BWW Recap: It's Sudden Death for Politicos & for Red and Lizzie on NBC's THE BLACKLIST

We cold-open in Prague, where a political type enters a car with a driver. The driver is English, has a moustache and beard, and wears Mirrored Sunglasses of Evilness. He hands the politico a bottled water. One sip, and the man is out cold. Never take anything from someone wearing Mirrored Sunglasses of Evilness. Especially when it means your waking up beside a dead male prostitute in his apartment, which is not good for your political career. The televised news is watched by the once-driver, now in a flashy suit and in a plushy room. He's not only evil, he's former LAW AND ORDER assistant district attorney Linus Roache, who's suddenly become as English as he really is.

Red and a foreign associate believe that the political wreckage in Prague is the work of The Kingmaker, Number 42 on the list (also known as Linus Roache), and that it was arranged by whoever is secretly attacking Red's friends and associates to get to Red. (Is this why Red turned himself in to the FBI? You betcha. If we don't find this out at the end of the season, we'll learn it next season, no two ways.) This is bad for Red's business. "Your friends are talking." Red has friends? Besides Mr. Kaplan and Dembe? Oh, wait - "I don't have any friends." We'll hear that from others about him before the episode's out, mostly from Lizzie.

Speaking of Lizzie, the photos were, as anticipated, of Red at Sam's hospital. Aram is delegated to work computer magic to investigate Red's visit to Sam's hospital, because Aram has magic powers of crazy computer magic. Aram asks, "Is it possible they were friends and he was paying his respects?" Smart Aram. "He doesn't have friends." Thank you, Lizzie. It's your mantra for this episode. She goes to see Red, who reveals over her questions that Tom is in New York, but more importantly, The Kingmaker, Linus Roache, is now in the States. He's "singlehandedly responsible for the rise and fall" of political figures everywhere. He grooms candidates, takes down their opposition, works at this for years at a stretch, and owns many pairs of Mirrored Sunglasses of Evilness.

We cut to this week's new Ryan Eggold commercial for the new Ford Mustang. Who knew that being a Mysterious Figure of Ambiguous Goodness or Badness rated you a Ford Mustang?

The FBI thinks it's found The Kingmaker in a suite in a posh New York hotel. Because, Kingmaker, posh. But no, it's a false alarm. What's not a false alarm is Red eating with Fitch at a posh restaurant, where we discover that just like the actor playing him, Fitch is named Alan. And he and Red are on a first-name basis. Red points out that Red is under attack, and that this is not good for Fitch and his people either - if Red goes down, they and their secrets will, too. Fitch says he doesn't take well to threats, but Red tells him, "I'm not here to threaten you. I'm here to see if we can work together." Fitch understands that if Red goes down, Fitch's secrets will come out one way or another - Red's got time bombs of information set to go off in public if anything happens to him. Fun times, friends; fun times.

A ridiculously all-American guy kisses his wife and kid and they get in a car. Oh, wait. He had a chat with Linus Roache the day before. He's supposed to drive over a bridge at a certain time, or else he'll be condemned to "an ordinary, boring life." He's not just a kingmaker, he's right out of the twilight zone. Our all-American guy, who must be a politician, drives onto the bridge, where a truck comes out of nowhere and forces our guy to drive off the bridge and into the water. He lives, but his wife dies even as he applies CPR to her failing body. Chappaquiddick, anyone?

Well no, not exactly. Because State Assemblyman Chandler heroically tried to save his wife, yet she died anyway - he's a hero, and the public sympathy is incredible for his popularity, and Red knows from that that this sudden national public attention to a minor politician can only be the work of Linus Roache. Although Patrick Chandler is a veritable Boy Scout, the FBI immediately understands that Red is correct that the accident was arranged. Ressler is suspicious of Lizzie's marital problems, and Lizzie is suspicious of Red now that Aram's found video footage of his going to Sam's hospital just before Sam's death.

While Ressler and Lizzie find signs that Chandler's car accident was far from accidental, Fitch is meeting with his international associates, henchmen, and lackeys. They fear possible exposure, but they sure don't like Red. Fitch calls for a vote. Do they align with Red for this, or hide their heads in the sand and deal with the disclosure Crisis when it happens? We don't know the answer, as we cut to Ressler visiting the shop of Ruiz, the plumber, whose truck was the one that presumably accidentally forced Assemblyman Chandler off the road. Ruiz is dead. Not accidentally, but from a bullet.

Linus Roache meets with Assemblyman Chandler, who's annoyed because his wife wasn't supposed to die. He wants out of their deal. Linus says no, as he's invested way too much in Chandler's career. Besides, he's got a sympathy vote due thanks to her death, so they have momentum.

