Cornstalks, Bullets, And GMOs? Finally Something Close To My Heart #TheBlacklist #NBC

Cornstalks, Bullets, And GMOs? Finally Something Close To My Heart #TheBlacklist #NBC #DVRRewind

All pictures courtesy of NBC 

In a twisted episode quite near and dear to my heart in a way, last night's The Blacklist (#TheBlacklist) dealt with a villain named Eli Matchett. Not necessarily a Blacklister from Red's or the FBI's personal list, he is a homegrown terrorist who really only wants revenge on the big, evil GMO corporation. Hold on to your butts people, because this is going to be a crazy ride just in case you missed it or need a refresher.

After the daring and artfully done escape from a restaurant they sieged last week, Red and Elizabeth rode their freight container all the way to Iowa. Why Iowa instead of across the Atlantic Ocean like originally planned? Because Red is hellbent on clearing Liz's name. To do that, he must bring down the Cabal--those creepy behind the shadow controllers of everything. He wants to pin everything on the director and get Liz back on US soil safely where she no longer has to flee. Well, the best way to bring down a secretive, world-controlling organization is to bring down its funds and, as most secretive, world-controlling organizations, the Cabal has to launder their money because much of it is illegally gotten. For instance, the Illuminati's money is funneled through OPEC which funnels its money into the oil and cleans the money by selling it to the people all around the world so that every time you buy a tank of gas or turn on your natural gas-fueled power you're cleaning the money of an illegal group.

On The Hunt For The Missing Farmworker

Anyway, Red knows that a GMO corn-creating company called Verdiant is the global corporation laundering the Cabal's money. If they can bring that corporation to its knees, then they'll have the Cabal and leverage. And how do they do that? Easy, steal some corporate trade secrets. Enter Eli Matchett.

Eli is second or third or even fourth generation farmer who grew up, lived and worked on the same family farm for years until he had a legal scuffle with Verdiant. See, the corn seed Monsanto--oops, slip off the fingers, I meant Verdiant makes is too costly for the small-time farmers but in high demand. They produce faster and have genetic properties that help to fight off pests so they also produce a bigger crop. 

Unfortunately, they don't play nice with farmers and would rather drive them out of business and grow food on their own corporately structured mega-farms. Well, a while back Verdiant decided to grow some of this new GMO corn strain that hadn't yet been fully patented. Upwind from Eli's farm, when some of the strain cross-pollinated (I'm sure you farmers and gardeners are going crazy right now; yay, language I understand!) with his own strain, they sued him for patent infringement or some other legalese for supposedly stealing their GMO. What? Pure insanity!

Not only did he lose his crop from that, but he lost the farm trying to pay bills and such. The farm was bought by Verdiant and then turned into another one of those industrial mega farms. He wants that sweet Silver Queen revenge. So, he devises a plan to steal the trade secrets of the company to sell them? No, to find the GMOs weaknesses and modify the bugs that eat corn to know such a weakness. Release the bugs, kill the corn, create famine and a world food crisis in a matter of two months--yes, Verdiant's corn is grown across the globe.

Red just wants the info for the purposes described above, but knowing that an industrial farm was hit just earlier that day (how the hell does he know this? He was stuck in a shipping container with Keen the whole time) in Iowa he and Liz track this Eli man and his band of angry farmers through the fields of the great state. As it turns out, Ressler pieces together their D.C. escape and is hot on the trail of the missing cargo freight. He tracks it to Iowa where they discover that a farm had been hit earlier too and go to the house of the missing farm worker as everyone else that came in that day was dead. Converging on the same secret lab, Red and Keen make a harrowing escape as they try to get the needed data just before Ressler and the one woman arrives (damn, what is her name). They arrive to see the bugs and they know what Eli was doing.

Stopping at a diner for no particular reason other than food and to show Keen sinking farther into Breaking Bad territory as she shoots an undercover cop (she didn't know he was a cop) who identifies them, she freaks for a few minutes about the things she's done and how the man will surely die because there's probably no heart surgeons around to save him. That gets Red thinking about how this simple farmer got into contact with a bio-geneticist that would engineer a bug to attack the corn. The genius he is, he uploads some info about Verdiant back to those that still believe in him and Keen at the Blacklist HQ. He then goes to confront one of the Verdiant execs at her house. Turns out, Verdiant was steathily behind their own company's attack. They gave the farmer the geneticist to create the bugs. They already had a strain of corn even stronger and equipped against such infestations. They would get their biggest opponent killed or captured, and look like heroes when they released the corn strain as the world approached the precipice of catastrophe. Arrests all around for the Verdiant executives, surely interrupting the Cabal's money flow but not crippling it.

Tom Is Back For Yummy Asian Cuisine

And while Red and Keen remain on the run, there were a few side-stories that didn't render much: Dembe's (aka Mufasa) absence had finally been noticed by Red who called the little guy with glasses to find him. He's still being held in an abandoned factory somewhere. Keen's ex came back to chat with Ressler about finding Liz. Ressler says no and lets him leave but Harold Cooper goes to him with a proposition at the end of the episode. And that proposition is... stay tuned for next week's The Blacklist.

What did you think of season 3, episode 4? Did you want something more out of the Cooper/fake Keen meeting? Were you shocked that only now did Red realize his right hand man was gone? How did he know about the theft before he knew about that? And who was that other person they threw into the room with Dembe? Let me know in the comments below (hint: click the no comments button if you see no comments).

