The Blacklist Declassified

Before shooting THE BLACKLIST I had several phone meetings with the writer producers to discuss all things Katarina and I signed a non-disclosure agreement and am sworn to secrecy. All very exciting. Not sure how long it was before my first day of work but it was in the West Village on that little one block street called Gay Street. It was made to look like a rainy night in Paris with ornate lamp posts.

I met James Spader for the first time and what was the first thing I had to do in the scene you ask? KISS HIM!!!!! Haha. He was absolutely professional, lovely and helpful. We plotted it out by the numbers….”Okay, you say this line and then I’ll say that and then we will kiss and then you say that and we kiss again and then you STAB ME!” It was a blast and we had a lot of fun. I felt very comfortable with James and I realized that this job was going to be fun. Wonderful actors, wonderful scripts and a GREAT crew AND a ten minute drive to the studio!

Parade: Now that the other members of the team know that Red is supposedly Ilya Koslov, a former Russian agent, how will that affect them?

Jon Bokenkamp: Cooper (Harry Lennix) is the one who has the biggest question on his shoulders…. Do they continue to work together as a Task Force? Where does it go from here?

Parade: When the show started, it was more about bringing a criminal to justice each week as Red worked his way into the FBI, but now it seems to be more about telling their story. If all is revealed about Katarina in season seven, is there a story for season eight?

Jon Bokenkamp: This is a very powerful family drama and this is really, in some ways, the first year we’re telling that story because it’s the first year Katarina’s made an appearance. So, sure, we think that the story will definitely need at least a season eight to tell it in the way it needs to be told. [Emphasis added]

JB: The Townsend Directive … is basically a bounty on Katarina Rostova’s head. … [S]he knows that she can hopefully unravel or defeat or defuse this directive with information that only Reddington has. And as we saw in the opening two episodes, he is not eager or interested in helping her in any way, despite their history.

EW: Katarina’s return also brings Dom back into the action. What can you tease about what happens to him?

JB:… Dom is clinging to life, and with him lives a secret, lives the truth. … Dom is sort of a loose thread that is dangling out there, posing both a threat to Red in terms of answers that he has ….

EW: We’re now seven seasons in and Katarina is here, so are you working toward a specific endgame? Do you have a sense of when and how you’d like to end the series?

JB: We’ve been concerned about where this series ends from day one. We’ve always been working toward a sort of singular answer to the riddle of why did Raymond Reddington surrendered himself to Elizabeth Keen all these years ago. And it’s something that we talk about almost daily. I feel like with our show specifically, I think it would be impossible to tell the sort of stories that are deeply intertwined, and hopefully still adding up in terms of answers, if we didn’t know where we were going. So we feel that in the room, we sometimes move things along, we sometimes slow things up, but we’re definitely working toward a resolution to this giant enigmatic question that I think is going to be incredibly satisfying and surprising.

… “She is going to be the main antagonist this year,” said executive producer John Eisendrath. “And what’s exciting is that that, I think, makes good on the promise that’s sort of been baked into the series from the beginning, that at some point Liz would be part of a triangle between herself and Katarina and Reddington. It becomes the family drama that sort of has always been foreshadowed.”

“To sustain me over a period of time, I can’t be doing this one thing. I will just lose interest quickly,” Spader explained about his choices in roles. “After reading the pilot of The Blacklist, I knew less than I did when I started reading. It was so enigmatic, I realized, ‘Wow, the landscape is just anywhere.’ It could be anything.” Plus, “I saw the sense of humor [that] could really be married with anything. That dichotomy, I thought, could sustain me.”

Asked later by an audience member how he gets into his Blacklist character, Raymond “Red” Reddington, he shrugged, “I play make-believe. … I just love make-believe,” he said. “My childhood friends started going off in the afternoons to play sports and I was really disappointed we couldn’t keep playing cops and robbers.” When he arrived in New York City as a 17-year-old high school dropout, he recalled, “I’d walk the streets and tail people. I’d make up stories about what was going on.”

Having established himself with sex, lies & videotape (the indie phenomenon that took up only a couple of minutes at the top of the discussion), Spader said his goal on each succeeding project was to do something completely different. In two cases — Secretary and sex, lies — he said he deliberately moved toward a project that several other actors had passed on. …

When Spader agreed to play the titular robot in Avengers: Age of Ultron, he said, “I had not been intimidated for years on a set.” And that was the point. In collaboration with writer-director Joss Whedon, he settled on the motion-capture method of playing the towering machine. “The process of acting on that film was something I had never encountered,” Spader said. “But it was exciting because I was doing something incredibly challenging at a time in my life when I had just thought I knew what the f*ck I was doing.” ¤ Goldberg cracked, “That gets all of us.”

John Bokenkamp Katarina is a character that is very much part of the DNA of the show. We met her a number of other times, played by Lotte Verbeek, as this very crafty, sort of dangerous spy and we have also been talking about her a lot this season. … [W]e’ve been talking about Katarina a lot this season. The characters have been sort of circling her, they’ve all been in her orbit and it just felt like a great moment, an unexpected moment really, especially after Red has just told Liz that Katarina is not a danger to Agnes.

So, I think it’s finally time for us to meet, in the flesh, the present-day version of Katarina Rostova [now played by Laila Robins] and I think she’s an enigma. I think she’s a very mysterious, powerful, formidable person….

EW: Katarina has Red! How concerned should we be about his safety?

John Eisendrath: … I think just the mere fact that Katarina is there and has betrayed him…, I think is probably far more dangerous than the physical peril that Red’s in at the end of season 6.

EW: Speaking of Liz’s family, Agnes is back. Are we going to see more of Liz as a mother? Or will Katarina or something else she’s unaware of ruin their time together?

JB: Katarina’s presence will definitely impact Liz and Liz’s family life. …

The Blacklist is a show at its core about a parent-child relationship. That’s Red relationship to Liz and now Katarina’s relationship to Liz and Liz’s relationship with her own child. …

EW: … Dembe’s (Hisham Tawfiq) back! He says his journey during his time away brought him back to Red, but will their relationship be the same moving forward?

JE: … It only works that he’s come back if he’s made some genuine decisions about the fact that he can accept some of the choices that Red has made, but that does not mean that going forward he won’t be equally adamant that Red act in a way that is true to the better angels of his nature. …

EW: Is there anything you can tease about the next chapter of The Blacklist?

JB: … The story with Red is in incredible jeopardy now and there is going to be a great story behind where he is, the jeopardy he’s in, and how he’s going to get out of it. Yet, at the same time, we have introduced Katarina, a character that we’ve talked about for years on the show and she is obviously incredibly formidable. And with her, I believe, will come more answers and an endgame will snap into focus even more. I think in the relationships between Reddington and Katarina and Elizabeth … , all of that, there is a really interesting story and mythology to unpack as we look ahead in season 7.

Jon Bokenkamp: … The specter of Katarina snapping into focus is a satisfying ending to the season, I hope, because it’s the introduction of the present-day version of Katarina Rostova. Laila Robins [who plays Katarina] is a great embodiment of both the danger and the specter and the formidability. She embodies that enigma, and looking ahead, that’s going to be a big part of what we want to talk about in Season 7.

TVLINE: Let’s talk about the scene where Red is speaking with that unnamed stranger on the bench. They’re both dropping hints that perhaps the story Dominic told Liz, about who Red really is, was not a fully accurate story. …

Jon Bokenkamp: … That is an example of our signaling that there are people who wonder whether it was [a true story]. People can interpret it as either, “Was it the right time to tell the true story?” or “Was he choosing to tell a story that was, in fact, not true?” Your asking that question is very satisfying to me, because it makes me feel like the scene fulfilled its purpose, which was to do just that: to make people wonder whether he told the truth or whether, in fact, he did not.

TVLINE: I couldn’t help but notice that when Katarina first saw Red in Paris, she called him “Raymond.” She didn’t call him “Ilya” or any other name.

Jon Bokenkamp: … I don’t think that’s teeing up anything.
John Eisendrath: What [James] Spader always says — which Jon and I agree with — is that whoever Red really is, he is Raymond Reddington now. Whatever identity he has had in the past, he is Raymond Reddington, and anybody who even knew him then would know that that’s his real identity [now].

TVLINE: Heading into Season 7, I have to ask: Has there been any discussion about the show’s endgame? Do you have an idea of how long you’d like to continue telling this story?

