The Blacklist Returns With Two Powerful Episodes

The return of the hit NBC drama, The Blacklist has been long awaited, and our patience has been rewarded with a double episode premiere: the episodes that aired are titled “Dembe Zuma (No. 10)” and “Requiem”. Let’s get right into it.

Spoilers ahead! If you have not watched The Blacklist Season Four

Dembe Zuma (No. 10)

These episodes star…

Megan Boone as FBI profiler Elizabeth “Liz” Keen

James Spader as criminal mastermind Raymond “Red” Reddington

Hisham Tawfiq as Dembe Zuma

Amir Arison as FBI tech analyst Aram Mojtabai

Harry Lennix as FBI director Harold Cooper

Mozhan Marno as FBI agent Samar Navabi

Diego Klattenhoff as FBI agent Donald Ressler

These episode Dembe Zuma (No. 10) also guest star…

Susan Blommaert as Kate (Mr. Kaplan)
Paola Turbay as Dr. Sophia Gallup
Leon Rippy as Hunter
Annie Heise as Janet Sutherland
Clark Middleton as Glen Carter
Sab Shimono as Daniel Nakamoto

The episode opens with Aram Mojtabai (Amir Arison) coming home and taking a shower. His ex-girlfriend, Elise, is there too, she takes a shower with him. Aram leaves and he is found by Dembe Zuma (Hisham Tawfiq), who takes his girlfriend and has her locked in the closet.

Apparently, after months of hiding, Dembe is finally making a move… but why? Dembe tells Aram that he did this, kidnapping Aram, in an effort to help clear his name. Saying that he gave Red the poisoned wine but didn’t poison it.

Dembe brings Aram to a safe and says that whoever is attacking Raymond and whoever truly poisoned him in “The Apothecary”, prior to the break. Dembe tells Aram that he only has three people: “my daughter, my granddaughter, and Raymond.”

If Raymond wasn’t betrayed by Dembe, then who?

A popular theory a long time before the episodes even aired was that Mr. Kate Kaplan was really behind the attacks on Reddington, but that raises some burning questions. If it was in fact Kate Kaplan, then why? And what else does she have in store for him? And if it wasn’t Kate who poisoned Red, then who was it? We will soon find out.

How has Dembe avoided detection for this long?

Dembe Zuma was practically Raymond Reddington’s son. This shows the connection and bond the two have and you would think that this would mean Reddington taught Dembe how to stay and remain undetected, which Reddington actually states in this episode. Raymond taught Dembe how to stay undetected and that’s why there have been no leads on his whereabouts or actions during the time gap in which he has been missing. Back to the story.

Raymond “Red” Reddington heads out to find Dembe, knowing that he has to end this. Reddington speaks to Elizabeth “Liz” Keen (Megan Boone), and he realizes where he needs to go to get help and find Dembe.

Reddington seeks out and finds Dembe’s daughter, Isabella Zuma and her daughter, Dembe’s granddaughter, Elle Zuma, as a link to find Dembe and get answers. Arriving at the location Dembe hid Isabella and Elle at after Matias Solomon found them in season two, he calls Dembe and speaks to him. Dembe is then shot in the leg by an arrow and we see the man who helped out Mr. Kaplan earlier in the season after Reddington shot her.

Dembe narrowly escapes the man before stabbing him with the arrow when the man foolishly gets close enough to him. Red and Baz both arrive at the same location, tricking the man after them and Dembe into a trap and taking him back to his cabin. Reddington calls Mr. Kaplan, but the man has the house rigged with explosives that are set to detonate when the number is called. Red and Baz escape and the cabin blows up.

Requiem

Mr. Kaplan drives down the road in a truck with a camper, she makes a call and she reveals a horrible wound on her head.

What is the wound?

Let’s start from the beginning:

Mr. Kaplan is tied to both Elizabeth Keen, or “Masha Rostova” and Caterina Rostova. But how? Apparently before the night of the fire, Kaplan worked for the Rostova family to watch over Masha while Catarina and Alexander Kirk were away. Kaplan worked for them under the conditions that she could never love Masha. When Catarina asks about what Kate has done in the past as far as child care, she says she has seen multiple kids through grade school and that she cares for all of them. “Not much. When a Masha takes a bottle from me… she’s telling me she trust me completely” (Kaplan when asked about how can a child gain her love).

Kaplan helps Catarina clean up a body, in her initial interview with Catarina, Kate says that she learned about death and human anatomy, she also says that rather than finding the end of life repulsive, she found it fascinating, but would much rather see the start of life over the end of it, which is why she is in child care. Kaplan disposes of the body in a clever way, so it is not discovered during the winter weather cycles. Kaplan finds Catarina having an affair with Reddington and shortly after this, the fire happens.

The night of the fire, Catarina arrives with Masha and drops off the child. Catarina gives Kate instructions and has her watch Masha, commenting that she plans to return for Masha, but later it is revealed that she won’t. Catarina asks Kate to leave Masha with Sam Milhoan, a friend of hers and away from Reddington.

Kaplan does so, convincing Sam to take the child in. Kaplan meets another girl (this episode confirms that Mr. Kaplan is a lesbian) and the two hook up before Kaplan decides to move with the girl. One night, a man, enraged, shoots the girl and kills her and shoots Kaplan, nearly killing her. She almost dies before she gets help, this is why she has her head wound. The man also remarks that “that must make you Mr. Kaplan” before she gets shot. Reddington approaches Kaplan and the two make an arrangement to work together.

In the conclusion of the episode, Kaplan and Red speak on the phone, Kaplan has a plan in action. Unearthing bodies of those Raymond has killed to build his empire.