Abraham Stern

"Abraham Stern"

Season 5, Episode 11

Episode Information

Air date

January 17, 2018

Directed by

Andrew McCarthy

Written by

Jon Bokenkamp
John Eisendrath

Episode Chronology

Previous	Next
“The Informant”	“The Cook”

“Abraham Stern” is the eleventh episode of Season 5 of The Blacklist and the hundredth episode overall.

Synopsis[]

Press Release[]

When Red goes on the hunt for a legendary treasure, he draws the attention of Abraham Stern, a cunning manipulator who has devoted his life - and the lives of many innocents - to recovering the fortune that is his birthright. Meanwhile, Liz's quest sends her down a dark path, leading her to study the methods of one of the Blacklist's most dangerous criminals.

Number on The Blacklist[]

100

Unanswered Questions[]

The episode was a reference to Abraham Lincoln and the 1943 steel cent. Abraham Lincoln is on the United States penny.
Elizabeth Keen
1. Why did Keen not wear gloves when using the evidence room keypad?
  1. A: The keypad had too many fingerprints to isolate hers.
2. Why did Keen not bury Robert Navarro’s body?
  1. A: She didn't want any chance of it being found.
3. Why did Keen not go to Red for help with Robert Navarro?
  1. A: She is going rogue. She is on a revenge quest to avenge Tom's death.
  2. A: She also wants to not tip Red off
4. What did Keen do with the broken glass and wood?
  1. A: The trash.
5. Why did Keen open the false eye with dirty gloves?
  1. A: Impulse action.
6. Why did Keen place the bloody towel in the sink drain?
  1. A: Lack of time.
7. Why did Keen not leave Robert Navarro’s body in the apartment? It could be blamed on another criminal.
  1. A: She knew the detective would suspect her as she was looking into Tom's murder and Navarro was a suspect.
8. What would Keen have done if Robert Navarro’s apartment lacked the needed cleaning supplies?
Raymond Reddington
1. Red’s refusal to learn about modern technology can prove a liability.
2. How can Red spend the banknotes? Since the denomination is 100,000 dollars, that limits where he can use them.
  1. A: As long as he can use them in the black market and nowhere legitimate for some time, his options are not that limited.
3. How many of the 100,000 dollar banknotes did Red steal?
  1. A: Easily in the billions, but the exact number is unknown.
4. Was Red serious about buying the castle in Trieste?
5. Why did Red trade the penny for Winston Churchill’s hat?
  1. A: Now that he got the treasure, he no longer needs it.
6. How did Red contact Stern?
7. Red’s plan for the vacuum relied on a razor thin margin of success for the timing.
8. What would Red have done if Stern had not double-crossed him?
  1. A: Red was expecting the double cross.
9. Why did Red need all his cash reserves to convince the Denver Mint that the delivery was real?
  1. A: In the event it was searched.
Abraham J. Stern
1. Why did Stern kill Frank Dobbs? He trusted the Fine Time Dry Cleaning & Laundry Service truck owner to stay silent.
  1. A: As he said before he shot him, he could not take the chance.
  2. Q: The Fine Time Dry Cleaning & Laundry Service truck owner represented a "chance".
2. Will Stern implicate Red in the robbery of the Denver Mint?
  1. A: He can try, but without evidence, it's unlikely anyone will believe him.
3. Stern’s plan for the closed-circuit television relied on a razor thin margin of success for the timing.
4. How did Stern plan to escape? The treasury workers could have identified him and Stern still needed to escape the nation-state.
5. Why was Stern obsessed with the treasure? He was not living a precarious existence and/or at the risk of poverty.
  1. A: His father created the pennies to show where he stashed the notes he stole. He was given the pennies as part of his inheritance, but accidentally spent them not knowing what they really were. He is obsessed because he sees it as his birthright.
6. Why did Stern need the Fine Time Dry Cleaning & Laundry Service truck? Why not steal a truck?
7. How did Stern know where to ambush Red?
  1. A: Seeing as he was obsessed with the treasure, he probably knew that Red stole it from Greyson Blaise and was just waiting for the right opportunity since.
  2. A: Red was on the way to meet him. He figured out what route Red would take to get there.
8. Why did the antiques dealer tell Stern about Red?
  1. A: Since Stern ended up murdering him, he threatened his life.
9. How did Stern plan to steal the penny from the Gabor Museum if the police had not arrived?
  1. A: He had a story about needing the penny.
10. Stern’s comment about the “falling apple and the tree” applies to Red and Liz.
Abraham J. Stern’s father
1. How did Stern’s father expect Abraham to retrieve the 100,000 dollar banknotes from the Denver mint?
  1. A: A robbery was planned.
2. Why was Stern’s father unable to remove the 100,000 dollar banknotes from the Denver Mint?
  1. A: The Mint made security upgrades which probably means that he was being watched and made it impossible for him, at the time, to remove the notes.
3. Why did Stern’s father continue to steal the 100,000 dollar banknotes after he learned that he could not remove them from the Denver Mint?