Jon Bokenkamp: We talk about it, yeah. We talk about it. Especially in a serialized show like this, where there is a mythology, we never want to stretch it. We never want to take advantage of that. And yet, at the same time, I think we really have a lot of story to tell. Going into Season 7, John and I both feel very confident that we have a lot of work yet to do. I don’t think anybody’s racing to the finish line.

Eisendrath: We are really proud looking back that every year we’ve had a big move, that we have not, you know — we’ve always been respectful of the audience. We’ve always given the audience real handfuls each year of the relationship between Red and Liz and the truth about Red and Liz. I think that has helped keep the audience engaged. We haven’t stalled, we haven’t lied to them. And I think this season with Katarina is no exception.

John Eisendrath: I would say no for one reason: We introduced the character who played President Diaz in Season 3, which was 2015, and he was Senator Diaz. And as Senator Diaz, in order to become president he took $30 million of Russian money long before anyone ever knew Donald Trump was going to be president, long before there was any discussion of Russian involvement in our election. So we feel somewhat prescient in our storytelling. …

TV Guide: It seemed like there was maybe a little wrench thrown in, that Dom’s story he told Liz about Red’s history was not true. So more will be revealed about that?

Jon Bokenkamp: Oftentimes, truths on our show can be looked at and interpreted in different ways, and I think it’s one of the things that is most satisfying about writing it — and I hope it’s one of the things that is satisfying about watching it — is that you get a truth, you take it for canon, maybe it seems like it’s not true, maybe it’s half of a truth. What Dom (Brian Dennehy) told Liz I think should stand as the truth until we hear otherwise, and we do hear otherwise. But, you’re right that the way that they spoke about it on the waterfront there could probably be interpreted in different ways.

TV Guide: So after six solid seasons, how do you feel about your chances of this show going on for as long as you want it to?

Bokenkamp: Here’s what I’d say about the ultimate endgame. Just right now, standing at the cliff of Season 6 and looking into the abyss of 7, we have a lot of story to tell. So nobody’s racing to the finish line. We have some big turns yet to make. I think we’re kind of focused on those at the minute, and who knows what the future holds?

Jon Bokenkamp: I think our show’s really a mystery first and then a procedural, and I say that because the longer arching story almost always drives everything else. Obviously, we have a case-of-the-week, but those stories are often moved around on the board until we find a way that they can service the characters or the longer arc of the season or series. For example, in Season 6, our Blacklisters were mainly servicing one of two stories — either Red was using them to try and get out of prison or our task force was using them to unravel a presidential conspiracy. In that process, we learned not only about Red’s identity, but we learned that Liz’s mother Katarina Rostova (Lotte Verbeek) is actually still alive. In the end, all of those stand-alone cases and stories worked to platform the very last scene in the season where we finally meet present day Katarina Rostova (Laila Robins). Not only is she alive — but she drugs Reddington, has a team of men throw him into a van, and they drag him off to God knows where. That gives us a great springboard looking ahead into Season 7. I feel — and I hope the audience feels — that each season we’ve delivered on giving not just big, unexpected plot turns, but also big answers and truths as well. Sometimes those truths are only partial truths. But they are truths, and we are very much working our way toward a singular answer about Raymond Reddington and why he inserted himself into Elizabeth Keen life six years ago.

John Eisendrath: At its core, The Blacklist is thematically a parent-child story. No matter how urgent the case, that story is always a part of the show. In the season finale, Liz makes a desperate attempt to stop the assassination of the President of the United States while simultaneously making plans to bring her daughter home — after getting Red’s assurance that her mother is not a threat. Then Red goes to meet with her mother — and Katarina drugs and abducts him! So, while we solve the investigative mystery — “Why would the President of the United States orchestrate his own assassination?” — we leave the year with a new “Big Question”: “What in the world is Katarina Rostova up to?”

Deadline: Those kind of twists, turns and up-ended expectations are red meat for an ensemble as strong as the Blacklist cast. Can you talk about some standout work in the finale? Either an individual performance or a shared scene that really shined in your view?

Bokenkamp: We’re blessed with an incredible cast and everyone brings something totally different to the party. … [W]hat I take great pride in — even beyond the performances — is how collaborative it is, both on screen and behind the scenes. It’s a great example of how our team makes the writing look good. [Executive producer] Laura Benson and everyone in New York [where production is based] are killing themselves to get all the little pieces. The actors are having fun and it shows. The editing is just stellar. The music brings it all to life. …

Eisendrath: … I love the moment shared by Ressler and Red in the finale when it’s acknowledged that Ressler knows Red is not Red. Ressler [portrayed by Diego Klattenhoff] has spent much of the season feeling betrayed by this, but here, face-to-face with Red, he promises to keep the truth to himself. These two are such polar opposites — the rule-follower and the rule-breaker — but they’ve developed a deep respect for one another that I think is evident in this scene.

Deadline: … [W]hen you sized up this year’s finale what did you identify as a challenge and what do you recognize as an opportunity?

Eisendrath: … Katarina has been a mythic figure on our show from the beginning. … But we’ve only seen her in flashbacks. Epic spy. Ruthless killer. Enigmatic parent. By the end of the season, Liz and Red had settled into a peaceful status quo. If anyone can upend that, it’s Katarina!

Bokenkamp: … I love that the resolution to our presidential assassination plot was ultimately a very personal and small story between a husband and wife. I also love that the resolution that story gives us is totally undercut when Katarina abducts Reddington. Not because it puts Reddington in danger, which will be fun, but because it throws into question everything we know about these two people while moving the story forward in an organic way. …

John Eisendrath: … He’s alive, but despite that, the end opens up an incredible number of possibilities. What is going through Katarina’s mind? How was Red so easily deceived? What did he think was going to happen when he showed up unguarded and met this woman on a dark street in Paris? How does a man who does nothing without taking incredible precautions leave himself open and vulnerable to being captured or attacked by a woman who he allegedly has known his own life — was her lover, had a child? …

Variety: How do you balance reveals, like giving a potential explanation of Red’s true identity, in a way that satisfies viewers and the need for answers without necessarily sacrificing story or pandering?

Jon Bokenkamp: If you go back and look at the show again we’ve often given answers that are an answer, that are true, but when you look back on it, it may feel like we’ve contradicted ourselves. But if you wait a little longer you’ll find out that it was in fact the answer. In Episode 8 Liz asked Reddington if he was her father and he said no. We then found DNA evidence that proves Reddington is her father. So it looked like we lied, but the truth is, that wasn’t the DNA evidence from the James Spader character. … [A]long the way there are benchmark truths that we like to land on that are canon that might sound like they’re adrift or can be open to interpretation — and oftentimes they can be, and they should be. …

Variety: Do you read fan response and speculation? And if you do how do you keep it from influencing the writing?

Eisendrath: Jon loves reading it and I try to avoid it. It does come in to Jon but I think we both agree that no matter how aware we are of what people are saying the story is the story. We’ve never changed the story based on what people are guessing is the end game, the answers, the truth. The fun of the guessing game that the audience has is hopefully made more fun if we just tell the story the best possible way that we can. We don’t try to alter it and throw them off or to try and lead them on.

Variety: Viewers have been commenting on Liz’s daughter Agnes being absent for a while, did that prompt you to bring her back at all in this finale?

Eisendrath: … This season, there was a legitimate reason for Liz to feel like she is safe in bringing her child home. What we like about the way the season ends is that it is based in part on Raymond Reddington telling her that she doesn’t have anything to worry about from Katarina Rostova. But Katarina Rostova is on camera for one minute and she takes down Raymond Reddington. So while the audience is going to be thinking mostly about Red’s well-being, next season the question is also going to be about Liz’s well-being and her child’s well-being as well.

Amir Arison: The writers always say the characters’ voice and the actors’ voice start to blend. James is clearly a genius. Both Aram, and myself, know that when Reddington walks into the room and when James was into the room, he is by far the smartest and most powerful man there. It was fun to play an Aram who wasn’t afraid of him, because he wasn’t afraid of anything at that point. That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for that dynamic. Of course, in the end, Reddington won, because he decided to have fun with Aram and charged him thousands of dollars in lost interest for his $60 million.

TVInsider: When did you find out that Mozhan Marnò was leaving the show? Your character was so intertwined with hers, so what was your reaction?

Amir Arison: I didn’t know it was in the works, but when I read that script about when Aram learns about Samar’s aphasia and how her condition would deteriorate, I thought , “Uh, I don’t think we’re going to have a wedding. If this doesn’t get better, how will she continue on the task force?”

So I had a sense, but didn’t know how it would play out or for how long. Both Mozhan and the writers were masterful in handling it. I found out a couple of episodes before it all happened. Mozhan was very classy about it all.

