The Blacklist - Recap: King Me

Don't get me wrong, The Kingmaker himself is a kind of ridiculous character, a guy who grooms politicians and then creates the circumstances that allow their careers to rise to prominence. He dresses like Charles Augustus Magnussen, has an inexplicable sense of smell, and slathers his language with the sort of delectably villainous British accent you only ever hear in spy movies. Yet it's just so perfect, because Roache imbues the character with a kind of pathological need to create men of power for his own benefit. His motives for doing this are suspect, if they're ever made apparent at all, and that makes him twice as dangerous as your average Blacklister. He could completely destroy Red's world, and for no other reason than that he can. "The Kingmaker" is vintage Blacklist, more fun than substantive, but a worthwhile hour all the same.

Credit: NBC

The case this week centers on the titular Kingmaker, a man who's made it his business to target all of Red's financial interests out of a personal vendetta. Red (James Spader) knows The Kingmaker has been hired by a mysterious party to ruin his life, so he takes the case to Liz (Megan Boone) as a means of using the FBI to capture The Kingmaker so he can get ten minutes alone with the man to figure out who hired him. What we end up with is a cat-and-mouse game that makes for a terrifically fun episode, as The Kingmaker remains elusive, all while helping U.S. Assemblyman Patrick Chandler obtain the seat of a sitting Senator. It's a convoluted plan that involves causing a crash from which Chandler can rescue his loved ones, creating a cult of personality around the Assemblyman, to where his party and his constituents will be clamoring for him to run for the vacated Senate seat...once The Kingmaker gets around to killing the sitting Senator. Roache is tremendous here, playing The Kingmaker as a mean who luxuriates in the art of the long con, as he kicks off the episode by drugging a politician and putting his unconscious body in a seedy motel room alongside a dead male escort, which has the effect of ruining the man's political career.

Credit: NBC

As the episode rolls on, The Kingmaker not only seems to find his work thrilling, but looks down his nose at those who would prefer an ordinary life. This comes out when he chides Chandler for having second thoughts about their plan, giving him the option of simply living ha peaceful life with his wife and daughter. Of course, Chandler's ambition compels him to go along with the plan, and the ensuing botch on the staged car accident leaves Chandler's wife dead, and the Assemblyman himself with few options but to see the plan through to completion. This all results in a crazed brawl at the home of Senator Mitchell, the man The Kingmaker is trying to unseat. The killer gets the better of Liz and nearly strangles her to death until Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) puts a bullet in the back of The Kingmaker's skull.

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So it ends up being a bit of a good news/bad news scenario. Good news: The Kingmaker is dead, the Senator (who's been shot) is on the road to recovery, and Patrick Chandler has been arrested on criminal conspiracy charges. Bad news: the death of The Kingmaker means Red loses his only chance to figure out who's hunting him. This realization marks one of the few times we've seen Red truly unsettled, as he nearly goes apoplectic with frustration before calming himself. And who could blame him? He just spent the better part of the episode trying to get Fitch (Alan Alda) and the rest of his shadowy organization to help out with the whole Kingmaker problem, only for the mysterious organization to not only turn Red down, but to cut all affiliation with him. I'm still not entirely sure what the game plan is with these guys, but Red makes certain they know, in one of Spader's most chilling deliveries, that they need him far more than he needs them, as there will come a time that they'll realize their decision to cut ties with him means he can no longer help them. Chilling stuff, but too vague to mean as much as it could, as we don't exactly know what the nature of this organization is, nor do we necessarily know the nature of Red's affiliation with them. Either way, The Kingmaker's death isn't the only problem facing Red this week...

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The photos in Tom's P.O. box from the end of last week were security cam images of Red exiting the hospital at which Sam, Liz's father, passed away -- and on the same date he passed away. So, in order to get to the truth, Liz enlists the aid of tech-whiz Aram (Amir Arison), who pulls up a timestamp that reveals these pictures were taken at 4:30 PM, just one hour before Sam died. is able to piece together the mystery: Sam might have been declared dead at 5:30 PM, but he actually died closer to 4:30, meaning Red would have been in the room when Sam passed away. From there, it's not a huge deductive leap for Liz to piece together that Red killed her father. In an intense scene that was a long time coming, Liz confronts Red and demands to know the truth, and Red readily admits that he and her father were friends nearly his entire life, and for all of hers. Thus, he was doing his friend the service of putting him out of his misery, since he was in constant pain and was no longer in his right mind.

Credit: NBC

Liz states that her father was going to tell her something before he died, but held back, and Red confirms that what Sam was about to tell her was a secret he had no business revealing. It's an icy encounter and it's actually kind of impressive, the restraint that the scene shows. There's not really any shouting or torrent of tears, save for one outburst from Liz. Yes, there's a film of tears in her eyes the entire time, but the scene never devolves into blubbering and shouting. It's effective because it's not the big explosion we might have been expecting. It also works because both Boone and Spader allow their characters to truly believe in their respective positions: Liz can't see a scenario by which Red killing Sam is justifiable, while Red is adamant that his reasons were sound. Although Liz declares this the end of their partnership, it's hard to imagine curiosity won't draw her back towards Red. And if not, the need to have them get back together for the good of the show will.

Credit: NBC

Ultimately, "The Kingmaker" is an episode that is more fun than substance, yet the emotional rawness that's there makes this well worth the time investment. I mean, I'm not exactly sold on the romance direction the show seems to be headed with Liz and Ressler (at whose apartment she arrives when she decides she can't be at the home she shared with Tom anymore), but that's a fairly minor quibble at this point. The show is barreling towards the season finale, and while we're far more likely to have more questions than answers once it's all said and done, at least we're definitely getting a second season. And even with a ton of mysteries to solve, that doesn't mean the ride can't still be exciting as hell. The Blacklist is one of the finer, more inventive network procedurals in some time.