- Liz discovers she's been framed by The Cabal, prompting Red to tap into his connections to clear her name. Also: Cooper receives stunning news; and the task force is plagued by trust issues.
- "The Blacklist" - "Tom Connolly (No. 11)"
It is the final episode of season two and things are about to get deep for Liz.
We pick up where we left off last week with Red telling Liz that the cabal has set her up for killing Senator Hawkins. He says the government will be leaking her name and history live to the media soon and will be combing through her life to make her look bad. She doesn't want to run since it will make her look guilty and she isn't.
Tom Connolly has arrived and is looking for her with Cooper. She overhears their conversation in which Connolly tells Cooper basically everything Red just told her: that as the daughter of a KGB agent she was a sleeper working with Red and doing his bidding. And that when they get the blood test results come back she will test positive for the virus. They will make her look guilty. And Wright will investigate her. Cooper doesn't want to help and Connolly reminds him that if he obstructs he will charged with perjury in the harbormaster trial and they will go after Charlene and he will be dumped from the clinical trial. Harold throws his pills at him and tells him to go to hell and says he'd rather die than be part of this. Connolly has his people grab Cooper and puts him on leave.
So, she decides to run after all. Red says Dembe will be there to pick her up in a few minutes. But as she is on her way out of the Post Office Liz is busted Connolly and his men.
Back at the church where Hawkins was infected, Ressler and Samar have quarantined everyone and are looking for the virus carrier. They all test negative and realize it must've been Liz somehow.
Liz has her blood drawn and is interrogated. She tries to explain her story about being framed by Tom Connolly and all about the shadowy conspiracy of the Cabal and the interrogators point out how ridiculous all this seems and if true they're doing an excellent job of framing her and they know that her real name is Masha Rostova.
In Cooper's office Wright tells Ressler she needs a person she can trust to be her right hand and she is appointing him interim director of the task force. Ressler seems uneasy at the idea of investigating his own partner. She says she knows he cares about truth and justice. Aram enters and tells them Liz tested positive for the virus and Hawkins is now dead.
Cooper meets Red in a church and explains what's going on and Red explains the evidence against Liz will be rigged and then she will put away. Red says he has someone on the inside and he has a plan. We watch it play out as he explains in voice over. The power will be cut, Liz will have 90 seconds to get out with the help of Red's man and Cooper walking her through the labrynthine back passages of the Post Office. It goes off like a charm until Liz runs into Ressler who begs her to turn herself in and work within the system. She explains why she can't and says there are 20 seconds before the camera comes back on so he has to decide whether he's letting her go.
The cameras come back on and we see, from Aram's point of view, Ressler saying she got away.
Red and Dembe bring Liz to a safe house where Cooper is and they try to work out how she got the virus and deduce that it was when she "bumped into" Karakurt at Union Station. Liz and Cooper go off to get the surveillance tape while Red says he's going to fight the war on a different front. Tom calls Red while they are talking but won't let him talk to Liz. Red tells her running away with Tom is not an option because she will run forever, they have to settle this.
Liz and Cooper have a touching moment in his car about his illness and then set about retrieving the tapes even as her face is now being beamed across media across the world as a suspect in the murder of the senator. Meanhwile Red is setting up a safe room with Mr. Kaplan and having people mysteriously kidnapped all over the world.
Back in the car Cooper says Liz is going to have to go solo to find Andropov/Karakurt-- because his wife has been pulled in for questioning. Liz finds the CI that Red turned for himself him and he gives up an address for Karakurt. She also asks about her mother Katerina and he claims at first not to have known her and then says he can't say. She realizes that Red has gotten to him and told him not to say anything to her.
She confronts him about this but he still won't budge. He explains that he's a sin eater, absorbing other people's sins and darkness to protect them. She wonders what sin of hers he ate. Of course he doesn't tell her. He gets her back on task to find Andropov.
She goes to Tom's boat and enlists his help to nab Andropov. They head to the safe house but he's one step ahead of them so they have to give chase in a car. Just as they run him down Andropov meets his handlers and instead of letting him give up info to Liz, the handlers shoot him. Liz is devastated not only since he could prove her innocence but he knew stuff about her mother.
Back on his boat Tom nurses a very vulnerable Liz's wounds and she talks about running away with him after all and then they get it on. The next morning, however, Liz plugs a flash drive she scooped up at Andropov's into Tom's computer and it's chock full of helpful information and she's off on the run again. She claims she will be back but he knows, and says, "No you won't."
She calls Cooper and tells him that the info that she saw includes his medical records and info about his doctor. Cooper confronts his doctor, forcefully, and he admits that Cooper was, in fact, never sick at all. Tom Connolly manufactured the whole thing to keep Cooper in his pocket.
Red rounds up his kidnapping victims in his personal black ops room and we learn that they are the world's top 11 investigative journalists. He shows them the Fulcrum stream and tells them he hopes that they investigate and blow the lid off the Cabal but warns them if they do, they and and their families will be in danger.
Cooper and Liz confront Connolly in an empty hotel ballroom before an event with their new intel. He basically scoffs at their attempts to blackmail him into exonerating Liz, reinstate Cooper, tell the Director of the Cabal to leave Red alone. He says even if they were successful in their efforts to silence Connolly, the Cabal is so big that they would just replace Connolly with someone else immediately. Plus he will do in every single member of the task force and Cooper's wife and Red. Liz, who looks like she is losing her mind as well as her equilibrium has had enough and, even though Cooper begs her not to, shoots Connolly. She drops her gun in a fog. As she shot Connolly she finally unlocked her memory: She shot her father. That is the sin that Red ate for her. Cooper says one word to her: "Run!" As she does we see young Liz run down the hallway screaming after she shot her dad.
Liz calls Ressler to reassure him Cooper did not shoot Connolly. He begs her to come in and says he has to come after her now. She hangs up. She calls Red who meets her in a park. They sit on a bench and she tells him that she recovered her memory of shooting her dad. He was hurting her mother, a gun was dropped, Liz picked it up and shot him .She realizes why he didn't want her to know. He is clearly distraught that this has come back to her and she is so hurt by it. A white van arrives to pick them up.
Back at the murder scene Cooper drops his badge on a table and is escorted out as Ressler and Wright look on sadly.
The Drictor of the Cabal looks at the front page of a newspaper that has a banner headline about the Cabal.
Tom pulls out of the harbor on his boat.
Ressler walks through the Post Office with a piece of paper as Aram and Samar watch. He stops at the big glass evidence wall and tapes a picture of Liz to it.
In the van, Liz rests her head on Red's shoulder.
We cut to someone hanging an FBI's Most Wanted Poster and the same picture of Liz is on it.
And that's a wrap on season two!
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