They ended up not using a stunt double, so Arison took the swing at Spader. “James couldn’t have been more of a mensch that day,” Arison said. “He’s always wonderful, and was really supportive and we actually were able to do it in just a couple of takes.” Arison said he never thought Aram would get to do something like that, and he was so impressed with the show’s writers for “earning that moment” by putting Aram through an emotional wringer to get there.

While the duo feared for their lives as they investigated “Red” in the first part, by the end of the second part they had executed a secret plan that resulted in one of the world’s most wanted men being arrested while buying a pretzel. …

Variety: When did you first decide Red was heading to jail?

Bokenkamp: Very early this season. We didn’t know that’s where things would go at the end of last season, but it felt like such an organic direction for the show to take. …

Variety: With Red in jail, what happens to the task force?

Bokenkamp: Remember at this point the task force doesn’t know that Elizabeth Keen turned him in. They don’t know why she turned him in. They don’t even know that Red is not Red. So, we’re going to get to watch the task force catch up to this and have very specific, very different opinions about how they should proceed, how to move forward and what this means. …

Variety: Is the source of those cases still Reddington?

Bokenkamp: … The list remains strong. … One of the things that is important to point out is that more important to Reddington than being in jail is finding out who betrayed him. That weighs more heavily on him than surviving prison. Finding out who would turn him in and cross him in such a deep way is the promise of the season.

Variety: What kind of a timeline are you playing with for the upcoming trial?

Bokenkamp: It unfolds… We’ll get there. There are some prison stories that are important and first on the list, but yes, ultimately the legal proceedings of the world’s most wanted criminal being arrested while buying a pretzel become incredibly important, and I do think that one of the promises of this season is watching Spader play those scenes. Raymond Reddington would certainly have fun having a soap box to stand on in the courtroom and we will certainly take advantage of that.

Variety: Having previously said you like painting yourselves into corners, do you have the season’s endpoint in mind yet?

Bokenkamp: … We have answers. We have a list of endings, but we haven’t landed on which one, or how far we want to go versus how much we want to leave untapped. That’s what we’re still talking about. In terms of where it goes, the direction, there’s a very clear map that gives us all great comfort. …

Variety: Do you have a family tree to help you keep track?

Bokenkamp: Yes. Yes, there is. It’s not only a family tree, but there are bibles, there are documents, and there are a lot of very smart writers who have a deep mythology embedded in their brains. We oftentimes go to them to make sure we’re not contradicting ourselves and making sure we’re staying true to the mythology. It’s very important. A reveal like the end of last season, that Red isn’t Red? Rest assured that’s not something that we’re like, “Hey let’s try that, that will be fun.” That is something we’ve been working toward for five years and have asked a number of times when it’s the right time to unpack and reveal that. This is that time.

Variety: You hadn’t been renewed when you made that reveal, were you nervous to do it?

Bokenkamp: … [W]e decided to bet on the story and we bet on the people we work with and are collaborating with to push ahead. It would have been a terrible ending to the series. That’s it. He’s not him and there’s no answer. Everyone involved really felt like it was a good time to bet on ourselves and thank God that paid off.

Variety: Is that something you’re willing to do again or do you then go to your partners with a two- or three-season pitch?

Bokenkamp: It’s always a conversation. One of the greatest challenges is how much to unpack … I felt confident about our storytelling and our fan base and the trajectory we’re on. I really do think Season 6 has some of our best stuff yet and we’ve learned from mistakes we’ve made, but we’re staying true to a really compelling story that’s going to have a really unexpected, satisfying answer when we do get there, whenever that is.

Jon Bokenkamp: I can say with confidence he doesn’t know. … She has made the bold step to stay in charge, to stay in the driver’s seat and to run out this mystery. She knows to do that he has a lot of resources, so she has to sideline him. … It will create incredible tension between them and put her in a dangerous place. … I think it’s fair to say that at some point, he will figure that out. You can only imagine what that will do to this dynamic between Red and Liz. We’re entering uncharted waters and what they’re choosing to tell each other and how they’re reacting to this big reveal — that Red, in fact, is an impostor. …

ET: Liz has an incredibly emotional reaction to what she’s just done. There seems to be a mix of regret, sadness and guilt. What is going through her mind in that moment?

JB: … On the one hand, it’s a bold choice and a smart choice, but at the same time, it’s a dangerous choice and she knows that. Not only when he, will he find out, but there’s an emotional chink in her armor that has happened here because he has so much love for her. He has gone to the end of the Earth to protect her and to care for her and to teach her how to survive in this very dark world, and it’s changed her. … Partly what you’re seeing is a very conflicted Elizabeth Keen grappling with what all of this means, less so about turning him in and more so emotionally [about] what this means to her.

ET: Last May, you said that a major season six mystery would be unmasking the true identity of James Spader’s character and that it will play out over a long period of time, not necessarily a question answered this year. How closely are you sticking to that plan?

JB: Yeah. Identity is a driving force on the show and has been from the beginning. Who he is, why he stepped into her life six years ago and blew everything up is, was and continues to be a very central question. We will continue to answer it. … Yes, we will answer questions and we will find out more about his origin and the family dynamic and we will build that out this season, hopefully to a satisfying conclusion.

JB: I remember James said in season one, “When you know everything, the show is over.” You won’t know everything by the end of the season, but what you will be left with will be satisfying answers that stack up and make sense with everything we’ve learned from the past five seasons.

ET: How excited are you for fans to discover it when the time comes?

JB: Oh my god, absolutely. It’s something we’ve talked about daily on the show. If we didn’t have a very clear answer to what we were doing, it would be very difficult. I hope now that people can look back at the five years of clues that have pointed us toward this and realize that this isn’t something we’re just pulling out of our pocket … This is a very deliberately-plotted story that is unraveling slowly but is ultimately pointing us toward a truth that I think will be incredibly surprising.

At the end of the two-part season 6 premiere of NBC’s The Blacklist, Red tells Liz (Megan Boone) that he’ll stop at nothing to find out who caused his downfall. So clearly, he has no idea Liz is the one who gave him up in the first place — or does he? Executive producers Jon Bokenkamp and John Eisendrath break down this latest twist and tease the drama to come. (Spoiler alert: Red will find out, because he always does.) …

Eisendrath: By the end of the episode, the audience knows that Liz turned in Red, and that Red has pledged to identify and kill the person who turned him in. This sets up a season-long ticking clock — with Red gradually getting closer to the truth, and Liz doing whatever she can to hide it. Eventually Red will learn that Liz betrayed him — which will put his pledge to murder his betrayer to the test. [Note: Red didn’t say he would murder his betrayer; he said “I’d say it depends.” …

Eisendrath: … [A]s weird as so much of what he says is, the UN speech is a really good example of how [Red] ultimately believes himself to be very moral and to have a very clear vision of how the world should be. [Laughs] He has a very clear vision of what he thinks right and wrong is, but he just expresses it in very unusual ways.

Bokenkamp: … What’s [it’s] going to be like, to watch [Red] navigate the prison system and the court system, having all of his resources stripped away? It gives us a really fresh, unique window into this world that we love writing about.

Collider: I also love how, in Season 6, you can say, “You know that Raymond Reddington that you’ve been following all of this time, well he’s not actually Raymond Reddington.” That’s cool and risky.

Bokenkamp: … This is somebody who we’ve gotten to know so well and who we think we know so much about, but every time we get closer to the truth and every time we get another answer, we find that we know less than we knew before, which is part of the joy of the character. …

Collider: … When did you know that he was not really Raymond Reddington?

Bokenkamp: We, the writers, have known from the beginning, and James [Spader] has known from the beginning. It’s something that he’s had in the back of his mind, as far as the ultimate identity of this person that he’s playing. … [I]t creates a really unique dynamic, not only now, but if and when Reddington eventually finds out that she knows. He may not let her know that he knows. There’s this fun chess match that’s going on between those two characters while everything appears to be business as usual. We, the audience and Liz, know that it’s anything but.

Collider: You said that James Spader was aware of this secret, but at what point did you let Megan Boone know what was going on?

Bokenkamp: All of the actors on the show will tell you that they don’t really know what’s coming until the next script comes out, and it’s often a work in progress. … [P]art of what’s interesting is that she’s finding out the truth along with the character.

Collider: … Why was now the right time to get into this aspect of the story?

