Berlin: Conclusion

"Berlin: Conclusion"

Season 1, Episode 22

Episode Information

Air date

May 12, 2014

Directed by

Michael Watkins

Written by

John Eisendrath (Teleplay)
Jon Bokenkamp (Teleplay)
Lukas Reiter (Teleplay)
J. R. Orci (Teleplay)
Richard D'Ovidio (Story)

Episode Chronology

Previous	Next
“Berlin”	“Lord Baltimore”

“Berlin: Conclusion” is the twenty second episode of Season 1 of The Blacklist, the twenty second episode overall and the Season 1 finale. It first aired on May 12, 2014 on NBC.

Synopsis[]

The plane from the end of the last episode down over the East River, and scenes of the wreckage and news broadcasts are spilt with prisoner interviews about what happened on board. The prisoners testify that 1 of them, a giant, was chained to a guard and cut off his hand to get out. Cut to a man in a guard uniform collapsing in a hospital, clutching his severed arm.

Reddington is escorted as a prisoner to an FBI cell, where he’s chained down.

Meanwhile, the task force is scrambling to figure out what’s going on, where the passengers all are, and what the plane was. The plane flew undetected across American air space out of Bogata, and passengers on board are so far identified as criminals. Interviews with captured ex-passengers are of them claiming to have been kidnapped and put on the plane. None of them knows who any of the others were, and don’t know any Berlin, but that a giant Russian prisoner with a hood was brought on board and seemed to be in charge.

Tom Keen meets with a man in a rundown apartment and gives him a list of the people on the task force.

Elizabeth Keen demands to meet with Reddington. Reddington is informed he has a visitor, who turns out to be Alan Fitch. Fitch doesn’t agree with the decision his colleagues made about cutting ties with Reddington, and is unhappy about the intelligence failure on the plane. He tells Reddington he’s going to give him a chance: he’s arranged a transfer, and the rest is up to him. Fitch warns that the task force is being targeted.

Reddington is being transferred in an SUV by Walter Gary Martin, who has been ordered to help him escape. He knocks out the FBI agents in the car and escapes in the subsequent crash. He calls Elizabeth from a pay phone and warns her the task force is being targeted. Meera Malik and Donald Ressler are already in the field at a dance club, where they have a lead on one of the escaped prisoners. They split up. While Ressler captures their target, Meera is ambushed by a man with a beard, who slits her throat. Elizabeth arrives and finds her bleeding out.

Elizabeth visits Reddington to tell him Meera is dead.

Ressler interviews his captured prisoner and forces him to find out who put the prisoners on the plane. They learn that it was an SVR operation, a covert Russian operation to repatriate Russian fugitives. Harold Cooper gets Reddington involved. Reddington visits the Russian ambassador, and gets the passenger manifest out of him.

The task force uses the manifest. One of the bodies is burned and is being identified, but there are 3 people still missing, one of whom must be Berlin. Elizabeth and Ressler are sent to interview the guard in the hospital.

The guard in the hospital claims none of the 3 prisoners they have pictures of are Berlin. He tells them what he’s heard about Berlin, that the man was a Red Army colonel, then KGB agent, who was notorious for sending enemies to Siberia work camps. However, rumors circulated that his daughter had fallen in love with a dissident. He arranged for his daughter to escape imprisonment, but the Kremlin found out and sent him to Siberia as an example. At some point he began to get packages containing first belongings of his daughter, then body parts. Eventually, the colonel escaped, allegedly by making a shiv out of his daughter’s bone and killing all his guards. He vanished and disappeared to search for the person responsible for his daughter’s death.

Cooper meets in the park with the FBI agent who helped Reddington disappear, who tells him that if Reddington and Keen are on board, they can continue with the task force because “people” want it to continue. Cooper goes to his car and finds his driver dead. He’s attacked from behind by someone who garrotes him, while Tom Keen’s contact watches and crosses off Cooper’s name from the list.

Ressler interviews the assassin, who was picked up 6 blocks from the car. He demands the name, and when the assassin stays silent, begins to strangle him with his jacket.

Reddington meets with Fitch and gives him the name: Milos Pavel Kinsky. Reddington claims he has no idea why Kinsky hates him so much. Reddington asks Fitch to find Kinsky for him, and Reddington will take care of the rest.

