The (Wujing) war comes home in a twisty, thrilling conclusion.
We’re used to a war having two sides, with opposing factions lining up and battling it out.
Allied forces vs. Axis powers.
Diego Klattenhoff, Aaron Yoo, and Hisham Tawfiq on ‘The Blacklist’.Will Hart/NBC
Vanessa Lachey vs. the entire cast ofLove Is Blind.
Our battlefield is the Task Force headquarters, a.k.a.
the Post Office, a.k.a.
Anya Banerjee and James Spader on ‘The Blacklist’.Will Hart/NBC
We open with Red (James Spader) and his team surveying a replica of our home base.
Red is vehement it has to be perfect, and Chuck (Jonathan Holtzman) assures him it is.
Red and I are both suspicious of Chuck’s attention to detail, so he sends him to triple-check.
James Spader on ‘The Blacklist’.Will Hart/NBC
But don’t count them out just yet.
Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq) and Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) escort Chang back to TFHQ.
It’s not quite as bad as getting through TSA at O’Hare, but still very thorough.
In interrogation, Chang refuses to give any info on his boss.
Wujing wants to expose Red, and that means using HexRoot to get to the Task Force archive.
Ressler points out that’s impossible to do outside of the facility.
“What’s he going to do, attack a federal building?”
he asks, and Chang shrugs.
“Who knows?”
He’s going to attack a federal building.
But first, Wujing has to know where the building is.
That’s spy-movie code for an upcoming escape.
Luckily, Malik (Anya Banerjee) walks past the empty interrogation room and sounds the alarm.
Dembe and Ressler chase Chang through the building.
Chang reaches an exit door and uses a fire extinguisher to break the lock and gets out.
Which is exactly what he does.
Their army marches up to the door.
Exactly as Red and Task Force wanted them to.
Cooper gets to fill her and the audience in at the same time.
Lure Wujing and his men to the wrong building and arrest them when they arrive.
The paperclip was intentionally planted.
Chang didn’t figure out the code, Malik opened the door from downstairs.
All in all, a flawless execution.
They settle in to wait.
He’s a brilliant, manipulative, suave, probably sociopathic mastermind.
), but there’s no sign of Wujing.
Wujing’s forces, meanwhile, walk out of the elevator and see… nothing.
These offices are empty.
Not only that, but Wujing invaded the real Task Force office, not the fake one.
Like I said, twisty!
Sven demands that Red admit he’s an informant for the FBI.
Red replies with a monologue worth quoting:
“An informant?
I’m Raymond Reddington.
I execute the most intricate and lucrative criminal operation in existence.
I’m still here at the tippy-top and thriving.
Why do you think that is?”
The Fisker Army now works for Red.
Zhang, on the other hand, is not so lucky.
(Yes, Chang has been working with Red the entire time too the twists just keep coming.)
Red puts on his hat and walks away.
Cooper’s phone rings.
Cooper hilariously almost doesn’t answer but gives in and puts him on speaker.
He’s too mad to speak, though.
Red explains to all of them that Wujing’s threat made it clear that the TFHQ was a liability.
Ergo, he turned Chang and got him to use HexRoot to delete any mention of the Blacklist.
Cooper is livid, but Red is calm.
“Take some time to think about how, or whether, we can continue.
I’ll do the same,” he says, and hangs up.
The episode ends on the stunned faces of the Task Force.
They had definitely forgotten who they were dealing with.
