BWW Recap: 'The Front' Plagues THE BLACKLIST

Are you more afraid of domestic ecoterrorism, or of Ebola? You can have both in THE BLACKLIST's "The Front", in which we're introduced to the terror group that's Number 74 on Red's list. But the three most important things to take away from the episode? Liz is jealous of Red's daughter; Aram and Samar may have a little something going on; and most amazingly, even Raymond Reddington, The Concierge of Crime, gets stuck in DMV lines, waiting to be served. If all-powerful super-criminals can't get service from the clerks at Motor Vehicles, there's no hope at all for the rest of us.

"Everyone is going to die if he goes through with it," cries a middle-aged woman to a younger one on a cell phone call. "He," a scraggy-looking guy, simply pushes the woman into a taxi. Younger woman appears to be Shaggy's girlfriend and doesn't mind.

Red is working on something, much as he repaired a music box last season, only- is that film splicing? Does anyone splice film anymore? As he works, Liz argues that she doesn't want the handy sniper/bodyguard who saved her last week. Red deflects with the tale of Carrie Ann Beck, who is on life support after the taxi incident. It was caused by her husband, Maddox Beck, leader of The Front, an ecology group once reputable but now devoted to killing humans to save Earth.

The FBI briefing tells us that Beck likes ricin poisonings as well as pushing his wife into harm's way. The Mystic Aram says that Carrie Ann had 700-year-old clay under her nails. It's raw siena pigment, tying her and Beck into an art theft. Did they steal a painting to sell to fund their group?

Uh, no. Beck is taking ultraviolet photos of the painting, which has markings or code underneath it. Is he searching for buried treasure? Alien contact sites? A vegetarian McDonald's burger?

Red is in line at the DMV, surrounded by ordinary, ill-dressed mortals who are driving him insane. He is number 114, and number 74 was just called. Forty-five minutes and many blood pressure points later, he is in an office with DMV employee Glenn, who isn't doing his job- that is, the one Red pays him for. "Everything rests on finding the girl," Red explains impatiently. But Glenn not only has his official job, he has to deal with mom's cancer and his brother's Legionnaires' Disease. "You're the most gifted tracker I know, Glenn, but your mouth runs like a scalded dog." That's Red's weirdest simile since "talking faster than a cheerleader under the bleachers after a nooner" last season.

Development of the Week: Liz is paying a double to be seen by her sniper buddy while she sneaks off. Today she just needs an hour's coverage.

Aram The Magnificent has found that the stolen painting has codes of some sort under the paint. The museum curators have thermal imaging pictures he's reviewing. An Agent Morrow says it's a code to lead to a strain of plague called the Apophis Strain. Shades of STARGATE SG-1, and maybe a nod to James Spader's part in the original movie.

Agent Morrow, now "Lillian," meets with Red and Liz with more information. The painting shows ley lines leading to the location of the plague. It's hidden in America. More specifically, it's in Staten Island. There's a joke there. Liz and Ressler run to find it but Beck got there first. There's an Ancient Cyrillic message at the location. The Omnipotent Aram solves it, naturally, and determines it's a distance in cubits. Is there nothing he cannot solve? Meanwhile, Red requests that Aram locate THE MISSING girl since Glenn can't. Aram asks if it's important. "The girl is critical in my war with Berlin." Is it his daughter, or is it someone connected with Berlin?

Aram's directions lead to Holy Trinity Church in Manhattan. Off to the catacombs for Liz and Ressler! Beck, in a hazmat suit, is confronted by Liz, but Beck's hidden helper coshes her on the back of the head. Ressler finds her just after Beck runs off with the plague. Aram consoles Liz that she tried hard, and that she had a right to be nervous, just like working for Red makes him nervous, and... whoops, inappropriate disclosure time.

Beck preaches to his followers, "We need to become extinct." Talk about reducing your carbon footprint.

Liz tells Red that the FBI is not going to search for his daughter. Red never says "daughter" in this episode. Is it his daughter? Is she Berlin's granddaughter? Liz is foaming at the mouth. Red says, "As a rule, I consider jealousy to be a base emotion but in this case it's quite endearing." He assures her that "my quest to find this young woman will in no way endanger our relationship." The daddy theorists and the love-interest advocates can be heard imploding on the spot. Liz feebly repeats that Aram's mystic powers are not to be used to find Red's daughter and that she doesn't want any more private sniper bodyguards.

Sniper bodyguard is in his motel room eating Chinese takeout and watching Liz do a deliberate striptease in her window as Red calls him. Red warns him that Liz is hiding something and she'll manipulate the situation. What she's manipulating at the moment is her bra, as well as a tube of lipstick she uses to write "Bite Me" on her window at Sniper Guy. Or is that her double? Because she's next at the warehouse lair from last week, telling a bruiser that she's going to "go inside." What's "inside"? Tom?

One of Beck's followers, "Sharon," tests a plague aerosol. "I can feel it inside me! I can feel it growing!" Is this a plague or aerosolized alien impregnation? Sharon goes around DC, spreading plague, causing a government shutdown and a quarantine of 2300 people who might have been exposed. Based on Sharon's body, there's nine hours from infection to be cured or not. Aram finds the company that shipped lab rats to Beck's lab, giving Liz and Ressler an address to raid to find a cure. Beck's long gone and the place is sterile, but a list is found of 24 cities Beck wants to infect to start world decimation.

Red, number 84 at the DMV line, is told by Glenn that he's found "the girl." She's a Zoe D'Antonio. Red gives Glenn a new office vending machine in appreciation.

Beck preaches that humans are the problem, and "we are the antidote." He and his followers have a jolly aerosol inhalation ceremony. Beck leads off, but is he really infected? Why do we doubt it?

Samar's found a car at Dulles with a plague aerosol. Aram starts filtering flight manifests to find planes with potential infectees on them, so air marshals can quarantine them. But there's at least one infectee loose at an airport. Samar and Liz go to find him. They lose him, but Aram, using the airport security cameras, finds him and Samar takes him down with a flying tackle only to have him shoot his aerosol in her face. Samar locks herself in a corridor to quarantine herself, but Liz comes after her anyway. As they're dragged off to quarantine, Liz admits to Samar that she's jealous of Red's daughter. More daddy fan implosion. Liz and Samar are eerily reminiscent of Tony DiNozzo being shipped into plague quarantine in NCIS.

Aram informs Cooper that he and Red, mostly Red, have realized that Beck is off the grid someplace with solar energy. Aram thinks he knows where, but tells Cooper that Red has a great head start.

Red's at Beck's cozy hideout where Beck is canoodling with his follower girlfriend. "The only men I know who have people willing to die for their cause are either megalomaniacs or saints, and we both know you're no saint." Beck either has a vaccine or a cure, since he and the galpal are fine, and Red wants it. Galpal gives Red a mysterious key.

Red visits Liz in the hospital and sits holding her hand. Samar and Aram are doing the same thing in Samar's room. Go, Aram! Then Red watches a reel of family footage, of young girls playing. Is his daughter in the film? Is Liz? Later, Red goes to stand on a street corner, coffee cup in hand, watching a young woman working a food truck. She seems happy. She's also Zoe D'Antonio.

Is Zoe D'Antonio Red's daughter? Is Tom being warehoused? Will Aram find love with Samar? Will Red ever find a way through those DMV lines? Tell us what you think, @MarakayBWW or @BWWTVWorld.

Photo Credit; Michael Parmalee/NBC

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