The team goes after a Blacklister worthy of the label.
On the line is Blair Foster (Francie Swift), the whistleblowee.
She casually threatens Whitaker’s peanut-allergic daughter, but he hangs up and determinedly gets in his car.
James Spader on ‘The Blacklist’ season 10.Will Hart/NBC
Dorf and Hudson are not convinced.
They want specifics, including case files.
Knowing the Task Force won’t give them up, they’ve scheduled a hearing with a judge.
Foster is a D.C. lawyer who moonlights as an unethical fixer.
Back at TFHQ, Cooper updates the team.
Whitaker is still alive at the hospital but deeply sedated and on a ventilator.
The two old friends are a delightful working pair once again.
They both say the same name for their favorite Cuban contact simultaneously and Red smiles at the sympatico.
“Ah, Dembe,” he says, “We should hang out more.
Remember that night in St. Tropez?
With Thomas and Yvette?”
Then they both dissolve into giggles.
He accidentally found an internal report showing the number one household cleaner in the country contained dangerous chemicals.
Modor and Sons buried the data.
Red is aghast and invokes the protestations of the dumped, insisting “Left me?
She didn’t leave me.
It’s considerably more complicated than that.”
I’m basically hiding under a pillow right now, it’s so transparent.
Like the kids say, it’s giving cringe.
Foster explains they have the file, so Whitaker can’t hurt them.
Moder is now more worried about the scientist who wrote the study, Dr. Fienberg.
Foster assures him she’s on it.
Step one of her plan is ambushing Ressler at his NA meeting.
For some reason, he still speaks to her.
Foster doesn’t know him as well as we do Agent Grouchyface would never take a bribe.
But you know who is bribable?
Red hands over the boxing gloves and a note for the next time Weecha comes around.
At TFHQ, the team has homed in on Fienberg as their next logical step.
Malik and Ressler visit the scientist and find that Blair Foster is already there and acting as his attorney.
He denies that the report was accurate and insists the data was incomplete.
It’s at this point, I realize she’s good, y’all.
Back in the car, Malik is livid the doctor lied to their faces.
Luckily, Red calls to let them know he’s got a willing-to-talk Julian Flores.
It only took arranging the asylum of seven people from Cuba or rather, six people and one dog.
“Which was its own headache,” Red admits.
The Judge has called Cooper, Panabaker, Dorf, and Hudson back into her chambers.
He’s going to launch a formal Congressional investigation into the Task Force.
I just have to say, Cynthia Panabaker does not deserve this.
Foster is unimpressed and wants a deal that keeps her out of prison.
She’ll answer their specific questions in exchange for leniency.
So Cooper calls Red.
He explains Dorf is planning to make their work public, so this may be their last case.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Red replies cheerfully.
“Ask (Foster) about December 31, 2013.”
In the morning, Dorf is practicing his speech when Cooper drops by.
In the audience, Hudson crosses his arms and glowers like Ressler on a bad day.
Panabaker comes by Cooper’s office to figure out what happened, and the agent happily admits to blackmail.
Dorf’s son drove drunk and high, paralyzing a woman, and Foster covered it up.
In exchange for this information, Foster has gotten away with everything.
Sipping victory wine in her office, she makes a call to, of all people, Arthur Hudson.
She offers him some information and wants to set a meeting.
Getting away with a lot of crimes, besting the Task Force, and corrupting the incorruptible Rep. Hudson?
Blair Foster is a true Blacklister.
She and Red seem to be on an inevitable crash course, right?
