The Blacklist Review: 2×13 “The Deer Hunter”

The Blacklist continues to impress with a continuous string of dynamic Blacklisters since its winter debut. Every episode after the hiatus has been excellent and this one was no exception.

The Blacklist — After the Task Force has come up empty trying to stop a serial killer who hunts his victims with a crossbow and then ceremoniously takes a bite from each victim’s liver, Red (James Spader) proposes a trade. He will help identify the killer, in exchange for information about The Fulcrum from Liz (Megan Boone). Red tells the Task Force that their most critical assumption about the Deer Hunter is wrong. He—is a she (Amanda Plummer, Blacklister No. 93). At the same time, Red has made arrangements to meet with the mysterious voice on the other end of the phone number from Fitch’s (Alan Alda) safe. After interrogating an over-zealous reporter (Mark Gessner) that snuck in to take pictures of the latest victim, Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) and Liz are introduced to the idea that the last 7 killings are the work of a copycat and not the original Deer Hunter. Intrigued, Ressler has a eureka moment. The bite marks from the last seven victims are different from the first six. Meanwhile, Detective Wilcox (Michael Kostroff) continues to close in on the truth about Liz’s involvement with the DC Harbormaster’s (Franklin Ojeda Smith) death. After cutting a deal with Samuel Aleko (Dante Nero) to testify against Liz, Wilcox informs her that he plans to get the help of a Federal Judge to open her case files and get to the bottom of her involvement with the Harbormaster’s death.

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The Deer Hunter, indeed a woman, is a killer protecting women who have been abused. The system has failed these women, but the Deer Hunter offers them justice outside of the system. While investigating the latest victim, it becomes clear that all the victims had one thing in common—the abuse of women in their lives that sought help from Whitehaven Shelters. Before the latest victim’s wife (Sepideh Moafi) can talk, the Deer Hunter reaches her first and Liz is captured in the process. With time running out for Liz, Aram (Amir Arison) puts the final piece in place for the copycat killings. In each case, the victims were all killed by the Deer Hunter after help from Whitehaven, with the exception of the first—the husband of Tracy Solobotkin (Amanda Plummer) suggesting she may in fact be the copycat. As the Task Force races to Tracy’s home, Liz, hanging from Tracy’s basement ceiling, learns the original Deer Hunter was none other than Tracy’s husband. When Liz gains the upper hand in attempt to escape, she’s stopped by Ressler from killing Tracy in a leg-locked head hold that eerily mirror’s Tom’s (Ryan Eggold) murder of the Harbormaster. With guilt overwhelming her, Liz decides to turn herself in to Wilcox, but Red has already taken care of the matter by providing a heart transplant for Aleko’s brother in exchange for silence. In the process of doing so, Red misses his window to meet the mysterious voice in person. When Liz admits to Red she has the Fulcrum, she refuses to give its location without more information. Not willing to put her at further risk, Red lets her go but with so many mysteries swirling and so many elements that each person knows and others do not, the season long arc intensifies. Let’s chew through all the in’s and out’s of this week’s episode of The Blacklist!

Amanda Plummer plays crazy amazingly well.

As the episode opens with Liz giving a lecture on the tendencies and profile of the Deer Hunter, the details of the killer’s thrill of the hunt, his removal of internal organs and eventual “ceremonial bite” from the victim’s liver are chilling. The Deer Hunter is a serial killer with very specific habits and prey. According to Liz’s profile, the Deer Hunter prefers large men. In her words, that most likely signifies dominance over someone much larger and more powerful than the killer himself. But all of those things paled in comparison to Amanda Plummer’s performance. As Liz narrates and we see the Deer Hunter stalk her next victim, we realize that for all her knowledge, Liz has it wrong. The Deer Hunter isn’t a man. It’s a woman.

Plummer brought to life a frightening, unstable character. Tracy’s conviction in what she deemed a necessary evil was highlighted in several scenes in which she expressed her loathing of what she “had” to do to her assortment of animals in her home. Perhaps most eerie however, was her meeting with the wife of her next victim. Sitting in Mary Henning’s home, the two discussed the plan. And when Mary showed doubt, Plummer’s brilliance of unstable and little bit of crazy came shining through Tracy.