  1. A: He had been accused. There was no point in attempting to salvage the career.
4. Why did Stern’s father not inform Abraham of the coin map in his will or have the executor deliver the coins and the letter at the same time?
  1. A: He was already under suspicion at the time and most likely wanted to keep a low a profile as possible. If a lawyer or executor read this, there's no guarantee they wouldn't go after it themselves or report it to the police.
Harold Cooper
1. Cooper’s decision to send Samar Navabi and Donald Ressler to the Denver Mint is unusual due to the travel time.
  1. A: Not really. It would take about 4 hours on a commercial airline, but a jet can go faster. Even in the possibility Stern succeeded and got away, the FBI would have been hot on his trail.
2. Why was Cooper unable to override the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia? He could have stated that the penny was part of a federal investigation.
  1. A: It sounded less like he was unable, as it was more that he was uninterested in overriding it. He didn't want Red to get the treasure and if it was in evidence lockup, it would have been safe, normally.
3. Why did Cooper give the penny to Red?
  1. A: Because Red honored his promise to tell Cooper the truth.
4. How did Cooper recover the pennies?
  1. A: The pennies were historical artifacts, so it wouldn't have been hard for the FBI to return them to where they belonged.
5. How did Cooper know which penny belonged to which owner?
  1. A: It's unlikely he did. It's possible there are other distinctions that the museums knew about that they could tell apart, but what those are (if any) are unknown.
Dembe Zuma
1. Why did Dembe not see the Fine Time Dry Cleaning & Laundry Service truck ambush?
  1. A: It T-boned the car while they were having an enjoyable conversation. From the angle, it would have hit them in a blind spot.
Norman Singleton
1. Did Singleton tell Keen about the bloody towel to provoke a reaction?
  1. A: Most likely. He knows she's hiding something and also seems aware she wants revenge for Tom's death.
2. How did Singleton know that Robert Navarro’s apartment was too clean?
  1. A: He had already questioned Navarro.
3. How would linking Keen to Robert Navarro’s apartment have helped? Keen removed the body.
  1. A: He saw Liz'a wall and no doubt saw Navarro on it. If something happened to Navarro, he could implicate Keen, but without a body, there's no proof he didn't just “run away”.
4. Will Singleton learn anything from the phone Liz gave him?
  1. A: Unlikely. Liz only needed it to help get the penny and the rag out of evidence.
5. When did the police learn that the penny and bloody towel had been stolen? Since the evidence was for separate cases, they had no reason to search the entire evidence room.
  1. A: If the first was stolen, they probably did inventory to check what else might have been stolen, which is how they found out the second item was also stolen. It's unlikely they knew what the link was either.
6. Singleton resembles the storyline of Martin Wilcox.
United States Department of the Treasury
1. Where did the 100,000 dollar banknotes Red used as an example in his briefing come from?
  1. A: The banknotes existed back in the day and are on display throughout many museums and on the internet. Getting an example banknote would have been easy.
  2. A: Transcript:
    1. Red: In recent years, Federal Reserve Notes issued in the 1930s have turned up in Manila and Singapore.
    2. Ressler: [ Reads from bill projected above ] “The United States of America will pay to the bearer on demand $100,000.” How many of these notes are floating around?
    3. Red: None, according to your government. It denies issuing any such notes and insists the few that have turned up are counterfeit.
2. Why did the electricity still work in an abandoned section of the mint?
  1. A: There was no need to upgrade the electrical wiring.
3. Why did the vault door close?
  1. A: The alarm was triggered.
4. Why did the Department of the Treasury deny that the 100,000 dollar banknotes had been printed?
  1. A: It would have proven that the theft was true and they would have had to honor the banknotes in existence.
5. Even if the Department of the Treasury denies the existence of the 100,000 dollar banknotes, they have a stronger incentive to find the banknotes Red stole.

Slanders on the FBI, MPDC, United States Treasury[]

Why did the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia investigation team not check the sink drain before turning on the disposal?
1. A: The officer was trying to find the kitchen light switch.
Why did the Department of the Treasury fail to search the boiler room before the renovations?
1. A: The boiler room was old and outdated. It's possible the room itself was never in the designs for renovations, just the boiler, since all they needed was a space to keep it in. Boiler rooms rarely need to have their rooms updated unless they are in danger of damaging the pipes in some way. If the boiler is operational, there's no point since it's a waste of money.