Alexander Kirk

"Alexander Kirk"

Season 3, Episode 22

Episode Information

Air date

May 12, 2016

Directed by

Michael Dinner

Written by

Jon Bokenkamp (Story and Teleplay)
John Eisendrath (Story and Teleplay)
J. R. Orci (Story)
Lukas Reiter (Story)

Guest Stars

Ulrich Thomsen as Constantin Rostov
Benito Martinez as Senator Robert Diaz
Edi Gathegi as Matias Solomon
Tawny Cypress as Nez Rowan
Famke Janssen as Susan Scott Hargrave

Episode Chronology

Previous	Next
“Susan Hargrave”	“Alexander Kirk: Conclusion”

“Alexander Kirk” is the twenty second episode of Season 3 of The Blacklist and the sixty sixth episode overall.

Synopsis[]

The episode opens with Susan Hargrave, she takes a cab in Indonesia, and shows up on the doorstep of a shady warehouse. She meets with Karokaro, the Palmer Family hired her to negotiate with him because he kidnapped their daughter and was holding her for 1,000,000 dollar ransom.

Susan tells Karokaro that she won’t be paying the ransom, she already has Palmer. When Susan was rescuing Mrs. Palmer, she kidnapped Karokaro’s brother, she tells him that he can have his brother back for 3,000,000 dollars. He pays her in cash and she gets back in her cab.

Tom heads home and Red is waiting in his apartment. Red wants to talk about Agnes, he says that he has unlimited resources to help Tom take care of it. Tom doesn’t want to talk about nannies, he demands answers. Red confesses that he got to Susan Hargrave, and explains that she was hired by Alexander Kirk. Tom wants to help Red take down Alexander Kirk, he tells him that if he lets him help, he will let Red help with Agnes.

At the FBI, Red briefs the team on Alexander Kirk, and explains that he is the one that hired Susan Hargrave. Red thinks that they should work with Susan Hargrave, and she can lead them to Alexander Kirk. Harold is skeptical, but Red says that Susan is a brilliant strategist and they need her help.

Red meets with Susan later to discuss strategy. She thinks the way to get to Kirk is through his finances, he just purchased a super PAC (political action committee) to support senator Diaz’s bid for the presidency, it’s more than 300,000,000 dollars. Red laughs and says, “Robbing the next president of the United States, this is going to be a gas.”

Tom heads to the hospital to see Agnes and he finds Susan Hargrave sitting in Agnes’s room, holding the baby. Tom takes the baby back from her, and accuses her of killing Elizabeth. Susan corrects him and says that it was Alexander Kirk. Susan gets soft for a moment, and reveals that she lost a child, she hopes Tom never experiences that pain. Susan leaves, and says that she will have Solomon pick him up in 10 minutes, they have a lot of work to do.

Solomon picks up Tom and they board a helicopter, they head to a privately owned army tactical center in the middle of nowhere. Solomon takes him down under to a secret hub where Rowan is waiting; Samar, Ressler, and Harold are already there. They sit down to talk plans, the 300,000,000 dollars that Alexander Kirk is spending on Diaz’s campaign is sitting in a bank in Manhattan. And, Susan’s team wants to rob the bank, Harold and Ressler are reluctant to break that many laws. Susan points out that they work with Red.

Rowan, Solomon, and Tom head in to the banks with their AK-47s, Rowan takes the manager to the back vault. They had no intention of hurting anyone. But, there is apparently an undercover New York Police Department officer who wants to be a hero. Solomon shoots him in the arm, and the bullet hits a little girl who is hiding under a desk. Tom feels horrible, he insists on bringing the wounded little girl and her dad with them in the getaway car. Tom races her to an ambulance, and they had the little girl over to the EMT’s. Then, Rowan blows up their getaway car to destroy the evidence.

The police arrive at the bank, followed by Ressler and Samar, they use their FBI badges to get in to the bank. While Ressler is talking to the manager about the robbery, Samar slips away and heads in to the server room, she activates a flashdrive into the servers so that Aram can hack in and transfer Diaz’s money.

Tom heads back to the hospital to check on Agnes and she is gone, the FBI is taking photos of her room. He freaks out and runs to Susan’s, she is holding a dinner with Diaz and some other politicians. Tom corners Susan in her office and chokes her and demands to know where his daughter is. A nurse appears holding the baby. Susan says that she got word that Kirk was on the move and she was coming after Agnes, so she had her people rush to the hospital and get Agnes. Susan tells him his daughter is safe and getting the medical attention she leaves, then heads back downstairs to deal with Diaz.

