#avengingangel

From: Sandys, Edwin, Sir, 1561-1629. Europae speculum, or, A view or survey of the state of religion in the westerne parts of the world. Printed at London : By T. Cotes for Michael Sparke, 1638

Rick in the nursery trying to be a favorite uncle too:

Daemon giving Crispy Coal a "talk":

How Aegon probably looked to everyone, at his young age, suggesting Hoster's manner of execution:

Angels vs. Demons.  Good vs. Evil.  Right vs. Wrong.  Waking up in a strange place not knowing if you’ve done a bad, bad thing.  Cheating a drug test.  Helping someone cheat a drug test.  Do the ends justify the means?  Do we, as Reddington said, judge someone solely based on their worst day?  

At the start of the episode, we find out that Cooper woke up in his car having no memory of the night before, his service weapon on the floor, one bullet missing.  In another call-back to past storylines, we find that Cooper’s wife’s ex-lover was shot and killed. Curious. Cooper immediately gets suspicious of the coincidence, but his wife does not.  Throughout the episode, Cooper is trying to find out more, unwittingly catching the attention of a D.C. detective in the process.  Loyal Aram can sense that Cooper is in distress and offers his help multiple times.  It looks like we have a multi-episode story arc in the making.

Ressler asks Park for help to pass his drug test.  He is desperate to rejoin the FBI.  Park initially refuses, but later leaves a clean sample in his desk drawer. Ressler goes to a crooked doctor who will insert the clean urine into his bladder so he can pass the monitored drug test.  Ouch and yuk.  But Ressler has no other options, so he goes through with it.  If this is what the writers were giving him to do this week, at least they were smart enough to include a gratuitous underwear scene.

Dembe and Reddington sit down together in Reddington’s new Airstream trailer where he is holed up with Weecha and Meirce.  Hats off to Spader and Hisham for pulling off a palpably awkward conversation after all these years.  Something tragic happened in Brasilia, Brazil.  Reddington doesn’t want to talk about it, but this is where the rift happened.  We will likely get crumbs of what went down throughout the season (not unlike the Knope vs. Swanson storyline in NBC’s Parks and Recreation’s final season, but less funny).

I enjoy an art theft story line, and the Avenging Angel, a woman willing to do bad things to give justice to those who were robbed of it, was an interesting premise.  But the story meandered through the hour like a slow moving stream, spending time with guest characters that I could predict would be saved in the end.  Despite hearts beating, and transplanting, this didn’t get my heart rate going.  Although the twist at the end was Reddington, shooting the Avenging Angel and using her heart as the transplant. This is where The Blacklist differs from other shows. Justice takes on a different look, and Reddington takes on his own form of a vigilante angel.  Does that make him the good guy?  Not really.

The last five minutes of the episode is where my heart started pumping.  We find out the results of Ressler’s passed drug test.  The writers really stretched this storyline out over the whole episode, and now we find out why.  The first red flag was when Ressler calls Alina by her first name, instead of Park.  The sample showed signs of cancer.  Somehow, she doesn’t look surprised.  

Cooper, suspecting himself in the murder, secretly has his weapon checked. Ballistics finds that it is a match for the bullet found at the crime scene.  We see him outside a police station, perhaps contemplating whether to turn himself in for questioning. We are inclined to believe that Cooper was set up, but who would do that – a new big bad, or maybe even Reddington?

Random Thoughts:

 - Reddington says to Dembe, “What the hell happened to us?” I couldn’t help but see a parallel to the show itself, the fandom asking ourselves the same question. We’ve been through the ringer.  Time will tell if we get back on track.  

- I miss Liz.  I had accepted her death, and I am trying to buy into the new show. But I think it sunk in this week that she wasn’t coming back.  Her presence was missed.

'Secret' (Yeshuah)...Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves… Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God so

Secret (Yeshuah: The writing below and after each Scripture.) in this world full of hides beaming lights blinding eyes keeping you behind shut in sealed-in blinds let Me†, Yeshuah† tell you the lines open eyes to lies the truth of the Almighty God† the Riddle Maker in disguise behind the eyes in blind behind the truth and the lie testing a heart covered in dye making a heart sigh for years of…

'Question's Absorption' (Yeshuah)...'God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!'

Question's Absorption (Yeshuah) the collision course you are on will be it's just a matter of when your decisions are vast upsetting you yet you continue to make them I† already know where you are headed the Father† has already warned the time is drawing near I†, Yeshuah†, am speaking are you listening am I† halting your belief am I† putting doubt inside of you does My† prophet carry so much…