The Blacklist Episode 2.05 The Front

Nobody notices bloody Carrie Anne Beck wandering around Dupont Circle, talking to woman named Pepper on her phone. Carrie Anne claims she had to take "it" and intends to give it to the police. Pepper screeches up in a car carrying Maddox Beck, who wants whatever Carrie Anne took; it's too late, he can't be stopped. Frightened, Carrie runs smack into a taxi. Maddox removes something from her purse before disappearing into the crowd.

Liz finds Red editing Super 8 film the old-fashioned way. She wants him to call off her guardian angel, but he wants to talk about Carrie Anne and Maddox, both of whom the world presumed dead prior to the Dupont Circle incident. After founding the eco-terror group The Front, husband and wife Maddox and Carrie Anne faked their deaths and went underground to further radicalize. Red believes Maddox tried to kill his wife for being too moderate, refusing to accept his view that humanity is a virus that needs to be wiped out. Furthermore, Red fears Carrie Anne tried to thwart a dastardly plan that is about to be carried out. The FBI gets right on the case, consulting M.E. Phil Ryerson. Carrie is alive, brain dead and 30 weeks pregnant. Oddly, 700-year-old clay was found under her nails, raw sienna dating back to the 14th century. Aram tracks it to a painting stolen from the Prado last week, which it turns out, conceals a coded map.

Cooper calls in art historian Lillian Sharpe, who explains the legend of the Apophis Strain. In the 14th century, the Byzantines and Ottomans weaponized a plague, thought by some to be the real origin of the Black Death - which was pneumonic, spread through air. According to lore, the two sworn enemies tasked four priests to take the plague to the end of the world to avert Armageddon. Could the map concealed by the painting reveal where the plague was hidden? Lillian tells the FBI the map is worthless.

Meanwhile, Red waits just like a normal person at the DMV to fire Administrator Glen Carter in person. Glen is the most gifted tracker Red knows, but patience for his cockamamie excuses has worn thin. Knowing her guardian angel, whom we'll call Ezra, is on her tail, Liz ducks into therapist Dave Kingsley's office to meet a woman who looks exactly like her - a double. After accepting Liz's payment, the double proceeds to the therapist's office, where Ezra spies her through the window for the duration of the appointment. When the appointment is over, Liz emerges from the front door, and proceeds to meet with Red and Lillian, who tells them the rest of the painting's history. One of the four priests became infected, then swallowed the plague sample and took it to his grave. The map indicates that the end of the earth - where this priest is buried - is Burial Ridge in Staten Island. Liz and Ressler are speeding to the scene when Aram calls with news that Maddox beat them there, hoping to steal the bones, thus gaining the plague's DNA. But the bones were moved hundreds of years ago; a stone marker with a message written in ancient Cyrillic was left in their place. After some decoding, Aram figures the bones final resting place is in Holy Trinity Church, where Liz finds Maddox in the process of stealing them. When she threatens to shoot, Maddox threatens to drop his hazmat bag and infect them both, and then his henchman knocks Liz out.

Red hands Aram the photograph of the girl he snatched from The Stewmaker's notebook. With only the photo to go on, Red needs Aram to find the girl, because she's critical in the war with Berlin. By the time Liz gets back to the office, Samar is furious, blaming her for letting Maddox go. After synthesizing a liquid version of the plague and sticking it in an atomizer, Maddox gathers his followers under a tree festooned with colored bottles. It's time... After learning about Aram's search for Red's girl, Liz lays into Red for tasking the FBI with his personal business and ruining another person's life. Red accuses Liz of being jealous, so she lays down her law: Aram will not help Red, and one way or the other, Ezra is going to stop following her. Still fuming, Liz buys a bottle of wine, returns to her motel room, flings open the drapes and starts stripping. Ezra watches the show as Red calls to warn him that Liz may try to manipulate "the situation." Once she gets her bra off, Liz writes "BITE ME" on the window in lipstick, then heads to the filthy room with the door from the end of the previous episode. After asking a man called the Samoan whether she can, Liz enters the door, which is now unlocked.

After they inhale the plague, Maddox sends his followers into the world, and it's not long before D.C. is in quarantine. Sharon McManus is identified as Patient Zero, carrying a genetically modified strain of pneumonic plague, which is working at an accelerated rate. After incubating, the virus turns its victims infectious and kills them within nine hours. Since there's no treatment, the CDC will need a sample of the original strain to reverse engineer an antidote. Luckily, Aram has found a specific rat hair on Sharon's shirt, which leads to Maddox's lab. The lab is empty except for a map, which indicates Maddox has dispatched his followers to 24 cities around the globe. Aram starts tracking the followers to discover that only one has yet to board a flight from Dulles to Toronto - Chris Perez. Cooper orders Aram to call the FAA and sends Liz and Samar to Dulles to prevent Perez from boarding the plane. First to spot him, Samar gives chase and takes Perez down. In the scuffle, he sprays the virus into her mouth and shoots her before Liz comes running up to shoot him dead. Samar locks herself in a room, knowing she's infectious, but Liz knows Samar will bleed out and die before the virus kills her and convinces Samar to let her in. Aram calls Red to tell him about the women's predicament; they're currently quarantined at the airport.

Bonding while dying, Liz tells Samar that Red is the bane of her existence, but she can't help feeling jealous of the girl he's searching for. After collaborating with Aram to deduce Maddox's location, Red captures Pepper to flush out her lover - and the antidote he guessed Maddox prepared. After persuading Pepper to turn over an old-fashioned key, Red and Dembe step onto a helicopter with the vials of antidote, leaving Maddox and Pepper to die. Red visits Liz in the hospital, then goes home to watch his Super 8 film of a six-year-old girl frolicking with summer joy. Glen calls Red - he's found the girl, and her name is Zoe Dantonio.