#i am awful at coloring so please forgive the hack job

[buffaluff]

it’s nap time for the 118 (now in color!)

original (x)

[ventingblacklist]

4x4  Gaia “I thought I could make it better, that I could protect my baby. I mean, that’s my one job…to protect my child.”

Gaia is sick. Living in the woods. Calls his wife and kid and tells them to leave town, cuz he has a new target.

He takes out a mechanic so he can take his place and steal a helicopter later. 

Liz is going through some of the papers on Kirk when her laptop chirps. Kirk is calling. Kirk: Hello, Masha. I know it’s late, but I wanted to speak to you alone. Liz: Where is she?

Kirk: I never wanted you to be apart from her. Liz: Where’s my daughter?! Kirk: Right here, safe.

“If you so much as… If you hurt her…”

“I know the truth. The only reason you came for me… you think we can cure you, that our blood can…”

Kirk: Yes, the blood is what I need, but it’s not what I want. What I want is for us to be together, but that can’t happen until Reddington’s out of your life. Only you can make that happen.

“I see you’re wearing your mother’s bracelet. I’m glad.”

“I want you to know that your baby is safe. This link is open day or night any time you want to see Agnes.” Tom later discusses the link with Liz. He wants to trace it to get Agnes back. Liz is like, it wouldn’t work, he’s anticipated that.

“If he hurts her, he loses me....What does Kirk want more than anything in the world? For me to trust him… to care for him. And because it’s what he desires most, it’s the easiest way to deceive him.

“He’ll see what he wants to see… my affection. He won’t see what’s real… my deception. This link is an opportunity for me to get close to Kirk. And I can’t do anything to jeopardize that.”

Tom: Liz, I think you’re being naive. Liz: I know you think that. And I’m asking you to trust me.

I kind of agree with Liz on this one. Not just about the link tracing, but the being able to see her thing. Red called it unbelievably cruel. Keeping the kid away, but having that link open. Which, I guess. 

I don't have kids so there are some things I'm not going to get, but if I was worried for my kid's well-being, I'd rather be able to see them than not. If I can't get to them at the moment, at least I know they're okay. Drive me nuts, otherwise. Especially in the wake of blood talk. Liz is hoping to use this to get to Kirk. Not in the tracing way, but in the gaining his trust way. She wants to use it. 

Kirk isn’t happy about keeping Liz and Agnes apart, but he doesn't want Red near Agnes any more than Red wants Kirk near Agnes.

I think of parallels a lot, and Agnes might be a replay not just for Kaplan, but for Kirk. Red is not going to get his hooks in another one. He took Kirk’s daughter; he will not have his granddaughter.

Agnes is motivation for Kaplan as well. It's too late, she's already failed Liz, but she could still save Agnes. 

Kirk here, and Kaplan later, want Reddington out of the picture.

Kirk wants Liz to reject Reddington, later tries to kill Reddington. Talks on his death bed of Liz taking his fortune and getting away from Reddington.

Kirk lets it go after the whisper; lets her go when it’s confirmed beyond doubt that Liz is not his child.

Kaplan never lets it go. To the end, she's trying to get Liz to walk away. 

Liz might see this same motivation going forward into season six. Her life is a giant mess, but maybe she can clean it up for Agnes. Agnes’ father is already gone. And she’s away from her mother for a long time. But maybe Liz can stop things from deteriorating further. 

Liz meets with Red. He tells her about Gaia. 

After Liz briefs the task force, Aram grabs Samar and says sorry for not being able to talk, but they can grab lunch, and Samar is like, it's okay, I figured it out. I’m transferring.

Samar is going to be a bit snippy today as she's all hurt in general. First Liz, now Aram. Ressler grabs her after another Gaia briefing. Ressler: Aram told me you put in for a transfer. Navabi, trust me, I understand how angry you are with Keen for doing what she did…

Samar: Yes, and that is part of why I’m leaving, but it’s not just that. It… It’s this place. You never know where you stand with anyone… whether they’ll be there for you when you need them.

Ressler: If there’s anything I can do to get you to reconsider, you let me know. I’ll do it. You’re a good partner.

Samar: I wish there was. I really do.

