Blacklist Recap- Abraham Stern (No. 100)

By starrymag | January 24, 2018

By: Robert Warren

 

Holding a 1943 penny, Raymond `Red’ Reddington is backseat cruising as Dembe Zuma (Hisham Tawfiq) drives them along through the quiet roads in style. As per the usual in this series, Reddington is on another hunt except this time for the other coins that may be related to this 1943 penny. Unexpectedly, however, a “Fine Time” cleaning and laundry services vehicle comes crashing into the side of Dembe`s car causing for a rollover.

Reddington bleeding from the nose deliriously looks out their upside down vehicle as a few men approach, some with guns. A man takes the 1943 penny claiming that he got what he came for and flicks it into the air. Grabbing the penny as it returns to his hand the man heads out.

The episode begins with Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) holding her waist as a man named Bobby Navarro (Happy Anderson) lying on the floor covered in blood.  Keen pulls out a shard of glass from her waist and proceeds to take dead Navarro and zip him in a bag. Keen does a very deep clean of the scene and breathes heavily when she hears a knock at the door.

The voice of police officers is heard calling for Navarro and threatening to come in. The police officers enter as Keen hides in the closet. No one in the room leaves the police exit as the scene jumps to Reddington in Harold Cooper’s (Harry Lennix) office.  Reddington is talking to Cooper about how he got robbed of his penny as it seems to amuse Cooper by the irony of the situation.

Reddington wants Cooper`s help in reacquiring the rare 1943 penny. We jump to a new scene with Abraham Stern (Nathan Lane) talking to a man about avoiding defaulting on a loan the scene jumps again to the FBI headquarters where Reddington is talking to the agents about what makes the 1943 pennies so valuable. Reddington explains that there are only four and they will piece together a map to a vast fortune with the lost Federal Reserve Notes which the reserve claimed it never made.

Reddington explains that finding the notes is a quest to financial overload.  Aram Mojtabai (Amir Arison) starts pulling up information on three security guards that were murdered in Dubai. It is the information of an art collector that died in a house fire and the information of an antiques dealer that was killed in Georgetown. Reddington brings this up to point out that with only four pennies here are the three incidents that occurred that may connect to someone stealing pennies.

Reddington wants to stop this person before he gets all four pennies and wants to seek the pennies out. Cooper is willing to help on the hunt but with the interest of only stopping the person on the hunt for the pennies. Reddington wants more than that. He wants to search for the pennies, for the treasure, with a sense of adventure and Aram agrees it could be fun. Reddington points out that Cooper can learn a thing or two from Arams sense of adventure.

In a new scene, a woman (Emma Thorne) introduces Patrick Church to Frank Dobbs (Michael Mastro) and Ben Farber (Nathan Lane) from the Fairbank & Hienz insurance company where the men are also antique collectors. Farber, hearing that Church has a Lincoln Penny on display, wants to speak privately about it, as this is a matter of urgency.

Transitioning, Detective Singleton (Evan Parke) walks into the room that was looked at the beginning of the episode to check it out. To the detective it seems too clean in the room, as though something may have been tampered with or something. The detective dials a call to Wyman claiming he needs a team to come to the room now to tear this room apart.

Aram thinks he may have found the last missing penny from looking at a bill of sale that was used upon purchase. Mojtabai explains that the man who purchased it in the bill of sale passed away and donated it to a museum at the University of Pennsylvania. Mojtabai goes on to mention that the coin at the university however is on loan to the Gabor Museum.

Cooper sends Donald Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) and Samar Navabi (Mozhan Marnò) to the museum to check it out. At the museum Faber is trying to trick Church into seeing the coin because he claims that it may have been duplicated and he needs to see the coin to help work on a case that is in the works.

Detective Singleton is searching the room from up to down to see how the room is so clean, as it may lead to finding a criminal. (Remember in the previous episode, Keen killed Navarro. This is the room where it happened and at the start of the episode Keen cleaned the room…well now Detective Singleton is searching it for leads.) Keen in a separate scene returns to FBI headquarters.

Mojtabai runs to greet Keen and welcome her back, as she returns the favor, she explains that she is only at the headquarters to search some files. Returning to the room with Singleton, an officer finds a rag with blood near the sink and Singleton notices immediately. Keen is searching files, one of which labels a suspect under the name of Stanley R. Kornish.  Keen takes a photo of it along with photos of a few more documents about an acid.

Mojtabai goes back over by Keen and it makes her jump, dropping the papers. He offers to help Keen to pick them up, but she explains he not worry about it. She shuffles picking up the documents and Mojtabai tries to explain it is probably not a good idea for Keen to be in the office after having gone through so much with Tom`s passing lately.

