Season 2 Episode 5 Review/Recap 

Am I Watching National Treasure? – The Blacklist – Season 2 Episode 5 – “The Front”

Last week, The Blacklist frustrated audiences with revealing little information about Keen’s door, her relationship to Red, and Red’s quest to find Jennifer. The promos for this week’s episode seemed promising – maybe we would actually learn something.

The episode opened with a woman, very beaten and bruised, on the phone clearly trying to run away from someone. She meets up with the person she was calling, but her helper is not alone and the man she is with beats the woman into jumping in front of a taxi. The man digs through her purse and steals something before running away

Keen and Red are meeting together. Keen insists to Red that she doesn’t want or need his protection and that he should call off his men, but Red says no. Red is working on the taxi case. The victim was Kerrianne Beck, the wife of an extreme environmentalist. She is brain dead from the accident, but is pregnant and on life support until they can remove the baby from her.

There is also evidence of clay underneath her fingernails, a specific kind of clay that was used to make paint. This leads the FBI team to figuring out that she was in the process of stealing a painting. We see the man who pushed Kerrianne and stole the painting from her purse; he is looking at the painting under UV light and takes pictures of the codes and map painted on the canvas (yes, this is The Blacklist, not National Treasure).

The scene changes to Red at the DMV. He has hired one of the employees, Glen, to find Jennifer.  Glen insists that he just needs time because tracking people is not easy.

Meanwhile, Keen is paying a look alike to pretend to be her for an hour in order to mislead the man watching her.

The FBI calls in a specialist to help them understand the codes on the painting. The codes were archived in the museum that stored the painting. She tells the FBI that it is a map that tells where the last strain of the black plague is buried. Aram is able to find the location, but Beck (the man who stole the painting and killed his own wife) has beat them there. Instead of a body, they find a marker that tells where the body was moved to.

Red surprises everyone at the FBI office and pulls Aram aside. Red asks him to help find Jennifer.

Keen and Ressler go to the church where the black plague ridden body was moved. Down in the tombs, they run in to Beck. He threatens to release the plague, but instead his crony knocks out Keen and they get away.

The FBI team notifies the CDC that there may be a risk of infection. Aram accidentally informs Keen that Red sought out his help with Jennifer – she approaches him later and tells him it is not his place to use the FBI resources.

We then see Beck. He is at his environmentalist compound and we learn that he is a cult leader. He preaches to his followers that their work spreading the plague will cleanse the earth.

That evening, Keen sends her lookalike to her motel room. She successfully tricks the watcher into thinking that Keen has come home for the evening when in reality, Keen is back at the door, watching and waiting. Eventually Keen goes inside, but thats all we see.

The next day, Red is back at the DMV. It turns out that Glen has actually found Jennifer, her new name is Zoe Dantonio.

Beck infects one of his cult members. She is excited about the cause that she is working for and goes out into public. She dies on the street, exposing hundreds of people to the plague. On her body they find a rat hair. This rat hair leads them to the lab where Beck and his team developed the virus, but Beck is not there.

Keen finds Beck’s plans to send his infected cult members around the world to spread the plague. Beck and his cult are actively infecting themselves and making plans to get on airplanes. The FBI uses this information to track which flights the infected are on and quarantine them once landed or divert them to another location.

They find that one member has not yet departed and the team goes to the airport to track him down. Samar successfully takes him down, but he infects her with the plague and then shoots Samar before Keen can shoot this man. Keen and Samar are both infected with the plague and they have the opportunity for a heart-to-heart.

Aram, using his super sleuthing skills and knowing that Beck lives off the grid, figures out where Beck’s compound must be. Red beats the FBI team to the location and finds the plague antidote that Beck had already created. While at the compound, Red retrieves a key that he had hidden on the premises.

The episode wraps up with a montage: Red is watching home videos of his child, Keen and Samar receive the cure, and we see Samar and Aram holding hands as she recovers.

The final scene of the episode shows Red watching Jennifer from afar.

What did you think of this episode? Do you know what is behind the door? Do you think Aram and Samar will begin a relationship? Comment below with your thoughts!

Am I Watching National Treasure? – The Blacklist – Season 2 Episode 5 – “The Front” was last modified: October 21st, 2014 by

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