We know that The Blacklist is great at finding big-ticket guest stars, and they will be doing so again for next week’s season 8 episode 10.
According to a new report coming in right now from TV Insider, former Orange is the New Black star Laverne Cox is going to appear as the title Blacklister Dr. Laken Perillos, a “sadistic” interrogator who will do whatever she can in order to get answers. She is going to be deployed by Townsend and, presumably, her actions will put both Reddington and Dembe in danger.
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The character itself sounds exciting, but we can’t help but put the onus here on what’s going on with Townsend. This is a character we have wanted to see become a larger part of the show for some time now, and we’re thrilled that this opportunity seems to be finally here. We just wonder what has caused Reddington and Dembe to come into conflict with him, given that previously, it seemed like they were on the same page.
We love theories, so let’s go with this — what if Liz Keen finds Townsend and claims that Reddington, not Katarina, was the person he should’ve been after this whole time? It would at least create a new dynamic, and another problem that James Spader’s character wants to take on. We know that he won’t kill Liz, but what would he do with Townsend? How do you stop someone who has been operating so long in the shadows?
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If you missed last week’s recap, check it out here.
This episode begins with a waitress in Berlin, who pours out coffee onto the ground and changes disguises. She makes a phone call and suddenly we see a man having trouble breathing after drinking some coffee. Medics arrive and once the man is in the ambulance, they inject him with a syringe and restrain him. The real medics arrive to come get the patient, but a woman says that the other medics took him. In the ambulance, the medics put a heretics fork torture device on the patient’s neck. The patient is taken to Dr. Perillos, where she asks the man about his cartel. Suddenly, she gets a call from Neville Townsend saying that he needs her in the states.
At a laundromat, Red watches laundry tumble when Dembe brings over a man named Bobby. Bobby and Red sit in his back seat, and Red tells Bobby that he hired him for information on Townsend. Bobby is laundering money from a laundromat for Townsend, while skimming some off the top for himself. Red wants intel from Bobby about where Townsend is, or where someone is that knows Townsend’s whereabouts. Bobby says he doesn’t know where he is but he knows that the biggest deposit of Townsend’s money goes to a woman named Laken Perillos, and she just arrived in the states last night. Dembe gets back into the car to say that Ruddiger may have something for them. Bobby is dismissed and Red calls Cooper about a lead on Townsend. Cooper reveals to Red that an arrest warrant is made for Keen, and Red said that’s a mistake. Red informs Cooper that Townsend had Liz (or Liz’s cyranoid) kill Mary Bremmer at Neville’s instruction, and that Liz and Neville have joined forces.
Cooper briefs the team about “The Brazen Bull,” created by Perillos of Athens who was a student of pain, and the moniker used by Dr. Laken Perillos. Perillos is hired by Townsend to inflict pain and extract information from victims. Reddington believes that Perillos will lead to Townsend, and Townsend will lead to Keen. He also tells the team that Townsend wanted Keen to kill his sister and the two are working together. Reddington gave the team a lead, a man named Roman Einhorn, the one victim Perillos didn’t kill. Cooper has Ressler and Park go to speak with him, or try to.
Ressler and Park sit down at Einhorn’s house with Mr. Einhorn, who uses a speech-generating device, and he says that he doesn’t remember anything. Ressler and Park plead with him that they know he was the only one to survive Dr. Perillos’ torture and they want to stop her. He says that what happened to him six years ago was a warning, and if he helps she would come back for him. The camera pans to show Einhorn, severely maimed and jawless.
Reddington and Dembe visit Max Ruddiger at a warehouse and they notice a smell. Ruddiger informs Reddington of a lead he found from a car bomb that killed one of Red’s men in Lagos. It’s a partial print on the Tamiya connector, which Dembe says he will get to Cvetko. Dembe goes out to make a call while Ruddiger explains the culprit of the smell. It’s a cyclohexane-based accelerant; it has a low flash point and it’s stable, and it makes it difficult for any forensic chemical analysts. Dembe finishes his call and sees a white van approach. He goes to tell Red they need to leave but a shootout begins. Ruddiger is hit with a bullet and Red is rushed out. Dembe stays to help, but as he reloads he gets caught. They wanted Reddington, but they take him instead.
Reddington and Ressler are on the phone, with Ressler and Park on scene of the ambush. Red, who has just brought Ruddiger to his makeshift hospital, details that they were ambushed and there was a white van. Red thinks Keen did this and tells Ressler they need to find Dembe soon because if he’s in the hands of Perillos it’s a matter of how long he can survive. Park and Ressler find a headlight trim from the van.
Dembe is strapped in a chair at one of Perillos’ hideouts. She talks about her torture tools, and she puts a heretics fork on Dembe’s neck. She goes on to discuss the difference of pain treated in white and Black patients. She tells Dembe to reveal everything about the Sirkorsky Archive or else he’ll bleed to death, but Dembe refuses.
Ressler calls Reddington while Ruddiger is being treated. Ressler says they found the van, but it was torched. The lab report on the van should be done in 24 hours or less, but Red says Dembe doesn’t have that time.
Redddington busts into the back room of the laundromat and Bobby pushes a red button. Red puts his gun to Bobby’s head and says that he betrayed them because he heard Dembe talking about Ruddiger. The phone rings and Bobby answers; it’s the “alarm company” and they ask if there’s been a breach. Red says tell them he’s going to give them a phone number to bring to the boss. He says to tell Neville Townsend that it’s Raymond Reddington and to call him in 20 minutes for a conversation he won’t want to miss. Red shoots Bobby in the leg and leaves.
