#milton bobbit

“Yes, I’m the one who hired Tom Keen to enter your life”.

 - Raymond Reddington.

[1x18, 2x08, 2x15, 2x18]

“Vanessa Cruz episode”

It’s episode 1.18, but I’ll admit you have me stumped.  There are many things I remember about the Milton Bobbit episode but this wasn’t one of them, so I went back through the S1 scripts to try to trigger some recollection and so far I’m coming up dry.  If anyone has something to add to this post, please chime in.

What we know about Milton is that Red first offered the case to Liz calling him “The Undertaker,” and it seemed little more than a ruse to keep the FBI thinking things were normal while Red and Liz secretly worked on ferreting out Tom’s real employer:

Things are unraveling for him. He’s desperate to keep you close. I think you’ve been presented with a unique opportunity. The people Tom works for are obviously very cautious. They operate slowly from the shadows. I’ve spent years tracking them, to no avail. We now have a chance to draw them out. Things will have to appear normal to Tom, to Cooper, and the others. Which is why you’ll need a case.

Yesterday in Brooklyn, a taxi drove into the back of a truck under the 86th Street L Train, killing the driver and his female passenger. It’s being reported as an accident, but I suspect, in fact, it may be murder, the work of The Undertaker. He’s a broker of death, a man who somehow convinces ordinary people to kill on his behalf. Murder/suicide is his signature. How he recruits, nobody knows, but if this accident is his work, it gives you a rare glimpse into the way he operates and a chance to find him.

Once we meet Milton (who I remember largely for his disturbing removable nose), Milton’s boss explains that Milton is where all life insurance policies “go to die” and that Milton is obsessed with death.  But later in the episode, we actually learn that Milton’s MO has shifted and suddenly he’s targeting victims who are connected and personal – all involved in a clinical trial for a drug to treat Type 2 diabetes that somehow made Bobbit sick.

Before you made me sick, I had no purpose in life– helped no one left no mark. Thanks to you, I was transformed. I no longer see death as a burden, but an opportunity to take the rejects that nobody cares about and give them tremendous power. And as a result, hundreds of widows, orphans, broken families– they’re being taken care of. Their houses are being paid for, their education. I put food on their table.

By the end of the episode, Cooper remarks on Red accessing Bobbit’s client list:

Cooper: Is that what this was about? You getting access to Bobbit’s client list?

Red: Yes.

Liz: Find what you were looking for?

Red: Good night, Harold.

As to your question of whether we ever found out the reason - if we did, I can’t remember it.  Liz ran through a whole bunch of reasons as to why the cases were all connected later in the season in Berlin but she doesn’t specifically identify Bobbit’s list among them.  What’s interesting though, is that all of them relate in some way to someone being after Red - a threat.

Liz: All of it, everything the blacklist. We’ve been looking at it all wrong. We see these cases Reddington gives us as individual, as if they’re disconnected, but what if they’re not random? What is there’s a larger pattern to all of it?:  Reddington got a number from Wujing, a code that he entered into ViCAP after helping us stop General Ludd in order to identify Lucy Brooks, also known as Jolene Parker, who he then tracked down using The Alchemist‘s client list. They’re connected. Maybe not all, but some. Gina Zanetakos, the courier. I believe they all trace back to one entity.

Cooper: In Berlin.

Ressler: So Reddington’s using us to clear the table, wipe out the competition.

Liz: That’s what I thought. That’s what we’re trained to think. But that’s not how he thinks. Look at this like he would, like a criminal. Reddington said he’s bracing for war. And in a war, you need allies. Put yourself in his position. It’s not just the FBI who’s after him. What if there’s someone else, someone he can’t stop alone? What better way for a criminal to turn the tables on someone than to get the FBI on his side? Our resources and our protection not to expand his empire, but simply to survive.

Aram: Why wouldn’t he just tell us who’s after him?

Ressler: Because he doesn’t know.

And later…

Liz: Sir, the new information about the cases, how they’re connected at the end of all this, Reddington is the target. Someone’s after him. I really think my resignation –

Febressuary

Reddington Week