Transferring the money is easier said than done, even after hacking through the password, Aram realizes that they need a retinal scan of Kirks financial advisor Pruitt’s eyes. Pruitt is staying at the Turkish Embassy as a guest of the ambassador. Tom gets arrested with a Turkish ID on purpose so that he will be taken to the embassy. He escaped from the room where he is being held and searches the embassy for Pruitt. He grabs a coat and poses as a waitor and begins searching the dinner room.

Tom finds Pruitt and creates a commotion so that he can slip something in his jacket pocket, he switches his cigarettes with some sort of poison. Pruitt drops to the floor and starts clutching his throat. They call 911 and the ambulance arrives, driven by Rowan and Solomon. They grab Pruitt and Tom, and race off.

Tom over drugged Pruitt, and his pupils are too small for the retina scan to pick them up. They stop at a pharmacy to get eye drops that will dilate his pupils, meanwhile the cops are searching for the ambulance. While Solomon and Tom are in the pharmacy, they start arguing over Elizabeth’s death and whether or not it was Solomon’s fault. Tom shoots him in the stomach and leaves him on the floor for dead and runs back to the ambulance. He manages to get the retinal scan off Pruitt’s eyes and Aram transfers the cash.

Scottie heads to Senator Diaz’s house, he is freaking out on the phone, he just found out that his campaign was robbed of 300,000,000 dollars. Raymond Reddington shows up and taunts Diaz, Scott reveals that she is the one that took his money. Red tells Diaz to call Alexander Kirk. Red takes the phone and tells Alexander that he has his money and his senator; Alexander Kirk laughs, “but you don’t have me” and hangs up the phone.

On to plan B, Red tells Diaz that tomorrow he is going to hold a press conference and announce that he his congressional committee will be investigating the legitimacy of Alexander Kirk’s finances, to bring him out of hiding. Susan says that once he gets them Kirk, they will give him the campaign money back. Diaz scoffs that he will “not be an accessory of murder”. Meanwhile back at the FBI office, Harold is starting to see a problem in the grand scheme of things. He points out that it used to be Alexander Kirk controlling the future president, now Reddington is controlling the future president.

Tom heads to the church with Agnes for her christening, Harold, Ressler, Samar, and Aram meet him there. Afterwards, Tom takes a gun and heads to Susan Hargrave’s house, he is going to kill her. Red calls him to stop her, Tom says that now that they have Kirk’s money, they don’t need her anymore. Red tells Tom not to do it, Susan Hargrave is his mother. Tom is shocked, Red explains that Susan thinks her son is dead, she has no idea that he is still alive, and that he is Tom. Susan arrives and Tom hangs up.

Susan sees Tom looking at the photos of her son and she gets teary-eyed, she says that her son disappeared 28 years ago. She and her husband had too much to drink one night, and when they woke up in the morning, their son was gone. Susan changes the subject, Tom says he isn’t going to kill her, so she asks him to come work for her. Tom says he is “sorry” and rushes out of the house.

Press Release[]

The FBI task force's hunt for revenge nears its endgame. As Reddington and the team close in on the mysterious arch-criminal responsible for recent tragic events, they're forced to operate outside their comfort zone-and outside the law-in order to take down their enemy once and for all.

Number on The Blacklist[]

14

Unanswered Questions[]