Bokenkamp: … One of the things that I’m most proud of, in terms of what our writers do and the way in which we tell the story, is that we decided that we were not going to write a “what if we’re canceled” episode. We were not going to write a half-way version of the show that could have been the resolution of our series because it wasn’t. … The truth is that, once we know who Reddington is, and we know why he entered Liz’s life, then the story is over. Only then, is the story told.

Collider: I’m definitely glad that you have another season because this is a really exciting direction to go with the story, and I’m excited to see how it plays out.

Bokenkamp: It was a little spooky. It felt like a bold decision. It felt like a bit of a nail-biter. Can you imagine, if that was our ending of the series? But we had faith in it, and we also had faith in our partners at the studio and the network. I do feel like our stories are as good as when we began, and I’m really excited about the stories that we have coming up in Season 6. They’re really unique and different, and just as fresh as we’ve ever been.

Collider: It seems like Liz and Jennifer (Fiona Dourif) are still really getting to know each other and feel each other out. How different from each other are they, and how similar are they?

Bokenkamp: It’s interesting, remember Elizabeth Keen and Jennifer are half-sisters. They have different mothers. Elizabeth Keen’s mother is Katarina Rostova and Jennifer’s mother is Naomi Hyland, so they have different mothers, but they share a father. They are both the daughter of Raymond Reddington. They both realize that this man who they’ve come to know as Raymond Reddington is not Raymond Reddington. Liz being the FBI agent who has come up through the law, approaches things out of instinct, which is very different from Jennifer who came up in the witness protection program, hiding from the most wanted man in America. Her mother died because of some incidents that went down because of Reddington. They come at this story from very different perspectives, and yet they are united and bound together, in the most fundamental way. That makes for a very unexpected and emotional story.

“That’s something that I hope the audience understands,” says Blacklist creator Jon Bokenkamp, “is that Spader, this impostor, this person who has taken the identity of Reddington, has probably lived as Reddington longer than Reddington ever did, and was far more interesting, and far more dangerous, and far more funny, and is the guy that we want to watch.” Or as Spader himself puts it in the season’s sneak peek, “The Raymond Reddington that everybody’s become familiar with over the last five and a half years is considerably more Raymond Reddington than the Raymond Reddington was 30 years ago. They wouldn’t have made a TV show about that guy.”

I think that it’s certainly a very strange turn of events, and I’m sorry to be so guarded, but for five and a half seasons, I have had such great difficulty talking about specifics in our show without revealing things that one should wait to see for themselves. But I will say that the sea change that happened again at the end of last season, the extent of that doesn’t really become clear until the beginning of this season.

By the second or third episode, that sea change really reverses direction or becomes an even larger swell….

To what do you ascribe the show’s longevity?

The 100th episode, for me, was interesting, because it fell halfway through our season last year. The halfway point in a season feels like you’re standing on top of a hill, and you can see where you started, and you can see where you’re going to end, but also there’s a certain satisfaction in telling that much story. …

I’ve been very lucky in that the television work that I’ve done has always had an overriding arc that not only the character, but also the story, is heading in. Even if the episodes are entities unto themselves, they fit into a larger story, and that certainly has been probably most acute in The Blacklist, and because of that, there’s a great satisfaction in covering as much ground as we have.

I don’t often look back and reflect on what’s come before. My eyes are certainly moving forward, but on our show one has to do that every so often to really be connected to where we’re standing on the long and circuitous path that we’ve been on since the beginning of the show. There’s a great satisfaction to how circuitous that path has been to get us where we are today.

Is there something that you’re good at besides acting?

The thing that I’m maybe best at is living life. I enjoy my life immensely. I’m very lucky to have a wonderful life that I cherish, and so I try and do my best at that, and that’s inclusive of family, friends, your own feeling of well-being and work.

“These are two women who have very different backgrounds,” series creator Jon Bokenkamp reminds us. “Jennifer was just short of living in hiding in a witness protection program. Liz was becoming a law enforcement agent. They have different mothers. But they do share Raymond Reddington as a father. They both believed that this man was Raymond Reddington. There’s this betrayal that has bonded them, these two very different people.”

… Bokenkamp hints that “the way in which they will choose to run down this story is not always going to be the same. They may not always agree.”

“It’s probably important to point out that while Jennifer has no real law enforcement experience, Liz not only is an FBI agent, she’s an FBI agent who has arced dark, believing that Raymond Reddington is her father for the past five years,” Bokenkamp teases. “I mean, she stewed somebody last season. The way in which they navigate this story together is going to be fun to watch.”

TVInsider: So it’s safe to say that he is not Raymond Reddington and this isn’t a misdirect?
Jon Bokenkamp: I think it’s safe to say that, yes.

TVI: What about the paternity issue — is there any chance that he could still be Liz Keen’s father?
JB: I think that’s hard to coexist with that we’ve laid out. Harold Cooper did a blood test. So the idea that this is a misdirect, that he’s really her father, I think that’s sort of hard to align with what we’ve laid out.

TVI:… [W]ill we find out more about why he’s so emotionally attached to her?
JB: I think his emotional attachment to her is one of the more disturbing and strange and surreal things that Liz is trying to wrap her head around. I think that’s a real betrayal, in a way.

I remember talking to James [Spader] when we had just finished shooting the pilot and we sort of landed on the idea that what’s fun about this character is that he’s a real enigma. …

TVI: He’s been living in this identity for 30 years. Is there anyone who knows Red’s true identity?
JB: There certainly were. There were people who figured it out, as we saw tonight — Tom, Mr. Kaplan — most of those people have died but is there somebody out there who might know? That’s probably fair to say yes. Or even if they’re not aware of who he is or what his motivations are, that they might be able to pull the thread of the truth that would be threatening to him in away that he would not like.

TVI: Dembe seemed to have some issues with Red’s behavior in tonight’s episode. Could he be one of those people who knows the truth about him?
JB: Dembe and Reddington have an incredibly close relationship — Dembe may be the closest person to him. What he knows, I don’t know that I want to speak to that. But I think that Dembe has a very specific moral compass that’s not always in line with Reddington’s. …

TVI: Will we now see Liz move on romantically?
JB: I think that’s definitely a possibility. …

EW: Did Spader know? Did the cast?
JB: Yes, James has known and it’s something we’ve talked extensively about. … [T]he thing I want to point out is that it doesn’t change tuning in to watch Spader be Raymond Reddington. He’s lived as Raymond Reddington long enough to be this person, right? He has told great stories, he has had great experiences, he’s become a world-class criminal and probably become a far more interesting person than the real Raymond Reddington ever dreamed of becoming.

… We wanted to somehow hold on to that concept, that Reddington should be somebody who, once you think you understand who he is, you realize you know nothing about him. I think tonight is an example obviously of how we have tried to stay true to that, that he’s a very enigmatic figure that is a bit of a shape-shifter. … [S]omething that we spend a lot of time in the room talking about [is] making sure that we’re staying true to the mythology and playing fair with the audience.

Our cliffhanger at the end of the season is a cliffhanger. It is a big answer and it is a big question that is gonna push us forward. We have no choice but to write the story that we’re telling, and I’m optimistic and hopeful that we’ll come back. If not, maybe I’ll go do the finale as puppet theater at a community theater somewhere. But there’s no version of this where we say, ‘Well, here’s maybe our series finale.’ We’re not in that business.

… The Blacklist has never been short on exciting stories, and after five seasons, the series’ creator is promising that will not change. His optimism is also a strong indication that the show’s chances for renewal are in the black. It is hard to imagine NBC letting The Blacklist go. The show has a strong fan following after 100 episodes and it is still delivering at a high creative level. That is not common for a show that has run as long as it has.

TVGuide: Let’s talk about Liz’s transformation. …
JB: … I think we’ve seen her change, we’ve seen her do things that are a little more mischievous, even in the last episode she was hijacking information from an Internal Affairs investigation. She’s certainly crossing more lines, she’s murdered people [laughs]. The propensity for darkness and that compulsion that she feels is something that is incredibly dangerous and has Red worried for this person he cares deeply about….

TVGuide: …[A] few episodes ago we saw Liz get rough with Red, which is something we don’t see too much of. Is that a precursor to a showdown between those two in these final episodes
JB: … She feels pushed, she feels cornered, she feels like she’s not getting answers. She’s not going to be pushed around by a man who is hiding something. …

TVGuide: Any other things you’d like viewers to know about the big episode this week?
JB: … In Episode 514, we met Raleigh Sinclair, played by John Noble, who is a man who is very good at creating alibis. And it’s time that Red calls in a favor of a man who can hopefully assist him in pulling off a heist. …

The ultimate showdown between Red and Ian Garvey will come to a head this week on The Blacklist — but it will lead to an even greater threat.

