BWW Recap: Liz Hides, Ressler Chafes, with 'Arioch Cain' on THE BLACKLIST

We open with what looks like a flash forward and is one. Mr. Kaplan, of whom there is never enough, is told by Red that she has 30 minutes to document and clean up a bloodbath at an airstrip. Meanwhile, the news reports that Liz is dead, Kaplan's photos running. At the site, Red tells her to get the photos to the Chronicle.

Billionaire Asher Sutter and his new BFF Not-Tom, who tells him that Not-Tom's real name is Matt Buckley, have dinner and get cozy. Cooper is worried, but getting caught was part of Not-Tom's plan.

Red, in an especially natty Panama hat, tells Liz it's time to leave, because the independent assassin Wendigo has a bead on her. He's going to get help; she's to wait for a transport team to get her out. Help means pulling Ressler out of his Narcotics Anonymous meeting, which gives us our Bombastic Red Anecdote of the Night: Red attended NA after an opium den bender in Kuala Lampur, but couldn't get past the First Step of believing in a power greater than himself. Yep, Red, like the Beatles, is bigger than God.

Ressler briefs Aram and Samar on the Wendigo. Aram thanks Ressler for the chance to help Liz, but Ressler says this is only to catch Liz. Red tells Liz to leave, but the team is shot at by an unknown shooter. Liz hotwires a car that's being shot at and steers it away, driving with her head below seat level. Red hears the shooting on his phone, but Aram calls Red to tell him Liz got out, as well as the name of Wendigo's bullet maker.

Meanwhile, the Queen of Criminal Justice drags Ressler to a Congressional hearing as the President's national security advisor hands them swag bags from a party. Ressler admits that he is not working with the CIA because of the information about The Cabal. He wants to apprehend Liz but doesn't think she's a terrorist. It's suggested that he's being protective of his former partner.

Liz calls Samar and tells her that shooter was in hotel across the street from her. She directs the FBI team where to look for bullets. They find a slug that's one of Wendigo's bullets. Samar tries to get Liz to come in. Liz says she won't come in for what she hasn't done.

Red grabs Liz and hugs her excessively, then says Dembe's made contact. They stop by the bullet maker, who doesn't know where Wendigo is until Red picks up a loaded Mauser rifle and tells an anecdote about shooting an elephant poacher with one. Red and Liz go to a hotel and try to break into a room until Wendigo shoots the door out himself and heads out a window. Liz pursues him across rooftops until he's grabbing onto a ledge. Red grabs him, and as soon as Wendigo says there are others also after Liz, not just him, Red lets go. Bye bye.

Aram has Wendigo's hard drive. There's a dark web site with a $700,000 bounty on Liz. He's tried but he can't take the site down. The bounty was crowd-funded with bitcoins, ARRANGED by an Arioch Cain.

Not-Tom meets Asher's fiancée. She asks if he believes in love at first sight, because that was her and Asher. He says he's been there. While he gets her a drink he sees Asher arguing at the bar with a Russian over money.

Red goes to meet Dembe but finds Vargas who tells a sob story. "If I'd tried to bring him back we would both have been killed." Red puts his hands around Vargas' face, draws him close, and vows vengeance. Vargas should be scared witless but calls Solomon instead to tip him to get to the airstrip to catch Red.

Back at the years-long Congressional hearing, Ressler hears the CIA director testify that Ressler is wrong, that Liz is Russian spy Masha Rostova, and that the Fulcrum means nothing for there's no such thing as The Cabal. Amazing that he didn't just call it a delusion of Alan Fitch's fevered brain. Ressler is not happy.

Meanwhile, Samar is grilling the geek who set up the assassination website. She can't understand techbabble, so Aram gets to question him. Geek says he can't take Liz off the website because it's democratic and the people control the list. Aram makes technothreats of root viruses, but Geek is not fazed, because it's a two-key system and only the person who put the target on the page can remove them.

Vargas gets Red to the airstrip, where Solomon and goons wind up capturing him and Liz as Solomon offers all the audience speculations as to what Red and Liz see in each other. Red and Liz give up their guns. We know this means the other guys will die violently, since this is the airstrip from the first scene flash forward.

Asher reveals to Not-Tom that his dirty secret is having gotten into an underground fight club with the Russians, who are extorting money from him. Not-Tom says he'll handle it in his own inimitable fashion.

Liz is about to be executed (if not raped and executed, which looks possible) by Solomon in front of Red. Solomon wants to be stylish about it, flaying and torturing. But Dembe is more stylish, walking in with guns blazing in both hands. Red hugs him tightly enough to make Dembe's wound knock him down. One of Red's teams comes in to get Dembe treated while Red gives the address of a new safe house. Red calls Aram, who says he can't get the site down and can't fight Arioch Cain. Red suggests that Liz needs to die. Mr. Kaplan stages the shootout seen up front, in which Liz plays dead and Mr. Kaplan gets the photos to a reporter friend of Red's. The news goes out, as Aram and Samar realize no one warned Ressler, who is still at the decades-long hearing of agony.

Not-Tom walks up to the car of the Russian goon who was arguing with his BFF Asher and plugs him. Mr. Kaplan has a team clean up the airstrip again as Aram verifies that Liz is allegedly dead and gives Red the computer location of Arioch Cain. Red and Liz drop in on Cain, who doesn't know what they're talking about. His teen daughter, Blair, did it. Blair, whose hair is straight but Liz-bleached-color, and who wears too much lipstick, is the family computer geek, and her mother was killed in Karakurt's explosion that was pinned on Liz. But Liz talks about losing her own mother, and swears to get Karakurt, and Blair is mollified. She deletes Liz's target profile on the assassination website, to Liz's and her own father's great relief.

Aram and Samar expect Ressler to kill them but he says they did the right thing. He wants Liz brought in because "every day she's out there is a day we could lose her." So underneath his half-cocked "arrest Keen" vituperation is a small streak of partner loyalty.

But wait -Agent Wright, Queen of Criminal Justice, has a surprise for Ressler. He's going to work with the CIA Director, one hundred percent, and the national security advisor and the CIA director are there with her to make sure Ressler gets the message. And if he doesn't cooperate, he'll be replaced by someone who will. The Director is plainly enjoying himself way, way too much.

Red sits with Dembe in the hospital, as Asher and his fiancée catch up to Not-Tom. He's left a message for Liz, but he has visible blood on his white collar, and his trunk is forced open to reveal the Russian goon's body. He explains it's okay, because now the Russians will come after him and not Asher. Uh oh, looks like he could have used a visit from Mr. Kaplan, as well as a Tide stain stick!

Will Ressler kill the Director? Will the Russians kill Not-Tom? And why, oh why, did they so badly under-use the phenomenal Susan Blommaert as fan favorite Mr. Kaplan? If you have any insights, share them @MarakayBWW or comment below!

Photo credit: NBC Universal

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