The Blacklist Season Finale Review: Masha Rostova (Season 2 Episode 22)

Well hallelujah, amen! We finally have answers as to who Elizabeth Keen really is, why her memories were blocked by Red, and what – exactly – happened the night of the fire that she has been struggling to remember ever since.

This season’s finale of The Blacklist is pretty subdued. This is a series that has been known to blow up buildings, set things on fire, and wreak bloody havoc on its characters in its episodes. But “Masha Rostova” is relatively tame in comparison to episodes like “Anslo Garrick,” for example. It is a culmination of the questions that have been building all season. They’ve been questions of identity and of secrecy, of lies and truth. And it’s wonderful.

It would be easy for this episode – with its lack of fanfare – to be considered underwhelming to some. Red’s big plan to take down the Cabal? Gathering eleven of the world’s greatest journalists and revealing the Fulcrum and all its secrets to them.

It is poignant, to me, that the weapon of choice for Raymond Reddington is not a gun. It is not an explosive. It is not a material weapon at all. The weapon against the Cabal? The truth. Words. A voice. He tells these journalists that because of what they’re going to learn and going to research, they will have a target on their backs and on the backs of those who they hold closest. But if they decide to pursue their research, they – collectively – will be able to make the world better.

It’s a rather tame moment, one that is specifically wonderful because Red sits on a stage, addressing the journalists like they are a classroom of preschoolers and he was telling them a story. Red is usually at his best when he’s being feared, but I think he’s at his true best when he’s being genuine and honest and human. This is such a wonderful moment in the episode that demonstrates that.

If you’ll recall from the end of last week’s episode, Elizabeth Keen was targeted by the Cabal and set up for the murder of a senator using a bio-weapon. Initially, she tells Red that she will fight this – she will not run away, because running away will only make her appear guilty and that’s exactly what the Cabal wants.

But when she overhears a conversation between Tom Connolly and Cooper – with the latter being placed on a leave of absence by Tom, who is intent on following through with destroying Liz – the woman realizes she’s in bigger trouble than she fathomed. Luckily for her, after her blood is drawn at The Post Office and she’s interrogated, Red and Cooper collaborate on the plan to get her out of there safely.

There is one unexpected wrinkle in the plan, though, and that wrinkle goes by the name of Donald Ressler.

I love Ressler. I love how much he has evolved, and I love that his relationship with Liz has deepened since the pilot, so much so that he actually SAVES Liz though she’s on the run. When Ressler confronts Liz before she escapes The Post Office, he tells her that she can fight – she can beat whatever is being thrown at her as long as she doesn’t run away.

But Liz knows better, and when she asks what her blood test results are, Ressler – resigned – tells her that she tested positive. She then informs him that he has a very small window of time – seconds, really – to decide what he is going to do. Either he is going to let her go, or he’ll have to arrest her — because if he doesn’t, HE will be put in jeopardy. So Ressler makes his choice and when the cameras turn back on, he lies and says that he just missed catching Liz.

I think that the Ressler/Liz dynamic is so interesting and so great. Here’s a man who gives pretty much everything in his life to his job and yet still chose to protect his partner, even though he knew that if anyone found out, it could cost him everything. He believes in Liz. He believes that she is stronger than she knows.

That’s why he wants her to stay and fight against the Cabal’s accusations – because if she DOES, he can help. If she stays, he’ll be fighting for her, too. But Liz runs. And she continues to run. And when Ressler is named acting director of the task force, he’s faced with a problem: he doesn’t want to hunt Liz down. He doesn’t want to do that to her. But if she runs, he will have no choice. She (we’ll talk more about this in a bit) kills Tom Connolly at the end of the episode.

Now Ressler knows that Liz is guilty of something. It’s not a matter of protecting her anymore – he still wants to, I have no doubt – but of holding Liz accountable for something she actually did, rather than protecting her against something she was only accused of. If Liz keeps running now, she won’t be running from the Cabal: she’ll be running from Ressler. And he doesn’t want to hunt her but if she leaves, he will have no choice. He pretty much begs Liz to not make him do that. It’s this tiny moment in the episode that leaves me anticipating the third season of The Blacklist: with Liz on the run, how will her relationship with Ressler (and Samar and Aram) ever be repaired?

Contrasted with Ressler’s (and Red’s, for that matter) pleas for Liz to stay and fight, we have Tom’s pleas for Liz to run away with him on a boat. And – long story short – Tom knows that he’s ready to leave; he’s going to get away, with or without Liz. So then, as Tom is helping to patch Liz’s injuries up (The reverse Florence Nightingale Effect was out on full display), she decides that what she really wants is Tom. So they sleep together and Liz agrees to run away with him.

