The Blacklist season 5 episode 5 review: Tom Keen searches for answers

Things are starting to come together for Reddington on The Blacklist season 5 as he slowly grows his empire back. He’s moved out of the hotel and has been staying at an Airbnb, he’s got a bit of cash flowing in and he’s gained the trust of a few allies – It’s a start. For one Donald Ressler though, things couldn’t be going worse. The fixer who is blackmailing him made him give up a car with a dead body in it that was in FBI custody… and he handed the car over to him.

Tom’s journey for the suitcase

If you were hoping that the DNA extracted from the bones along with the use of Liz’s FBI identification was going to give us some answers on who’s bones are in the suitcase and why they are going to ruin Reddington’s life then you were likely screaming at your TV last week when you saw Nik left for dead and the suitcase being taken by the unknown assailant. Seems like this mystery could be in the wind for a while longer.

Liz and Tom learn that Nik is dead and while Tom knows that the suitcase is likely to blame for this, Liz has asked Reddington to look into it for her. Right now, no one knows who killed him, but we do know that they left with the suitcase.

Tom is up the creek right now, but he still has one paddle. While Nik is dead and Pete is gone (and Tom’s prime suspect for who killed Nik), he decides to play the only card he has left and that’s to sign up to be a patient at one of the drug trials Pete was working at in order to maybe find some clue to his whereabouts. He finds that the nurse looking after him is Pete’s sister, and after some convincing she’s willing to help locate him.

Reddington grows his empire

There wasn’t as much Reddington as we normally like to see in an episode of The Blacklist (and he wasn’t doing much work with Liz which we also dislike), but he was busy securing a non-profit dog grooming facility to start laundering his postal service/Airbnb criminal hideout money through. This has been a nice slow unfolding and we have thoroughly enjoyed this storyline of Reddington rebuilding his criminal empire.

While Tom was busy being a lab rat in order to find a lead to Pete and the suitcase, Reddington got his hands on some of Nik’s belongings that included his cell phone and a suitcase key. Reddington calls the last phone number on Nik’s phone and gets Tom… now Reddington knows Tom is involved, but he hangs up before Tom knows who is on the other line.

Aram in the field

We don’t get to see Aram in the field much, but when Samar is on a mission this week he decides to try it out. He finds himself enormously under-prepared for it and it makes him realize that he wants to take another step in his career – he wants operations training! Aram has had some great storylines this season in the romance department, but the idea of watching him train to be a field agent is truly exciting.

CarterMatt’s over all thoughts

We understand Tom wanting to get his ducks in a row before sharing his findings with Liz: She’s highly invested in Reddington (especially now that she thinks he is her father) and a suitcase full of bones with no substance isn’t really a lot for Liz to process. That being said we haven’t been crazy about all this lying he’s been doing to her (and lifting her FBI identification in the last episode), so it was good to see him talking to their daughter about it all and revealing that he’s having some trouble with it himself. We know that Tom loves her, but we also know that he’s capable of some pretty dark things, so we want to see him keep some kind of balance between his dark side and his want to help Liz learn this truth.

If you missed our exclusive interview with Blacklist showrunner Jon Bokenkamp you can check out what he had to say about season 5 at the link here.

What did you think of tonight’s episode of The Blacklist? Leave us a comment in the box below with your thoughts.

(Photo: NBC)