Take it to the Grave | The Blacklist “The Caretaker” Review

Now’s the time to get caught up on The Blacklist. With the next episode not airing until April 7th, there’s plenty of time to catch up. This week, the FBI task force took on a blacklister known as “The Caretaker.” The Caretaker is a secret keeper. He maintains an impenetrable safe deposit box. But lately, he’s been releasing secrets that are causing more harm than good. Something is seriously wrong with his system.

I think the Caretaker is a very interesting blacklister. He’s not exactly a terrible criminal; he only holds the secrets of the worst offenders. But, where he hides the secrets is pretty atrocious. The FBI catches the Caretaker removing one of his secrets from inside of a corpse’s body in their grave. When Samar and Ressler question the Caretaker, he assures them that his system is perfect. He released the first secret because someone kidnapped his daughter.

I knew once the FBI tracked the daughter to some motel that something was up. His daughter, Rose, was just lounging on a bed with her supposed attackers in the other room. It turns out I had reason to be suspicious. Rose kidnapped herself and was blackmailing her father. One of her kidnappers admits that he’s her brother, but the Caretaker doesn’t have any other children.

When Rose was a child, the Caretaker saw her with her real father. The Caretaker and his wife had just lost a child a month prior to his encounter with Rose. Her father started to beat on her in the middle of the street, so the Caretaker intervened. He pushed Rose’s father, presumably killing him accidentally. The Caretaker took Rose and never looked back. Her brother wanted to go to the police, but Rose wanted to take it further. Thus, the kidnapping scheme was born. It’s a good thing the FBI intervened before Rose started World War 3 just to get back at her father.

With the case solved and crisis averted for now, Red borrows the Caretakers ledger. He uses the ledger to unearth his own secret that he kept with the Caretaker. The secret was supposed to go to Liz if anything happened to him. Now, Red isn’t sure that he wants her to know. During this entire episode, Dembe has been very vocal that Red should tell Liz these secrets that he’s hiding. Dembe insists that Liz will find out sooner or later. I’m sure she will, but Red is going to do everything he can to keep these secrets from her. He burns the secret, so I guess it will be awhile before we know more than that.

After careful consideration, Liz has decided to keep her baby, and she wants to marry Tom after all. She says, “I want to take care of you for the rest of our lives, for better and definitely for worse.” She tells Red that she’s going to marry Tom, and he can’t seem to understand. He asks Liz how she can just forgive and forget. She says that she hasn’t forgotten. Red explains that some things are unforgivable. But, considering that Red is the reason that Tom is in her life, how can he possibly say that? I think that Liz has forgiven Red for worse things than everything that Tom has done, so he should be happy that she can forgive.

Tom, on the other hand, seems to still be getting himself into trouble. He went to visit his ex girlfriend, Gina, after she tried and failed to have him killed. He wanted to maintain peace between them. He thought they could just go their separate ways, but Gina isn’t interested in peace. She says that it’s boring. Tom promises that if she comes after him again, he will kill her. After Tom leaves, Gina calls someone and lets them know that Tom came to her just like he/she said he would. Who is Gina calling? Is it Red or someone worse?

Now that Liz is going to be a mother, she has decided to try and find out everything she can about her own mother. Even though Liz has been told time and time again that her mother is dead, she’s still determined to get to know her. A man in a nursing home, Anton Velov, is the only person who Liz can turn to for information on her mother. When she visits him, he won’t tell her anything. He only hands her a letter in hopes that Liz will take it to his estranged daughter.

When Liz leaves, one of the workers at the nursing home calls Red to confirm that Velov did not give Liz any information on her mother. Liz finds Velov’s daughter and takes her the letter. His daughter explains that the letter is not meant for her; it’s meant for Liz. Velov and his daughter are not actually estranged; in fact, they speak everyday. Velov told his daughter to expect Liz, and the letter “explains everything.”

After reading the letter, Liz seeks out Red. She is furious with him. Velov believes that her mother is still alive. In the letter, there was a picture of a very young Liz. It was left behind in a hotel where Velov believes her mother had stayed. Now that Liz’s birth name, Masha Rostova, has been in the news, she believes that her mother is out there looking for her. Before Red has a chance to say anything, Liz throws his words right back in his face and says, “You were right. Some things can’t be forgiven.”