I don’t like the Tom/Liz dynamic at all because… you know, of the small matter that he tried to kill her a few times, beat her up, everything they know about each other are lies, etc. etc. So when Liz discovers some critical intel on a flash drive about Cooper, Tom knows what we all know: Liz will always choose to protect people, even if it means putting herself in danger. “Masha Rostova” ends with Tom sailing off into the unknown in his boat. Don’t worry – I’m sure he’ll return.

So as I mentioned above, Liz kills Tom Connolly. You remember him, right? Horrible human being? Well, he’s even MORE horrible in this episode. We discover that Tom paid off Cooper’s doctor to fake a brain tumor. Turns out, Cooper isn’t even remotely sick. Wow. Then, as Cooper and Liz confront Tom with the recordings of their findings, they try to blackmail him into doing their bidding.

It only rattles Tom for a moment before he insists that he’s a pawn in the Cabal’s schemes. At least they KNOW who is threatening and setting them up – if they kill him, someone else will just take his place. And the downside is that they won’t be privileged enough to know who is after them.

Liz draws her gun on Tom anyway, even when Cooper warns her that she’s treading into darkness again and he doesn’t want to see her become THIS – become someone else, something else (… sorry, I am still hung up on Arrow). So he pleads with her to lower her weapon.

But Liz pulls the trigger. She pulls it in anger and she pulls it in pain and she pulls it after Tom threatens the lives of everyone she loves (he tells her that he can’t wait to see Ressler, Red, Aram, Samar, and Cooper’s lives destroyed and details how they will be). She does it because she wants the pain to stop and she wants to protect the people who are being hurt unjustly.

Something happens as she pulls the trigger.

Liz remembers.

She remembers the night of the fire and exactly what happened. As Cooper tells her to run (#RunLizzieRun), Elizabeth Keen recalls exactly what she did the night of the fire as a child. And when she frantically calls Red because she killed Tom (his response of “I know” is telling), he calmly tells her that he’ll meet her and they’ll make their escape together. On a bench, Liz tells Red what happened when she pulled the trigger and killed Tom.

And – kudos to James Spader – Red’s anguished and emotional face is enough to tell us everything he is feeling. Liz killed her father. She shot him because he was hurting her mother. They were arguing and he had a gun and when he dropped it and it slid toward her, she pointed and pulled the trigger.

Pain etched onto every line in his face, Red sinks down into the seat beside Liz and she realizes for the first time WHY he blocked her memories of that night. He wasn’t protecting himself; he was protecting her. He did that so she would not have to live with the pain and regret and guilt of what she had done.

And yet, as Red and Liz sit together, the former makes a confession: that’s why he did it, yes. But look at them now. He did what he did so Liz wouldn’t become like him… but she has. She’s full of guilt now and pain and regret and darkness.

I can’t recall which review I said this in, but I loved Liz’s darker path this season because I recognized she was becoming more and more like Raymond Reddington. Now, she’s embodied all of those similarities, down to her name being next to his on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

As the finale draws to a close, we see all of our favorite characters in pieces and pairs – Cooper is arrested for Tom’s death, though Liz told Ressler he had nothing to do with it. Ressler, acting as director of the task force now, places Liz’s photo onto their board as Samar and Aram share a look with one another. Red and Liz head off into the unknown together. Appropriately, this season ends with Elton John’s “Rocket Man” playing over these scenes and reminding us of what has happened and what’s to come for these characters:

And I think it’s gonna be a long long time

Till touch down brings me round again to find

I’m not the man they think I am at home

Oh no, no, no, I’m a rocket man

Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

Other things:

• Okay, I stand corrected from a few episode reviews earlier – the reason Liz has a flip phone is because they’re disposable, and Dembe threw hers out the window of the car before.
• Kaplan returned briefly in all of her sassy, wonderful glory.
• There was a really emotional moment between Cooper and Liz in the car, where both of them began to cry over how little time he had left and how much Liz needed him in her life.
• Cooper: “What little time I have left, I don’t want to spend in a car blubbering with you.”
• Red: “I’m a sin-eater. I absorb the misdeeds of others, darkening my soul to keep theirs pure. That is what I am capable of.”
• During a chase scene, Tom ever-so-conveniently slipped into his very nice, very pretty Ford Mustang. If you don’t watch The Blacklist live, there are always advertisements for the show’s sponsor – Ford – with Ryan Eggold talking about his role as Tom/occasionally doing the commercial AS Tom. So that was a nice little bit of product placement in this episode.
• Liz: “I don’t need to know who I am to know what I want.”
• Ressler: “You keep doing this, you will be hunted down.” Liz: “I know.” Ressler: “By me. Please, Liz. Don’t make me do this.”
• Liz: “I remember. I remember everything.”
• Red: “I never wanted you to be…” Liz: “What?” Red: “Like me.”
• That does it for my reviews of The Blacklist Season 2! Hopefully you all enjoyed. 🙂

What did you think of the Season 2 Finale of The Blacklist? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Blacklist returns to Thursdays this fall on NBC.