Elizabeth meets with Reddington. They don’t know if Cooper is going to make it through the night. She asks how her adopted father Sam fit into all this. Reddington relates that Sam told the story that an old friend had shown up scared, that he was leaving town in danger, and needed someone to care for a little girl whose father had died that night in a fire. So Sam took the little girl in and raised her, always protecting her from the information about her biological father. Reddington says he killed Sam because Sam was in pain, and he had to protect Elizabeth from the truth of her father’s identity, which he doesn’t reveal. Elizabeth’s only memory of her father is of him pulling her out of the fire, saving her. Reddington says knowing his identity would put her in grave danger. He expresses real grief at having to kill Sam. Fitch calls to give Reddington a location on Kirsky. He lies to Elizabeth that Berlin hasn’t been found yet.

Reddington goes to the location Fitch provided, killing several guards and finding Kinsky just as he gives orders to take out Elizabeth next, then Ressler.

At Cooper’s hospital bedside, Ressler insists on the phone that there was an 11th passenger and demands that resources be put to find that passenger. Elizabeth keeps watch over unconscious Cooper.

Reddington talks with Kinsky, and tells him that it’s critical to his line of work to remember names: names of allies, colleagues, enemies, their relationships, wives, children, etc. He tells Kinsky he has no idea who Kinsky is, much less his face. Kinsky admits he’s been searching for a weakness of Reddington’s for years, until he found Elizabeth.

Tom gets into the car with Elizabeth while she’s distracted and greets her. He has a gun.

Reddington asks Kinsky for explanations. He shoots Kinsky in the hand and hip when Kinsky doesn’t talk. When he threatens Kinsky’s kneecap, Kirsky tells him it’s about Beirut, 2010, which Reddington identifies as the “Campolongo incident”. Tom Keen bursts in with Elizabeth as a hostage. Kirsky commands Tom to kill her. Reddington kills Kinsky, then surrenders himself to Tom in exchange for Elizabeth. Tom shoots at Reddington. Elizabeth wrestles with Tom for control of the gun, and in the struggle she shoots Tom. She subsequently shoots him 2 more times. Reddington offers to kill him, but she asks him to leave while promising to finish it. After he leaves, Tom apologizes to her and whispers in her ear before going unconscious.

The news reports that all prisoners have been apprehended. The prisoners are informed by Ressler that they’ll be incarcerated indefinitely.

Aram tells Elizabeth and Ressler that the body of the John Doe was identified and wasn’t a prisoner. They realize that the third guard they interviewed in the hospital must have been Berlin, when the prisoners said the giant “cut off his hand” they meant the giant cut off his own hand, not the guard’s hand. Elizabeth and Ressler burst into the hospital room, but Berlin is already gone.

Elizabeth tells Reddington that the man he killed wasn’t Berlin, but Reddington already knew. He wants Berlin to think he thinks Berlin is dead. Reddington tries to convince Elizabeth to stay with the task force, but she refuses.

Elizabeth moves out of her house. Cooper starts stirring in his coma. A SWAT team show up at the site where Reddington killed fake Berlin, and find the body but no Tom. Elizabeth shows up as Reddington and Dembe prepare to leave the country. She tells him that Tom told her that her father is still alive. Reddington tells her that he is certain her father is dead. It’s implied she will stay with the task force to look for Berlin.

Alone in a room, Reddington looks at the picture he took from the Stewmaker and takes off his shirt to treat his bullet injury. His back is covered with burn scars.

Press Release[]

With the crashing of the mysterious prisoner transport plane, the city is on lockdown as the authorities are on the hunt for all the escapees. Meanwhile, with Red in custody, Liz uses her power to get him out since he is their best chance at finding all the suspects. Elsewhere, their main objective is to track down Berlin, a prisoner on the plane who is somehow involved.

Number on The Blacklist[]

8

Unanswered Questions[]