During Wednesday’s hour, Red (James Spader) makes a play to retrieve the duffel bag, forcing a face-off with Garvey (Jonny Coyne) that will definitely give viewers resolution. After all, the episode is called “Ian Garvey: Conclusion.”

Ever since Tom’s death, Red and Garvey have been circling each other, wary to make a move for fear of mutual destruction. “Ian Garvey knows that if he kills Reddington, he may never really understand the contents of this bag,” Bokenkamp says. “Raymond Reddington knows that if he kills Ian Garvey, he may never get to this bag, so they’ve been in a bit of a détente, and that détente is going to end. …”

“The ball to keep your eye on is Elizabeth Keen and her deep, deep desire to avenge her husband’s death,” Bokenkamp says. “We now have a character who went from a first-day-on-the-job FBI profiler in the pilot of the show who has now murdered and burned and stewed people, and she’s not going to be stopped. …

You’d think that as we get closer to the end of another season of The Blacklist, the show would start paving the way to wrap up some of the season-long stories. But nope. Things just got a lot more complicated in this week’s episode as Liz (Megan Boone) discovered another big family secret.

Let’s get right to it: Liz just met Red’s other long-lost daughter (Fiona Dourif)! Liz found the woman, who goes by the name of Lilly but is actually the previously mentioned Jennifer Reddington, by following bad dude Ian Garvey (Jonny Coyne), who apparently visits Lilly just about every day even though it’s way out of his way.

After Liz brought Lilly in for questioning, Lilly said Garvey became her surrogate dad and watches out for her to keep her safe from her biological father. That’s when she admitted that her real dad was one of the FBI’s most wanted, Red Reddington (James Spader).

TV Guide: How are you going to use Lilly moving forward in these final episodes?

Jon Bokenkamp: … [W]e meet a new character who potentially has deep information about Raymond Reddington and who he is and why he maybe disappeared or why he came into Liz’s life. …

TV Guide: Should we be referring to her as Lilly or as Jennifer then?

Bokenkamp: Bokenkamp: Let’s refer to her as Jennifer.

TV Guide: Works for me. Jennifer believes that Garvey is protecting her from Red. How close to the truth is that? Or is she being manipulated on Garvey’s side as well?

Bokenkamp: I think that’s the question she’s going to be asking herself. … What the hell is going on? Why has Ian Garvey, a U.S. Marshal, been sitting on a truth that he knows; the contents of the duffle bag and the identity of that skeleton, and why it’s so important. If he knows this truth, why not go to the newspapers, why not go to the FBI, why not leverage Reddington for money or power? He doesn’t want any of those, and I think that the introduction of this new young woman shines a spotlight on perhaps why, what his real agenda is, and what he’s after. It’s probably far more dangerous for Reddington than money or leverage or being threatened or turned over to the FBI. It’s a story that has deep roots in the mythology of the show. …

TV Guide: Does she have some connection to the bag of bones?

Bokenkamp: Bokenkamp: I don’t think so, I think she’s caught completely off guard. She’s working at a bar pulling beers and going about her life. At least that’s the way she presents. We will see how that plays out, but I don’t think we need to be super suspicious of her.

TV Guide: There’s been a lot of withholding information by characters to use as leverage over each other in The Blacklist, and Liz is sitting on a goldmine with Jennifer. What will Liz do with the knowledge of Jennifer’s whereabouts?

Bokenkamp: … [T]his isn’t just about secrets or about a duffle bag, this is about a husband who was murdered. What started off as fairly light with Reddington being broke and trying to rebuild his empire and finally having his daughter at his side, is now a very different season at this point. She’s lost her husband, her child has been sent away, and her father is insisting to keep this private. I would not underestimate Liz at all, and I think we’ve seen her with her therapist, sort of bringing her into her tent as an ally, like Red has allies, like Kaplan or Dembe. …

… In the final moments of Wednesday’s episode of The Blacklist, Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) learned a long-lost family secret that will throw a major wrench in her plans: She has a sister. Jaw, meet floor.

The revelation comes unexpectedly for Liz, who tracks Ian Garvey’s whereabouts to an out-of-the-way Parisian restaurant, which leads her to a young female employee with whom he has a friendly rapport. Looking for answers, she approaches the young woman named Lilly (Fiona Dourif) in an attempt to get her to help take down Garvey, the man responsible for Tom’s murder. After Liz shows Lilly every clue she’s rustled up against Garvey so far, Liz discovers there’s more to Lilly than meets the eye. Turns out, she’s been in Witness Protection for most of her life and is, wait for it, also Raymond Reddington’s (James Spader) daughter. Her real name? Jennifer.

“This reveal that Lilly is Liz’s sister has been something we’ve been sitting on for a long time,” creator Jon Bokenkamp tells ET. “This is somebody who can upend things potentially in a very dangerous way for Reddington.” In the second season, fans may remember meeting Naomi Hyland (Mary-Louise Parker), Red’s ex-wife from his pre-crime days, where it was established that the couple had a daughter named Jennifer. After Reddington fled, Naomi and Jennifer were forced to relocate and give up everything they’d ever known. Up until this point, it was unclear what had happened to Jennifer. Now, we have the answers.

“They were estranged. He was searching for her. He wanted to reach out to her and make contact, and this woman, Jennifer, wanted nothing to do with Reddington. She’s been living in hiding and trying to have a life outside of his shadow, which is very difficult to do,” Bokenkamp says. “We knew that this season would ultimately point us to a very emotional and character-driven place because it continues to be even more of a family drama in a strange way.”

[Jon Bokenkamp]: “Liz is going to embrace this relationship, but not because she’s trying to get close to somebody she loves because of the familial relationship. She views it as potential ammunition against Reddington in what is continuing to be a bigger and bigger divide between the two characters.”

With Liz and Reddington on a collision course to get to Garvey (each for very different reasons: Liz wants to expose the truth in the bag of bones, while Reddington wants to shield it), “the larger question of who these bones belong to and what they mean is something that is going to fuel a good conflict between the two leads,” Bokenkamp hints.

“Jennifer opens a window to a larger version of the truth. She has a different perspective on who Ian Garvey is. She has a much deeper understanding of this man and has answers, potentially, that Liz knows nothing about,” Bokenkamp says. “To all of a sudden meet somebody from 30 years ago who has a history with Reddington, forgetting that she’s her sister, this is somebody who has, potentially, information. The idea that it might shift our perspective on who Garvey is, is an interesting one. That’s what Liz is leading with. She’s filled with questions for this young woman.”…

Now that Liz is a step ahead of Reddington in their race, the re-emergence of Jennifer into the picture will “bring up questions of [Liz’s] own morality,” Bokenkamp says, “of what she’s willing to do, of what line she’s willing to cross and uncover this larger truth that Reddington is determined to keep a secret.”

As the FBI headed to Paris to arrest Ian Garvey’s drug supplier, Liz Keen decided to stay behind in a bid to take down Garvey himself. Liz discovered that Garvey would drive an hour to Baltimore just to nurse a beer at a bar, after which he’d bid farewell to a mysterious woman named Lillian.

Why is she so important to him? According to Lillian, Ian has been protecting her from her real father: Raymond Reddington. …

EW: This woman says she’s the daughter of Raymond Reddington. She certainly believes it’s true, but should we believe it’s the truth?

Jon Bokenkamp: It is most likely the truth. Viewers might remember that as far back as season 2, we had introduced a character whose name was Jennifer Reddington and who was MIA. Reddington was looking for her. The woman’s mother, Naomi Hyland, played by Mary-Louise Parker, was protecting her and wanted nothing to do with Reddington. Reddington had no access, no way to contact her and couldn’t find her. And so there is a character out there who we know to be Reddington’s daughter and this woman, it seems that her foot may fit the slipper.

EW: So technically she would be Liz’s half-sister?

Jon Bokenkamp: Yes, that’s right. We know that Raymond Reddington is the father of Jennifer Reddington and the father of Elizabeth Keen. We know that Jennifer’s mother is Naomi Hyland, who was Raymond Reddington’s wife. And we know that Elizabeth Keen’s mother was Katarina Rostova, the other woman and the notorious spy presumed dead.

EW: Why has Ian Garvey been protecting Jennifer all these years?

Jon Bokenkamp: … [H]is relationship with Jennifer, his relationship with Tom Keen, who he murdered, his relationship with Liz, all of those are going to sort of snap into focus in the next episode.

