A woman who is having her home foreclosed on tries a last ditch effort to save her house. Still having no money the banker tells her that there is nothing she can do. The woman finds a solution in the form of a 38 hidden in her car. She goes back into the bank and starts shooting people. Outside a man, who is literally pulling his hair out is speaking into a voice recorder taking notes as this women seems to be apart of an experiment.
When Lizzie brings this “random” case to Red, he tells her that this is not random at all.
The most dangerous person in the world is in Washington D.C. Lizzie. Guess what “WE” have to do…
Red tells Lizzie that this along with a few other shootings that involve everyday non violent citizens are apart of a super secret black budget experiment that the government is doing on ordinary americans. Lizzie finds three other cases of normal people who went bananas and shot up their coworkers. Lizzie and Ressler go to interview the woman (Mattie Thornhill). They are unable to as Ms. Thornhill is on suicide watch. Ms. Thornhill is only being allowed to talk to her shrink. A man named Dr. Linus Creel. Aram identifies that whoever is targeting these people are doing so because of a gene called the MAO-A gene or for cooler terms the “Warrior Gene“. Which is a real thing.
Lizzie meets with Cooper who tells her that everything that Red told her was true. Cooper informs Lizzie that this project is listed under sub project 7. Lizzie and Ressler go to see a Senator Sheridan who is in charge of the governments black budget. The Senator politely tells Lizzie that she is wasting her time. She asks for all of the documents on behalf of Copper. The Senator tells her that he will deliver anything pertinent and follows up with that he is late for his next meeting. Which is universal code for I’m hiding something. The senator then gets a visit from a Dr. Creel.
Lizzie gets all of the documents from the senator’s office. To find out that anything relevant is redacted. New Malik (Samar) has a guy but she can not get in touch with him. Fortunately Red knows the man, named Hal. Red goes to see Hal, who is reluctant to see him because of a bad gambling spree he and Red went on. This is one of the best pieces of any Blacklist episode. When Red speaks to anyone, who is not FBI or someone he means to kill. James Spader has the most hilarious banter with Hal over there gambling incident. Red brings Hal a bag of money to cover for the losses Hal incurred at Red’s expense. In return Hal helps Lizzie filter out all of the redacted information. This leads her to Dr. Creel.
The two find out that Creel is a psychologist that preys on individuals with this warrior gene to set them off at a later date.
Lizzie goes to Aram to create a fake background and profile in order to get under Dr. Creels counseling. Creel is busy at work with his new protege (Duncan). A college student who was kicked out for cheating. Creel is the who told the school that Duncan was cheating. Creel also brings up Duncan’s love interest. A girl named Amanda that Duncan hopes to meet one day.
Enter Pee-Wee
Red is trying to convince Naomi to move out of the country so that she isn’t in danger. Naomi doesn’t want to run anymore and doesn’t want Red’s help. Elsewhere Pee- Wee, Paul Reubens, Mr Vargas. Breaks into a womans home and steals her dog. This woman is named Monica. Monica is sleeping with Frank. Red uses the dog (and fear) to convince Frank to get Noami to leave town.
Lizzie, under a different name, goes to see Dr. Creel to try and get access to his database so they can obtain a client list. Lizzie tells Dr. Creel a half-truth about her husband being a liar and a cheater. Dr. Creel tries to push her buttons by asking what would you do to your husband? Lizzie’s story becomes so believable that Aram and Samar place a bet to whiter if the information she tells Creel is true. When Creel leaves the room. Lizzie goes into his computer to get the password for his files. When the good doctor comes back he sees that his bag has been disturbed. He thinks Lizzie is a junkie that has taken pages from his prescription pad. Lizzie wrote the password down on one of the pages. She rips that page up in front of the doctor. She then begs him not to turn her in. Dr. Creel tells her that he is now more interested than ever in her case. When Lizzie gets back to the surveillance van Aram is in. Aram figures that she ripped up the password. Lizzie managed to save the part that had the password on it.
With access to all of Creel’s files. Aram finds all of Creel’s patients. He notices that all of his patients have killed except one, Duncan. Duncan is in his dorm room crying because his internet girlfriend has broken up with him. Lizzie and Ressler go to Duncan’s apartment to find that Duncan is gone, along with all of his guns. They find the computer that Duncan used. It still has the message he and Amanda sent to each other. Lizzie has Aram track down Amanda. Aram can’t find any information on this person. Lizzie concludes that she was made up by Dr. Creel.
Creel is attending a town hall meeting on gun violence where he presents his fact about this MAO-A gene. The senator takes Dr. Creel’s evidence as a joke. He says that he will take it into consideration. Outside, Duncan starts to shoot at the sky hitting no one. He encounters Creel. Creel wants Duncan to shoot him so that people will take notice of his work. Ressler shoots Duncan then Creel takes Lizzie hostage at gunpoint. Creel begs for Ressler to shoot him. Ressler doesn’t shot because it will make Creel a martyr. A sniper takes out Creel from afar.
Lizzie talks to Noami before she leaves. Naomi tells Lizzie that Red is using her and that he wants something from her. Naomi never tells Lizzie what that could be as Red enters. Lizzie ask Red was the sniper working for him. Red admits that he was and that this man has been shadowing Lizzie since Malik died.
The Analyst
The 5-7 minutes that James Spades had with his friend Hal and the main scene that Mr. Vargas (Paul Reubens) has were the very best part of this episode. I hope that in future episodes we really get more than a brief segment with Mr. Vargas. Paul Reubens will forever in my mind be known as Pee-Wee Herman but he is brilliant on the blacklist. The rest of the episode was forgettable. On the plus side this is probably the case the Lizzie seemingly solved mostly on her on (if you don’t count Coopers help). Still in saying that doesn’t make this episode memorable at all. Spader seemed almost missing from this episode apart from the scenes with Mary-Louise Parker.
