The Blacklist Review: Arioch Cain (Season 3 Ep. 5)

What is the price you’re willing to pay for something you want? That’s a question this week’s The Blacklist episode, “Arioch Cain” asks. As it turns out, a lot of people are willing to fork over money in order to see Elizabeth Keen. And this week, it’s not just the Cabal that Liz and Red have to worry about –– it’s the entire world, civilians and all. Someone places a bounty on Liz’s head and the first one to kill her and prove it was them gets a reward. Almost three-quarters of a million dollars, to be precise.

The thing about this episode is that it isn’t really interesting, engaging, or good… until we get closer to the end. Remember how I said a few weeks ago that The Blacklist’s third season seemed to be a revival of sorts? I take back those words (for now). In spite of the stellar first two episodes, the show has begun to backslide into its old habits and “Arioch Cain” feels a lot like an unnecessary filler episode that brings us no closer to Liz clearing her name and taking down the Cabal.

Instead, we spend most of the time in the episode running around town with Red and Liz, having shoot-outs and taking down baddies like we used to. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the way this show integrates action sequences, but sometimes I’m afraid it relies on them in order to prop up weak writing and compensate for interesting characters.

I will say that even though a lot of the episode is rather dull, the final quarter or so of it made up for the lack of quality. When Liz and Red discover that there is a bounty on her head, Red approaches a person he trusts for help –– Ressler. I’m going to take time now to talk about this character development because honestly, it’s really impressive. Red mocks Ressler a lot for being an uptight FBI lapdog. If you’ll recall, Liz chastised him for saying that and claimed Ressler was a good person. This week, we get the chance to see just how wrong Red really is, in general, about things sometimes when emotion clouds his judgement. Ressler is no exception.

You see, if Ressler could merely be the obedient, calloused lapdog of the FBI he was in season one, he would never have declare in a hearing, that he believes Elizabeth Keen to be innocent. That’s a thing that happens in this episode. Ressler, after being prompted, tells everyone that he believes in Liz’s innocence. We’ve heard Ressler talk about giving Liz the benefit of the doubt before, but we have never seen him fight as hard as we do in this episode to get people to believe that. I mentioned this last week, but it bears repeating: the only way Ressler can keep Liz safe is if he’s in power in the FBI. If he loses his job, he loses his resources and she loses her protection. Finding and arresting Liz is the safest way to protect her.

… Or, it would be, if the FBI was not now infiltrated with the Cabal (which it is). That’s right, folks –– our dear friend The Director is now in power in the FBI, privileged to all of the information Ressler and his team have on Red and Liz’s whereabouts. So unfortunately, Liz is now in even more danger than ever. Yikes. Before Ressler discovers that The Director now has access to everything he knows about his fugitive crush partner, something else happens: Ressler lets Aram hug him.

In order to get her name off of the bounty website, Liz must be killed. And “killed,” she is: with the help of Aram, Samar, and the rest of the task force along with Mr. Kaplan (!!!) and Red, Liz’s death is staged for the whole world to see and believe. Since Ressler is in a hearing at the time his team is staging this, he gets word of Liz’s death first and then discovers that it is a trick.

But there is a moment (or two or three) where Ressler believes Liz to be dead. And it rattles him. I’ve often believed that Ressler softened toward Liz as a person first, a partner second, and now he’s softening his heart toward her even further. Because when Ressler talks about the moment he thought Liz died, he becomes more vulnerable and honest than we have ever seen him:

“You know what I am? I’m scared. Because for a moment… I thought that Keen was gone. And I thought that…”

Literally, Aram embraces Ressler because he can’t even finish his sentence –– can’t say the word “dead.” And Ressler, in a turn of events, allows Aram to hug him. Remember: Ressler hasn’t spoken to Liz that day. He hasn’t communicated with her (Samar did), so the last thing he essentially told her was that he still didn’t believe in her. Not really.

And maybe I’m delusional, but I think there’s more than just camaraderie and work on Ressler’s end, here. I think he’s legitimately realizing how much Liz means to him and how scared he is to lose her before he can tell her that. There’s something like love percolating in Ressler’s heart and mind, and I’m on board with it.

