‘The Blacklist’ Season 9 Episode 5 Recap, ‘Benjamin T. Okara’ — Is This the End for Red and Dembe?
The Blacklist Season 9 is taking an increasingly dark turn for the remaining members of the task force. Previously, Aram (Amir Arison) gave up the chance to be a very wealthy man to stay with the task force. In episode 5, Cooper (Harry Lennix) is chasing down a dark mystery, and Park’s (Laura Sohn) private life begins to unravel. At the same time, the task force works on a case involving deadly military technology.
Benjamin T. Okara is the latest criminal in ‘The Blacklist’ Season 9
The Blacklist Season 9 Episode 5 begins with a mysterious death. A man driving a car suddenly begins clutching his head in pain. He eventually crashes the car, and it looks like it wasn’t the crash that killed him. Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq) visits Red (James Spader), and the two talk about a weapon that can disable people by sending highly powered energy waves through walls, floors, and ceilings without detection.
Dembe tells the task force that the chief engineer in charge of expanding this directed energy weapon technology in America was a man named Dr. Benjamin T. Okara (Corey Allen). The tasks force realizes that Okara stole the weapon and is targeting the five other engineers who helped him create it.
Ressler and Park are too late to save one of Okara’s engineers who has been hiding out in a hotel room. However, using a three-word code, Aram is able to locate another engineer on Okara’s team. Park and Dembe show up to offer him protection, but he hits Park over the head and tries to run.
Unfortunately for him, Okara unleashes his directed weapons energy and the man dies. Park is caught in the crossfire, and Dembe calls in an old favor to have her rushed to the hospital.
Later, the FBI finds Okara. Ressler finally understands that Okara killed his colleagues because he wants the weapon destroyed, and doesn’t want anyone else alive who knows how to make it. Okara calls the directed energy a “weapon of mass suffering.” Okara then triggers a bomb, killing himself and destroying the weapon in front of the FBI.
Park and Cooper struggle in their personal lives
Things take a turn for the worse in the personal lives of the FBI task force in The Blacklist Season 9 Episode 5. Cooper continues to try to find the truth about who killed Doug Koster. A detective questions Cooper about the evening in question — which Cooper has no memory of. Cooper gives an alibi by saying he was with his wife at the time of the murder. He asks Charlene (Valarie Pettiford) to lie for him, which she eventually does.
Things only get worse for Park as well. Ressler confronts her about how she is hiding her job from her husband Peter (Colby Lewis) and the fact that she might have cancer from Cooper. Park is clearly trying to hold it all together. In the hospital, after she is recovering from the effects of Okara’s weapon, Park finally learns that her abnormal urine test means that she was pregnant. Sadly, Park lost the baby. She breaks down in front of Ressler after Peter leaves the room.
Is Dembe leaving Red for good following ‘The Blacklist’ Season 9 Episode 5?
In this episode of The Blacklist Season 9, things seem to get worse between Red and Dembe rather than better. Red is angry that Dembe called in a favor to one of his colleagues to get Park to the hospital. “You’re in or you’re out; you can’t be both — it’s one or the other,” Red tells Dembe. Red’s colleagues are also concerned that Dembe may be a liability now that he has joined the FBI.
They order a hit on Dembe, but Red finds out. He shows up at Dembe’s home, having taken out the assailants before Dembe even arrives. While the pair talk, Red spots the box he gave Dembe long ago. Red instructed Dembe to open the gift after their working relationship is over.
“I almost opened it after Brasilia,” says Dembe, which is something he keeps mentioning. After Red leaves, Dembe finally opens the box, with tears in his eyes. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see what’s inside.
