Violet recaps Season 1 Episode 6 of The Blacklist, titled, Gina Zanetakos, where we learn some interesting information about Elizabeth’s husband, Tom, as the FBI tries to track down a corporate terrorist before time runs out! Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts on the episode.
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The Blacklist, Episode 6: Gina Zanetakos Recap Overview
Need a quick The Blacklist episode recap of Season 1 Episode 6, titled Gina Zanetakos? Here is a summary of events for the episode. Each event is linked to the more detailed Blacklist episode recap for Gina Zanetakos if you need more information!
- Elizabeth brings her husband, Tom, in to the FBI for questioning
- Cooper puts Elizabeth on leave. Reddington tells Elizabeth about Gina Zanetakos, a corporate terrorist, and says that Zanetakos is Tom’s lover. Agent Malik questions Tom, who insists he was at Angel Station Hotel for a job interview. Reddington threatens Cooper, who reinstates Elizabeth.
- The FBI tracks Zanetakos to a hotel, where she has just killed a man after getting information from him. Agent Malik meets with Walter Burris, the man Tom claims interviewed him. Zanetakos attacks Ressler in an elevator, and he passes out while she escapes.
- The FBI determines a dirty bomb will be set off in the Central time zone. The man who interviewed Tom is not the Walter Burris that Malik met with. The FBI raids Zanetakos‘s apartment and finds a picture of Tom.
- Reddington flies to Germany to meet with the bomb maker, who reveals that a car is the bomb. Ressler shoots Zanetakos just as she is about to stab Elizabeth.
- With Reddington‘s help, Elizabeth figures out that the Port of Houston is the bomb’s target. She and Ressler go there to search for the bomb.
- The bomb squad cannot disable the radiological bomb, so Ressler drives the car off the dock just in the nick of time and it detonates underwater
- Zanetakos confesses that Reddington hired her to kill Viktor Fokin, and she’s never seen Tom. Tom recognizes Reddington’s assistant as the man who interviewed him. Elizabeth breaks things off with Reddington. The “Apple Man” continues to monitor the Keens to find out who Tom works for.
The Blacklist Episode Recap: Gina Zanetakos, the Details
Trouble in the Keen Household
This episode of The Blacklist starts off in Germany, where a guy builds a car bomb, then remote detonates it in front of a woman, who tells him she needs a radioactive car bomb within 36 hours.
Back at the Keen residence, Elizabeth and Tom argue about the hidden box and its contents, which Tom claims to know nothing about. She shows him the file and he confirms that it is him in the picture, but insists he had a job interview. She presses, and he tells her to call the FBI if she thinks he’s guilty, because he has nothing to hide. Elizabeth makes the call.
The FBI brings Tom to the black site with a bag over his head. Agent Malik takes Tom to a room for questioning, and Ressler tells Elizabeth to worry about herself. Meanwhile, Reddington is on the phone discussing a painting. His assistant informs him about Agent Keen and her husband.
Elizabeth is Put on Leave… Or Not
Back at the black site, Cooper tells Keen he’s putting her on leave until the matter with Tom is resolved. Elizabeth meets with Reddington on a park bench. He tells her about a woman named Gina Zanetakos, who is a corporate terrorist and Tom’s lover. Reddington then pays a visit to Cooper, and is unhappy about Elizabeth being put on leave. He threatens to reveal an “unfortunate incident in Kuwait.”
Malik questions Tom, who explains that he was called for an interview and met with a man named Walter Burris. He asks Malik to call Burris, who will confirm everything he’s telling her.
Ressler reports to Cooper about the contents of the box. They’re still working on the passports and tracing the money, but Ballistics confirmed that it was the gun used to kill Viktor Fokin, and they were able to get a partial print on a casing — but it wasn’t Tom’s. Cooper informs Ressler and Malik that Reddington brought them a case, but only if Keen is involved.
The FBI Tracks Down Zanetakos, But She Gets the Jump on Ressler
Elizabeth briefs the FBI on Gina Zanetakos, who is going by Shubie Hartwell. Through her credit cards, they track her to the Key Hotel. Elizabeth comments that she feels like she’s seen her before. Meanwhile, Zanetakos enters a hotel room with a man, who is eager to have sex with her. But first she demands something from him. He gives her a piece of paper, and says he got confirmation that “it’s on its way.” She injects him with something by his ear, and he drops dead.
Malik visits Walter Burris and shows him a picture of Tom Keen, asking if she interviewed him, and if they met at the coffee shop of the Angel Station Hotel.
