Finally. At the end of episode three, titled “Wujing,” Red (James Spader) and Elizabeth
Keen (Megan Boone) address the central mystery of
The Blacklist: What exactly is it that makes the Concierge of Crime so interested in this cub agent?
The characters have made a deal that if Elizabeth helps Red take down a spy killer—the
titular Wujing—then Red will offer some answers. That mission completed, it’s go time.
“Because of your father,” Red offers by way of explanation. Keen asks, not for the
first time, if Red knew her parents. “I wish the answer were as simple as the question
seems,” he tells her, resident Spader smirk giving way to a frown of true regret.
And we realize that’s all we’ll get this week.
As silly as it often seems, this is a sly show—just when you think it’s ham-fisting
you with clunky themes and obvious tropes, the writers pull the rug out. Liz asks
a simple question—one whose answer seemed stupidly obvious to us just two episodes
ago. Not so fast, says Red (and the writers). The answer may be more interesting than
you think.
“Wujing” opens on crowded Shanghai streets. We watch as assassins shoot through the
windows of a car, then sever the dead driver’s hand. Cut to a hacker opening a ziplock
bag, pulling out the bloodied hand, and smooshing the pad of a finger onto a print-recognition
device to access a code.
Meanwhile in Washington, Elizabeth Keen offers an object lesson on what to do with
all those phone books cluttering your massive brownstone apartment: Use them to see
if your sketchy husband’s secret firearm has been used to murder someone! Removing
the gun from Tom’s secret box of spy toys, she takes it out in the yard and, using
the books and a bag of fertilizer as silencers, she fires it, grabs the shell and
casing, and drops them off at the FBI to see if they match anything on file. We’ll
file this move under Seriously Stupid Things Elizabeth Keen Has Done—just last week,
the FBI was giving her the lie detector treatment, now she thinks her nosy employer
is just going to do some free research for her and let it go? “Should have given it
to Red,” every viewer paying attention thought at that moment. And then we realize
we trust the guy. Problem is, Keen doesn’t.
This week we also learn that Liz and Tom (Ryan Eggold) have friends—one named Ellie
comes over to take Tom to the doctor as Liz heads out to a haberdashery to rendezvous
with Red. Perusing the stock of handsome hats, he tells her about the next bad guy
on the blacklist, Wujing—a legendary agent killer whom spy-world scenesters tend to
dismiss as myth. Red insists he is real, responsible for the whole severed-hand situation
in Shanghai, and about to off someone else right there in DC.
Out front of the brownstone, we see the back of a man hiding behind a tree eating
an apple as his apparent associates enter Liz and Tom’s house—via the front door—dressed
as painters. This overall-clad goon squad sets to work outfitting the home for video
surveillance just as Ellie returns to grab her forgotten purse. She senses someone’s
around but leaves anyway.
Liz, Red, Agent Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff), and the crew head to the clubhouse to
plan Wujing’s capture. Liz is reluctant, since her part involves posing as an encryptor,
and apparently she Cliff’s-Noted her way through Intro to Encryption at the academy.
The idea is that she and Wujing’s encryptor will decrypt a message that tells Wujing
who to kill next. Unbeknownst to the Chinese, the FBI will learn the message at the
same time.
Eventually she agrees to do it, and Meera Malik (Parminder Nagra) outfits her with
a bug that looks like a nicotine patch—the latest in surveillance chic, we are told.
Red and Liz head to Wujing’s lair, which is a bit like the Apple genius bar except
it’s hundreds of feet underground and everyone’s dressed like they’ve got reservations
at some new Santa Monica restaurant that serves a kick-ass pork belly BLT. While Red
distracts the team of murderous hackers, Liz manages to slide some wee contraption
into one of their computers that begins feeding its secrets back to FBI HQ. Trouble
is, Wujing’s Genius Bar is tricked out enough to notice the security breach, and it
looks pretty bad for Keen and Red until he begins beating up the poor guy whose laptop
Liz messed with. Before laptop guy can shed light on the situation, Red shoots him.
Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that the next guy on Wujing’s kill list isn’t an agent
at all, but Henry Cho, an architect who has been working with the CIA on some secret
Shanghai-building-related stuff. Both the Chinese and the FBI head to his newest project,
where Cho is giving his son a hard-hat tour. Struggles ensue, and Ressler displays
signs of PTSD while beating the pulp out of one of Wujing’s guys. Cho and son emerge
unscathed.
In the meantime, Liz and Red manage to peace out of Wujing’s Suburban. Red laments
that Wujing will get away, but Liz has affixed her nicotine patch to the side of his
shiny SUV, and the agents are able to track and arrest him. That task sorted, she’s
all, “What’s the deal with us?” But that’s a question we’re clearly not going to get
the answer to soon.
One last important plot point: Liz receives the report on the bullet, but the information
is classified above her pay grade. Thing is, Ressler got a copy too, and he’s taking
it to the director Cooper (Harry Lennix), who is pretty freaked to learn that the
young agent asked for info on it. Apparently, the weapon was used in a murder so important,
you’re not allowed to even thing about it unless you ask the secretary of homeland
security first.
Next up: an impromptu party chez Liz and Tom. Now, I know I’ve made case against playing
plausibility police—the show’s ludicrous, and we should just go with it. Still, I
really don’t think Liz and Tom are people that would have many friends. He’s a . .
. what? Some sort of international spy posing as an elementary school teacher? She’s
a forlorn control freak who admits that her classmates at Quantico think she’s a bitch.
And yet, when Liz returns home that night, their house is full of wine-swilling friends
who want to support Tom in his post-stab-session days. The scene seems dubious to
Liz too—she stands clutching her wine, wide-eyed and stiff-limbed. The show closes
with a point of view of the apple eater, who is taking in the action from a screen
displaying all the surveillance camera his paint-splattered crew has planted around
the house.
Lingering questions: Who is this apple-eating guy? Did we learn anything about Red’s
relationship with Liz from the scene in the car? What up with Ressler? And if Tom
offed some bin Laden-level offender with his gun, why on earth is he storing it unlocked
under his floorboards along with a bunch of fake passports? Dumbest assassin/spy ever?