“You’ve tried every other way. You’ve been reasonable, worked within the system, begged, pleaded.” ~ Tracy

“I know, but- “ ~ Mary

“Mary, look at me. Is there evil in your life?” ~ Tracy

“Yes. “ ~ Mary

“Is it not ‘just’ and ‘right’ to eliminate evil? Say it.” ~ Tracy

“Yes. “ ~ Mary

“So are you in, or are you out? I need to know, because if this comes back on me, it’s going to come back on us both. Do you understand?” ~ Tracy

“I’m in. “ ~ Mary

Plummer’s final line, whispered with a sinister and foreboding tone, pushed Mary over the edge. The deed was set. But when questioned by Liz and Ressler after the crime, the doubt still lingered in Mary. Tracy had somewhat coerced her into allowing this act. Plummer’s performance only got better as the episode progressed. The Task Force closed in and Tracy’s desperation amplified. Shaky and starting to show signs of instability, Plummer waded into the crazy mindset slowly in her later confrontation with Mary who was expecting Liz and Ressler instead. Piecing together that Mary was about to betray her, sends Tracy off the edge and Plummer was amazing in her ability to unleash such a realistic and disturbed psyche as things came to a close.

Plummer’s crowning moment was with Liz hanging in Tracy’s garage. The long rambling monologue that unfolded to reveal the true Deer Hunter was Tracy’s husband was unsettling to say the least. As Tracy rattled on about her husband and his abusive father, her tirade confirmed everything Liz had predicted of the original Deer Hunter’s profile. As it became clear Tracy had adopted the killings as a means to not only cover the murder of her husband, but also a twisted sense of justice for Whitehaven victims, she became more and more erratic in her behavior. Plummer’s confused and distressed looks mixed with her anger and bitterness all wound together in a jumble that made Tracy all the more frightening.

Her characterization of the murders as a necessary evil to protect the women Whitehaven tried to help, but couldn’t, was a fascinating revelation. Plummer seemed to play it effortlessly. As it unfolded, one couldn’t be certain if Tracy were trying to justify her behavior to Liz or to herself. Either way, Liz picked up on the doubt and used it to her advantage. Taunting Tracy, Liz goaded her until Tracy attacked wildly, which was exactly what Liz hoped would happen to give her the opportunity to subdue Tracy despite being suspended from the ceiling.

When it was all said and done, Tracy’s weakness turned out to be her own denial regarding why she continued with the murders. Liz tapped into that by insisting that Tracy enjoyed picking up where her husband left off. Ultimately that turned out to be the button that pushed Tracy wildly over the edge, but Plummer’s performance was absolutely top-notch. The Blacklist should be proud to welcome Tracy and Plummer’s portrayal of her into the fold.

The hunters became the hunted, but that worked out better for some than others.

Just as Tracy was being hemmed in by the FBI, Liz was facing her own pressure from Detective Wilcox. Having gained a confession from Aleko and with the body of the deceased DC Harbormaster unearthed, Liz was becoming Wilcox’s prey. With only Ressler in her corner, Liz was beginning to feel the mounting pressure to tell Wilcox the truth, which would no doubt result in Liz’s arrest and the end the Task Force and all the work they are doing.

The irony hasn’t been lost on us that while Liz spends her days pursuing the worst of the worlds’ criminals and stopping them from committing heinous crimes, she is also now being pursued for something similar. Ressler had a point in his arguments against telling the truth. Liz didn’t kill the Harbormaster, Tom did. But like any person with a conscience that seemed to be little consolation for Liz. The man had a family and she felt the weight of their loss on her soul.

Justifying a smaller evil for a greater good was what Tracy believed she was doing too. With Liz taking more and more liberty with her position, the thought must have occurred to her that she was doing the same, albeit in a less sadistic way.

“I hesitated. And maybe I thought for just one second it would be better for me if he were dead.” ~ Liz

“Liz-” ~ Ressler

“No. That man had a family. He had a life. I’m gonna go to Wilcox. I’m gonna tell him everything.” ~ Liz

“How many people do you think are alive today that wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for the work that we do? 50? 100? How many, Liz? How many families haven’t buried a mother, a father, brother, sister? Children?” ~ Ressler

“That doesn’t make it right.” ~ Liz

“No. It’s never gonna be right. See, the only question is the body count. So, you go ahead and you nail yourself to a cross, and while you’re up there feeling sanctified, you consider how many people are gonna die because this task force gets shut down and the rest of those animals on Reddington’s list are still out there feeding.” ~ Ressler

But unlike Tracy, Liz had an angel, or perhaps a devil depending on how you look at it, watching over her that she didn’t know existed. Red. In a charming, 90 second spill, he arranges a deal with Aleko. In exchange for his silence, Red will provide Aleko’s brother with a much-needed heart transplant. Whether Red’s story about Gary Goddard was true or not doesn’t really matter. Aleko believed it and in the end, his brother was saved and so was Liz.

