BWW Recap: 'Tom Connolly' Awakens Memories on THE BLACKLIST Season Finale

Oh NBC, you devils. You tease us with promos for a season two finale entitled "Masha Rostova," which we've come to understand is Elizabeth Keen's birth name. Yet we open to find the title card "Tom Connolly, No. 11." We'll discover during the evening that not one, but both, titles just may be correct. The Attorney General of the United States is a fiend, but Liz, what are you doing with that gun?

At the Post Office, everyone's watching the news about Senator Hawkins' sudden deadly illness. Ressler and Liz are at the church where the CIA operatives' memorial was to be held, doing screenings. Samar is also there. Red is on the phone with Liz, explaining that she needs to get out of there now. She's the daughter of a KGB agent, and she's about to be framed. She poo-poos this news. "They can't prove I did anything wrong." Liz, have you not been watching this show for the past two seasons? The Cabal can frame anyone they want!

At the office, Connolly tells Cooper to get Keen and explains all the things she's being framed for, plus being Masha Rostova. It's time to pull her in to make the Cabal's evil plans complete. Aha, Liz is smart enough for once to be hiding and eavesdropping, so she calls Red and asks to run, which Red had offered her earlier. Before he can rescue her, Connolly's crack team of bad guys has her. Meanwhile, our moustache-twirling Snidely Whiplash has explained to Cooper that his people will investigate Liz to make sure she's framed, so Cooper's also going on administrative leave. Samar finds that, just as Red told us last week, Liz infected Senator Hawkins with the deadly anti-Hawkins retrovirus.

Liz gets blood tested, skin tested, everything-tested, by Connolly's goons, who also tell her how suspicious it is that she keeps swearing she doesn't know she's Masha Rostova, daughter of the KGB. She who took over dead Diane's job names Ressler as acting head of the PO. She's not sure Liz isn't guilty but she's suspicious of anyone who'd suspend Harold Cooper, so she knows something is wrong. Cooper meets up with Red at an empty church. He uses Red as his father-confessor, but Red's not surprised by anything, including Cooper's suspension. He promises Cooper they will rescue Liz from Connolly. In fact, he's already prepared to roll with his plan, as is his own mole on the inside of the PO. (You didn't think the Cabal was the only side here with moles in the place, did you?)

The power''s cut to the Post Office, and the unseen mole gives Liz a phone with a line to Cooper, who gives her directions. Before she can evacuate, Ressler corners her and begs her not to run, because they have to fight from within. Naturally, he then lets her go and reports that all he could find of her was a burn phone.

Red and Dembe meet with Cooper and Liz, while Not-Tom calls Red and offers to help Liz escape on a boat that's much nicer than the one he was held on. Red says she needs to fight or there's nowhere she'll be able to go with Tom or anyone else. Liz tries to figure out why the FBI found her to be infected with anti-Hawkins disease. Astoundingly, she finally remembers bumping into someone at Union Station. Red sends Cooper and Liz to get the video log while he and Dembe perform their own secret task of amazement. Mr. Kaplan is involved, for all of five seconds, so we know that whatever he is doing at the big abandoned warehouse will be epic.

Liz gets past a Union Station security guard who's watching the news about Hawkins and missing her picture on screen. Cooper and a buddy in the security office there get her sneaked in. She finds that weapons expert Andropov tackled her and infected her, as everyone watching last week realized in only seconds. But Cooper can't help her go after Andropov, because Snidely Whiplash -Connolly -has taken Cooper's wife in for questioning about leaked documents.

Liz knows of informant Anton, but not that Red's gotten to him. He's able to give her Andropov's location, but he won't tell her about her mother. Liz puts Red on the spot about silencing Anton about her mother. Red tells her, "I'm a sin-eater;" he absorbs others' misdeeds and leaves them pure. When she asks him what her sin is, he's strangely silent, so she says she'll get Andropov on her own. Break for a Tom Keen commercial for the new Ford Mustang.

This is the cue for Not-Tom to assist Liz at Andropov's safe house. Andropov's left a flash drive, which she grabs, but Andropov is running out the back. Not-Tom and Liz follow his car in a new Ford Mustang in which Not-Tom performs driving stunts like those in the commercial. They corner his car, but a Cabal vehicle comes up as well. Andropov is killed by the Cabal and Liz is clipped. With everything going on, all Liz can do is sob that A DEAD ANDROPOV CAN'T TELL HER ABOUT HER MOTHER. She's framed for the murder of a US Senator, the Cabal is taking over the world, Cooper's about to die, everything's going south, and she's worrying about the family history? Now is not the time, Liz.

Meanwhile, around the world, individuals are being approached by Hulk-sized but extremely polite people who announce forcefully but politely that Raymond Reddington would like to talk to them, and who whisk them off in unidentifiable but comfortable vehicles. If you're gonna get abducted, make sure it's by Red.

Tom patches up Liz's shoulder while inappropriate thoughts are thought. Liz confesses she'd like to run off with Tom, even if it means not finding out about her mother. Is this all she can think about when her life's at stake -who's her mama? Liz wakes up in bed in the boat's cabin and looks at THE FLASH drive from Andropov's safe house. The most interesting thing on it? COOPER HAS NEVER BEEN ILL. The Cabal had Andropov create boutique drugs to make him look sick, and others to make him look better. She grabs her phone.

Cooper goes to assault his doctor at Cooper-point. The doctor was in on all of it, and has all of his calls with Connolly recorded. There was no drug trial; all of it was just to manipulate Cooper, who's perfectly healthy when not manipulated. Haven't you been suspecting something like this has been brewing, really? Be honest. That cancer has just been too weird.

Red meets with his kidnapees. They are "eleven of the finest investigative journalists in the world." And Red has a little presentation for them called Everything You Wanted To Know About The Cabal But Didn't Know To Ask. One who must be the bottom of the list asks what they should do with the information. "Study it. Investigate it. Report it." It will be ridiculously dangerous, but that never stopped Woodward and Bernstein, did it?

Cooper and Liz meet with Connolly. They demand he put Cooper back, call off the dogs, and all that, Connolly laughs. "I own the FBI." And he has plans for everyone, even Samar and Aram, that aren't nice. Because, Snidely Whiplash. Pissed beyond all recognition, and past time, too, Liz pulls a gun on Connolly and kills the Attorney General of the United States. During which she has a flashback. To a very little dark-haired girl, in a nightgown, holding a very large gun at another man and pulling the trigger.

Ressler begs Liz to come in so he can help her. She cuts him off and calls Red. "I remember everything. The night of the fire. And I understand why you didn't want me to find out." Liz killed her father while he and her mother were fighting. Red had her mind blocked to protect her. 'You're my sin eater."

Ressler and Cooper look around Connolly's death site as "Rocket Man" plays behind them. The CIA director reads the paper; on the front page, an article that the Senate is about to investigate a shadow government that's been found to be operating. Not-Tom sets sail for parts unknown, while Liz falls asleep on Red's shoulder in the van.

A poster of Liz goes up beside Red's on an FBI wall. Who is Number One? Liz, you're Number Five.

Connolly's dead and the press is having a field day with the Cabal. Liz is a fugitive. What happens in September, folks? Where do we go from here? Tweet thoughts @MarakayBWW or post comments below!

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