Red takes Lizzie to a pawn shop where he claims to be a "Mr. Gibbons." This immediately admits him to the poshest secret cigar bar in the universe, which appears to be located in approximately the same place where Maxwell Smart used to go to work at CONTROL. It's just that CONTROL had a really, really fancy overhaul, and it now seems to be like the cantina in Star Wars where all the questionable types hang out. Lizzie demands to know all sorts of things, like why Red didn't tell her he'd gone to Sam's hospital. "I went to see Sam before he died. I wanted to say goodbye." Telling people these things is suddenly required? The club owner discloses that Linus Roache had been there calling himself "Mr. King." Linus didn't leave a phone number but he complained about his stay at the Brixton.

Ressler and Lizzie visit Linus' suite at the Brixton. He's left and it's been cleaned, but in another room, there's abandoned computer equipment and monitors doing suspicious things. Naturally there's a sudden cut to an Apple commercial. After the commercial they send pictures to Aram, whose mad computer skills of doom reveal that what's showing on monitors is the blueprint and alarm wiring of the home of a Senator Mitchell. If Mitchell dies, Assemblyman Patrick Chandler is a likely candidate in a special election for the senator's seat - and he has the public firmly in his corner since his wife's sudden death.

Senator Mitchell's home alarm system goes off. He goes to check the situation instead of heading to his panic room, only to encounter Linus Roache. Roache asks Mitchell to resign, and the senator says, sure, why not? Linus somehow doesn't trust this immediate capitulation and shoots Mitchell. But because of Aram's magic computing, Ressler and Lizzie are en route to Mitchell's house, where they find Mitchell, and where Linus hasn't escaped. Although Linus chokes Lizzie to near-strangulation, Ressler shoots and kills Linus, once again without even disturbing his clothing. (You can't disturb a hair on Ressler's head; it's gelled too firmly.) This is at least two weeks in a row of no injuries to Ressler, so the next one must be going to be a doozy.

Fitch reveals to Red that the vote of his buddies did not go their way. Fitch sees the wisdom of working with Red, but most of the others didn't. What about the Chinese? Apparently the Chinese are trying to lose the word "Red" from close proximity to "China". They just wanted Red killed. Red's not impressed. "When this is all over, I won't be able to help you... When this is all settled up, Alan, it will be you sitting alone in the dark." Liz calls as Fitch leaves. Red asks her for ten minutes to Face Off with Linus, but Linus is dead.

The press swarms Chandler, who won't be in a special election for Mitchell's seat because Mitchell survived the shooting (because the FBI was there). Chandler tells them he's very happy that Mitchell is alive (unlike his wife). Lizzie arrests him in front of the cameras for his conspiracy to attempt murdering the senator.

Aram, who possesses the capability to do anything, even the absolutely impossible, has accessed internal hospital records that reveal that Red was in the hospital when Sam died. Red admits he killed Sam. Lizzie demands an explanation even though she isn't really listening. Red explains that he'd known Sam for all of Lizzie's, and most of his own, life. Any bets they were in the service together? Was Sam at the Naval Academy? Red graduated in 1984, thirty years ago, and Lizzie is presumably not quite 30. Lizzie wants to know what Sam wanted to tell her that she thinks Red killed him to avoid his telling. Red tells Lizzie that it's something that wasn't Sam's secret to reveal, but that Sam was only thinking of it because he was in extreme pain and distress at the time and wasn't thinking clearly. He killed Sam because he couldn't bear Sam's suffering, and neither could Sam; he doesn't say it, but in that episode, Sam did evince a desire to die as soon as possible. Lizzie announces that he's a monster - she's done that before, though - and that they're through working together. (Jury's open on that one, but smart money says they'll be together in the next episode. It was shown in the "next week" trailer.)

What was not Sam's secret to reveal, and whose secret is it? It's not that Red is Lizzie's real father - that's been fairly well established except to true believers. Is it Red's secret? Is it the secret of some third party? Is it only that as Tom knows, Red gave Sam money for her? (Though if he's not her father, and he doesn't seem to be, why was he funneling that money through Sam?)

Lizzie goes home, where she still hasn't cleaned up the wreckage of the last fight with Tom. It's still a broken-glass-and-shattered-Ikea paradise. She leaves and rings Ressler's doorbell. "I didn't know where else to go." She'd just been looking at the physical evidence of her shattered marriage; Ressler had been drinking a beer and presumably musing over Audrey's death. What we won't see will probably sound like a bad episode of Steve Harvey. "Our relationships were ruined by working on cases provided to the FBI by Dr. Evil." That and "I didn't know I married a secret agent disguised as a school teacher."

The "next week" clip tells us what many have already suspected - "Berlin," about which Tom, his pseudo-brother, and Jolene kept whispering, is a person, not a place. "Berlin" is coming after Red. Will we find out who "Berlin" is? We know it's not Fitch, and Diane Fowler is dead - who is it? This person seems to be Tom's and his late pseudo-brother's boss. The real question should be, did Red know that "Berlin" was indirectly connected to Lizzie, and is that why he chose to work with her, when with all his resources he still doesn't seem to know who "Berlin" is?

Photos: Nicole Rivelli/NBC