EW: How will Jennifer react to the news that Liz is her sister, but also that Red has basically found her?

Jon Bokenkamp: … What will Liz and Jennifer’s dynamic be like? She could be incredibly dangerous. She knows potentially truths about who Raymond Reddington is. She knows why he stepped out of her life and yet she’s been completely disconnected for years. She’s sort of a grab bag of answers. How emotionally dangerous she might be, she certainly has a different perspective about Raymond Reddington than Elizabeth Keen does. She hates the man. …

EW: What will Liz and Jennifer’s dynamic be like?

Jon Bokenkamp: … I’m sure it will be incredibly dysfunctional and strangely dark and full of surprises. We’re not interested in telling the reunion story of the two sisters who are gonna get to know each other. It is gonna be one that is fraught with questions and answers, and it’s gonna weirdly answer a lot of questions that we’ve had for quite some time. I think Liz is seeing Jennifer a little bit less a sister and more as an asset or a chip to play.

… Red appears to have another daughter, whose godfather is none other than Ian Garvey (Jonny Coyne). He’s the corrupt U.S. Marshall who stole the mysterious bones, fatally wounding Red’s other daughter Liz Keen’s (Megan Boone) husband Tom in the process.

TVInsider: After hints several years ago, it turns out that Red does have another daughter — a waitress who goes by the name Lilly!

Jon Bokenkamp: He does. We’ve been hinting at a character whose real name is Jennifer since Season 2; a potential daughter of Red’s ex-wife, played by Mary Louise Parker, living in Witness Protection. His ex was hiding her, she claimed, because Red had destroyed their lives by becoming this international criminal. If this is that daughter, that would certainly throw a wrench in the mechanism that is the Reddington empire.

TVInsider: So we are led to believe this Lilly is Red’s daughter.

Bokenkamp: … All arrows point to this moment, which will have a significant impact on the show… Everything that we’ve learned about Liz and Red and the origins of his character will soon be brought into sharp focus.

TVInsider: Is Parker’s character [Carla Reddington, later Naomi Hyland under WitSec] definitely the mother?

Bokenkamp: … All of these questions about who Lilly really is — where she has been, her paternity, her relationship to Elizabeth Keen — are keys to the back part of the season that open an interesting door into the show’s mythology.

TVInsider: Did Red know Garvey’s in touch with Jennifer aka Lilly?

Bokenkamp: Reddington’s other daughter is somebody who he has been searching for for a long time and [he’s] been unable to find. She was outside of his reach, apparently, until now. Garvey’s an enigma to Reddington, who, like the audience, is trying to figure what this guy knows. …

TVInsider: [A] benign interest would be shocking, considering who Garvey is.

Bokenkamp: True. He may be a U.S. Marshall, but he’s an incredibly corrupt man who is in bed with international drug traffickers. …

TVInsider: The April 25 episode is titled “Ian Garvey.” That would mean he’s the blacklister whose story is usually wound up in the episode bearing his or her name.

Bokenkamp: We do call it “Ian Garvey Conclusion.” Usually, we do these two-parters with our Big Bad. This is a conclusion of that story — perhaps not the entire conclusion. We will have answers about who Garvey is, why he cares so deeply about these bones, and why he’s been sitting on this information. So yes, we have big answers coming in the next episode. Reddington will try to bring Garvey out of the shadows into some kind of trap. It will be super fun.

The character of Jennifer Reddington was first mentioned three years ago, but has never physically surfaced — despite Red dedicating his resources to find her — until now. She showed up in the final scene of “Zarak Mosadek” as Lilly (Fiona Dourif), the woman Liz (Megan Boone) witnessed Garvey going out of his way to visit at a hot wings place. Liz brought Lilly to her apartment to question her about what she knew, but was in for a shock herself when she realized the person she was interrogating was her half-sister.

Variety: The audience has known for a long time that Red has another daughter, but how long have you planned for her to be tied to Ian Garvey?

Jon Bokenkamp: Really all season. When we created Ian Garvey we knew he wouldn’t just be some bad guy, he would have to be somebody who mattered in some way. … [W]e wanted it to ultimately become an emotional story. It’s going to be really compelling. This new character that we meet as Lilly is a key that is going to unlock a pretty cool door into the mythology of the show. …

Variety: How do you go about conceptualizing a “big bad” of that magnitude compared to other Blacklisters?

Bokenkamp: What we always think is interesting, whether it’s Alexander Kirk [Ulrich Thomsen] or Mr. Kaplan [Susan Blommaert] or even Berlin [Peter Stormare] from season 2, these people aren’t usually just bad guys who want money and guns and power. They ultimately turn out to be fairly small stories — intimate stories about people — about family and about their history. So, in terms of building Garvey, that is a character that we knew he was a US marshal, we knew he was incredibly corrupt and incredibly well connected, and that he didn’t know the whole story. Like our audience he’s trying desperately to figure out what the hell is going on. In terms of really building him out, Johnny Coyne is somebody we looked at even as early as the pilot. We almost cast him as the character named Ranko Zamani [Jamie Jackson]. He was the first Blacklister and we thought he would be great but for whatever reason it didn’t work out, and as we were casting this we landed on Johnny Coyne. I called him and we had a great conversation and we were lucky enough in this case to write to, and for, and with that actor, which is something you don’t always have the opportunity to do because the casting process is often very late. He’s somebody we’ve liked for a long time; we think he’s got a great presence, he’s super specific and he has been a great addition to the show. …

Variety: Could this reveal create a bigger wedge between Liz and Red?

Bokenkamp: I think so. The blush that came off at the beginning of the season was this acceptance that this man is her father. … What we’ve seen over and over throughout the course of the season is that Reddington is only able to share so much. … He said early on that there’s always going to be things he’s not telling her. And I think that is what is becoming increasingly difficult for Liz. That is also insanely compacted by the fact that her husband was murdered in search of this truth. That was the early turning point. That’s where a lot of this darkness came from. The moment Tom died everything changed for Liz. It’s increasingly difficult for her to understand why Reddington is trying to keep the contents of this duffel bag so private. …

Variety: Have you created signposts for future seasons at this point or do you take it year by year?

Bokenkamp: In the same way we look at a season, we’ve thought about the whole series and we’ve had conversations with everyone involved. We definitely have an end game in mind, but we’re certainly in no race to get there. … You can look back at the show, specifically with Wednesday’s episode, and we’ve introduced a character that we introduced three years ago. Oftentimes these things take time. We don’t always know exactly when that character’s going to reemerge or where that storyline will come back, but there is a bible in our writers room that tracks every character, every plotline. If we didn’t have our endgame in mind it would be very difficult to tell the story we’re telling.

What is your favorite part of doing TV that’s different from theatre?
Craft services. But in all seriousness, besides the endless food, with TV I don’t get a chance to overthink for too long. We shoot it, maybe get a couple takes, and that’s it. You don’t get to do it again the next day. In theatre, during a run or even during a long rehearsal process, my brain can start eating itself: endlessly mining the role to perhaps a counterproductive point, constantly analyzing why this moment worked one night and not the other. In that way, I have a certain mental freedom in TV. lso the pace and pressure of TV production demands me to kick into gear, there is literally no time to overthink. And you get one three-minute blocking rehearsal, if that. You have to be beyond ready. You can get new pages and scenes you might have to deliver the next morning at 6AM. That type of pressure cooker forces me to go, and I find I can sometimes thrive in that situation. TV is a lot about your initial instincts.

You’ve worked with directors like James Lapine and Michael Greif. What’s something you learned from each of those directors that you’ve taken with you to next jobs?
Michael Greif [once told me], “Amir, its not about what they’re doing, it’s about what can you do.” Basically, never get hung up on what anyone else might be doing at anytime. Find a way to bring your character’s response/tactic etc. no matter what. I remember how clear and direct he said it. It’s simple, but it stayed with me, and that concept has grown for me in TV. No matter what’s happening, say yes, it can be quite fun, with endless discoveries.

Shot in New York, the Sony Pictures TV series revolves around Spader as a former international criminal mastermind who is persuaded by the FBI to help catch the worst of the worst, aka “Blacklisters.” There’s a caper-of-the-week aspect to each episode and a larger mythology involving the core characters that unfolds in fits and starts. That mix keeps things interesting for Spader, who is known as an actor’s actor.

“I look at our series as strange bedfellows in that it’s this serialized story that’s married to a procedural,” Spader says. “Sometimes they are wonderful bedfellows and sometimes they are strange bedfellows. It think it’s one of the secrets to the success of the show. The procedural aspect of the show allows for the serialized aspect to take a rest, take a breath for a while.”

