The Blacklist - Recap: Okay, Now You

"Mako Tanida" pivots away from Tom to tell a story largely centered on Agent Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff), and while it's a risky move, it largely pays off. I mean, hey, it's not like we didn't get any progress on the Tom front. In fact, I'd argue that while said progress was mostly just incremental, what we did get was significant. What people seem to want is for Liz to finally discover the truth, but I don't think that can happen so soon after we, ourselves, have just had our suspicions about him confirmed. Really, it's the element of chase here that's exciting, the notion that Liz is inching closer to the truth that Red was right all along. When she inevitably does discover who Tom really is, it's going to have greater impact for all that slow-burning build. Of course, there will be issues if the show waits too long to pull the trigger, but that's true of just about any storyline. Yet we keep getting bits and pieces that move the story forward, whether it's Red reminiscing about his daughter, or Tom talking with Jolene (Rachel Brosnahan) about his mysterious handlers. The mystery aspects are all of a piece with the morally ambiguous, shady tapestry the series has crafted. "Mako Tanida" is an episode that not only lives in that mystery, but thrives.

Credit: NBC

So a mysterious man named Mako Tanida (Hoon Lee) is going around killing the agents who had him imprisoned in China while they were hunting Red. Tanida escaped the "inescapable" Chinese prison and found his way to America where he exacted his revenge against Ressler's fellow agents, with Ressler himself next on the hit list. However, Ressler's girlfriend and long-time love, with whom he was reunited following the events of the midseason finale, is caught in the crossfire. Audrey (Emily Tremaine) is killed, and Ressler is out for blood. It's an interesting story to tell, in a certain sense, since it takes us so far away from the expected procedural element of The Blacklist. This isn't Red pulling up a case and handing it off to the FBI to suit his own ambiguous ends. This is a blacklister who's sought out the FBI and put himself on their radar. Sure, it's Red who provides the intel that makes finding Tanida possible, but as Red explains to Liz, he didn't provide Ressler with commands so much as a potential route. Whether he decided to take that vengeance-lined route was entirely up to him. And really, it's not as if Red didn't try to talk him out of it. He recounts his own bloodthirst years ago, telling Ressler that a wise person once told him to "Turn back and go home," arguing that seeking revenge would be far more difficult and costly to his well-being than simply walking away. But Ressler, much like Red all those years ago, is fully committed to this path. And so Liz's mission is to find Ressler before he passes the point of no return.

The episode could have gone with a straight-up revenge rampage and still worked, but "Mako Tanida" adds an extra layer of betrayal, as we learn that Bobby, Ressler's partner during the China bust, is actually the one behind it all. The duo captures Tanida, but in protecting his own cover, Bobby shoots Tanida twice in the stomach while he's handcuffed in the backseat of their SUV. The ensuing struggle causes a car crash, in which Bobby is injured and Ressler gives chase, leaving a bloodied Tanida behind. Ressler tracks his former best friend down and poignantly declares that while Red was responsible for bringing him and Audrey back together, it was his own best friend that took her away. Ressler aims the gun at his injured best friend, slumped against a snow-covered log. And this is where things get intriguing. Earlier in the episode, Tanida had been killing Ressler's colleagues by forcing them to commit seppuku, the ritual suicide in which one disembowels himself. By doing this, Tanida gives his victims the chance to do "the honorable thing," while also making it appear as though the men weren't murdered, but rather killed themselves. Here, Ressler decides to give Bobby the same opportunity to do "the honorable thing," providing him with a blade and telling him he either has the choice to kill himself or be killed. It's a stunning moment that wouldn't work nearly as well without Klattenhoff's madman performance, a quality I didn't even know the actor had in him. It's fair to say that Klattenhoff hasn't really been given nearly enough to do this season, which is why it's so refreshing to see him actually given the opportunity to make use of a wider range of his talent. Seriously, Ressler borders on deranged her, so unmanned by his grief that he can hardly see reason even when Liz and the rest of the team track him down and plead with him to drop the gun, arguing he'll go to prison for the rest of his life if he kills Bobby. Try as he might to stay yoked to his rage and grief, Ressler puts down the gun -- only for Bobby to commit suicide with the blade anyway.

