BWW Recap: 'Karakurt' Asks 'Who's Your Mama?' on THE BLACKLIST

A student is handing out flyers against the PATRIOT Act on a college campus. An older man bumps into him and apologizes. He checks his watch while the student protestor convulses and dies. A phone call tells someone on the other end to "initiate phase two."

Liz meets Not-Tom at a diner. They have an awkward conversation about their awkward night before. Not-Tom suggests she call him Jacob. Have we established that he really is a Jacob? He's not anything else he's been called. Not-Tom/Jacob apologizes for life, the universe, and everything. Then he says he has hope. They can leave and never look back. Liz: "That's insane." Tom: "We both need to start over. The real me." Liz, finally slightly intelligent: "The neo-Nazi?" Liz, just stop the insanity already. Thank God the phone rings and it's Red.

Red is at a lovely home where the mellifluous sounds of torture fill the air. His buddy Brimley is doing his darndest, Oxygen tank and all, to torture a young man hanging upside down from a chandelier. He's from the Russian Embassy but he works with the evil Karakurt, #55. He wants to talk to Liz about Karakurt's plots, but Liz wants to know about Katarina Rostova, apparently her mother, the KGB agent. She thinks this is more important than Karakurt's plans to commit terrorist acts for the Cabal and pretend they're Russian actions, because the Cabal wants a new Cold War. Hey, Liz, priorities much?

The team briefs, because other people do care that Karakurt wants to hit a defense site. Red refuses to be specific, even if he did know where, because the Post Office has a mole directly to the Cabal. Cooper orders Lizandressler to meet with a CIA outpost. The CIA says they have no proof Karakurt is in the country, but one of the friendlier guys tips Lizandressler that there's a restaurant in DC where Soviet expats meet. Liz, of course, shows him a photo and requests information about Katarina Rostova. CIA guy says she's a myth. We question where Liz has put her brain.

After Brimley gets answers from Embassy Dude with his neato torture tricks, Red and Dembe hunt for Karakurt at an apartment. He's gone, but there are traces of ammonium nitrate, meaning a bigass fertilizer-type bomb, or IED. A neighbor pops in. Red hands her a phony Vistaprint business card that says he's a private investigator and asks her to call when Karakurt pops back in. We wonder how many different phony business cards Red has.

Lizandressler, still at the CIA outpost of nonhelpful, talk about her photo of her mother. Samar calls them with intel about the IED, which has been parked right. Where. Lizandressler. Are. Standing. BOOM! Red calls the Post Office to check on Liz-go-boom. Tom Connolly is coming in. Red muses. Senator Hawkins is on television complaining about Russkie terrorism.

Karakurt returns to his crash pad, and the neighbor obligingly calls Red. As Lizandressler head to Karakurt's, Connolly tells Cooper to call off the dogs and to divert them to Union Station instead. Cooper dislikes this, but Connolly, swell guy, threatens Cooper's wife and his medical testing. Liz is assaulted at Union Station. Ressler rescues her, but the unseen assailant got away.

Senator Hawkins condemns evil commie terrorists, even if Russians are no longer commies, while the Post Office plots. Aram's found a restaurant, Ninotchka, where Soviet émigrés hang, and where a weapons scientist who works with genomes just had dinner with Karakurt.

Cooper tells all to his father-confessor, Red. Connolly's getting him the drug trials and hanging them over his head. Threats against his wife. Red is understanding, because ethics mean nothing if you're not alive to have them. Red knows moral compromise; he's been there, apparently. Cooper wants to get Connolly, but Red says that he should play along because it will bring them closer to the Cabal. Li dashes in saying that they need a microbiologist who is fluent in Russian. Of course Red has one in the immediate vicinity.

Dr. Lauren Kimberly looks and acts more like the Love Professor than a brilliant microbiologist in Red's presence, and they really ought to be doing some of those things in a more non-sterile environment, and maybe not in front of the children, because Lizandressler are there. This is obviously why Jacob -er, Not-Tom? calls to ask Liz to dinner the next night if she can make it. The call goes to voice message, as Liz watches the hot monkey sex -sorry, the hardworking Dr. Lauren somehow managing to control her hormones long enough to determine that the problem is an individualized retrovirus. It's cleverly engineered to be able to attack just one person, the one it's keyed to. It could be done for anyone, and there's no clue as to who this virus of Karakurt and his microbiologist buddy is to kill. "I can tell you what they're doing," Dr. Mastersandjohnson tells Liz and Red, "but not who they're doing it to." Then she and Red start doing it again. Get a room, you horny kids.

Red and Liz talk in the car, agreeing that the target must be someone of high value whose death would be attributed to Russia. It's probably someone about to attend the high-profile memorial service for the dead CIA operatives. Cut to a Ryan Eggold commercial for Ford Mustangs.

Red and Leonard The Microbiologist Who Met With Karakurt try to figure out who his target is, "someone the Russians would want to silence." Liz and friends review the memorial service attendance list while Leonard explains the retrovirus symptoms to Red. Red calls Aram, because the virus has to have been tested on someone already. By use of his mystic POWERS of computing, Aram finds the record of the dead student protestor, and Red sends Samar to meet with the boy's mother. The woman thinks that "it must be connected to his father!" Samar asks for explanation, and discovers that Mom was a former Capitol Hill staffer who had an affair with a bigshot and got knocked up, then left to keep things quiet. We are somehow not at all surprised to find out that the boy's father is Senator Hawkins.

The church is surrounded by police and anti-Russian protestors. Karakurt gets through by showing a press pass with a valid name. Red calls Cooper to tell Connolly that they know who the intended victim is. Samar tries to get through to Hawkins' staff to keep him from the church, but has no luck. Connolly praises Cooper for letting Karakurt get away, while Cooper says he can't control his people or Reddington, but Connolly strangely doesn't care. Cooper calls Liz, because he's figured out (or been told offscreen) about the press pass. Lizandressler rescue Hawkins just before he makes contact with Karakurt, which would have passed the virus, and get him into an FBI car, but Hawkins seizes -he's infected anyway.

Liz does not make it to dinner with Jacob/Not-Tom/Not-Christof/Whoever. She and Ressler are interrogating Karakurt. Meanwhile, Red has drinks with Anton Velov, a Russian who's informing to the CIA. Anton's surprised he and Red have never met before, since Red was once the KGB's greatest enemy. Red wants to be friends. Anton tells him that Liz called him about Katrina Rostova. Red says Anton really shouldn't talk to anyone about anything, and won't if he works for Red. Then Anton reveals that two men from the Justice Department have been asking around about Katrina's child, but he didn't know she had one. Red's mystic POWERS of ratiocination lead him to a conclusion. He calls Liz.

Remember Union Station? Her assailant passed her the virus that would kill Hawkins there, and she infected him in the car; Karakurt didn't have it at the church. The Cabal has set her up -her mother was a Russian agent, and now she'll be made out to be one. Oh, crap, it's a bad day.

Will Liz finally get Whatsisname out of her life? Will she be arrested first? Will Cooper and Connolly have a final showdown? We're being promised some answers of some sort in the season finale -will the producers actually answer some questions for once? Tweet your thoughts to @MarakayBWW, or comment below.

Photo credit: NBC Universal

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