What are the survival rates for: Raymond Reddington, Alan Fitch, Milos Kirchoff?
1. Red's syndicate has been severely damaged and his allies are wavering.
2. Fitch's tactic to play all/any sides can easily backlash and destroy him.
3. Milos Kirchoff is Red's primary enemy and more of a threat than Fitch or The Blacklist.
Alan Fitch
1. Why is Fitch alternating between being Red's ally and/or enemy?
  1. A: Fitch is a political opportunist, and hence is trying to play both sides.
  2. Q: Fitch could easily go too far in this game. The result might be deliberate exposure or assassination by either side. In “Anslo Garrick” and “Anslo Garrick: Conclusion” Fitch decided to allow Garrick to kill Red despite the blackmail threat. This was because Red had gone too far with The Blacklist.
2. Red’s blackmail evidence is apparently useless. The Cabal has lost the fear of it being released. Blackmail evidence is only useful if the victim fears public exposure. Another weak point is if the price of silence is perceived to be more damaging than the original information.
3. Will Red expose the Cabal to end the threat they pose and appease the FBI? Since they refused to aid him, that makes their power a liability. He surrendered because he needed the FBI to protect him from Milos Kirchoff.
4. Why did Raymond Reddington and Alan Fitch have limited information on Milos Kirchoff?
5. How much leverage does the Cabal have? They were going to make Red disappear without a trial.
6. Is Fitch in danger of losing his position? He aided Red after the Cabal wanted to abandon Red and risk the evidence release.
7. Is Special Agent Walter Gary Martin going to undermine Alan Fitch? He was angry about Red's staged escape and told Harold Cooper a vague warning about the Cabal.
8. If he recovers, will Cooper begin an investigation to confront and expose Fitch?
Raymond Reddington and Elizabeth Keen
1. What happened in Beruit in 2010?
2. What was the Campolongo incident?
3. Will the hunt for Milos Kirchoff involve the FBI?
4. Keen's career is nearly ruined. Special Agent Walter Gary Martin made it clear her liaison with Red was a double edged sword. He also knew that the “hostage” scene in “Berlin” was to protect Keen.
5. Red's immunity is gone. Fitch arranged for the escape, he cannot allow Red to re-appear at the Post Office.
  1. A: Martin later states “The good news is that Reddington's escape from Federal custody has been contained, which means if Keen is willing, the Task Force can continue”, which would imply that Red's immunity is still in place as long as Keen is willing to work on the task force.
  2. Q: The situation involving Martin, Red, Fitch, and Keen can easily shift based on the relative power each person can wield.
  3. A: Red's immunity deal was cancelled when Keen refused to work with him. Now that she has changed her mind the deal is back in place.
6. Liz realized that she needs Red for help despite her hatred of him. She went to him despite his offer to leave.
Harold Cooper
1. How did Cooper survive his attack?
2. Cooper's decision to use Red to obtain the flight information shows that he is waffling in his trust of Red. He knows that Red is hiding information, but needs Red for non-government actions. Eventually he will have to take a side.
Milos Kirchoff
1. Milos Kirchoff's vendetta seems to be based on something more than family inspired revenge. The targeting of the task force implies that the vendetta is more professional than personal.
2. Assuming the story Milos Kirchoff told in the hospital is true, why did he tell the story of his background?
  1. A: Even villians sometimes feel the need to be understood, and attempt to justify their actions.
3. The photo of the daughter of Milos Kirchoff was the same person seen in “The Stewmaker”. What is the connection? Stanley R. Kornish destroyed bodies, he did not send them in pieces to others.
4. Donald Ressler and Elizabeth Keen can identify Milos Kirchoff. Using computer image programs they can remove the beard.
5. Why did Milos Kirchoff cut his hand off? He could have cut the guard's hand off, burned the guard's body and his hand at the crash, and removed the handcuffs before the police/FBI arrived. Also, he could have had the tattoo removed before he boarded the plane.
6. How did Milos Kirchoff burn the guard's body at the crash site? The FBI did not have trouble identifying the other prisoners.
Elizabeth Keen
1. Will Elizabeth Keen file for a divorce? Her marriage is destroyed and there is no need to maintain the cover story.
2. Who is Liz's real father?
  1. A: In the last shot of Episode 22 Red removes his shirt to reveal burn scars over his back. Red doesn't want Liz to know about his connection to her father as that could lead to her being used against him.
3. Is Liz's father alive? Both Red and Tom Keen have lied to her.
  1. A: Red states that Lizzy's father died in the fire, which contradicts the statement he made in “Pilot” that she was “abandoned by her career criminal father”. If Red is Lizzy's biological father, he could be speaking metaphorically in that the man he used to be; an up and coming naval officer; died in that fire, and the career criminal was born. However, this would still be at odds to the story he tells to Madaline Pratt, that his family was shot to death on Christmas Eve.
