Dembes past love returns and a new threat looms over the Task Force.
Yes, there’s been bad times, but mutual respect and loyalty remain.
There’s also a penny-pinching congressperson, but we’ll get to that later.
‘The Blacklist’.Sony Pictures Television
Then he gets arrested by the military before she can finish reacting to his news.
That’s one way to get out of an argument, I guess?
Back at TFHQ, everyone is concerned that they’ve misplaced Red, who is clearly ignoring them.
‘The Blacklist’.Sony Pictures Television
Dembe gets a missed call from Aissa and abruptly heads out without saying where he’s going.
So who is Aissa to Dembe?
We travel to Marseille, France, in 1992 to find out.
‘The Blacklist’.Sony Pictures Television
But also the bartender.
She makes him take her number, they date, they fall in love.
She refuses to leave with him, having figured out that “Raymond” must be a criminal.
Dembe protests that it’s more complicated than that.
“You have to understand,” he says, “he was the most important person to me.
Until I met you.”
It’s so sweet and sincere and heartbreaking.
When he comes back almost three years later, she introduces him to his daughter.
Firmly entrenched in Red’s world, he still can’t stay.
Whew, that’s a lot!
Congressperson Arthur Hudson (Toby Leonard Moore) is a member of the House Appropriation Subcommittee on Homeland Security.
Sen. Panabaker (Deirdre Lovejoy) alerts Cooper, Cooper alerts the Task Force.
Cooper is right to be worried.
The last thing the Task Force needs is for anyone to aim a little sunshine at their shady informant.
Dembe is focused on other issues, namely, how his ex’s fiance got into this mess.
Ressler finds out Albani is being accused of directing funds out of his clinic and to Houthi rebels.
A Yemeni tribunal has already sentenced him to death, so there’s a time crunch.
Like everyone who gets into trouble, Aissa immediately asks Dembe to call Red.
Ressler and Dembe visit Rapchinksi, who praises Albani and promises any help he can provide.
Okay, so we know Rapchinski has to be the bad guy, right?
We’re not amateurs here.
When they talk, Red promises to help.
Meanwhile, Ressler has discovered a fat bank account in Istanbul in Albani’s name.
Despite this information, the Yemeni government won’t reconsider the execution.
But not all is lost, because Rapchinksi has overplayed his hand.
Is Ressler the real hero of this episode?!
Even I must admit it.
He begins to choke her.
Dembe and Ressler speed over, but we can tell they’ll be too late.
When they arrive, Aissa is fine.
Proving she’s no fool, she had called a “friend” for help before confronting Rapchinski.
That “friend” is on his private jet.
Dembe is grateful, but Red is troubled.
He says that he would have understood if Dembe had chosen to stay with Aissa in 1992.
Dembe says “I know.
I knew then, too.”
Red replies, “Good.”
Like I said up top, these twoknoweach other.
Coming home, Cooper discovers where his informant has spent most of the day.
Cooper admits that in a way, he does love Red, even with all the worry he causes.
The worry is a symptom of the caring.
But are both men “soft and cuddly,” as Agnes suggests?
Maybe only for the people that they love.
The ones they worry about.
