This was more of Elizabeth and Raymond lying to each other about Katarina.
This happened around a nifty art-theft caper on The Blacklist Season 7 Episode 11.
What a timely episode with the OxyContin-peddling Sackler family and their love of art so regularly in the news.
Imagine what would happen if one of those family members went rogue as Victoria did here!
This was a breather episode after the temporary climax of the Katarina Rostova storyline on The Blacklist Season 7 Episode 10.
Raymond is always at his best when he’s got skin in the game, and that was certainly the case here.
The caper started with a nesting casket. Who had ever heard of such a thing? Like a nesting doll, only much older and much more valuable.
It was too bad that Dembe’s party had to get cut short to accommodate this mission.
And what a grand entrance Raymond made into Ukraine, covered up with a tarp on a horsecart!
Who would have thought that Raymond hid some of his most valuable treasures in a rundown warehouse in a small Ukrainian town?
But even there, he managed to get doublecrossed, although he was fairly forgiving of Vasyl, who was betraying him only under duress.
Raymond certainly can think on his feet. While the rebels were destroying the caskets in which he was supposed to be escaping, he and Dembe just rode away on a pair of sturdy draft horses.
That brought new meaning to “and the horse he rode in on.”
What a gut punch for Raymond it was to find out they had gone through all that danger for a fake.
Nothing slows Raymond down for long, as he decided just to track down the counterfeiter instead.
And, of course, to bring in the resources of Elizabeth and the task force to help him do that.
It was a legitimate use of the task force, with all the art forgeries in circulation. It just happened to benefit Raymond personally in a big way.
This was one of those episodes where you end up cheering on the target of the task force’s investigation.
Richard Vitaris lost his son to drugs made by the Fenbergs.
Victoria Fenberg decided to aid Richard in his lawsuit against her family by creating forgeries of the Fenburg art treasures, selling the originals to help pay for Richard’s suit.
It would have been nice to learn how Victoria became such a talented counterfeiter, but as Aram pointed out, it takes engineering talent to turn out great forgeries.
Whatever her motivation, her heart was in the right place.
Elizabeth and company slowly, methodically uncovered Richard’s involvement, then tracked him down at the Fenberg compound. He bought Victoria enough time to make that one more big score to fund his suit, even though that meant him getting arrested in the process.
Raymond largely sat back and let the task force do much of the legwork for him.
He did squeeze a name out of a stolen-art buyer over a seafood tower and martinis. That was classy.
He visited the fence and had Dembe threaten him with a waffle iron, which only made Raymond hungry for a waffle breakfast.
What a surreal scene that must have been when she walked into her fence’s home, only to be offered a waffle breakfast by two strange men.
Raymond quite enjoyed the scam that Victoria had going and just wanted back his casket.
He just had to con an old woman’s favorite possession away from her. Easy peasy.
I’m betting this won’t be the last time we see Victoria and her unique skillset, even if Ressler was sure that she was Richard’s accomplice.
The episode mostly took a break from Raymond and Elizabeth’s cat-and-mouse game over Katarina.
When Elizabeth confronted him directly, Raymond waffled for all he was worth about who the old woman was living down the hall from Elizabeth.
Then Raymond tried to use the recovered casket as part of an object lesson about seeing what you want to see. But it was evident that Elizabeth didn’t buy that for a second.
She has the upper hand since only she and Ressler know that Katarina is alive and in hiding.
Finally, what to do about poor Aram?
His rebound relationship with Elodie has been a hell of a ride but he’s a genuinely nice guy who is so conflicted with guilt for being with a married woman.
Having the afterglow with Elodie interrupted by sirens as her husband Charles had a heart attack certainly didn’t help, as he admitted to Elizabeth that a small part of him hoped Charles would die.
He tried, oh so hard, to break things off with Elodie. But now that Charles is circling the drain, maybe Aram will have a clearer conscience now.
With all the bad things he sees on the job, he needs some good, dirty excitement in his free time. And Elodie provides that.
Now for the big question: Will we get to see Agnes’s dance recital, as everyone was so looking forward to it?
For more great capers, watch The Blacklist online.
Does Raymond know more about Katarina than he’s letting on?
Will Elizabeth ever get him to fess up?
What should Aram do about Elodie?
Comment below.
Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.