One has to wonder what the motives were for Red to do such a thing. One is obvious. Without the Fulcrum, and knowing Liz is the key to finding it, keeping her close is certainly vital to Red’s survival. But as always the case with this show, we’re left to wonder if there’s more between these two that Red knows and we don’t. We don’t yet know what Red sacrificed by not meeting with the voice on the phone in order to save Liz instead. So the speculation will continue as Red arranged Liz’s freedom by gaining Aleko’s silence. One also has to wonder if the Task Force is a pawn that Red must keep in play as long as possible for protection and as a resource for getting things he needs done. Time will tell, but we suspect it’s all of the above.

Parallels and symbolism are everywhere.

Parallels, contrasts and symbolism were rampant in this episode if you looked for them. We did and there were clues hidden everywhere that contrasted nearly every plot line. It started from the very beginning with Liz’s lecture. As a profiler, Liz’s job has been to understand the minds of the criminals she hunts. In essence, she’s very much a predator hunting very specific prey. She is after the worst of the world’s criminals and justifies the compromises she has to make along the way as necessary for the greater good. The Deer Hunter envisioned herself doing very much the same. Both were seeking justice, but they went about it in very different ways.

Liz is continuing to skirt the law. She’s adapting to more and more of Red’s way of thinking all the time and it’s that kind of outside-the-bounds justice that led Tracy down her own path. Granted, Tracy is a bit psychotic, but how far is one from losing it once you start in that direction? Where do you draw the line and at what point are the compromises too much? Of course Liz isn’t stooping to ritualistic murder to accomplish her goals, but she’s been walking a fine line for some time. Her life with Tom had too many similarities to the Deer Hunter to ignore.

As Tracy held Liz suspended in the air, we couldn’t help but think that the shoe was now on the other foot. Where Liz was once holding Tom, she was now a prisoner herself. As Tracy told her story, more similarities mounted. Liz had suspected for a long time that Tom might be someone other that what he claimed. It’s hard to hide that kind of thing from your spouse as Tracy said about her own husband.

Liz certainly saw the signs, but it wasn’t until she had concrete proof that she began working against Tom directly, ultimately shooting him quite to the surprise of them both. Tracy told a similar story of the day when she discovered what her husband was and what he was doing. Liz knew exactly what that felt like. Liz also knew what it felt like to inadvertently shoot her husband for it as well. In the end, Liz used the comparison between Tracy and her husband to her advantage and enraged Tracy, but as she goaded Tracy, we couldn’t help but wonder how much of Liz’s speech was meant for herself?

“Can you please, please just do me one favor?” ~ Liz

“Yes?” ~ Tracy

“Shut the hell up and get it over with.” ~ Liz

“What?” ~ Tracy

“You think I don’t know why you’re really doing this? You think I’m buying this whole ‘justice for victims’ crap?” ~ Liz

“Well, it’s true.” ~ Tracy

“You’re just like your husband.” ~ Liz

“I’m nothing like my husband!” ~ Tracy

“You’re exactly like him, like all the sick, psychopathic animals we lock up.” ~ Liz

“Oh, you haven’t heard a word that I’ve been saying.” ~ Tracy

“I’ve heard every word. ‘I could give them back their lives.’ Why don’t you just admit it? You get off on killing people. It doesn’t matter if the victim’s a scumbag or a saint- you get off just the same, just like your husband.” ~ Liz

That moment Tracy described of realizing what her husband really was? Liz had been there. Inadvertently shooting her husband? Liz had been there too. Refusing to turn him in and continuing her work? Liz did that as well and she justified it by what she gained from it. Ressler said it best. It comes down to the body count. Even if we sometimes do it the wrong way, it’s still for a greater good. Tracy told herself that too. And Liz was likely right—Tracy enjoyed it. In that moment Liz was strangling Tracy, Liz was doing exactly what she accused Tracy of doing. She was lost in the moment it and it shook her that if Ressler hadn’t snapped her out of it she would have killed Tracy.

If you flip the entire conversation around when Liz is goading Tracy and accusing her of being just like her husband, the perspective changes. Liz was talking about Tracy’s husband, but if you make it about Tom is it a window into Liz’s mind? It certainly seemed to be and had it not been for the save by Red, Liz may very well have given herself up and in so doing, scuttled the entire Task Force in the process. Too many others have too much at stake and Ressler laid that guilt directly on Liz’s shoulders. We were glad to see Diego Klattenhoff get more to do than get captured and rescued this week. He was Liz’s confidant, but that seems to be wearing thin.

