In which Raymond Reddington goes on a killing spree and Liz Keen tries to stop a “good” serial killer. Completely unrelated.

***SPOILERS BELOW***

The FBI and Red are hot on the trail of the mole that sold out the location of the Black Site and ultimately allowed Red’s capture in the last episode. Predictably, the FBI relied on simply lining everyone up and asking if they were the mole, plus a bit of bank account checking. This of course leads them down the wrong trail, however Keen is under more suspicion than normal.  =She is in contact with Red when the mandate is to bring him in by any means. On a side note, her husband flies off at the last minute. Can you say short notice contract killing? He is totally a spy. That whole subplot needs to be resolved and soon.

Meanwhile, Red is also chasing down the mole with a bit more aggression. He’s following the money trail and killing anyone he thinks is mildly responsible for his capture and friend’s death. The stack of bodies is pretty impressive by tale’s end. This is the scariest Reddington has been since the show began, but he got results. Red found the mole in his own operation and proved the mole the FBI found was a patsy. In his spare time, between killing bad guys, he helped Liz figure out how to catch her killer.

Keen’s pursuit of the “Good Samaritan” killer got its big break when she was able to link the victim’s injuries with a family member they were abusing. This week’s killer was a bit pedestrian so it was difficult to get invested in the case. The link between the victims and their families was tipped earlier and waiting for the dim FBI to catch up was tedious. The fact that Red figured it out and was not even there at all just made the agents look worse. Plus, Red wasn’t even there– was that mentioned already?

And we come to the crux of the problem with this week’s episode. Red and Lizzy are separated for the majority of the adventures this week. The strength of the show is the relationship between Red and Lizzy. Some would say its James Spader playing a great villain, which is true. However, Red alone is interesting but is not as engaging as the “are they father and daughter or not?” vs. the “will they or won’t they” all the other tv shows are doing these days. At the end of the episode, Red says its back to him only trusting Lizzy because the FBI mole is still out there, which is great. That means Keen has to trust Red more than her own team. That works to make the dynamics of the show sizzle.

What did you think of the show? Do you think Red is Lizzy’s father, or something else? Let us know in the comments. And catch this and past episodes of The Blacklist on NBC’s website.