However, the wording was a bit cagey, saying she will make her last appearance as a series regular, meaning she could appear as a guest star in next season’s episodes. Also, according to Deadline, the plan for Boone’s departure has been in place for quite some time in order to give the writers time to appropriately plot her exit. When The Blacklist premiered, Raymond “Red” Reddington (James Spader), who was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, turned himself into the law enforcement agency in order to make a deal. If he could work with Elizabeth “Liz”” Keen, he would help the FBI track down and arrest some of the world’s most dangerous criminals. Hence the title. It turned out that Red had a personal connection to Liz and over the years, her association with him has led to her loss of innocence, so much that she committed serious enough criminal acts to become No. 1 on the Most Wanted List herself in season 8. In the first episode of the two-part finale, the conflict between Liz and Red will finally come to a head when he takes her to the mysterious epicenter of his empire, and their shared past reveals itself and long-buried secrets are divulged. And then, in next week’s episode, Reddington makes a disturbing request to Liz in exchange for the truth about his identity. “We’re going to go back to the very beginning and unpack answers to eight years’ worth of questions,” executive producer Jon Bokenkamptold TV Insider. He added that the finale “very much is an ending. It may not be the ending of the series, but it’s very much the ending of a story we’ve been telling for eight years.” When season 9 begins in the fall, the only remaining series regular cast members will be Spader, Diego Klattenhoff (Donald Ressler) and Harry Lennix (Harold Cooper). The Blacklist airs Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.