Aw, look at them all friends now. 

Gaia takes out an energy company guy so he can take his place and sabotage a pipeline. Or something. Kaplan wakes up in hunter guy's cabin. 

Kirk gets a transfusion and some bad news from his doc. His  body is starting to reject the transfusions. Six months to live, maybe less. Odette: There is a solution. Kirk: We’ve already discussed this. Reifler: It’s unacceptable. Odette: Easy for you to say. You’re not the one that’s gonna die. Kirk: No, I am, and I agree with Sebastian.

Kirk: We’re exploring other cures. Odette: We were. Before we lost the Ribowski virus, before the U.S. government froze your assets.

Reifler: If the girl is a genetic match, and there’s no guarantee that she is, extracting stem cells from such a young child is extremely dangerous and could prove fatal.

Odette: ....We are out of time, and we are out of resources. The only way to save your life is if we put that child’s in jeopardy. Odette is clearly jealous of Kirk's fun new obsession. Doesn't give a crap about Liz or the kid. What a fun new stepmom Liz has acquired. 

She also seems to actually care about Kirk. Even though he’s clearly still in love with his dead spy wife.

Ressler and Samar run after Gaia. He gets away. But they nab a fake id he used to get into the faciliity. 

Red takes the id to Glen at a bowling alley to find out who made it. 

Glen calls in a guy. The guy gives them Gaia’s address. 

Red and Liz go out to Gaia's school bus.

"Photo of a pregnant woman. But no child. Maybe the child was taken or… or died....”

“We’re going to get her back, Lizzy.”

Gaia bursts into his ex-wife's house to tell her to get out of the state. We see that his kid is disfigured.

Tom meets with an old colleague to trace the signal and get Agnes back. Aram informs the task force that Gaia's strike on a pipeline will include a nuclear facility in its blast radius. It's gonna be bad. 

Night falls. Tom and his little troop prepare to raid the house. 

Liz is sitting in the post office working. She opens the video feed and calls Tom.

Liz: I’m looking at our little girl. It’s almost like a baby monitor, like she’s in the next room. Tom: Only she’s not. Kirk has her. Liz: I know. I asked you this morning to trust me, not to trace the link. I want you to know it means everything to me that you are okay with that. Thank you. Tom: Everything’s gonna be all right, Liz. Blow her a kiss for me.

Liz sings Agnes a lullaby while Tom and company raid the place where the servers are, but not where Kirk is.

It’s a setup. A place full of cameras so Kirk can see if she violates his trust. And she did. Or, he thinks she did. 

Kirk: I thought we had an understanding. Liz: About what? What are you talking about? Kirk: You traced this feed.

“No. No, I didn’t. There must be some mistake.”

Liz: ...Wait. That had nothing to do with me. Kirk: I’m sorry, Masha. Liz: No, I told Tom. I specifically said…

"No! Please bring her back! I’m begging you! Bring her back!”

Liz has spent like five minutes with her kid since she was born. She's frantic. Desperate to at least see her. Can't do that anymore. 

Tom and Liz both trying to get the kid back in their own way. Tom not telling her things. Liz blows up at him at the end of the episode. Perfectly natural fight, I just hate that they patch it up in like two seconds.

Liz all forgiving him, saying that if his family was the reason they were in danger... um. Actually, his family is involved too. Scottie, you may have heard of her, hired Solomon who sent you on a car chase that almost killed Agnes in utero. But Tom hasn't told you that.

Super happy couple. They never talk about anything apparently, but they really like getting married.

Red goes to see Glen. Shows him the picture of the pregnant woman they found in Gaia's bus. Glen screws with him before agreeing to help.

Hunter helps Kate sit up and feeds her. Asks if the people who did this to her are coming back. She says no and thanks him. 

The task force finds out who Gaia is. Ressler and Samar go to the helicopter place and just miss him. "I’m a dead man walking thanks to Fukushima. It poisoned my innocent unborn son into someone people look at as if he’s a monster! Now, whoever dies from this, they’ve got it coming." Fun fact: from what I can find, nobody actually died from radiation poisoning following Fukushima. People died from evacuation, displacement. The earthquake and tsunami. I'm not entirely sure how this was supposed to poison his unborn son? Apparently his helicopter was flown into an unscheduled radiation venting. How does that...? Did his wife fly into it too? Does radiation poisoning get passed on? Like, genetically? Seems unlikely. Whatever. 