But Liz has problems of her own this episode, including getting shot at by an assassin and coming face-to-face with the Cabal’s creepy and evil new face, Mr. Solomon. I talked above about how Red is actually wrong this episode. First, he is wrong about Ressler. Second, and more importantly, he os wrong about trusting Vargas –– you know, the man who is working for Mr. Solomon and SHOT Dembe in the previous episode. Because of the fact that Liz barely escapes the assassin with her life, Red is a bit shaken up and he doesn’t question Vargas when he lies and says that Dembe died. Instead, Red merely gets into a car with Vargas to an abandoned warehouse and seems genuinely surprised when Mr. Solomon is waiting for them. Red –– who is never wrong –– walks directly into a trap. I seriously assumed he would turn on Vargas and reveal that he knew he was working with the Cabal… but alas, that does not happen.

In fact, all hope seems lost when Red and Liz are surrounded and the newly-blonde suspected terrorist is close to getting sliced open by creepy Mr. Solomon. In the nick of time, however, who should appear but our valiant hero, Dembe! After saving Liz and Red, Dembe then promptly collapses because, you know, he was shot in the side last week.

This episode ends with a voiceover showcasing Red sitting by Dembe’s side and Ressler looking at Liz’s empty desk, among other things. The voiceover is narrated by Tom who promises Liz that he will fight for a second chance for her to live a wonderful life. It’s all nice, I guess, if you set aside the fact that he manipulated her, hurt her (emotionally and physically), and doesn’t seem to be serving a purpose on the show great enough to warrant the screen time he’s been given.

Tom’s narration is a lot like “Arioch Cain”: full of lots of words and phrases that sound nice, but are mostly all ultimately meaningless.

Notes & things:

• This week, the blacklister is a teenage girl from suburbia who put Liz’s name on the website because she believes her to be responsible for the bombing that killed her mother. The episode ends with her sitting on the couch next to her dad, reading a book. The two smile at one another. I guess neither of them is going to address the fact that she actively got people to try and murder Liz, but sure. We’ll call it a resolved situation.
• The “blacklister” was also super confusing because it was the girl, not the Wendigo, which seemed more appropriate. Has this girl been ordering bounties on people for years? Because it seemed like a one-time thing, so I’m not sure why she would be on Red’s list at all.
• I’m following Tom’s storyline this season with about as much interest as I’m following the flashbacks on Arrow. Which, if you know me at all, is about 0.5%. This week, all I could gather was that he’s still getting into Rich Long-Haired Boy’s inner circle which includes finding out information from Rich Long-Haired Boy’s Pretty Fiancé. And Tom killed a Russian. That’s really all I have of importance on this story.
• Cooper is mostly absent from this episode, which is kind of a bummer.
• Dear The Blacklist: if you open your episode with Liz “dead,” and then spend the entire episode in flashbacks, we all know she’s not dead. She’s your main character. Try again.
• Ressler is actually in Narcotics Anonymous and they show him there. That is so important to me because this show could easily drop his addiction (like I feared would happen), but they made it important and I actually think Ressler is becoming softer and better for it. Good job, show.
• Aram: “Please tell me you didn’t get to zero. … Hello?”
• LIZ HUGS RED AND IT IS ADORABLE.
• Aram: “The miracle of crowd-sourcing turned on its head to crowd fund murder.”
• This is way too heavy-handed and meta: Mr. Solomon asks what’s up with the relationship between Red and Liz, wondering aloud whether or not they were a father/daughter relationship or a May/December one. He literally says: “everyone wants to know.” Oh, writers.
• Aram: “Um, I’m sorry. Bad connection. Did you just say we need to kill her?”
• (Aram clearly has the best lines this episode.)
• Ressler, about Liz: “Because every day that she’s out there is a day we could lose her.” #shippingitlikefedex
• Based on last week, I didn’t think we would get an affectionate Ressler/Liz reunion. But now I’m pretty sure he’s going to hug her. What do you all think?

What did you think of this episode? Let us know in the comments!

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The Blacklist airs Thursdays at 9/8c on NBC.