  2. A: In the last shot of Episode 22 Red removes his shirt to show burn scars over his back.
The Russian prison flight.
1. Will the Russian government be forced to admit the flight's existence? Many of the prisoners were re-captured. The governor publicly announced that the manhunt had ended.
2. What will happen to the prisoners? If the Russian government demands extradition then the US government can use the incident as a blackmail weapon. If the Russian government denies involvement then the prisoners can use the media to create a public relations nightmare.
3. Why did the Russians kidnap the prisoners? They could have asked for help since they were wanted fugitives.
4. Why was the flight course along the United States border?
5. How did Milos Kirchoff hijack the flight? Considering that the prisoners were illegally kidnapped, the Russian government should have insisted on more security.
6. Why did Russian Ambassador Constantin Matveyev have access to the flight information? He should have been kept out of the loop since it was not related to diplomatic relations.
7. How was Red able to enter the Russian embassy?
How did anyone survive the plane crash?
1. A: The same way anyone survives a plane crash: luck.
2. A: It was stated in the episode that the plane was flying only a few hundred feet off the ground to avoid radar. While flying low doesn't guarantee survival it would definitely make it easier for the passengers to survive.
Why did Milos Pavel Kinsky refuse to tell Red the reason for the vendetta? It gained him nothing. Telling the false story earlier would have spared him the agony.
1. A: He did not know what to say as he did not expect to be captured. It took him time to come up with the false story.
During his interrogation of Milos Pavel Kinsky, Red said “vim and vigor”. What does “vim” mean?
1. A: “Vim” means energy and enthusiasm. The phrase “vim and vigor” is a cliche which means “with spirit, energy and enthusiasm”. The word came into use in the later half of the 19th century, but today is almost always paired with vigor, an alliteration of the “v” sound. “Vigor” is sometimes used as a definition of “Vim”.
Why was Beth Ryker's bracelet still in evidence storage?
1. A: Because Liz had never asked for its return.
Why was Dembe Zuma not present when Red captured Milos Pavel Kinsky?
1. A: Just because he was not seen, does not mean he wasn't there.
Is Donald Ressler at a greater risk of becoming a rogue agent? He re-told the story of Audrey Bidwell's death in “Mako Tanida”.
Is Tom Keen dead? His body was not in the room when the FBI found Milos Pavel Kinsky's body.
1. A: We see only blood and the fact that Liz insisted of being left alone with him implies that she somehow helped him.
Did Elizabeth Keen believe Red when he denied that Fitch had told him of the location?
1. A: Yes, otherwise she would have followed him.
How did the FBI find the apartment where Red shot Milos Pavel Kinsky? Did Liz tell them?
Why was Aram Mojtabai unable to contact Meera Malik and Donald Ressler by calling them on their cell phones?
What is the significance of the burn marks on Reddington's back? Was he in the fire with Elizabeth?
1. A: The burn marks hint that Red was the one who took Liz from the fire and brought her to Sam. This might indicate that Red is actually Liz's father or that he was at least involved with her family in some way.
The picture of Milos Kirchoff's daughter on Milos Kirchoff's watch and the picture taken by Red from “The Stewmaker” are the same.
1. A: Red said he does not know Milos Kirchoff, then what caused Red to take Milos Kirchoff's daughter's picture from the album or Red was just lying?
2. A: If we suppose the story about Milos Kirchoff's daughter is true, we can consider that Liz Keen is the daughter of Milos Kirchoff's daughter. In this case, why is her name is at top of the list of task force target list? As the grandfather, Milos Kirchoff would want to keep her alive.
3. A: Milos Kirchoff's vendetta could be explained if Red is responsible for his daughter's death. (Or if Milos Kirchoff believes that Red is responsible).

Slanders on the FBI[]

Why was Ressler still on active duty after he nearly strangled Dimitri? There were cameras recording the session.
Ressler's “put your hands on the table” behavior at the club was wishy-washy. Also, he had no backup.
Harold Cooper
1. Why did Cooper not have more security since he knew he was being targeted?
2. How did the assassin enter Cooper's car and kill the driver in a public place?
Why, during the questioning of the Russian prisoners, did no one clarify whose hand Berlin cut off? “He cut off his hand” would surely lead to the questions: “Whose hand? His own, or the guard's?”
Why is Keen still on active duty after deciding to quit the task force? Her behavior was highly suspect regarding her actions concerning Tom Keen.

Cast[]

Main star[]

Gallery[]

External Links[]

Season 1 Episodes
· Pilot · The Freelancer · Wujing · The Stewmaker · The Courier · Gina Zanetakos · Frederick Barnes · General Ludd · Anslo Garrick · Anslo Garrick: Conclusion · The Good Samaritan · The Alchemist · The Cyprus Agency · Madeline Pratt · The Judge · Mako Tanida · Ivan · Milton Bobbit · The Pavlovich Brothers · The Kingmaker · Berlin · Berlin: Conclusion ·