… [T]he show is seen in more than 175 countries.

“I have never worked on anything in my life that has had a broader demographic than ‘The Blacklist.’ Not even close,” Spader says. “This show is watched by people who are 7 years old to 90 years old, from every single cultural and economic background and nationality. It just has been staggering.”

But Cooper has bent the rules before, and he’ll have to do it again. The question may be, “How will Cooper justify [handling Liz] to himself, but I think he’ll find a way,” Lennix says.

“I’m very pleased with this particular episode, not because of what number it is, but it just is a very fun story,” [Spader] says. “My great friend Andrew McCarthy is directing it, and Nathan Lane, another friend, is guest-starring with us, and I just happen to like the episode. Our seasons have their hills and valleys in terms of emotion and story. We have some episodes that are very dark and very intense and dramatic, and there are other ones that are lighter and fun. Here we are, we’re in the 11th episode, we’re halfway through the season, and this episode is just that: It’s got a lot of fun to be had in it.”

… But Liz will take a dark path during the hour, using what she’s learned from past blacklisters to handle a very, ahem, precarious situation. It’s a wild departure from the Liz Keen viewers first met in the pilot — and an evolution her portrayer has also undergone.

“I went into an experience as one person, and I’m finding I’ll probably come out a very different person,” Boone says. “I went from an actress who was not well-known and who nobody recognized or knew my name, and that changed overnight. The landscape of television has changed so much since I started the show. So, it’s been quite an adventure in many ways.”

“Four and a half years have already gone by, and I feel like this has been such a uniquely gigantic experience that I’ve changed as a result,” Boone continues. “For me, personally, that’s what it feels like, and for me as a member of a group of people who accomplished this together … ”

Mr. Spader’s befuddlement is hardly surprising given a series known for its byzantine story lines and frenetic shooting schedule.

What’s required to keep a show going for that long?

As many twists and turns as one can provide. When I first read the script, at the end I realized I knew less about the character than when I first started reading. And I thought, “What a great trick that is” — to retain a certain enigmatic aspect. It felt like the premise was perfectly suited to go in any direction and somehow find its way back on track again. …

Is there a turn you’d to see Red take?

A surprising one. … [B]efore I did “Boston Legal,” I had no understanding of what it was like for a viewer to look forward to finding out what was going to happen the next week. There will be an episode of “The Blacklist” that is just fun and another that is very intense and then another that is rather ruthless and brutal. I still love the element of surprise, even for myself.

You often play the provocateur, and people tend to assume you are your characters.

My career had been split pretty evenly between good guys and bad guys until I finally grew into myself enough to play a decent antihero, where you can combine the two. …

Were you surprised to read that Charlie Rose was accused of asking a female employee to watch “Secretary,” your movie of a sadomasochistic relationship, with him?

Somebody sent me that, and I don’t know whether they thought it was strange and funny or something, but I am not finding anything funny about any of it. … [T]he level of aggression and exploitation has been overwhelming.

I rarely get to ask a man about sexual harassment in Hollywood.

It’s a little like asking someone their perspective when they’re in the middle of a flood, you know what I mean? I feel like the floodwaters are rising. And I’m a little bit ashamed to say that I’m finding that the most important things being said on this subject are being said by females, not by males. I think that men should think hard and listen carefully and perhaps we’ll learn a thing or two. …

As Season 5 progresses, she and Red (James Spader) will work together to find Tom’s killers, but she’ll also find out some upsetting stuff about Red’s role in his death and the secrets her father and her husband were keeping from her. And it will all culminate in the reveal of whose bones are in that suitcase, which in turn will reveal more about Red than anything previously seen on The Blacklist. …

TVGuide: … What can you tell us about what’s coming up?

JB: In general, we left with the tragic death of Tom, and the question of who killed him and what is in that suitcase and who is in that suitcase are going to frame the rest of the season. We are going to answer both questions in the balance of the back half of the season. …

TVGuide: How will the loss of Tom affect Liz and her relationship with Red?

JE: The audience … know[s] that [Tom]’s been interacting with Red. Liz is going to catch up during the course of the back half of the season, and that is going to be very emotional for her, both learning that Tom was engaged in yet another secret quest, after all the other secret quests that he had kept from her that she had thought were in their past. And then, to discover that Red is involved — … [I]t’s going to deeply affect her relationship with Red, when she realizes that all of the events that led up to Tom’s death have, once again, to do almost entirely with secrets that Red is keeping from her.

JB: Jon Bokenkamp: I think she’s also grappling — … [Liz] knows that within her is sort of the same DNA of Reddington. Some of those dark tendencies. She murdered the attorney general a couple years ago. And so this is a person who knows she has a capacity to do things that cross lines. I think she really is sort of self-aware of that and trying to hold herself together and stay above the fray when we come back. That struggle, I think, is going to be a compelling part of the back half of the season. …

TVGuide: Anything else you can tease about the back half of the season?

JE: We are fairly confident and believe that the cliffhanger of this season is the most revelatory one regarding Red that we have had the entire series.
TVGuide: Is that tied back to what you said about the suitcase revelation?

JE: Yep.
JB: Yep. It’s gonna be fun.

CB: Right know, Liz has revenge for what happened to Tom to motivate her, but what happens when that’s not there anymore?
MB: I don’t think there’s any going back, from all that Liz has been through and from all the revelations from throughout the series. Liz is on a journey. She’s the one who has an arc and is changing, throughout the course of the series. So, we’re not ever going to see her return to anything that we recognize. She’s always gotta move forward and go deeper and deeper into a fatalistic future. There was nothing she could do about the burden that was put on her, at first. That’s what she’s dealing with. And I don’t even know if I would be capable, strangely enough, of being the Megan Boone that played Elizabeth Keen, in the first season. …

CB: What have you most enjoyed about the evolution of the relationship between Liz and Red, over the seasons, and how have you found the journey between you and James Spader, as actors?
MB: If you ask James, it would probably be very different. James came into this as James Spader, and I came into this as, “Who?!” They basically pulled me off the street to do a television show, and then I got there and was like, “Wait! This is really hard!” There was such a stark difference between our positions in life. Now, we’re both the leads of the show and it’s five seasons in, and I feel like I’ve really taken my space, in a way that I didn’t feel ready to do before. That’s where I stand with the whole thing. I just feel much more confident and settled, as far as comparing myself to when I began this experience. …

TVGuide: Red has some interesting parting words for Liz. He said, “Will you be able to forgive yourself?” What do you think he meant by that? 
Boone: Liz has never been able to forgive herself. Liz blames herself for Red does, Liz blames herself for things that Tom does. So that’s a crazy question to pose, because Liz is the ultimate taker of blame. She is. She needn’t be, she’s probably of all the people has the purest of intention, not anymore, but up until this point, until the point she snapped. She’s a good person at heart. I think ultimately this new psychological space she inhabits is going to make it a little easier for her to forgive herself, because I don’t think she has the same moral compass she once had.

Fans of the show will notice that the episode is titled, “Ruin,” rather than the name of the week’s blacklister. “The title breaks from our Blacklist formula, because the episode breaks from it,” said Boone. “Something very different sets Liz off in a totally new direction for the rest of the season and series.”

As committed as Boone is to The Blacklist and Liz, she is also fierce advocate for the environment. In fact, she is working on getting her MBA in Sustainability at Bard. Plus she is advocating for environmental policy change when she can and investigating ways to create mass market entertainment while in service to our ideal ecosystem. To that end, she created the fundraising project Caroline Agnes.  “I have to do my best to alleviate the suffering of my daughter’s generation,” said Boone, whose daughter Caroline will be two in April. …

Brunner: How do you see that Liz has changed over the years?

Boone: She is capable now. Early in the series Liz’s strongest quality was that she was persistent. She was deceived often, but kept at it. She always went back to Red or Tom and burrowed down deeper into their lives, and put them right at the center of her own life in order to find answers she felt she needed. She’s a bit more torched earth about getting what she needs now.

Brunner: What qualities do you love about Liz?

Boone: Her best qualities are that she is loyal and dedicated. I hate those qualities for her, though, because they often get in the way of Liz making a more interesting decision or even worse they keep her from taking care of herself. So the quality I actually love is that she does things that are completely surprising every so often.

