Lady Ambrosia

"Lady Ambrosia"

Season 3, Episode 14

Episode Information

Air date

February 11, 2016

Directed by

Tim Hunter

Written by

Taylor Martin

Guest Stars

Celia Weston as Lady Ambrosia
Margarita Levieva as Gina Zanetakos

Episode Chronology

Previous	Next
“Alistair Pitt”	“Drexel”

“Lady Ambrosia” is the fourteenth episode of Season 3 of The Blacklist and the fifty-eighth episode overall.

Synopsis[]

An elderly woman picking up some groceries at a corner store sees a trail of bloody footprints on the floor and follows them down the aisle. She finds a teenage boy sitting on the floor stuffing his face with food; he’s filthy and the bottoms of his feet are covered in blood. The woman asks him if he needs help, but he ignores her and keeps eating.

Red meets up with Liz for lunch; he gives her an envelope and tells her that it is a trust fund for her baby. She opens it and is shocked by the amount. She tries to return it to Red and says that she can’t keep it. Red starts rambling about how, when he was little, he was obsessed with shapeshifters. He repeats an old nursery rhyme about a woman named “Lady Ambrosia”, who takes unwanted children and raises them and promises them eternal youth.

Red shows Liz a photo of the little boy from the grocery store. He was presumed dead four years ago, but has just turned up alive. Liz is sceptical that Lady Ambrosia is real, and can give children eternal youth. Red says that this kid in the grocery store is not the first kid to turn up alive years after they were reported dead.

After meeting with another set of prospective adoptive parents, Elizabeth heads to the FBI headquarters to brief her team on the missing children. Three children - Mary Jones, Jeffrey Childs, Ethan Linley - were all pronounced dead and then turned up a few years later alive, and they all had strange markings painted on their bodies.

Cooper sends Ressler and Keen to the hospital to meet with Ethan. He’s autistic and non-verbal, so getting any information out of him is not going to be easy. Elizabeth tries to talk to Ethan but he ignores her and plays with a pen. Ethan’s parents arrive and are shocked to see him alive. Elizabeth and Ressler leave the room to give them some privacy, but Ethan doesn’t seem to recognize his own parents. Ressler gets a text from Aram back at the office; apparently Ethan’s parents tried to give him up for adoption two weeks before he disappeared.

Meanwhile in the woods, “Lady Ambrosia” is leading a group of children through the woods and they are chanting. They carry out what seems to be a funeral at a wishing well for a child named Matthew. When they have finished chanting, the woman has a man named Theodore throw a little kid’s lifeless body down in the well. The children cheer and squeal, as they think that Matthew is becoming a butterfly and flying away.

Back at the office, Aram briefs Elizabeth and Ressler on what he found. In the 6 months before Ethan’s “death”, his parents met with four different adoption agencies. They weren’t having any luck finding a home for him because he has special needs and requires around-the-clock care. Cooper tells them to bring Ethan’s parents in for questioning, as he knows that they are hiding something.

Meanwhile, Red is up to his usual scheming. He pays Glen a visit at the DMV, and tells him that he needs help finding a woman named Vasilia Patinka (formerly of the KGB). He gives Glen a photo of her and Glen whines that he is busy. Red says that it is a matter of life and death and bribes Glen with the promise of “two beautiful and willing women”.

At the hospital, Ethan’s mother Jeanne Linley sneaks out of the hospital room to make a phone call. She calls a man named Noah and demands to know why her son just turned up; apparently the man promised her that when Ethan disappeared, he would make sure that he stayed disappeared. He tells her he will talk to her later and rushes off from the phone. Ressler and Samar show up at social services to talk to Noah, but he is missing, and it looks like he slipped out the back door.

Elizabeth gets a phone call from the adoption agency - the family she met with loved her and want her baby, and they agreed to an open adoption. Liz is thrilled by the news. She hangs up and Tom calls her; he’s in a car celebrating and popping champagne. He and his ex just pulled off their big diamond heist. Tom tells Elizabeth that he “took care of everything” and they have enough money to get away from Red and everything else. He tells her not to make any moves with the adoption and then hangs up.

Noah picks up Jeanne in the middle of the night outside of the hospital. Theodore (the mentally challenged man from the woods with Lady Ambrosia) is in the back seat. He strangles Jeanne and kills her with a plastic bag over her head after Noah tells him to “make her go to sleep”. Ressler and Samar show up at the hospital to question Jeanne and she is gone. Noah's father insists he has never met Noah, and doesn’t know anything about the money that his wife transferred into Noah’s bank account when their son went missing.

Tom’s ex-girlfriend asks him to come with her to the next job. She kisses him, but Tom turns her down and says he can’t, as he has to get back to Liz. His ex hops out of the van and has one of her men fill the van with bullets. She then has her entire team murdered, including Tom. She tells her right hand man to torch the van with the bodies inside. Tom isn’t dead though, and after she is gone, he shoots the man that is dousing the van in gasoline.

Elizabeth has a chat with Red; she is furious because he has someone guarding her apartment. He says he’s just worried about the baby. Elizabeth tells Red that she is giving the baby up for adoption. He is not happy about it and tries to convince her to keep the baby; he warns her that he spent his whole life without his child and he regrets every moment of it.

