BWW Recap: 'Marvin Gerard' Moves Easy As Pie On THE BLACKLIST

When last we left Liz, we had discovered her natural aptitude for jumping fences, but the Russian Embassy isn't happy to have her. She may say she's Masha Rostova, deep cover FSB agent, but Katerina's little girl is recognized as Agent Elizabeth Keen by the Russians. Samar schools an exasperated and apparently undereducated Ressler on the fine points of diplomatic immunity: the fence and everything on the other side are Russia, boy, so don't start a war.

Meanwhile, Red visits his buddy the Russian ambassador, who's having a hot date with his mistress, a well-known TV anchor whose husband is in Congress. Red wants real-time reports about everything going on in the embassy regarding Liz. This includes a ranking FSB agent telling her she's not on the list. She offers to reveal the truth about everyone's favorite assassin from last season having been turned by the Cabal in exchange for immunity. Agent makes calls and returns with a deal that she has to go to Moscow to be interviewed for what she knows. Liz says this plays into the Cabal's hands, but she's told her choice is Moscow or the friendly handcuffs of Ressler.

Liz heads into one of two comfy black Russian limos as Samar repeats the diplomatic immunity rules. Ressler whines, "you don't mean the CARS are Russia!" Yep. They're Russia. This means that Ressler shouldn't try bodyblocking them and pulling a handgun on them, but no guts, no glory, right?

Then Red calls Ressler to tell him to keep Liz from getting to the airport. Because it's a Cabal plot and she'll be killed, possibly before she gets to the plane, let alone Moscow. Ressler, not having gotten to expend adrenalin and testosterone previously, now plays bumper car with the two Russian limos, winding up in a shootout with a driver... as Liz runs off from everyone. Cut to commercials for car insurance and CarMax - are the advertisers trying to give us a message? Is Ressler going to be hung out to dry for an attack on Russia?

Justice Queen, Deputy Attorney General Wright, tells Cooper that if he retires nicely he can have his pension. Otherwise, there will be investigation and reassignment to basement mailroom until hell freezes over. Since she doesn't seem to be trying to help find and clear Liz, Cooper doesn't want to play.

Liz meets Red at the Rio Diner, home of some severely magic pecan pie. He explains that Ressler was trying to save her, not kill her. A twerp in the next booth insults femaleness, motherhood, and waitresses, causing Red to give him a detailed etiquette lesson involving a gun in the gut for greater emphasis. Red believes in femaleness, motherhood, and waitresses, thank you. He wants manners and courtesy displayed towards the waitressing sex. You know this guy will be trouble later in the episode, despite Red's insistence that bad language results in tongues being amputated with butter knives.

Wait, a 911 call comes in with a sighting at the Rio Diner, home of pecan pie, pumpkin pasties and butterbeer. The police show up outside; Red aids them with the help of a where-was-that-lurking shotgun, mashing up a few police cars and attracting all the agencies in town.

Meanwhile, as Ressler prepares to interview one of the Russian drivers about the Cabal, our drug dispenser from last week, Mr. Solomon, shows up at the driver's hospital room to put him out of the picture with a little something in the IV line. We get no sign of Dembe.

Police, FBI, and all other alphabet soup surround the Rio Diner and its Hogwarts-magical menu. Red has placed diners at all the window seats to avoid shooting, however. He asks Ressler, who's just everywhere today, to turn the non-magical electricity back on, provide safe transport to an airstrip, and to get him Marvin Gerard, Number 80, the world's smartest disbarred, jailed attorney and former Harvard Law professor, who is also Red's former lawyer. Otherwise, dead patrons every thirty minutes, just like Voldemort.

Marvin is dragged out of jail and suited up, complaining that this will be hell on his parole hearing and that if the FBI wires him, he'll tell Red. Red explains to Liz that Marvin is invaluable because lawyers are loathsome, and Marvin is the most loathsome of all. Marvin arrives at Hogwarts -sorry, the Rio Diner -and tells Red that "they'll tack on five more years just seeing you breathe in my direction."

They start working at the diner counter as Liz looks on and as Draco Malfoy -no, wait, the Bad News Patron -lunges for Liz's gun. Liz goes postal. The creep's alive but not terribly so, and the woman with him is upset despite his crude dislike of femaleness, motherhood, and waitresses. Even though Liz probably knows more first aid than everyone else there, she's not welcome to help the dude according to nurturing submissive fool woman.

The police want to take the place down, but Ressler and Samar say no as they have no eyes inside. Red and Marvin find something fascinating in the Cabal documents that they don't share with Liz and us, and Red says they're ready to go as soon as the house ELVES bring magic pie to go. Ressler suddenly realizes that it wasn't Liz who was identified in the 911 call, but Red... and there has never been a credible sighting of Red, ever. He plays the 911 call, only to find that Red called 911 on himself. Wait! Harry Potter has played another ingenious prank on the head boy! Red wanted them there for some reason, but what?

Red, Liz, Marvin, and the diner owner head into a secret room of criminal enterprise, full of near-naked guys wrapping money, real or otherwise. The workers are dispersed and the room is blown up; Dumbledore says to Red that it was fun while it lasted. They all depart safely, magical pecan pie in hand, well before head boy Ressler and his Ressler's Army get into the basement of Hogwarts to search. Down an alleyway, a station wagon full of Marvin's fiancée pulls up for him, and Red wishes them well in the tropics. Suddenly Liz understands. This was never a hostage situation, but a jailbreak for Marvin. But it's also gotten eyes off of Red and Liz and their pecan pie. And Marvin is working with Red on the Fulcrum papers.

Liz and Red find their way to a plush, luxe Red type of pad. He tries to decide how the magic pie is made while Liz feels bad about people being scared of her. Red plays papa, advises, admits that he'd rather have been a ship's captain. Liz asks why he went into Naval Intelligence instead. "It was the Cold War. Spies to run." Is that more news about his relationship to her mother?

The mellifluous, somewhat romantic strains of "Our House" are cued. Slowly, Red opens the door of the luxe pad. It's a huge shipping crate, on the deck of a ship. They stargaze. He points out Polaris. "That's how sailors used to find their way home. When I look at you, that's what I see." And "she" was revealed last week to be the spitting image of her mother, agent Katerina Rostova. All righty, then.

The song continues as Cooper putters and Ressler stares at a picture of Marvin. It ends when Drug Dude puts on gloves and promises to antidote Dembe for whatever he gave Dembe last week, just as soon as Dembe tells him where Red is.

Ressler hears a noise, stalks it, and finds... Not-Tom. Oh Not-Tom, can't we be quit of you? "We need to talk," says Not-Tom. The four scariest words in English have just been invoked.

Where are Liz and Red sailing? Is it a slow boat to China? Why is Not-Tom back, and won't he please go? Can't we just rescue Dembe ourselves? And how is Ressler going to get his neck out of bashing up two cars' worth of Russian diplomats with an FBI vehicle on Red's word? If you have any thoughts on this little mélange of death and destruction, tweet us or reply below!

Photo Credits: NBC Universal

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