So at lot more happened in “Borealis 301” than I was expecting. The plane hijacking really only took up about the first third of the episode, so the rest was spent on unraveling the mystery between Howard, Scottie, and Tom.
Howard instructed Tom to steal the code from Scottie’s safe in her office to use as the key code for the book cypher that he needed to find out what Scottie was planning. The book in this case was a comic book. Tom did what his father asked and found the code, but it didn’t work to unlock the message. Tom saw this as a sign that his father was lying and he should finally tell Scottie who he is. I was in total agreement with Tom on this. Up to this point his father had only given him pieces of riddles that weren’t getting him any closer to the truth. He seemed paranoid and shifty, why should Tom trust him? He had begun to build up a relationship with Scottie, and I was even beginning to trust her just like Tom was, why should he believe his father who he had never met until a couple of weeks ago all of a sudden?
Well it turns out that his father was right. Just as Tom was about to tell Scottie he was her son, he saw the comic book cypher on one of the desks in her office. This proved that she really was hiding something, and Howard wasn’t the paranoid one. Tom frantically decoded the message using the comic book from her office and found that it was the address of Howard’s apartment where he had been hiding and meeting with Tom. He moved as fast as he could, but he got there just in time to see Solomon forcing Howard into an SUV with some other agents, on his way to see Scottie, and god knows what she’s going to do to him.
Usually I give Tom a hard time, but there really was nothing he could have done differently in this situation. He didn’t know who he could trust because no one was being straight with him, and there was no way he could have found out the truth before it was too late. I mean, he should have noticed Solomon following him at some point, but Solomon is a damn good agent, definitely better than Tom, so it makes sense that he would have been able to keep Tom from finding out. I guess Howard was the one who messed up. Did he really think he could keep having secret meetings with Tom and send him back to work with Scottie and steal things from her every day without anyone following him? Especially when he knows that Scottie’s team of agents are some of the best there are?
Well it doesn’t matter now, because Scottie has him, and it’s anyone’s guess what is going to happen next. He was really Tom’s only option for finding out about his past, unless he decided to confront Scottie, which could turn into an ugly situation in all sorts of ways. What if Scottie really is a Russian sleeper agent? What if she kills Howard? What will Tom do then?
I’m actually really interested to see what will happen to the team’s relationship when everything that’s been going on with Scottie and Tom comes to light. Is Solomon so loyal to Scottie that he won’t hear Tom’s side of things? Or will he want the full story just like Tom does? Will any of the agents actually choose to side with Tom over Scottie?
It seems like they’ve built up a pretty close relationship as a team, and Scottie might have a little bit of a fight on her hands if she tells them to go after Tom. She probably won’t do that if she does find out that he’s her son, but in all the uncertainty Tom might try to keep that hidden, and then he could be in some serious danger if she finds out that he’s been working with Howard, but this is all just speculation for now.
With only three episodes left, all of these questions are going to be answered very soon, but I want to know what you guys think. Do you think that Scottie is just as dangerous as Howard has been saying she is? Or do you think that he can’t be trusted either? I’m leaning towards trusting Howard, but we still don’t know enough to say which one of them is the villain yet either way.
Do you think all of the questions about Tom’s past will be answered by the end of Redemption’s eight episode run? Or do you think they’ll hold some things back to try and extend the run of the series for another season?
Find out more as the mystery continues to unravel in next week’s episode, “Hostages”, and check out the trailer below to know what to expect next week! It looks like Scottie is almost certain to find out Tom was working with Howard, so we’re going to be on the edge of our seats.
The Blacklist: Redemption airs Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC.