The Blacklist season 5 episode 21 review: Did Samar survive?
With that in mind, Cooper, Liz, and the rest of the team got to digging. They asked Nicholas T. Moore and others for the mystery kidnapper’s identity. Nobody was altogether interested in budging, much to the chagrin of Aram, who was invested in doing everything within his power in order to ensure that the woman he loves turned up safe. Reddington made an offer to help with the New Haven cult’s interrogation, but they weren’t interested in his help. Instead, what we saw was Reddington shift to the duffel bag mystery after nobody was that desperate for his interrogator.
The one person who was able to accrue information on the kidnapper’s whereabouts was Aram, who was able to retrieve a personal item from Moore as to who had taken Samar. That was essential as a means to save her life, but what the Task Force didn’t quite realize is just how proactive she was being in the process of saving herself. She was able to escape her captor and after that, take off into the woods.
Samar went on the run, and while that happened Reddington did what he could in order to figure out how to find Samar. Look at him, still acting like he cares about the Task Force! Eventually, a name surfaced in Lawrence Dane Devlin … which makes some sense given that “Lawrence Dean Devlin” is the title for the episode. Red then chose to leave Liz Keen and the team to resume his mission, feeling like he had done enough. (Moments after this, we saw Samar find herself captured again, but not before she managed to mortally wound Devlin in the process.)
While Aram was a hero in getting the Task Force information, he also ended up taking Moore’s life — the Bible that he got for Moore actually contained a cyanide pill, which he used. That put his job in jeopardy, but it did help to get the team closer to uncovering Devlin’s location — close to a farm in West Virginia.
All of this chaos led to a confrontation out on the farm, one in which Aram did everything he could to question people for more information. Alas, this was a pretty grotesque, terrifying place that somehow, no one in the law enforcement community knew about. Finding Samar turned out to be an almost-impossible task. She and Devlin were in an accident, which in turn led to another accident with a bear, which led to Samar struggling to stay alive against a rising tide in the river valley while trapped in the van. The moment Samar told Aram that she would have accepted his proposal, we didn’t think things were looking too great in terms of her making it out alive.
Luckily, what we learned about Aram is his intelligence and resourcefulness. He was able to track down the van in the river and from there, swim down in order to save Samar. While it seemed for a few seconds that she was going to die, in the end, he managed to revive her. Unfortunately, she could end up never being able to breathe again on her own after losing so much oxygen. Her future seems to be very much in jeopardy, but Aram proposed to her! The power of love has to bring her back … right? That seems like the stuff of fairy-tales, alas; she didn’t come back in the closing minutes, but he did put the engagement ring on her finger after knowing how she felt.
Reddington’s auction
After feeling like his work was done with the Task Force, we saw Reddington take off in hopes of figuring out where the duffel bag was … and also precisely how to procure it. This included a signature scheme involving a gun located in the bathroom. Reddington basically shot up the place in order to get what he thought was the prized item. Unfortunately, what he learned at the end of the episode was that this wasn’t quite the case. The owner of the auction didn’t have the bag and had never met Ian Garvey.
Eventually, Reddington saw the surveillance tape which, in turn, allowed him to see who precisely ran away with the bones: Sutton Ross. This is a mysterious man who just so happens to be another longtime enemy of Reddington’s. Unfortunately, at the end of the episode Reddington also learned that Liz Keen was on the hunt for said duffel bag and the two are closing in on it.
CarterMatt Verdict
The Blacklist season 5 episode 21 proved to be a pretty incredible hour of television. We’ve got a big story potentially still coming with Samar and, beyond that, a look towards what could be an incredibly epic conclusion to the season.
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(Photo: NBC.)