FBI task force
1. The task force is trapped between Red’s control, the Cabal, the Artax Network, and The Blacklist members.
2. Why was the task force opposed to the bank robbery? The opposition seemed to be based on the control Red has over the task force, not the law.
  1. A: Because innocent people could be killed.
3. Hargrave was right about the task force’s double standards. They celebrated when the robbery succeeded.
4. Cooper’s realization about Red controlling senator Robert Diaz was not met with outrage. His expression admitted the defeat.
Raymond Reddington
1. How did Red know that Tom would seek revenge on Hargrave?
  1. A: Her agency led the attack on the church.
2. Was Red telling the truth about Hargrave being Tom’s mother? Red was evasive with Keen and needs Hargrave alive for access to the Artax Network.
3. To what degree has Red increased his criminal empire? Hargrave implied that it was a geometric increase.
  1. A: At this point, we know he has added members to his syndicate: Leonard Caul, Vanessa Cruz, Nik Korpal, and Marvin Gerard. He created a stronger alliance with Ruslan Denisov and put a new oil company into power in Uzbekistan. He took over a Indonesian port in “Dr. James Covington.” He took over the Vehm’s money laundering operations. He won the trust of the other Shell Island Retreat members. He has somewhat of an alliance with the Cabal. He expanded his counterfeiting operations by stealing currency designs from Nathaniel Wolff. He also established better relations with the Foreign Minister of Venezuela. Recently, Red made an alliance with Susan Hargrave and Halcyon Aegis.
Constantin Rostov
1. Why did Kirk travel to Washington D.C.? He was outside United States territory and certainly knew that it was a trap.
  1. A: He was ordered to by Senator Diaz. At the end of the episode, Red and Hargrave forced Diaz to press charges against Kirk, thus forcing Kirk to go to America.
  2. Q: He could have ignored the order. Kirk was outside United States territory and not required to obey the order. Kirk told Red that Diaz was expendable. Similiary, Amandine Corvisart knows that her indictments of Aldona Anisimovna and Isabel Bardasano will never succeed because of political obstacles. The indictment of Lorcan Verrochio never occurs due to a lack of evidence. Elaine Descroix flees Manticore to avoid an indictment and chooses the Stotterman System because of its strict banking laws. The indictments fail because of political considerations or the limits of legal authority.
  3. A: Had he refused to go to the senate hearing, Kirk could have lost all his American assets, including NexaCo Gas.
2. What happened between Kirk and Red?
  1. A: As revealed in later episodes, Kirk thinks that Red is responsible for the death of Katarina Rostova, who he loved.
3. What is Kirk's real name?
  1. A: Constantin Rostov.
Artax Network
1. Why did Susan Scott Hargrave offer to hire Tom?
  1. A: She felt that his personality and skillset would be a good fit for her defense company.
2. What will be the aftermath of Tom wounding Matias Solomon?
3. How did Dumont know that Nicholas Pruitt’s password was “ORIOLES47JS” based on the social media?
  1. A: He sifted social media for any information pertaining to Pruitt and used artificial intelligence and synthetic intelligence to deduce likely combinations off of the data.
4. Why did Hargrave demand 3,000,000 dollars in ransom money?
  1. A: She's running a business at the end of the day. More profit for her bottom line.
Samar Navabi
1. Why does Navabi have a vendetta against Nez Rowan?
  1. A: She and Nez fought each other in “The Artax Network”.
Tom Keen
1. Why did Tom not fatally shoot Solomon? Tom survived a similar wound.
  1. A: He might have figured that the police would catch Solomon and slow the search for the others, and that Halcyon could just bail him out if captured.
  2. A: He may have thought Solomon was dead.
2. Why did Tom not wear his mask in front of the father and the ambulance crew?
  1. A: He's been effectively on the run since Season 1. At that point he doesn't really care about being identified as a criminal by the American public.
3. Why did Tom shoot Solomon in the first place, knowing that Elizabeth is still alive?
  1. A: Revenge.
Key Atlantic Bank
1. What happened to the Saudi classified diplomatic pouch that was stolen?
  1. A: Hargrave and her company may implement its contents in some other operation against the Saudis.
2. Why did the bank manager not need the client’s key to access the safety deposit box?
  1. A: It's possible that they had master keys for all of the boxes in case of emergencies.
3. Why was the Saudi classified diplomatic pouch stored at a bank?
  1. A: Saudi officials may have wanted to hide the contents of that pouch in an external area from one of their embassies.
4. The bank manager’s statements were ironic. He questioned the lack of a decoy theft while allowing the real theft to take place.
5. Why was the bank manager surprised at the lack of a decoy theft? The theft of the Saudi classified diplomatic pouch would be discovered since they needed the manager to open the box.
6. Why was the bank informed of Peter Pruitt’s abduction?
7. Why were there no metal detectors at the bank?
  1. A: Most banks don't have metal detectors in real life either. Even then, the robbery crew would've still stormed in way too fast for metal detectors to be of any use.
Who attacked the hospital?
1. A: Either Hargrave or Kirk. Hargrave mentioned that Kirk's people were moving to take Agnes.
Senator Robert Diaz seems to be based on Donald Trump.
1. A: He is based on Senator Ted Cruz. Both are Hispanic Senators.
Who was the man who closed the door at the fundraiser?

Slanders on the FBI and NYPD[]

Why did the New York police officer attempt to stop the Key Atlantic Bank robbery? He could see that he was outnumbered and his actions wounded a bystander.
1. A: He assumed that they were ordinary thieves.