tags: #publish links: [[The Blacklist]] created: 2021-07-23 Fri --- # The Blacklist S1 Episode 4 (The Stewmaker) Previous: [[The Blacklist S1 Episode 3 (Wujing)|3 (Wujing)]] - Next: [[The Blacklist S1 Episode 5 (The Courier]] Continuing the casual torture motif from Episodes 1 and 2, this time we meet a nice amiable dentist with a secret life as an infamous "disposer": the "Stewmaker", who specialises in dispatching inconvenient evidence in the form of corpses by dissolving them in a chemical stew. This comes to the agents' attention after the critical (the only!) witness in a drug cartel trial gets kidnapped from the courtroom, a disruption foretold by Reddington, who also makes the link to the Stewmaker's involvement. Playing both sides as usual, Reddington is orchestrating the cartel boss's escape en route to supermax prison, and perhaps neglects to adequately inform Liz of this leading to the escape turning into her own kidnapping. Subsequently, Red goes to visit said escaped boss and manages to extract information about the Stewmaker's identity, along the way putting Agent Ressler through a near-death experience at the hands of the cartel just for fun and to show he can. The cartel chap is to head out of the country on Reddington's plane; Reddington's intentions here remain unclear, though Ressler appears to assume that it won't be good for Cartel Dude. Liz gets tortured a bit by the Stewmaker, chats and psych profiles him along the way, escapes and is recaptured (thanks a lot, dog!), and is paralysed awaiting her doom - things aren't looking good. The Stewmaker has now moved on from disposing of corpses generated by other, and wants to have a go at murder himself too. As a vast team of FBI folks converges on the dodgy torture cabin in the woods, Reddington (classic!) gets there first (just in time for Liz!) and disables the Stewmaker, then gives him a bit of a moral lecture on potential for transformation and rehabilitation, then finally passes judgement and chucks him in his own stew. Fizz! Bubble! Reddington vigilante killing number three. Apparently once more the FBI gives him a pass on this, or at least it doesn't occur to them that *someone* must have chucked family dentist guy in the stew. The Stewmaker, in addition to a generous collection of biological trophies in jars (dentists eh?), also has an extensive photo album of victims. Reddington removes one of the photos to reminisce over later, and gives the rest to Liz in the ambulance - she points out that he's a monster, he agrees and says he can cope with it by saving her life. Side plot: the ballistics investigation of Tom's gun has continued: the report returned a match, but an entirely censored one at Liz's clearance level. Liz social-engineers her way into the archives and gets the name and date of the investigation. Donald Ressler and the assistant director are keeping an interested eye on this clandestine digging! She carelessly writes the date on her notepad and takes it home; Tom spots it and it turns out to be the date she and he went on a romantic trip to Boston, which they then decide to recreate. She realises the name of a hotel in the area matches the name of the case... he may even have popped in there for a job interview. ## Mysteries Was Tom up to something in Boston while they were visiting? Is he secretly a contract killer? Wouldn't that stew dissolve the plumbing too? I bet it stinks. You're not even supposed to put bath salts in the spa if you are going to run the pump. How is it that the FBI isn't able to find and track Reddington's plane even after he visits it in person? Who was the person in the victim photo Red is obsessing over?