Neville is streaming in on Dr. Perillos’ TVs and he asks Dembe if Reddington has the Sirkorsky Archive. Dembe stays silent. Dr. Perillos gets a syringe filled with Irukandji jellyfish venom, and tells him of its effects. Neville tries again, but Dembe refuses so Perillos injects him with venom. One of Neville’s assistants tells him that Reddington has made contact.
Red is sitting at his restaurant and receives a phone call. He tells Neville he wants Dembe back, but Neville says he wants the archive. Red has an offer for Neville: a trade. Neville agrees, and says he will call Red back with details. Back with Perillos and Dembe, she continues on about how pain is misperceived for Black patients, and how white people don’t see their pain. She asks if Reddington knows his pain, but suddenly Neville pops on the screen to tell her to stop. A trade has been made for Dembe.
Reddington arrives at a motel. He asks the front desk for a room and that Neville said he was leaving him a key. The man at the front desk asks him to come around and he hands him a thermos. Red drinks what’s inside, and the man at the front desk tells him to take a seat on the bench outside while he makes a call. Red’s vision starts to become blurry. Perillos tells Dembe that she is supposed to let him go, but “his resistance is an inspiration.” She tightens the heretics fork, but Dembe finally breaks free. A car arrives to grab Reddington as Perillos and Dembe struggle. He asks for the antidote and he injects himself. Quickly, Dembe calls Red and tells him not to give himself up, but it’s too late.
The FBI swarms Perillos’ hideout, but it’s empty. Dembe calls Ressler and he tells him that it’s too late and there’s no sign of Reddington. Dembe arrives at the restaurant and grabs a first aid kit to treat his wounds. He gives Ressler details about her and that she injected him with jellyfish poison. Dembe tells him that he reached out to some contacts to see who traffics those jellyfish.
Red wakes up restrained in the chair, when Neville appears on the screen. Neville said he’s surprised that Red kept his side of the deal, and in a way, so did he because Dembe escaped. Red says that with Neville’s leverage gone, so did getting him to talk. Perillos comes in and he says, “The Brazen Bull, I presume.” She gets her tools out while he tells Neville he’s heard of her methods.
Reddington: “This is almost a bucket-list moment for me.”
Perillos: “Shall we begin?”
Red: “Oh, let’s not.”
She describes what she’ll be injecting, a viral infection carried by mice that causes ascending paralysis and eventually reaches the lungs to which the victim will suffocate.
Not missing a beat, Reddington says, “Careful, I’m terribly ticklish.”
She injects into his foot, and Neville tells Red that there’s an antidote, but only if he tells him about the archive.
Dembe arrives at the Post Office and tells Ressler and Park that his contacts haven’t reached out yet. Ressler says that there are only a select few of brokers who traffic those kinds of jellyfish. Aram says he found three Class B vendors who supply that species of jellyfish, and only one fits the bill. The vendor has a court case pending and one of this vendor’s clients failed to appear in court. Aram pulls up Dr. Perillos’ alias and Cooper instructs the team to work backward to find where she is now.
Back with Red and Perillos, she is examining him while they discuss pain. She says she wants to discover a way for people to be impervious to pain, but Red disagrees. He says that “without pain, there can be no real pleasure.” Perillos turns back on the TV and tells Neville that Red has about an hour or less left. Neville gets back on topic to the archive and asks Red to “speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Dembe is in Cooper’s office and they determine that no leads have panned out yet. Desperate, Dembe says they need to look again, so Dembe reviews forensics from the van and Cooper takes the findings from the lab. While reviewing the file, Dembe discovers that Ruddiger’s accelerant was used to burn the van.
Red’s paralysis is increasing, and he talks aloud about how dissatisying this must be. Neville disagrees, but Red tells him that he was talking to his real assassin: Elizabeth. He’s saddened that he’s seen this side of her, and suggests that she instruct Dr. Perillos to administer the antidote because he’s been on the “other side of the river” and it’s a place he never wanted her to go.
Dembe knocks on Ruddiger’s door, but ends up busting in. Dembe pulls his gun on Ruddiger and says that he knows it was his accelerant that was used to torch the van. Dembe threatens Ruddiger unless he gives him the location of where they’re holding Raymond. Ruddiger gives him the location and Dembe makes him tie himself to the radiator.
Red is becoming increasingly paralyzed as Perillos says she can administer the antidote, and Neville chimes in that it will take immediate effect if he tells him about the archive. Dembe calls Cooper to give him the address of the warehouse and tells Cooper to send units. Suddenly, Dembe busts in and shoots everyone but Perillos.
Red is struggling, and Dembe asks if there is an antidote. Neville screams no, but Dembe shoots the connector and both screens go black. He demands Perillos give him the antidote and in a few seconds, Red is able to breathe better. Dembe wants to know exactly what she did to Red. Red is sitting off to the side and Dembe injects Perillos, who’s in the chair, with the same infection she injected Red with. He tells her that he can administer the antidote, once she tells them everything about Townsend. Suddenly, units swarm the warehouse, and Perillos is left in the chair. Red and Dembe are gone, and Ressler tells her that whatever she told them, she’s going to tell him too.
Townsend’s assistant comes to tell him that they’re ready for him, and we see him boxing a punching bag. Red is at his makeshift hospital getting treatment and they talk about what Perillos told them. Dembe says they’re going to try and trace the link to the video, but they’re not optimistic. Going after Perillos got them nothing, but Red says that’s not true. Red asks if Dembe thinks he feels his pain, to which Dembe replies, “No, I don’t. Not always.” Cooper comes to check on Red and tells Dembe that Ruddiger wasn’t at his apartment. We find out that Ruddiger was in the punching bag, and that Neville is sparing him because of Keen.
Townsend: “Welcome to the family. Don’t fail me again!”
Thanks for reading, Blacklisters!
Check out the promo for episode 11!
The Blacklist returns March 26 at 8 p.m. EST on NBC.