Elizabeth’s talk with Red makes her have an epiphany - she realizes that both parents have to give consent for an adoption to go through. Ethan’s father revealed that he wouldn’t give the adoption agency’s consent, it was Ethan’s mother who wanted to give him up. She thinks that Noah is helping people whose spouses won’t consent to get rid of them.

Elizabeth takes Ethan home with her because they didn’t want to put him in a home. Noah and Theo show up with a gun at Elizabeth’s house and demand that she hand over Ethan. She gets in a struggle with Noah over the gun and Ethan runs and hides in the other room.

Red gets Vitalia’s location from Glen and tracks her down. He tells her that needs to see the Glasnost files from her KGB days. Vitalia says that “was another life” and she doesn’t have access to them. Red bribes her and says that he can give her answers about her daughter in exchange for the files. Vitalia isn’t biting; she says that unless Red brings her daughter back, he isn’t getting the files.

A worker from CPS shows up at Liz’s house to take Ethan. She says that he can’t stay there any more because he is obviously not safe. Liz promises Ethan that wherever he goes, he will be safe. Red’s guards take Noah back to the warehouse to torture him and find out where Lady Ambrosia is. Theodore goes back to the woods and Lady Ambrosia screams at him and demands to know where Noah is, but Theo has no idea. Lady Ambrosia tells him that she will deal with it, and Theo’s job is to “prepare Anya to become a butterfly” (aka kill her).

Red sits down with Noah and demands to know where a little girl named Anya is. Apparently she is Vitalia’s daughter. Noah says that Red is too late, Anya is turning 12, which means she won’t be a kid anymore and she is going to be killed in the rebirth ceremony. Noah reassures Red that they kill them painlessly, with nitrous. Noah says that his wife, Lady Ambrosia, “turns the kids in to butterflies and sets them free so that they can be children forever”. Noah gives Red the address where the colony is.

Meanwhile, Tom is not doing so well; he has broken in to someone’s house and is in their bathroom trying to remove the bullets in him. A little boy comes home and finds Tom covered in blood and passed out in the bath tub.

At the FBI office Aram has been tracking the butterflies that they found on Ethan and comes up with the address to the colony. Little do they know, Red has beaten them there. Red arrives and demands to know where Anya is. Lady Ambrosia threatens to call the police, but Red laughs that they are already on their way.

Ambrosia shouts that she doesn’t kill the kids, she saves them. She doesn’t want them to grow up to be outcasts and ugly and unlovable like her son Theo because they have disabilities. Theo overhears the whole conversation. After Red and Dembe leave with Anya (who is still alive), Theo carries his mother down to the well and throws her in and kills her. Then, he jumps in the well and kills himself. Ressler arrives with the police and they rescue all of the children in the colony.

Back at the FBI office, Elizabeth hands Ethan back over to his father, who is crying tears of joy. After their emotional reunion, Elizabeth calls Tom again, and leaves him another voicemail. Red takes Anya back to her mother Vitalia, and she hands the file over to Red. Elizabeth heads home and reads a storybook to her baby bump.

Press Release[]

After a missing child that has been presumed dead turns up alive, Red and Liz work with the taskforce to search for a dangerous woman who may be kidnapping children. Meanwhile, Tom faces shocking consequences after his plan to help Liz goes awry.

Number on The Blacklist[]

77

Unanswered Questions[]

Ambrosia is a reference to Greek mythology.
Raymond Reddington
1. Why did Red need the Rostova file from the “Glasnost Files”?
  1. A: They likely contain more information about Elizabeth's mother.
2. What was the dismal news in the Rostova file?
Lady Ambrosia
1. Why did Ambrosia insist on using the feniseca tarquinius (harvester butterfly)?
  1. A: They were carnivorous, so they would eat the bodies in the well. Although, in reality the larvae of this species only eat aphids.
2. Was Noah Shuster arrested?
  1. A: Yes. They show him being arrested after the boy was reunited with his father.
Harold Cooper
1. Will Cooper demand that Red explain his reasons for the cases? This is the second time he has asked about Red’s motives. The first time was “Vanessa Cruz”.
Tom Keen and Gina Zanetakos
1. What story will Tom tell the police when he is questioned about his wounds?
  1. A: It is revealed that Nick had arranged for Red to pay off the clerk at the diamond store. So, when the police brought in the clerk to identify Tom, the clerk pretended that Tom was an employee at the store and that he had been injured during the break-in trying to defend the merchandise.
2. Why did Gina have the heist crew killed?
  1. A: No witnesses.
  2. A: Less cuts of the profit.
3. Was the entire heist crew killed? The gemologist would be needed for the diamond sale and is harder to replace than a driver.
  1. A: Besides Tom and Gina, probably not. The gemologist may have only been needed to identify the gems worth stealing.
Vasilia Patinka
1. Why was Vasilia Patinka unwilling to give Red the Rostova file?
2. Why use the name the “Glasnost Files”?
  1. A: They may have been made during the Glasnost era.
Why did Baz take so long to react to the break-in?
1. A: He just reacted when he heard the shot.
Why were the fingerprints still usable from the face painting?
1. A: They scanned the picture of the face painting for fingerprints.
Will the FBI find the bodies in the well?
1. A: Most likely. They were primarily focused on saving the kids. They would most likely search the entire property.

Slanders on the FBI[]

Trivia[]

At the beginning, where the woman is at the grocery store, all of the items on the shelves are facing backwards. It is a way to avoid any potential legal liabilities by not showing the copyright of a logo or trademark.