It seems that The Blacklist writers have been paying attention. They bring us another truly evil blacklister in “The Architect.†The Architect designs, constructs, and executes the perfect crime. He goes to extreme lengths to make sure that they never get caught. Now, he’s in Philadelphia recruiting hackers of an underground gathering for Black Mass, where the worst of the worst compete.
The task force is ready to take on The Architect and the competition is their way in. There’s no time to get an undercover agent with the expertise in place; Aram has to do it. He’s terrified after his experience with his ex-girlfriend Elise, who turned out to be using Aram to gain access to the FBI for her hacker group, The Thrushes. Aram decides to do it anyway, despite being afraid.
When Aram makes it to the competition site, he’s confused when he sees a familiar face. Elise is here, or should I say Janet? Elise should be in jail, but she’s too valuable of an asset. Not only is Aram now uneasy about being undercover, but he’s trying to prove himself to Elise as well as the Architect. Aram ends up winning the contest, but all that means is that the Architect needs him to break a cop killer out of prison on the day of his execution.
Aram tries to refuse the Architect, but he can’t do it without innocent people getting hurt. He ends up helping them release the killer from prison. Aram watches in horror as both the Architect and the prisoner get away. Ressler and Samar can’t do anything to stop them, so Aram takes matters into his own hands. He picks up the massive weapon that the Architect’s men were using to take out the prison towers and uses it to take out the Architect’s vehicle killing anyone inside. Aram feels awful about taking a life and is upset that they won’t be able to interrogate the Architect for information about his clients, but Samar assures him that it was the right thing to do.
Red locked Isabella Stone in a freezer to interrogate her. She has so much animosity toward him because Red killed her husband after he started talking to the feds. Red drops a bombshell on Stone when he fills her in on a little secret. Her husband walked away from everything he loved to protect her and her innocence. And what does Isabella Stone do? She becomes a career criminal. She asks to see her husband, but Red won’t tell her where he is. Her husband has remarried, but he still remembers his ex wife as she was. Red won’t show him who she has become; he would be devastated.
Isabella Stone revealed that she was given an anonymous package containing files that depicted Red’s entire empire. She also received payment in the form of a credit stick. Red works to try and get the bank owner to reveal the owner of the money. The man refused to get a name for Red until Red threatened an innocent painter. The man finally conceded and decrypted the stick. He was upset with Red because he thought it was a test. The owner of the account where the payment originated was Red. He has been catastrophically compromised. Is there a chance that it could be anyone other than Mr. Kaplan?
Tom is still on a path to try and figure out who he is and how he transformed from Christopher Hargrave to Tom Keen. After hearing Richard Game confess to murdering him as a child, Tom tries to find the truth as to why he knew so much about Christopher Hargrave in order to be charged with his murder. Tom talks to Richard’s mother who revealed that her son confessed to the murder after she received $100,000 and a scripted confession with details about Christopher proving Richard committed the crime. After speaking with Liz, Tom wonders why it was so important that he disappeared. Liz thinks that he should talk to his mother and tell her who he really is. Red warned Tom not to, but can anyone ever really trust that Red has purely unselfish reasons for anything?
