The Blacklist Season 2 Premiere Recap: Red's Back, And So Is Is Wife

Red’s back! Coming off of an explosive first season, NBC’s The Blacklist returned on Monday, Sept. 22, and kicked off season 2 with a bang (or three).

After months away from the FBI searching for the mysterious Berlin, the world’s biggest con artist managed to get himself picked up by child soldiers and taken to their leader in Cameron. In less than five minutes, Red (James Spader) pulls an “I’m the captain now” by dropping hellfire missiles on their camp and weasels the information he wants out of the leader. Who needs Olivia Pope? Red’s got it handled.

PHOTOS: Sharp men in tuxes

He’s now on the search for Lord Baltimore, the hustler Berlin has hired to find him at any cost. Enter Agent Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), who now spends her days walking around in her undies and taping pictures of Red and her sociopath ex-hubby Tom to her ceiling … not creepy at all.

She’s still working with the FBI and follows Red’s Lord Baltimore lead to a data engineer named Rowan (played by a surprisingly serious Krysten Ritter), who claims she was targeted by Lord Baltimore for her bank account info. Meanwhile someone with tortoiseshell rimmed glasses is trailing Agent Keen, and his name probably rhymes with “mom.”

Red pays a visit to the injured Director Harold Cooper, who is unwilling to return to working the Blacklist cases, but Red can be rather persuasive.

PHOTOS: Celeb men in uniform

Just when it looks like Rowan’s actually working with Lord Baltimore, she comes up with the theory that … dun, dun, dun … her twin sister Nora is still alive, working with Lord Baltimore, and plotting against her. This should be the part where everyone rolls their eyes and arrests her, but instead the camera keeps panning to random bushes and windows, hinting that the evil Nora is in our midst.

But alas, Nora has been there all along, acting like Rowan in some bizarre trance that’s only broken using an old record, like the old lady with Alzheimer’s in The Notebook. It’s called dissociative identity disorder, and it allows her to flip back and forth between being Rowan and Nora. She snaps back to her old, evil self and heads out to kill Red’s long-lost wife (Mary-Louise Parker), who has made a new life for herself.

PHOTOS: Costars reunited

Wifey doesn’t move quickly enough because Nora and her people storm her large brownstone killing FBI agents and some of her friends and taking her hostage. Naturally, Agent Keen, who is apparently impervious to tasers, hops up and tackles Nora, declaring to Red that she has found Lord Baltimore.

By the time they get Nora to spill on where she’s sent Red’s wife, the man with one hand, who was taking a disturbing blood-filled ice bath earlier, has already taken her away to a creepy hotel room. It seems like he’s about to torture her, but really he just wants to take a hipster Polaroid to put inside of a locket. Red doesn’t get there fast enough and instead receives her finger in the mail from the one-handed man, who claims Red did the same thing to his daughter.

PHOTOS: Celebrity bromances

Things don’t exactly end on a high note for Red and his merry band of FBI agents. Ressler, who is filled with repressed teen angst, has taken to popping pills, and Keen has taken to preening herself next to open windows as her ex strokes his rifle (not a euphemism). But Director Cooper has returned with some scruffy facial hair and a fly new cane, so don’t fret!

Tell Us: Was the season 2 premiere of The Blacklist as good as you hoped?

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