'The Blacklist' Season 3 Spoilers: What Happened In Episode 10? 'The Director, Conclusion' Recap

While Liz (Megan Boone), with a little help from Aram (Amir Arison) may have managed to cheat death in the Season 3 midseason premiere of "The Blacklist," but the Cabal is not through trying to silence the former FBI Agent. Thankfully, Red (James Spader) has a plan to exonerate Liz and stop the Cabal once and for all in episode 10, "The Director: Conclusion."

When the episode begins Red gets the whole gang together. Aram, Samar (Mozhan Marno), and Cooper (Harry Lennix) join Red and his attorney, Marvin Gerard (Fisher Stevens), in Red's uber-secure hideout where, after recapping pretty much the entire season of Cabal of sabotage, he reveals he has gathered them to kidnap the Director (David Straithairn), whom he claims he can use to force the Cabal's hand.

One person is missing from Red's "Ocean's Eleven" heist — Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff). He is busy guarding Liz in an FBI court house Tom (Ryan Eggold) refers to as a fortress.

Speaking of Tom, he is still keeping watching over Karakurt (Andrew Divoff) who mentions that the Cabal might not take kindly to him talking. He threatens to get "cold feet" if there is not something for him in return on the other side. Tom gets deadly serious with the Russian assassin (Ryan Eggold is downright frightening), detailing what the grave consequences of not talking might entail.

Back at Red's hideout. He explains that the plan to abduct the director, which Gerard explains is, in fact, treason, involves building a replica of the office of the Director's marriage therapist, and having Amir rig the elevator to take the Director to Red's mock floor two floors above the real floor. The really farfetched part, though, is how Samar and Cooper drug the Director's wife (Kathleen McNenny) to induce a panic attack and persuade her, "Inception"-style, to make an emergency appoint — Would the Director really go the therapy the day of Liz's trial?

In any case, Red is obsessive about every detail of the replica office. When they fail to find an exact replica of a unique horse statue in the lobby, Red suggests putting a glass bowl of apples in front of the statue to obscure the inconsistency.

"Everybody likes apples," he tells Gerard.

Back at the FBI, Red has her initial hearing, but the judge (Tibor Feldman) is being pretty brutal on Liz, disallowing a lot of evidence that could help her case.

Luckily, Red's plan goes off more or less without a hitch. The director does do a double take on the apples ... but only to grab a couple for himself and his security detail. With little resistance, Red soon has the Director drugged and asleep. A couple hours later, the Cabal kingpin wakes up on a Venezuelan jet with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Diaz (Tony Plana) and, of course, Red.

Red calls Laurel Hitchin (Christine Lahti) and lets her know that the Director is on his way to be tried for war crimes by an international court courtesy of Venezuela, which would be quite an embarrassment for the United States .... unless, that is, they let Liz go free. When Tom shows up at the court house with Karakurt and the Russian assassin is suddenly all over the news, Hitchin feels the pressure and soon a plea bargain is sent down to Liz.

The only stipulation is that, since Liz shot Tom Connolly (Reed Birney) in front of witness, she has to plea guilty to involuntary manslaughter on that shooting. She would not serve prison time, but she would lose her badge and become just an asset to the FBI ... like Red.

Liz is hesitant to sign the deal and gets a call from Red. He urges her to do what she has to do to get her freedom back in a touching speech

"I told you when you fired that gun you crossed a threshold," says Red. "You stepped from your world into mine."

Liz signs the deal.

Back on the plane, the Director expects to go free himself now. Too bad Hitchin told Red to ditch the Director, who has become too much of a liability. The Director sees the writing on the wall and tries to take a shot at Red.

"I know who you really are to [Liz]. I know why you did this," says the Director. "Does she?"

The next fans see the Director's body is crashing through the ceiling of some poor family's house after Red drops the corrupt official from the plane.

Back on the ground, Liz goes free and the first person she sees is Red, who is waiting across the street by his car like Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) in "Sixteen Candles." Also, Cooper gets his job back from the also-exonerated Cooper.

However, in a shocking cliffhanger. Red meets with none other than ... Hitchin! It turns out while Red may have wanted to save Liz, he also wanted to make the Cabal vulnerable so he could "get a seat at the table." It appears fans have not seen the last of the Cabal.