The Blacklist season 5 episode 18 review: Did we just meet Reddington’s daughter?

The game of chess between Reddington and Garvey on The Blacklist season 5 has been incredibly entertaining and now it seems that they are both on level playing ground. Garvey has the bag of bones and Reddington now has Garvey’s ledger – is this ledger valuable enough to Garvey to make a trade or is Reddington going to have to collect a few more items of value? Let’s see what tonight’s episode of The Blacklist has in store for us.

The importance of the ledger

This ledger is extremely important to Garvey because the port manager listed in it was the go-between for both the Nash Syndicate and their supplier in Afghanistan. As Reddington say – Garvey is a drug lord masquerading as a cop and that’s something he does not want exposed! Who is this supplier? Think Zarak, a man who runs an opium operation. He is now the biggest lead that Reddington has in order to get Ian Garvey to play ball and work out a trade for those bones. Reddington gets his hands on Zarak, telling him that if he cuts ties with Garvey he will help him get his kidnapped son back. Reddington wants to cut Garvey’s supplier and continue to put the squeeze on him and once Reddington helps get his sons saved, he agrees to set up a meeting that Reddington is requesting.

While Reddinton’s motives are very singular at the moment, Liz wants it all – she wants revenge for Tom’s death, and she wants to know Reddington’s secret.

Liz and Aram team up to get Garvey

Things are starting to unravel for Garvey with the Nash syndicate. While Cooper and Liz have tried to get some answers about the investigation with Internal Affairs into Garvey, (and aren’t getting anywhere since everyone is protecting him), some of Garvey’s criminal partners are unhappy not only with his obsession with Reddington, but also how it’s affecting business.

Even though the internal investigation with Garvey went no where, Liz isn’t accepting that they really found nothing. Watching Liz and Aram run a scam on the Internal Affairs agent was a lot of fun since we rarely get to see these two working together in this capacity. Once they get the file on Garvey they discover a bar that he goes to every Friday and decide to go there and see what he’s up to. There’s a woman who works at the bar that means a lot to him – enough to drive an hour every Friday just to see. Garvey is married, so is this an affair? Doesn’t feel like that to us, more so it feels like this could be a daughter. When Liz sees a chance to talk to this woman alone she jumps on it, telling her about the murder of Tom… will Liz be able to break her?

As it turns out Garvey is her surrogate father and helped her escape her real father (in witness protection) who was a very bad man… a man she claims is Raymond Reddington.

Will Aram propose to Samar?

Although Ressler was convinced that Samar would think Aram’s ring was a marriage proposal, it turned out to be something she just accepted as a gift and nothing more. We weren’t sure how he was going to feel about it (seems like maybe Aram wasn’t exactly sure himself), but he’s a little deflated about it calling himself a possible pit-stop on the way to her next great love. Ressler mentions to Samar that Aram was disappointed about her not thinking that the ring could mean marriage and much like Ressler we are having a hard time reading her feelings on it. On the other side, Aram talks to Liz about it where she apologizes for giving him some bad advice, saying that if he really wants to propose to Samar that he should just go for it and see what she says. Do we want to see Aram propose? We sure do, but we want it to be a thoughtful proposal – the type of proposal that we know Aram would put together for her if he could just get his confidence together. This whole situation has raised so many questions that neither one of them are talking about leaving Samar feeling like she needs to give back his ring.

CarterMatt Verdict

We don’t usually love episodes where Liz and Reddington aren’t out in the field working together, but we really liked seeing Liz and Aram working this Garvey investigation together. Aram has really turned into a great field agent and while there are still aspects of the job he seems to still be getting his footing with, there’s just such a nice natural camaraderie between Aram and Liz that it was a pleasure to watch.

The reveal about Reddington’s daughter is a big one that we haven’t fully processed yet.

What did you think about The Blacklist season 5, episode 18? Leave us your thoughts in the comment box below.

(Photo: NBC)