Keen explains that it is important to her, especially in regards to Tom`s killers. Mojtabai starts talking to Keen excited about the hunt that is happening for the pennies. Talking about what Reddington is on the look for he thinks may spark some interest for Keen to work on the case. Keen explains that even though she is there she is not back.

Singleton starts talking with Keen about information about the room he was cleaning. Singleton suggests the fact that Keen may have killed Tom’s killer. Keen lets the idea of that pass by not worrying at all nor saying much but the fact that it is a ridiculous of an idea for him to think as such. Singleton brings up that he will be having results come from the DNA lab.  Keen a bit shocked turns around but then continues on her way.

Ressler and Navabi arrive at the museum and Farber and Dobbs are checking out the coin with Church who is claiming to be an expert. When Ressler and Navabi arrive, Church is excused momentarily as he leaves. The agents ask to be lead to the supposed experts there and the fire alarm is pulled as the quote-on-quote experts leave.

As everyone quickly exits the museum, both Farber and Dobbs (the supposed experts) exit with the crowd, slipping away from the scene. In a new scene, Keen is cleaning up a room and pouring acid all over the place. Cooper explains that police got their first so they can`t look at the penny because now it is police evidence.

Keen is talking to Reddington on the phone and she says yes before Reddington even says what he needs. Keen knows about the penny search and is willing to help, needing a distraction anyway. Reddington furthers the conversation to explain how now the police department has the penny.  Keen explains the way to see the evidence is to provide some, which she does not have any but exclaims that she can make some easily.

Keen enters into Singleton’s office appreciative in his efforts on the DNA search and hands over some false evidence to Singleton which secretly can track and get information. Keen is explaining it to Reddington and with the device moving around gets the code to the evidence safe.

Ressler and Navabi head to the bank to get information. Keen starts talking to Glen Carter (Clark Middleton) as he fakes having an incident, he falls to the ground and Keen sneaks to get evidence. Getting the penny real quick she sneaks in and out as Carter is taken away on a gurney.

Dembe and Redington enter a dark room where Reddington is planning to cut a deal with Farber. Reddington claims he only wants 50% of this fortune, but Farber has three pennies as Reddington only has one. Still Reddington, being the person he is, stands at an advantage point and that alone is worth Reddington’s deal.

Farber starts going into a story of how these four pennies were given to him as part of an inheritance from his father. He didn’t know the pennies value at the time however until he spent them on candies as a young child but then later got a letter from his past away father explaining how the pennies had a map to a huge lump fortune. After that, Farber went on a lifelong search for the pennies, even killing for them, similar to his father who was also a killer.

Keen is still cleaning a room in a separate scene. Back to the scene with Redington and Farber, they are there with an expert. Looking at the four pennies they realize that the pennies stacked etchings lead to the boiler room,where Farber`s father used to work in Denver. They journey to get the sum.

Getting the money, Reddington gets betrayed by Farber and Stern as Reddington starts placing cameras everywhere to get an idea of what he is doing and where he is going. It`s not a big deal, Redington figured he would get betrayed. Reddington starts acting on a plan to regain his money, vacuuming out much of the money that he got betrayed on, with a huge vacuum hose he places on the outside of the building. Reddington calls Cooper and tells him that Stern was robbing the reserve.

Reddington taking the money from the outside with a hose as Stern and Farver on the inside is genius. Making everything look like it was Farber and Stern in the Robbery. Reddington takes off and Stern makes his way to the prison. Reddington makes off with the money, Stern makes his way to jail and Reddington is off the hook clean, with a lump of cash and no evidence to trace him to the robbery as it was Stern blamed. Never betray Reddington.

Cooper is talking to Reddington about everything that worked out and even though Cooper has a feeling that Reddington somehow got his hands on the treasure he is only thankful to catch the man about to rob the bank and behind much of the killings. Cooper brings up that pennies have been returned to the rightful owners (as they are collector`s items) and that with the evidence locker the penny was not the only thing taken. There was also evidence taken in regards to Robert Navarro, the person of interest in regards to Tom Keen.  (So Elizabeth Keen also took the bloodied DNA rag—smart Keen and sneaky.)

Reddington congratulated Keen on the stealing of the evidence and the hoodwinking that she did on Reddington to trick him into helping her steal the evidence that could prosecute her. Keen explains that she did not intend to kill him but he did. Keen says she apologizes for tricking Reddington and tells him that she took care of the body properly however so Reddington need not worry about them finding Navarros body. Keen explains she may need Reddingtons help as she figured out that Navarro actually had one glass eye with a chip inside and she wants to find out more about it and Reddington agrees to help.

Reddington made off with one of the pennies worth $3 mil and trades it for a Homburg hat that Winston Churchill wore during the Blitz. Keen says, “It`s kind of amazing,” and Reddinton ends the episode by laughing, as they both smile, as he says, “I`ll take amazing,” putting on the hat that ends the episode with a close.