Credit: NBC

Yet it's a hollow victory for Ressler. Tanida has seemingly disappeared from the overturned SUV, and worse, the agent returns home to find a purchase Audrey had made before dying: a pregnancy test. It's like the final twist of the knife for a guy who just can't catch a break, it seems. Well, except for one notable consolation: Tanida didn't disappear, he was taken by Red. And decapitated. With his head placed in an ornamental box, and delivered to Ressler's front door with a letter from Red that offers his condolences and the hope of peace. However, Red should know better than anyone that peace is virtually impossible when something, or someone, you love has been ripped away from you. In a wonderful closing montage, Red visits the ballet for a private performance of Swan Lake, with all the ballerinas buzzing about this man who's come to see him: apparently, Red is the ballet's biggest financial contributor, and it's because his daughter had apparently been a member of the company many, many years ago. They perform the beautiful piece for him, and in watching it, Red is taken back to simpler days: he sees his daughter on the stage, dancing for him, a tragically beautiful little image that fades before his eyes. Red might have a tough, cool exterior, but that exterior is informed by immeasurable grief, and it's a credit to Spader's performance that so much of that pain can be inferred from just a look, an expression of pain and wistful satisfaction that exists in seemingly equal measure.

Credit: NBC

It's actually far better than anything having to do with the mystery I went in thinking I'd care most about: the ongoing business with Tom. This week, Red orders The Cowboy (Lance Reddick) to bring Jolene in. For her part, Jolene has been causing mischief by visiting Tom's house and making nice with Liz, trying to get real estate advice. Tom is furious and takes Jolene back to his secret loft to show her the progress he's made on his mission, so his handlers in Berlin can actually start giving him something to work with, as opposed to leaving him in the dark for two years. The Cowboy traces Tom to this loft, and in infiltrating it, winds up getting captured. Tom is proven to be fairly calculating, if not downright disturbed, as he basically beats The Cowboy, and then threatens Jolene into calling Liz with a made-up story about having to move away to Ohio. As The Cowbody warns Jolene, Tom is obviously going to kill them both the minute she makes that call. But Jolene isn't the brightest crayon in the box, so she makes the phone call anyway. And sure enough, Tom kills her by suffocating her with a bag. He then waltzes over to The Cowboy, gun in hand. "Okay, now you," he says, and pulls the trigger.

Credit: NBC

It's an absolutely chilling delivery that sticks in the craw long after the episode has ended, as Eggold is far better at playing a deeply unsettled sociopath than I would have expected going into the season, assuming that he actually is a sociopath who is simply good at faking human emotions as opposed to actually feeling them himself. I suppose the question of just how much he actually does love Liz is one we should be asking, as they get it on in the shower after the double-murder, with Tom seeming none the worse for wear. But then, two people are still dead, their bodies buried under the snow-covered dirt in the middle of scenic nowhere. Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq) reports to Red that The Cowboy cannot be found, meaning both he and Jolene/Lucy Brooks are dead. This seems to wash over Red, and I wonder if Red's connection to Jolene/Lucy Brooks will be revealed at some point soon, or if the show will continue to build its impressive roster of unanswered questions for May sweeps.

Credit: NBC

"Mako Tanida" is a compelling episode of TV, and it illustrates what The Blacklist is capable of doing when it has a greater emphasis on character and serialization, with a minimal emphasis on its procedural aspects. This isn't to say that the procedural elements don't have their place, but those pieces of the story work best when they're rooted in character, and in the pathos of people whose job it is to remain in the line of fire, even if that means separation from loved ones, or the inability to ever truly know other people as well as they should.