “Dr. Adrian Shaw: Conclusion.†When we left off last week, Liz just found out that she’s not Alexander Kirk’s daughter and can’t help to save him. Kirk puts his escape plan in motion, and Red warns Liz and company to get out now before they get hurt.
Red’s warnings are too little too late. Kirk gets out of the hospital with Elizabeth in tow. Thankfully, he doesn’t want to hurt her just yet. He’s still convinced that Red altered all of the DNA tests. Kirk takes Liz to an undisclosed location and has his people run DNA tests. They came to the same conclusion; Liz is not Kirk’s daughter. Now that Kirk has virtually no need for Liz anymore, Red offers to trade his life for hers. Kirk knows that he’s going to die, and all he wants is to put a bullet in Red’s head before he does.
When Red arrives, Liz says that he shouldn’t have come. Red has the perfect answer, “A ripe apple falls. It doesn’t know what else to do.†He was always going to sacrifice himself for her. But, this is Raymond Reddington; he always has something up his sleeve. We finally get to see why Red was so interested in Dr. Adrian Shaw. It turns out that Shaw’s ground breaking research actually worked. She had a patient, Lucille Bockes, who received successful treatment and has been living comfortably for years.
While being tortured, Red tries to give this option to Kirk. He will bring Lucille Bockes for Kirk’s team to verify that she has been cured. Then, Dr. Shaw can work to cure Kirk. Red can save them both. It seems, though, that Kirk is only interested in one thing. He just keeps asking if Red is Liz’s father. Red seems to finally admit that he is Liz’s father, but did he only say that because of the torture? The one thing that I thought was interesting was that they tested Liz’s DNA against Kirk’s. Couldn’t they do the same for Red’s DNA to prove once and for all if he truly is her father?
Kirk doesn’t seem like he wants to take Red up on saving his life even once he proved that Lucille Bockes is the real deal. Red takes the opportunity to talk about Katarina while he has Kirk’s full attention. He tells Kirk that he was an assignment for Katarina, and Kirk probably was as well. Kirk didn’t care; he knew that they were a family and were happy. Red asks Kirk to remind him of the kind of woman Katarina was. Kirk said that Katarina was always so alive and carefree. Then, just as Kirk is about to deliver the final blow to Red, Red whispers something in his ear that prevents him for killing Red. What could Red have possibly said to keep himself alive?
Meanwhile, Mr. Kaplan is still with the man in the woods. Her fever broke, but she spoke Raymond’s name. The man wonders why she’s protecting the men who shot her and left her to die. He realizes that he can’t hold her prisoner forever, but he doesn’t know what to do with her just yet. He knows that she doesn’t trust him, so how can he trust her. He’s squatting in his little cabin, and it’s on public property. If she tells anyone that he’s there, he could lose everything.
Now that Mr. Kaplan is getting stronger, the man decides to untie her. He trusts that if she leaves, she won’t tell anyone about it. Mr. Kaplan stays for a seemingly last meal with this man. She explains a little bit about what happened to her. She says that if they even suspect that she’s alive, then there’s nowhere that she’ll be safe. She didn’t want to tell him about Red and Dembe because she wanted to protect the man from them. After she regains her strength, Mr. Kaplan leaves the cabin. She’s picked up by a man in a truck, but where will she go? I’m very curious about how her storyline will unveil next year.
