The Blacklist - S3E10 - The Director (No. 24) Conclusion

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Previously on The Blacklist, ‘The Director’

Aram, Cooper, Marvin Gerard, and Navabi join Dembe, Mr. Kaplan, and Baz (yeah, awesome ponytail guy finally has a name!) in Red’s band of merry men and women. Side note: now that Baz has a name, can he be a regular? After everyone is patted down and their phones and weapons taken (How many phones does Gerard need? How many weapons does Navabi need?), Red lays out the plan: they’re gonna kidnap the Director; never mind that it’s treason, seditious conspiracy, and felony kidnapping. If all goes well, the Cabal won’t have a choice but to ditch the Director and publicly exonerate Keen.

Tom continues to babysit Karakurt, who tries to get in his head about Keen. Karakurt gon’ learn, it’s not that easy to manipulate ol’ Tommy Boy.

Since they don’t how far up the chain the Cabal goes, Ressler keeps a close eye on Keen in her jail cell. He finds her a good lawyer and sees her through her trial.

The Blacklister(s)

The Director, but then Hitchins tries her level best to be up there with him.

Red’s best line

“See, this is why I don’t play well with partners. Don’t fret, Harold. I’m holding all the trumps. I’ll be the declarer, you be the dummy, and we’ll win the hand.”

Red’s second best line

“I envy anyone who can sleep soundly on a plane. Then again, I’ve never been injected with Propofol.”

Tom’s best Line

“If you talk, there’s a chance they will kill you. But if you don’t talk, I will definitely kill you very slowly.” “I’ve killed a lot of people to get this done. Don’t think I won’t do it again.”

Mr. Kaplan’s best line

[Seeing the number of weapons Navabi gives up] “My kinda girl.”

Number of times someone says “cabal”

10 and that has to be a record. I’m so damn happy this storyline is over.

Number of times Liz was annoying

Two. When she met with her attorney for the first time; it’s a mystery why she decided to be snotty. After her arraignment, she whines about how the judge wasn’t nice. It takes Ressler and Cooper to remind her that the judge could have sent her ass to somewhere worse than Fort Meade or taken Ressler off her detail. Please don’t go back to being a pain in the ass.

Get a grip

Impatient with concern for his wife, the Director is barely paying attention when he’s gripped up. He didn’t even have time to scream, let alone enjoy that apple.

Holy shit moments

• The list of charges against Keen; 16 capital murder charges, treason, espionage, plus the other bodies have been marked in her ledger. I bet she won’t get on anyone else’s bad side.
• Hitchins briefs her hit man, Iverson, about the hit on Keen and brings along an Assistant U.S. Attorney and the judge who’ll slap him on the wrist. Oh, corrupt government officials.
• The therapist and Mrs. K get antsy and call the Director to make sure he’s on his way. Realizing it’s a setup, the Director’s men give chase and almost catch Red and the gang before they can get away.
• Not able to get through to Iverson, to call off the hit, Hitchins calls Ressler to warn him. He sees Iverson just before he shoots and narrowly misses him and Keen.
• The Director being tossed from the plane. Him dying isn’t a problem, but throwing him out mid-flight, for him to fall into a family’s house? Someone could have been hurt. Well, someone else.

What did work

• Red lays out how previous dealings with Blacklisters put him in a position to broker a deal to save Keen; the hostage crisis that freed Marvin, the attack on Verdiant’s finances, the Djinn’s little brown book, and the capture of Zal Bin Hasaan.
• It’s obvious to anyone paying attention that Tom is going through a lot of shit to help Keen. Leave it to Karakurt to speak on and test that out to see what he can get out of the deal. A busted chin and a threat against his sister is all he’s getting. Tom will take out whoever he has to, to save his lady love.

• Red’s plan is methodical and well-thought out: Aram will access the elevator system so the elevator will look like it’s going to six, but really be eight. Navabi bumps into Mrs. Kotsiopulus, spilling her coffee, and buying her a new one, while Cooper switches them out. When the drugs start working on Mrs. K, Cooper helps her, by calling her doctor, who calls the Director to get him to the office, where he’s gripped up and carted off. At the courthouse, Ressler arranges for the press to be waiting when Karakurt is brought in and named as the real terrorist. Gerard meets with Hitchin to negotiate a deal for Keen.
• Recreating the sixth floor, where the therapist’s office is, on the 8^th floor is Leverage-type genius. Since they couldn’t get a duplicate of the statue outside the therapist’s office, Red suggested a bowl of apples. A couple people balked, but Red was right; the Director grabbed two. Everyone likes apples. Of course, what happens next will have me second guessing free apples forever.
• Hitchins is all bluster about Red and Diaz having to release the Director, until Red makes the Director a problem for the Cabal: war crimes. He explains that they’re on the way to the Hague so the Director can be charged with war crimes. But they won’t go through with their plan as long as Keen is exonerated and unharmed. Keen is offered a deal: exoneration on all charges accept the murder of Tom Connolly. Hitchins fixed Red’s problem, so she needs him to handle hers; the Director. A charge of involuntary manslaughter; three years’ probation and no jail time is more than fair, considering she DID murder him. So she won’t be an FBI agent? Pfft, she wasn’t very good at it anyway.

What didn’t work

• Hitchins getting away with her role in the whole thing. She needs to be punished for murdering Reven, trying to murder Keen, and being in the Cabal. There’s no closure with her faithful henchman, Mr. Solomon either. This can’t be the last of them.
• Although it actually did work, arresting and transporting the Director to Venezuela for war crimes was a reach. They didn’t have to prove it, but it seems like there could have been another way to free Keen. It plays more like a way to get him out of the country and kill him.
• The Cabal has been after Red for 30,000 months, now they’re just giving up on him because the Director is out of the picture? What kind of clandestine organization are they?

Questions

• Red tells his crew about how working with The Djinn and others helped move his plan to save Keen, but didn’t he start moving chess pieces earlier than that; to save himself from the Cabal?
• Karakurt changed his face and no one knew the new look. Why didn’t they find a random person to confess to those crimes?