The Blacklist ‘The Kingmaker’ Recap – Episode 01.20

The Breakdown

A man (Emil) gets into a limo and the driver tells him there is water in back. Emil drinks the water and passes out, when he awakes, he wakes up to every man’s worst fear – waking up naked with a dead male hooker on the floor. Emil held a seat within the Prague government and the scandal has forced him to step down. Red tells the story to a friend of his and his friend thinks that some of Red’s friends are targeting him.

Lizzie opens the box that Tom had. There are pictures of Red leaving the hospital where her dad died on the day her dad died. Lizzie asks Ressler to help with authenticating the photos. Lizzie then meets with Red. Red tells her about the Kingmaker and he wants Lizzie to go after him as the Kingmaker is in the United States. Red feels that he is going after something big. Lizzie wants to know Tom’s every move in exchange for this favor. Red tells Lizzie that Tom is now in New York and his people are watching him. The Kingmaker has a group of people disinfecting his hotel room which is overlooking the empire state building.

The Kingmaker is meeting with a man named Patrick Chandler (at a bridge) who wants him to kill his wife. Malik pulls the profiles of any persons coming to the U.S. from Prague. Malik and Aram have a list of suspects. Aram narrows it down to seven people and then narrows it down to one more, Paul Smithson. Aram has also tracked his credit card to a hotel. Lizzie and Ressler barge into the hotel and find a African American couple having dinner, who are obviously not a middle-aged white male and not the Kingmaker. Red goes to a restaurant and meets with Alan Fitch (Alan Alda). Red tells him that their interests are in jeopardy as the Kingmaker has arrived. Red is trying to convince Alan to work with him or they will both be exposed. Patrick Chandler is with his wife and young child. The woman tells him that she is glad that he took the day off. Patrick is driving (with family) to the location the Kingmaker told him to be at. While driving madly across the bridge a truck hits the car they are in and they go off the bridge flying into the water.

Chandler is shown, via an eye-witness camera footage, dragging his daughter and his dead wife out of the car. Red tells Lizzie that this was the work of the Kingmaker. Red wants Lizzie to look at the scene for anything out of the ordinary. Lizzie and Ressler meet Chandler at his home. They ask him a few questions and he answers. Chandler then tells them that he needs to be with his daughter. In one of those “made men” type meetings, Alan meets with a group of people and tells them that Red has met with him and they need to assist Red in order to protect their own interests. They also want to keep whatever secrets they have as a secret. Paul (The Kingmaker) goes to the man (Mr. Ruiz) who hit Patrick Chandler’s car. Paul tells him that he was supposed to stay at the scene and give a report. The man tells Paul that the car was supposed to be empty, that he didn’t know there was going to be a woman and child in the car. Mr. Ruiz feels that he now has to live with the fact that he is a murderer for the rest of his life. Paul tells him no he doesn’t and shoots the man.

Ressler goes to the location where the former Mr. Ruiz was just shot to find him on the floor dead. The Kingmaker has made Mr. Ruiz’s death look like a suicide but Lizzie knows better. Paul meets with Patrick by a different bridge and Patrick wants to get out. Paul tells him that they can’t and they must move on to the next phase of the plan considering Patrick’s current popularity. The FBI has traced one phone call from Mr. Ruiz to a pay phone. Lizzie brings Red and doesn’t think that the location means anything. Red takes Lizzie to the pawn shop that is behind the pay phone. The pawn shop doubles as a secret underground restaurant.

While Lizzie and Red wait for the owner, Lizzie questions Red about him being friends with her dad and why was he at the hospital the day her dad died. Red tells Lizzie that he wanted to say goodbye to his friend. The owner comes out and I can’t understand a damn word he had to say. He does tell Red that The Kingmaker was there and what hotel he was saying at. When Lizzie and Ressler get to the hotel room. They find it empty outside of a weird computer/suitcase looking thingamajig that neither of them knows what the hell it is.

The computer that Lizzie and Ressler found are schematics to breach the home of Senator Albert Mitchel. Mitchel is being targeted because, if he dies, Patrick Chandler will get his seat in office. Lizzie and Ressler get to the senators house to find that The Kingmaker has already shot Mitchel. The Kingmaker told Mitchel that he wants him to resign. Mitchel agrees but The Kingmaker doesn’t want to take the word of a politician and instead just shoots him.

As Lizzie is searching around the house for The Kingmaker, he attacks her and almost strangles her to death. Ressler comes to Lizzy’s aid and shoots The Kingmaker in the head. Red meets with Alan again and Alan tells him that his league of extraordinary gentlemen (and women) would not be helping Red. To Red’s dismay he preaches doom and gloom on Alan and the rest of his cohorts. Lizzie calls Red, who wants a minute with The Kingmaker to find out who paid him to take out the man in Prague. Upon Lizzie telling Red that The Kingmaker is dead, Red hangs up on Lizzie.

Patrick comes back to his house with a wave of media personnel outside. He gives a statement saying that Senator Mitchell is alive and in stable condition. Lizzie and Ressler approach him (Patrick) and tells him that he is under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder. Lizzie gets a call from Aram stating that her dad didn’t die an hour after Red left the hospital. Aram tells her that Red may have been in the room when her dad died or Red may have left soon after.

Lizzie goes to Red’s house and calls him on this. Red tells her that he did kill her father. He explains that he knew her father most of his life and before she was born. He tells her that her father was in pain and put him out of his misery. Lizzie proclaims that Red is a monster and that she will deal with him no longer. Sad music plays as Lizzie goes back to her place, she then leaves and goes to Ressler’s apartment

The Analyst 

Wow, this would have been a perfect note to end the series on, but behold we have one more episode before the finale. Lizzie, in next week’s show, is going to connect all of the Blacklisters to one key person “Berlin.” Which was on a piece of paper that Red and Lizzie found. Lizzie is going to find out how all of these people are connected and who “Berlin” is. How, and if, her and Red ever talk again is yet to be determined, but I am sure she will get stuck on the case an end up having to call Red. We shall see.