FINAL VERDICT: The Blacklist just keeps delivering. The big plot movements in this episode were fantastic, but so many of the small moments stole the show when they hit.

Throughout this episode, we couldn’t help but think that as each plot line weaved in and out of the others that this was incredibly good writing to make that work. Writer Amanda Kate Shuman did an amazing job taking the episode breakdown and making all that work so well. The dialogue was timely, suggestive of themes larger than the moments and moved things through the episode very cleanly. Director Andrew McCarthy deserves credit as well for capturing those numerous threads and keeping all of it straight and clear. Overall, this episode was a tightly threaded piece that had very few flaws.

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We loved getting to see more of Aram and Samar (Mozhan Marnò). We don’t know what is brewing between the two of them, but it made for some of the funniest moments of the episode as Aram seemed worried about his hair and Samar assured him it wasn’t an issue—he’d still be sexy without hair. The look on Aram’s face was priceless. We couldn’t help but laugh out loud when Red noticed Aram’s hair with a fuzzy swipe through the locks with a chuckle.

“I used to have a teeming mane just like that.” ~Red.

We also didn’t miss the fact that Red and Samar shared a look later as Red walked out with the address he’d requested of Aram. How much does Samar know that the others don’t? We can’t forget that Red had a hand in her being planted in the Task Force and these little moments were no doubt intended to remind us of that fact. Red doesn’t do things for no reason and we suspect that reason will come to light later in the season. In the mean time, the sexual tension between Aram and Samar is endearing and it stole every scene in which the two let it show.

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We also loved the exchange between Red and Liz at the end as he scolded her and she eventually admitted she had the Fulcrum. We certainly wondered if Red was right and Liz viewed the Fulcrum as her way to continue holding on to Red and the Task Force. So it made us wonder why she admitted to having it even though that was part of the deal for finding the Deer Hunter. Knowing things could come crashing down around everyone if Red walks had to also be part of Ressler’s ire at the end toward Liz as well, but since he’d supported her for this long, why did he fire back with such venom? Perhaps both moments will make more sense as the season progresses. We’ve come to trust the writing team. They’ve left us wondering on things before and the blanks get filled in very well later. We suspect that will happen for these two moments but for now are left to wonder.

Liz seems to be left in a quandary about what to do. In many ways she feels just like Tracy did. Tom is still pulling the strings even though he’s gone. Her life has been affected by everything Tom did and if she lets things get to her the entire Task Force could crumble. That burden must be weighing on her. We have no idea where some of these loose ends will tie up, but you can be sure we’ll be watching next week’s episode of The Blacklist to find out!

Questions, Comments, Concerns and My Reaction on Twitter…

• Am I clear? Yeah. Things are heating up for Liz. Fast.
• I think you need to do a little bit more work on that he/she #Deerhunter profile there Lizzy.
• For every rule, there is an exception. The man has a point.
• I used to have a teeming mane just like that. #ThingsRedSays #ThatFreakAramOut
• Different bite size Ressler?
• Is it not just and right to eliminate evil? Um. I’m getting that creepy feeling.
• We’ll talk about that outside Liz. She’s on to something.
• 90 seconds. And Red starts with a dancing story about Gary Goddard.
• Because you’re gonna do something for me. Ooohhh. Red you devil.
• Oh, no one ever calls me that. [uncomfortable chuckle] *Aram inside voice says Oh Sh!t*
• You’re the weak link. You’re off this sadistic game show woman!! #Doehunter now?
• So happy..together Can ya dig it liz? #PunsForDays
• #Deerhunter and Lizzy just hangin out at the moment. @MeganBoone
• Oooo the husband. That’s a twist. #DeerHunter
• Shut the hell up and get it over with. Boom!! Lizzy just twisted her own knife.
• Det. Wilcox calls. Liz: Can you give me a min? Strangling someone else right now. Can you leave a msg?
• Do you think in that 90 seconds in the van Red told him he’d need to change more than the comma?
• I believe Liz just proved she IS the Thighmaster. RT @sfwheeler15: Thighmaster has nothing on Liz.
• “You’re sexy no matter what.” ~ Samar. “No..wait..what? Did you just say…” ~ Aram. “Just don’t get fat.” ~ Samar. This Moment Wins!
• Because you’re afraid. You’ll be of no further use to me. And you’ll never see me again. WOW! Electric moment!