BWW Recap: The Director's Flight Hits a Dead End on THE BLACKLIST

Picking up from where we left off in last week's story of The Director, Mr. Kaplan, our favorite nearly-perfect being and apparently the daughter of Mary Poppins and the Professor from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, assembles a team of various Reddington henchmen (after shaking them down for their concealed weapons) and lawyer Marvin Gerard. Cooper, Samar, and Aram are also dealt in. Red and Dembe enter a meat packing plant and come out in a bar where the team is assembled, in order to Reveal Red's Secret Plan To Free Liz And Exonerate Her.

He begins by explaining the entire first half of the season in 30 seconds, and how each case (episode) damaged a part of the Director's schemes. Now he'll completely discredit the Director with the Cabal. After kidnapping him on his way to his marital therapist. All righty, then!

FBI transports and choppers overhead get Liz to the federal courthouse, where there's an angry mob outside due to news leaks, but they get her inside safely despite what looks like an Oregon federal-property-occupying crowd standing there. Karakurt and Not-Tom watch on TV, while Karakurt starts to get COLD FEET about testifying. Not-Tom heats things back up, because, as he explains, he also knows where Karakurt's sister lives. Oh, you devious, nasty thing, you're so clever.

The Director wants Liz killed that night; Hitchin says to wait until morning. You know this will cause everything to come tumbling down.

Morning comes. Samar, undercover, spills the Director's wife's latte, offers a fresh one, and drugs her with the replacement. She becomes woozy, so Undercover Cooper helps her to a bench where she calls the therapist, who calls the Director to come over. Red, Mr. Kaplan, and their posse, marching in like an OCEAN'S ELEVEN parade, enter the therapist's building. The therapist's office is on the sixth floor; they recreate it on the eighth floor, as Aram wires the elevator to go to that floor when the sixth-floor button is pushed. The Director goes into the phony office. Mr. Kaplan plays receptionist and leads him to the private office, where Dembe drugs him. And may I just say that scenes like this, where Red's people construct entire floors and buildings and scenarios on the fly, are the best thing in this vein since the heyday of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE?

Ressler introduces Liz to her attorney, Allison Gaines. She's supposedly the best attorney around, but she makes no promises. She's clearly no Marvin Gerard, since she doesn't think there's much she can do with 16 counts of capital murder hanging over Liz's head. Meanwhile, Hitchin meets with a not-so-classy hit man, a federal prosecutor, and the judge who would sentence the hit man for killing Liz at the courthouse to work out a deal for taking out Liz. Why didn't they just hire a pro instead of this obvious Craigslist-advertisement would-be mercenary? In fact, doesn't the government have secret henchmen for just this sort of thing, at least on TV?

Liz is brought before Super Secret Case Judge Trotter, and Gaines and Liz aren't doing well, but Ressler warns his reporter friend to be prepared for an interesting turn of events inside the Super Secret Case Courtroom. I'll bet it's Karakurt. Or else the attack of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The Director wakes up in the plush bedroom of the plush jet of the President of Venezuela. Red and the foreign minister are flying him to The Hague to be tried for war crimes. The Hague would love to try an American official for war crimes (and that's a real story, incidentally, so THE BLACKLIST is now also Ripped From The Headlines). The Director says it won't work, because the US doesn't recognize the tribunal, but it's a Venezuelan case, sorry, and Venezuela does recognize it. Oh Red, you and your team are such schemers, it's a pleasure to know you. This is so brilliant, it must have been a Mr. Kaplan special. Red calls Hitchin to share the news and that Marvin Gerard will be visiting her to negotiate. Marvin walks in her office right then, ready for action.

The hit man shows up at the federal courthouse as Ressler goes out to look for Karakurt's arrival and a press statement is issued about Karakurt's importance to the case. Red and Hitchin negotiate on the phone: he wants Liz cleared but she says it's impossible. Ha, nothing is impossible for Marvin Gerard, escaped inmate and legal genius.

Ressler comes to transport Liz. Hitchin tries to call off her hit man, but he sees her call come in and ignores it because he is so brilliant. She calls Ressler directly and warns him; Ressler and some federal marshals take down the fool. If this is the quality of hit man the government is secretly hiring, no wonder they couldn't kill Fidel Castro. What ever happened to quality hit men, people?

Hitchin gives Marvin her final offer - Liz innocent of everything except the shooting of Attorney General Connolly, and involuntary manslaughter with three years' probation as the sentence. Red doesn't like it but Marvin says it's better than even he expected, and that Red should take it. Red asks Hitchin what to do with the Director, and she cheerfully tells him he can do anything he likes because they don't want him back. Something suggests this will not end well for our old buddy from the CIA.

Liz doesn't like the deal as a homicide means no badge. Ressler says the task force will be back together, and that she can work on it from Red's side with Red. She doesn't like being an asset rather than an agent, but Red points out that she knows she crossed a line when she shot the Attorney General. (Really. Thank you.) He also says she might get her badge back some time later. Maybe that's Season Four.

Hitchin does a mealy-mouthed press conference at which Ressler secretly gags, listening to her exonerate Liz, announce the capture of Karakurt, praise Ressler and the FBI, and say she can't imagine Liz's pain and suffering. She also tells us that Attorney General Connolly was a Cabal agent -oh, now the Cabal is real -which is why Liz is getting probation for shooting him, and that he was in league with the Director, who's fled the country. Said flight risk tells Red that he knows who Red really is and what he is to Liz. Red says that's none of his business. The Director's body promptly falls through the ceiling of a Dutch house where the occupants watching the news about him.

Liz is cleared for release. Ressler welcomes Cooper back to the task force director's chair, and Hitchin has a quiet drink at her place with Red. This last part falls under the Should Have Known list; whatever conspirator survives a murderous conspiracy on this show knows Red. And either they're buddies, or he's going to kill her eventually, or both, because them's the breaks when you drink with Red.

Liz exits the courthouse alone, in the dark, on an empty street, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. A bus passes, and suddenly a car's across the street, with Red standing beside it, waiting for her. Big hug, and curtain.

Next week... some fans have speculated in the past that our Red might not be the real Raymond Reddington, and it looks as if that theory's going to be tested.

Will Liz and Red be the FBI's pet Bonnie and Clyde team? Will Liz get her badge back? Will Samar go back to the task force? And where can the Cabal go from here? Post your theory here, or tweet us @MarakayBWW!

Photo credit: NBC/Universal