Check out my new comedy novel Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking

If you’re looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or  #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The full first season is OUT NOW exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right side.

Until next time, “Even though we have won this battle, we have already lost the war."

P.S. Is that from a great literary work of fiction or nonfiction? Do you know? A mystery is a foot my dear reader. I'll come up with a better sign-off next time.

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Liz is on the run, Red is back from playing Ultron and the black guy is branching out! #TheBlacklist #NBC #PremiereWeek

Liz is on the run, Red is back from playing Ultron and the black guy is branching out! #TheBlacklist #NBC #PremiereWeek #DVRRewind

All pictures courtesy of NBC 

Boy was Thursday a crowded night for TV. If you weren’t watching something spectacular amongst the offerings, then you missed out on a hell of a lot of good programming. In the nine o’clock hour alone we had Scandal, The Blacklist (#TheBlacklist) and Sleepy Hollow, not to mention CBS’s Thursday night gridiron showdown between the Ravens and the Steelers. But if you don’t like football, don’t like a good romance, don’t like political drama, hate the paranormal and otherworldly and just plain old despise TV, chances are you might be dead. That’s OK. There’s a show called Walking Dead that I heard helps dead people rehabilitate their legs and basic motor functions. If you do like TV, then keep reading for my recap of The Blacklist.

When last we left off Elizabeth Keen had shot and killed one of the powerful white men who not only lied to her boss about him being deathly ill but concocted a plan that had her looking like a Russian spy because of who her mother was--a Russian spy. Forget the fact that she grew up in America her entire life and barely remembered her mother from her youth, according to him she had somehow been trained and placed within this secret division on purpose. This was further backed by the fact that Red asked to speak only with her when first turning himself in as he was fingered as an accomplice to her spying. For Red it didn’t much matter as he was already deemed a traitor long ago but for Elizabeth the accusation, coupled with the fact that she knew her ex-husband was alive and kept him prisoner on a boat where an innocent man died and underwent a trial because of it, threw her entire life out of order. Now, she had to go on the run. 

Picking up with her and Red in mid-flee, he used his long list of contacts to procure them a safe exit from the city. The plan: find a good hiding place, stay there for two or three weeks, visit a man that could safely get them out after such a duration and escape out of the country. That plan was ruined.

With old by-the-book Ressler getting the promotion from her partner to the temporary mobilized head of this secret task force, he went after her with gusto. Why he wanted to find her so bad is partially explored as he was also one of the people complicit in letting her escape hours prior. His so-so change of heart only came after she actually killed the evil Attorney General, a crime which doesn’t seem too bad since her old boss also let her escape (even telling her to run), her hacker coworker hates the manhunt put out on her and even her other Middle Eastern coworker (I swear I’m going to learn her name one day) isn’t thrilled about searching for her. Nevertheless, with Ressler at the helm they plan on finding her.

And find her they do. Venturing to a safe house of a man he thought he could trust, Red’s weeks of safety he planned to spend with Liz turned into minutes when the guy’s sister called the FBI on them. They ran to the Troll Farmer—the guy who is supposed to get them out—to have him create a social media buzz of tip-line sightings and location tweets all across the city. He even had a woman and man dress like Liz and Red and roam the city so traffic cams could take pictures of them in various places. The city harboring a Russian spy on the run, D.C. naturally goes into lock-down until her capture.

While Red makes it past the last checkpoint, Liz just misses it when Ressler solves their ruse and catches her transport vehicle. A traitor until the end, Red gives Ressler the name of the Troll Farmer as the guy says he doesn’t ever want to work for Red again after the difficult rush job. The name is gifted to Ressler as a sign of good faith to treat Liz with respect because both men know she’s not what people are saying she is. In a genius move, Liz adopts the accusatory story of her espionage against the US, runs to the Russian embassy and scales the fence to beg for diplomatic protection as a Russian spy.

Mufasa AKA Demba

Doing a good job at setting up two hot story arcs for the season, the second one involved African Black guy and long time Red collaborator Mufasa (not his actual character name but I like to call him that) dealing with a kidnapping of his granddaughter by another sinister evil black guy. The man returns the baby when Mufasa agrees to meet him but he says Mufasa has to breathe in a strange vapor before the mysterious group the evil guy works for gives the baby the antidote to the slow-acting poison they gave her. The big twist? The evil black guy belongs to the same organization that set Lizzy up and outranks the head of the FBI in this secret society. What mischief will he bring to the show? Only time will tell.

Mr. Solomon

For a show competing with Scandal for viewers, Blacklist gave us a strong initial showing for its season premiere and set up so many story strands that can change the entire outlook of the show that viewers have to be salivating to learn what happens next?

What do you think? Did you find the episode just as good as Scandal’s “Yes”? Are you excited to see what the heck will happen to Liz next? And where do you think that side-story with the black guy is going? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

As always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check  #AFuriousWind,  #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or #ThePowerOfTen). For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The final episode of season one of The Writer is OUT NOW. Ahh! That’s right, all 15 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right side.

Until next time, “there are no strings on me. ”

P.S. OK, seriously I know probably half of you thought about Pinnochio first, which, seeing as how Ultron was completely obsessed with the character, I can see your reasoning. But was anyone else a little disappointed in how they used James Spader? He was so cheesy in that movie.

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