Zanetakos scatters some pills on the floor around the dead man, and leaves the hotel room. But just then, Keen and Ressler start to step off the elevator, so Zanetakos hides in the stairwell until they pass. Keen and Ressler enter the hotel room and find the dead body. Ressler is able to catch the same elevator that Zanetakos is on. After everyone else exits, she attacks him. She gets him in a choke hold, and he passes out. Elizabeth gets the dead man’s phone and calls Shubie Hartwell. Ressler wakes up just before a phone by him rings, and he answers it. Elizabeth, expecting to reach Gina, is surprised when Ressler is on the other end.
Dirty Bomb, Setup?, Raid
Back at the FBI, they discovered a voicemail on Zanetakos’s phone that came in today from Berlin regarding a dirty bomb. But they aren’t sure what the target is. Elizabeth meets with Reddington and fills him in, telling him they think the bomb with be detonated somewhere in the Central time zone. She also tells Reddington that she found no connection between Zanetakos and Tom.
Malik returns to the interrogation room and gives Tom a picture of Walter Burris, but Tom doesn’t recognize him, saying it was a different man who interviewed him. Elizabeth watches from the other room, and realizes he is being set up. She suddenly has an epiphany: Zanetakos was in the picture where Tom is leaving Angel Station Hotel.
The FBI raids Zanetakos’s apartment and finds guns, and a hidden box with money, passports, and pictures of Viktor Fokin and of the man Zanetakos killed at the hotel. Elizabeth concludes that Zanetakos is an assassin, and she’s the one that killed Fokin, not Tom. But then they find a picture of Tom by her bed. Ressler tells her it’s time for her to protect herself.
Elizabeth meets with Reddington and tells him about the picture of Tom they found. She doesn’t know what’s real or who to trust, and begins to cry. Reddington says she can trust him, and he holds her hand.
A Car is the Bomb
Cooper wants to take Elizabeth off the case. However, they discovered that Zanetakos wired money to Maxwell Ruddiger, a bomb expert operating out of Europe, so they need Elizabeth because they need Reddington to find this guy.
Elizabeth goes to visit Reddington, who is on the phone talking about a payment that has been diverted to New Orleans. He agrees to help her find Maxwell Ruddiger. Reddington flies to Germany and meets with Max. He asks Max to tell him about the device he made for Zanetakos. He refuses at first, but Reddington persuades him. Max reveals that a car is the bomb, and it has a contamination radius of 5 miles. He knows it will be detonated in 19 hours, but he doesn’t know where. Reddington has Max call Zanetakos to find out.
The FBI tracks down Zanetakos, who is walking in a park. She runs into a public restroom, and Elizabeth follows her. Zanetakos gets the jump on Elizabeth by hiding in a stall. They fight, and Zanetakos pins Elizabeth to the ground and is about to stab her, when Ressler enters the restroom, and shoots Zanetakos twice.
Time is Running Out
Elizabeth is upset at Zanatakos’s condition, because she was the last link to prove Tom’s innocence. Then she calms down and tries to work with Ressler and Cooper to figure out what they know about the bomb, which is scheduled to detonate in 4 hours. They make a connection to Hanar Group investors, since company stock is at an all time low, dragged down by the shipping division, which operates a port in New Orleans.
Elizabeth calls Reddington asking about his phone call earlier, where he said something about his payment being diverted to New Orleans. He tells her that the payment was diverted from Houston. She figures out that the target is Houston, because if the Port of Houston was shut down, the Hanar Group’s port in New Orleans would be the only port in the Gulf, and profits would soar.
Elizabeth calls it in, and she and Ressler show up at the Port of Houston to search for the bomb. Meanwhile, Meera tries to get information from Tom about the bomb, which will go off in less than an hour, with no success.
Houston, We Have a Problem
Elizabeth realizes that Zanetakos needed a Turkish diplomat because it is illegal to search diplomatic cargo, so with his help, she was able to get the car in without inspection. They check for any items signed for by the diplomat, and find the car. The bomb squad isn’t able to do anything about it. The bomb squad leader points out that it’s radiological, and when it goes off, everything within a 5 mile radius will be contaminated, so he suggests that they get as far away as possible in the 10 minutes they have before the bomb goes off. Elizabeth decides the best course of action is for it to detonate in the water, where the radiation can be contained. However, the only way to get the car off the ship is to use a very slow crane.
The car lands, and there’s only 35 seconds left. Ressler jumps in the car and drives it toward the water, then jumps out of the car and rolls away just in time for it go off the dock and detonate underwater.
