There were plenty of moving parts this week on The Blacklist. “Drexel†proved to be a worthy adversary on the blacklist. With Tom fighting for his life, Liz has a lot to think about, especially when the police become involved.
The case of the week falls into the FBI’s lap when a tech guru was murdered in his new home. The crime scene was staged to look like a piece of art. The artist is our blacklister of the week known as Drexel. Raymond Reddington explains that Drexel has a small but rabid following. He makes them feel like they are part of an underground movement. Drexel displays his kills as a work of art, often presenting multiple kills a part of an art exhibit.
Samar and Ressler talk with the tech guru’s partner at their start up company. During their interview, it is clear that Drexel has eyes everywhere. He’s watching the interview take place through some camera in the room. When looking through the tech guru’s laptop, Aram discovers that Drexel was using the webcam to spy on him. The technology he used is NSA grade software. The NSA technology allows the user to remotely access anything.
An NSA worker uploaded the technology because he didn’t like what the NSA would do with it. I guess he didn’t think of the implications that it would have if a criminal got his hands on the program. And it gets worse. The FBI tracks down the technology being used at a warehouse, and wouldn’t you know, the tech guru and his partner had a side business. They called that place the RAT (Remote Access Trojan) Farm. They let people pay to access certain camera feeds whether it be to spy on someone specific or just watch random feeds.
While the FBI works on shutting down the NSA technology, Reddington goes after Drexel. A reporter is in line to interview Drexel soon. Red tracks her down and uses her to get to Drexel. When Drexel realizes that she brought Raymond Reddington to their meeting, he’s upset. Red and Dembe break up their scuffle, and Red confronts Drexel. Red asks for information from Drexel and then leaves him there for the FBI to find. Isn’t that an easy capture for the FBI.
Tom wasn’t doing so hot this week. After Gina and her crew left him to die, Tom ended up digging a bullet out of his thigh in a stranger’s bathroom. He passed out and was taken to the hospital. Luckily for Tom, we meet up with our old doctor friend, Nick. If you think back to the “Leonard Caul†episode, Reddington had just been shot, and Nick was an old friend of Liz’s. Nick was introduced to save Red from his gunshot wound, and he did. When Red offered to get Nick out of debt, Liz begged him not to take the money. It turns out that he did just that.
Liz confides in Nick about her frustrations with always being linked to Red, and Nick knows better than anyone. Tom, on the other hand, is anything but out of the woods. The police are about to bring in the owner of the jewelry store from which Gina’s crew stole. There’s no way that the owner won’t immediately out Tom as one of the thieves who stole his diamonds.
By now, I guess we should all know better. The owner walks into the hospital room and immediately recognizes Tom. But, he tells the cops that Tom was one of his men not one of the men who stole from him. When the cops ask why Tom didn’t just say that, the owner explains that they are trained to keep their mouths shut. It’s unclear about his true motives, but one thing is for sure, Raymond Reddington got to that owner and made sure to save Tom from certain jail time. The one thing that Tom and Red agree on is Liz keeping the baby. It’s possible that Red kept Tom out of jail for Liz to reconsider giving up the baby.
If that’s the case, then it clearly worked. After everything that happened with Tom this episode, Liz reconsiders putting the baby up for adoption. She went back and rewatched the video Tom made for their adoption application way back when. Tom explained how much Liz wanted to adopt a child and how great she would be as a mother. Liz then felt her baby moving and kicking inside her belly and just couldn’t bear the thought of not being around to mother her child. She tells Tom that she wants to keep their baby. Maybe they will be a family after all.