Anyway, they can't scramble fighters or shut down the pipeline fast enough. But Aram hacks into the helicopter and can shut the rotor down. But he freezes. 

“If I click on this, he’ll die. I’ve killed somebody once. I can’t take another life again.” Cooper hits the key like it's no big thing. Glad they were in the office instead of Aram alone in the back of a van or something. 

Thank goodness all this happened or Gaia would have killed millions of people, probably. One good thing came out of the running/kidnapping.

Red meets with Maya (Gaia’s wife) in a diner. Needs her to contact her kid's doctor, who, incidentally, is also Kirk's doctor. 

“My name is Raymond. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Skyler.”

Aw. 

“They live in a delightful space somewhere between dreams and reality. They taste color, hear shapes, see sounds. We should all have such special needs.”

"There is a child. Her life hangs in the balance. I believe Skyler’s doctor could save her.”

It's interesting that they go with a special needs child's doctor, when they could have gone with an adult's doctor, to save the child, Agnes. As there's talk of doing a risky stem cell procedure on her. I think perhaps the writers left the door open to have something happen to Agnes and didn't walk through it.   Aram comes in all chipper. Samar shuts that right down. “You made the wrong call today.”

She’s not wrong.

Liz: We talked about this! We agreed!

Tom: Yeah, on how you felt. I told you I disagreed.

Liz: What you didn’t tell me was that you were gonna do something about it. Instead, you went behind my back and did exactly what I told you not to do.

Tom: ...I’m not gonna fight with you about this, Liz! I did what I thought was best! And nobody is sorrier than me that it didn’t work!

Liz: Oh, no. I know someone who’s sorrier. Our daughter… who now, because of you, is God knows where. ...She's probably in the same spot, actually. You just can't see her now. And I doubt she even notices this is happening.

Reifler is taken at the end of this ep, after his house call. He’ll tell Liz that Kirk moves Agnes around anyway to keep Reddington from finding her. 

There’s a deleted scene that fits in somewhere of Liz staring at her cellphone, willing the video link to reappear. 

Meanwhile, the evil stepmother encourages Kirk to take the risk. 

"I know you don’t want to. But you need to use the child.”

They really play up Kirk using her. And then never tell us for sure whether or not he used her. Lovely high stakes to nowhere. 

At this point, I don’t think he did. He’s still got six months or so at this juncture. Well, maybe less. But he’s fine at the moment. I don’t think he’d use Agnes until it got super desperate. And she wouldn’t be a match to him anyway, apparently.   

Red meets with Liz in his car. Tells her what it was all about, getting Skylar's doctor. “Owen Ayers and his son Skyler share a rare blood disorder. But Dr. Sebastian Reifler is one with a particularly relevant distinction. He treats both Skyler Ayers and Alexander Kirk. If we can get to his doctor, we can get to Kirk. We’re getting close, Lizzy.”

"I lied to you. You asked if Kirk had reached out, and I told you he hadn’t. That wasn’t true. He set up a link… a video feed so I could see Agnes.”

“How incredibly cruel.”

“Tom tried to trace the link, tried to find Agnes, but Kirk found out, and now, uh…”

“She’s gone.”

“I thought I could make it better, that I could protect my baby. I mean, that’s my one job… to protect my child. Make her feel safe at any cost.”

“To hold her. To tell her everything’s gonna be okay. But now because of me, because of what I’ve done, I can’t even do that.”

♪ How does this happen to us all? ♪

I include those lyrics cuz yeah. I haven't seen such a glaring parallel since Red and Liz sitting over the harbormaster's daughter. 

Red is angry at Liz at the start of Miles McGrath. He's still stand offish in Gaia, though not as much after spilling the blood news to Liz at the end of McGrath. There's still distance between them, but he can't sit there and see that pain without having a reaction.  Red snatches the doc.

Kaplan wakes up with a chain around her ankle.