Zanetakos Spills the Beans, Elizabeth dumps Reddington
Ressler, Malik, and Keen visit Zanetakos in the hospital. Ressler explains that there was no airborne exposure, so the contamination was contained, which is the only reason the U.S. Attorney is considering a plea agreement in exchange for her full cooperation. Zanetakos confesses to killing Viktor Fokin, who was a Russian agent defecting to the U.S. Someone didn’t want him to spill secrets about the route Chechen guerillas were using to move supplies. The guy who hired her was making millions providing those supplies. His name? Raymond Reddington. Elizabeth shows her the picture of Tom the FBI found in her apartment, but she says she’s never seen him before.
Tom is released, but notices a picture on the wall. The picture is of Reddington’s assistant. Tom says that is the guy who interviewed him for the job.
Elizabeth angrily visits Reddington and tells him that they’re done. The passports were forged, and the money was traced to Reddington’s offshore account. He makes a comment that he can only lead her to the truth, he can’t make her believe it. He tries to deny her accusations, but she tells him to go to hell, and leaves.
Meanwhile, the Apple Man and his partner are monitoring the camera feeds from the Keen house. The partner asks if he believes Tom’s innocent, but Apple Man replies that the only thing clear to him is that Tom doesn’t work for Reddington. The partner wonders, who does he work for then?
Violet’s Thoughts on Episode 6 of The Blacklist: Gina Zanetakos
First off, was anyone else craving tacos throughout this episode? Seriously, every time they said “Zanetakos” it just made me want tacos! So that was a little distracting. I found this episode a little hard to follow. All that corporate espionage stuff just went over my head, and even when I was rewatching the episode to do this recap, I found that I had to reply certain parts over and over again to understand exactly what they were talking about. And I still am not sure that I really quite understood all the connections. Anything that’s political or corporate stock related tends to make me zone out, as those are subjects that simply don’t interest me. So, I apologize that I probably don’t have anything intelligent to say about this episode!
Apart from that aspect of the episode, even though Tom was claiming innocence, and at the end it seemed like all the evidence exonerated him, I still wasn’t buying it. Tom just has always given off a creepy vibe to me. So at the very end, when the Apple Man mentions that Tom is working for someone, I felt like everything was right in the world again. But now we’re still wondering who is Tom? How much does Reddington know? Even though Reddington did do things to frame Tom and bring it to Elizabeth’s attention that Tom’s a bad guy, apparently Tom’s cover is so squeaky clean that that was the only way Reddington felt like he could expose Tom to Elizabeth. However, I’m a little disappointed in the fact that it seems like Reddington underestimated Elizabeth. Didn’t he consider that she would be able to figure it out? Or maybe Tom is just that good that he was actually the one who planted that stuff with the goal of turning her against Reddington? But why? And again, who does he work for? What is Tom trying to accomplish?
Not sure if we’ll get those answers anytime soon, or if the show is going to draw them out for awhile.
Josh’s Thoughts: The Blacklist, Episode 6: Gina Zanetakos
This week’s episode of The Blacklist is pretty mind blowing, trying to figure out what is going on. Who is Tom? I do not believe he is who he’s saying he is. There has to be something more to him than what we are told. At the end of the previous episode of The Blacklist I was thinking, what questions could he have about the box? It is his box! I thought maybe he would say it was missing or something like that, but he turned it into the box being planted there. My question is this: where did the legitimate looking passport pictures come from? They can’t come from thin air, and those pictures didn’t look like something taken from Facebook or something. Perhaps someone could have gotten his DMV picture or something.
Another contention I have about Tom is, if he is going to a job interview, why is he wearing a baseball cap and casual clothes? I would think he would be all dressed up, looking professional. I guess the picture may not have been the exact time of his interview, but when all these things start to add up, it looks a little fishy.
As for Red, why would he tell Elizabeth about the “truth” of her husband, when it could all fall apart so easily? Red also seems genuinely upset when Lizzy finds out what she believes is the truth. I think that Red is certainly using Elizabeth, but there has to be some truth in what he has told her. Also, the pause Gina Zanetakos has when she looks at the photo of Tom seems to indicate she is lying about something.
I do not know why Elizabeth is so quick to believe the new story of her husband when just a bit ago she was having nightmares of him killing her. Hopefully this story with Tom is not over yet. I am curious about Tom pointing out Red’s partner. Does he know Red, therefore knows his partner, and therefore is trying to get Elizabeth to doubt Red? I think that would make the most sense at this point. I really like this show. As more and more stuff unfolds, I am excited to watch the telling of the story. But mark my words, Tom is more than he is trying to let on!
Scenes from The Blacklist, Episode 7: Frederick Barnes
Here are scenes from the next Blacklist episode, titled Frederick Barnes:
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