The Blacklist: Season 3, Episode 19 – “Cape May”

This review contains spoilers.

This week’s episode focuses entirely on Raymond “Red” Reddington (James Spader) coming to terms with the loss of Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone). The episode starts with a classic Red interrogation, this time of Dr. Nick Korpal (Piter Marek), the physician who performed the Cesarean section that saved Agnes Keen, Elizabeth Keen’s daughter. It’s classic, hardcore Red, as a kind of contemporary Bill Munny (Clint Eastwood) in Unforgiven. A man more resigned to violence than innately vicious, he’s equal parts melancholic and menacing; it’s in moments like this where Spader shines. Especially since, unlike most of the people whom Red has killed in cold blood, Dr. Nick Korpal is pretty likable. There’s no sound of a shot, so we don’t know whether or not Dr. Nick survived the interrogation.

The rest of the episode dissolves into an extended hallucination staged in a run-down beach resort in Cape May, New Jersey. It begins with Red saving a beautiful red-headed woman who walks into the Atlantic Ocean. He takes her in the large beach house and, in what seems like overkill, turns up the heat, starts a fire and then lies down on the floor with her. Their conversation begins with:

RED: You’re okay. Talk to me.

MYSTERIOUS REDHEAD: It’s not that he died. It’s not even the way he died. It’s in the things I said to him… just before he died.

The woman is credited as Sasha Rostova (Lotte Verbeek). We know that Liz’s name was Masha Rostova and that her mother’s was Katherina Rostova. So, it appears that Red’s having a discussion with his subconscious. Giving her red hair — a connection to his name — adds a sense of awareness that Red, deep down, knows he’s hallucinating, even as the audience is left in the dark. Being in the dark, the dialogue comes off as not so much Ingmar Bergman as someone trying to write like Bergman.

If you look at it as a conversation between Red and himself, he could be talking about the implied murder of Dr. Nick Korpal. One of the most fascinating aspects of Red’s character is the warped chivalric/Machiavellian codes he lives by, one of which is that he never kills anyone who doesn’t deserve to die. If you were to rank all of the people culpable for Liz’s death, Dr. Nick would be rather low; he’d certainly be lower than Red himself.

Then there’s a scene where the hotel is beset with imaginary bad guys who try to kill the mysterious woman, during which Red and the woman booby trap all of the rooms in the house. Coming out of the hallucination, Red walks through the house and retraces all of the steps. He eats dinner alone; he plays the piano. He’s saved no one, and he just imagined the mysterious woman. During this revelation, he looks out the window, and once again sees the beautiful redhead walking in the ocean.

He walks over to an elderly beach-comber and asked if he saw the lady, but is told that he’s the only person who has been on that stretch of beach for two weeks. As they’re talking, the comber digs up a small locket. The locket belonged to Katerina Rostova. Of course it does! After, all this is The Blacklist; no episode could be complete without forcing the viewer to choose between thinking or being entertained. If you follow the storyline, Katerina Rostova would’ve been dead for about 20 years, which is more than 7000 days. Who knows how many times people have walked over the beach with a metal detector? Yet somehow it was unearthed the day, the hour, and nearly the minute Red has his second hallucination.

All told, “Cape May” is a strange mishmash of an episode. On the plus side, it’s the first time in the series that Red has shown any weakness. The character is devastated by the loss of his Liz. The Blacklist has hinted that Liz may be his beloved daughter, the mother of his daughter, or the daughter of the women he loved. We still don’t know who Liz was. Part of the series’ theme is that Red’s a thoroughly evil person, and sees keeping Liz safe as the only good thing he can do. When he fails to do that, his world falls apart.

Equal parts Woody Allen’s Interiors and Chris Columbus’s Home Alone, the fact that James Spader holds the entire episode together is a testament to his acting ability. Knowing that the character was not Katerina Rostova but Red’s subconscious manifested as Katerina Rostova, may change the way the entire episode is viewed. It’s very rare that a television show compels me to want to watch it again. “Cape May”, despite its flaws, has done just that.