...Wow, so that was kind of intense, huh?

Agent Ressler's old Red-hunting FBI crew is getting hunted down and made to stab themselves in the abdomen, now that a Yakuza boss caught up in the dragnet back then has escaped prison. His new relationship with old Audrey has been going on for three months now, and we learn she might be pregnant, which makes it all the worse when she's gunned down by this guy Mako's team for pretty much no reason. After Red -- with his vested interest in bloody vengeance, and all -- sends Ressler to an underground Mob hospital that leads Ressler and his remaining teammate Bobby to Mako himself.

But it turns out that Bobby's secretly been running Mako's underground operation this whole time he was in jail, which Mako figures out means Bobby's only minutes away from killing them both. A harried car fight later, Ressler's got Bobby on the ground in the snow, insanely demanding that he commit seppuku with a convenient katana. Liz and the Post Officers arrive just in time to stop that grisly drama, but the guy stabs himself anyway... And Mako goes missing. (Not for long, though, because Red eventually sends him a beautiful carved box with Mako's head inside, because they are that kind of bros.)

Jolene visits the Keens one bright morning, still crazy but also more awesome than ever before, just to apply a little pressure on Tom: Turns out "Berlin" stopped hearing from him right around when he got taken hostage that time in their house, and Jolene's been tracking him to step up as an interim handler. His spy mission seems to be mainly about figuring out what the deal is with Liz and Red, like why is he so into her, which is good because somebody should really get on top of that.

But that somebody is not looking for help, thank you very much. After Red sends the Cowboy to kidnap Jolene -- turns out seeing her with Tom is all the confirmation he needed to start the war -- Tom takes them both out, choking Jolene to death and shooting Cowboy about a million times in the head. Then he buries them and goes home for a shower, and makes out with Liz while he's still finishing up getting all the blood off from his weird day of murdering, and it is amazing. (Liz doesn't notice any of this happening. Liz just graduated from Quantico to work for the FBI, if you'll recall.)

Especially though it is amazing because both of these episode-ending tableaux -- Ressler and the Yakuza-boss head in the box, and Liz finally getting some messy bloody Tom action -- combine with Red's major deal in this episode, which is buying out an entire ballet theatre for one night so he can watch Swan Lake and commemorate his daughter all alone. So you got that scary Tchaikovsky happening while everybody else is going crazy with their innovative murders and interesting situations.

Was it sad? I don't know. Ressler was very blond in the snowy outdoor scenes, which kinds of changes his whole face around. But this is a show about Liz and Red, and the episode contained very little of those people, so I guess the better question would be: Was it awesome? And the answer is, oh my goodness yes. Tom Keen is a ninja who will snap a neck and then head home for shower nookie -- the third worst kind, after beach and swimming pool -- and that's interesting to know. Ressler is a very boring dude who occasionally flips out and screams at people to disembowel themselves when he is upset, which is also very interesting to know.

So while it was interesting watching him lose his shit, be honest: Do you really care about Audrey one way or the other? I sure don't. I mean it's too bad she died. It's too bad she was maybe pregnant, but they always are. Red and Ressler being into each other is exciting, obviously, because they have this whole other TV show in the past that we only get to hear about. (Red playing in the snow also was marvelous, and beautifully shot.) Mostly, it made me worry that these other-people episodes are going to keep happening. So I will make you a deal: If we have to keep having episodes all about some other person that is not Liz, that is acceptable as long as the other half is Tom Keen doing bonkers things. I think that's fair.

Next Week: A cyberterrorist known as Ivan goes on the Blacklist, and you know that means: Lots of scenes of people at keyboards, clicking away, to solve crimes. Clickety-clack. But meanwhile, somebody notices that ol' Crazy Eyes is missing, and Tom comes under the microscope yet again. But this time, it seems like maybe Liz will get as far as his warehouse space of conspiracy-having and people-killing, so maybe that'll turn on a lightbulb or two.