Boone: Saying goodbye to Ryan was more challenging, I have to say. But it was also bittersweet. I mean, it’s not like I’m never going to see him again, but it was really… we’ve never said goodbye to such an essential character on the show, so that was hard. But shooting this episode was actually wonderful for me. This is the kind of work I’ve always wanted to do, and it’s really more in line with the way I feel comfortable as an actor than the entire series [has been]. I feel like for four-and-a-half years, I’ve been really stretching myself to try to get to what the show is. And so this, it felt like I was able to kind of return to myself, and do what I really love to do. And so in that sense, it was actually a joy. And, yes, of course it was challenging, but there was something so just absolutely wonderful about it. …

[T]his was the turn that I think I certainly, as an actor playing her, have been really wanting to see — and I am certain the audience as well… that she’s taking authority over her life, and she’s choosing to outsmart anyone who gets in her way. … Liz has abandoned her life, she’s living in obscurity, no one in the neighboring town knows very much about her. They know her by this pseudonym, Grace. And then she’s suddenly trapped by this extreme weather event with this threatening group of travelers who stumbled upon her cabin, and she’s forced to fight for her life. And she does it in a way that even surprises the audience, let alone these men who made the mistake of trying to put her in a corner.

Yahoo: Does this episode feel like a reboot for Liz?

Boone: … I made sure not to suddenly put the Liz costume back on, and maintain the… go back to the old rhythms. I tried to bring the rhythms from [this episode] into the rest of this back end of Season 5, so we can still feel this very internal, brooding quality throughout the rest of this series.

… She is willing to face the extraordinary circumstances of her life. And she’s willing to live in the anger and pain that [those circumstances] caused. And I think for a very long time, we saw our Liz Keen, who was fighting bad and in denial of it, but now she’s looking right down the barrel of it, and she’s activated. …

“The producers wanted to do an episode that was really cinematic, that stood alone and centered on Liz as she experiences life after Tom’s death, which gives it this very reflective tone and really breaks away from the formula from The Blacklist and solving cases,” Boone says. “I am just really grateful that they took the time to give Liz an episode to process the whole experience. …

While Boone continues to lead The Blacklist alongside James Spader, she’s using the rare off-day from filming to return to the classroom, spending her time working toward a Masters degree in sustainability at Bard College in New York City. A vocal advocate for action on climate change, the mother of one and founder of the earth-friendly toddler label Caroline Agnes (a combination of her 20-month-old daughter and Liz’s daughter’s names) was inspired to educate herself on an issue she’s passionate about. …

In fact, the winter premiere, “Ruin,” is The Blacklist’s most unique episode to date, changing up the series’ typical formula in a big way. Gone is the Blacklister of the week, and in is — well, we can’t spoil you other than to say things are intense. To get more info on the game-changing episode, TV Guide spoke to Megan Boone about how Liz has changed since Tom’s death, how the tone of “Ruin” sets the stage for the rest of the series and whether Liz is picking up on her dad’s criminal habits.

TVGuide: [W]hat can you tell fans about the episode?

Megan Boone: … It’s a turning point in the series. I mean, the title is “Ruin.” Normally our titles are Blacklisters. We’ve actually broken away from the formula of solving cases and we’ve really gone into Liz’s personal experiences.

TVGuide: … [H]ow would you say Liz is handling Tom’s death?

Megan Boone: … [I]t feels like she’s lost a limb with Tom’s death. She’s chosen a life of isolation and she makes sure Agnes is well cared for, but she doesn’t have the capacity to live the life she was living. She doesn’t want her absence to hinder the good work of her task force, so she’s able to get Red to agree to continue his work with them, but she has to run away.

TVGuide: Does Tom’s death amplify those feelings [of her darker side] or will she push those back to mourn?

Megan Boone: … [W]e see her employ tactics that are more sadistic and aggressive than we’ve ever seen before. So there is definitely a darker side emerging — not just darker, sort of what you see is that she’s leaning on some possibly genetically inherited instincts that she got from her father Red.

TVGuide: … Tom was doing some things with Red behind Liz’s back, and it’s probably fair to say that she’s going to find that out soon. How will she react to that?

Megan Boone: … I think what is going to be revealed is going to be possibly very detrimental to her dynamic with her father. It’s hard to say because ultimately I don’t know what those bones are, but it can’t be good!

EntertainmentWeekly: This episode is very reminiscent of “Cape May.” What can you tell us about the midseason premiere?

Megan Boone: “Ruin” is a standalone film centered around Liz’s experience after Tom’s death, which gives it a very reflective tone. It’s very different from our fast-paced thriller episodes of The Blacklist. This episode is really cinematic. Even the title is “Ruin” rather than the name of a blacklister, because it really veers away from the formula of solving the cases of The Blacklist.

EW: What is it like for Liz to be away from everything and everyone? And can she ever truly get away?

MB: We find Liz as she’s abandoned her life, and clearly she’s running away from something, but you’re constantly bombarded by these flashbacks that serve to catch the viewer up on key aspects of the aftermath of Tom’s death, but also they show how there’s this intrinsic, inescapable tie to her past life. … No one really knows very much about her in this small town that’s adjacent to her cabin. The people she does interact with don’t even know her real name. …

EW: What was it like filming this episode?

MB: … [T]he experience of shooting this episode was actually a lot closer to the kind of work I envisioned myself doing as an actor and in my field. … In those real quiet moments with Liz, I really didn’t have to create any kind of history, it was all just there.

EW: The first half of the season was a fun ride where we actually saw Liz Keen smile. Would you say heading into the second half of the season that it’s almost going to be the complete opposite?

MB: Yeah, we’re not gong to see a lot of Liz giggling. [Laughs] … The back half of season 5 will definitely explore how Liz is going to approach this phase of her life, and we’ll see her lean on these maybe genetically inherited darker impulses and behave a little bit like Red. …

… Over the years, the 57-year-old star has gone from high-school dropout to movie heartthrob (Pretty in Pink), indie-flick prince (he took Cannes’ best actor prize for 1989’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape) and Emmy-winning oddball (twice, for Boston Legal, and once for The Practice). His role as Red has brought his career into a late bloom, despite the fact that, as he happily puts it, “I’ve got an extra 15 pounds on me, and I’m losing my hair.”

Happy 100 episodes! How’d you get this far?
I have no idea. Hollywood is sort of controlled chaos, so there’s no predictor. I just know I’m blessed to find a show that allows for, even in moments of intensity and drama, an irreverence. My own taste runs in that vein. I just love dramas that can be funny. And I like comedy that can also be dramatic and emotional.

What’s the latest Blacklist scoop?
I have to be fairly oblique regarding spoilers. But there’s a character that has appeared in a recent episode who somehow becomes involved in the story in a way that I never imagined.

How has Red has changed over the years?
Certainly, his circumstances have changed drastically. But his life has changed dramatically too. He’s lost people who were very close to him, while he’s gained people who have become close to him. And he’s finally had to take responsibility for his past.

Reddington has faced a reversal of fortune. Have you ever faced a similar downturn?
Oh, yes. I didn’t grow with a tremendous amount of money, at all. Both of my parents were teachers, so any spending money that I wanted I had to find or earn. When I dropped out of high school and moved to New York to become an actor, I started working different manual labor jobs. I drove a truck at a meat packing plant for some time. And then I unloaded and loaded railroad cars and trucks at a warehouse. I mopped floors. I shoveled manure and cleaned stalls at the Claremont Riding Academy in Manhattan. The list goes on and on! …

Have you ever seen any of your movies in-flight?
Yes, a couple of times. It tends to make one stay in your seat through most of the flight. You don’t wander around the plane.

Currently in its fifth season, The Blacklist has been a decent performer for the peacock, especially factoring in delayed viewing — with Live +7, the show is currently averaging 8.3 million total viewers and a 1.6 in the 18-49 demographic. The series even spawned the spinoff Redemption (though it was ill-fated) last year. But the fate of The Blacklist hangs in the balance, as NBC has yet to renew the Megan Boone and James Spader-starring drama for a sixth season.

Even so, The Blacklist bosses aren’t looking at season 5 as the end. “We have a great cliffhanger, and a big ending for the season in mind that I think is going to be really compelling,” executive producer Jon Bokenkamp tells EW. “It’s not what we imagine the end of the series to be.”

When the series returns with the standalone episode “Ruin” in January, a few more months have passed and Liz seems to have finally physically recovered. Yet, she remains emotionally unstable as she deals with the fallout of her husband’s death.

To get a sense of what’s to come and how these major life events have changed Liz, Variety caught up with Boone to get her take on life without Tom. Here, the actress breaks down a very different episode of the series, previews some important changes ahead, and teases the show’s upcoming 100th episode with guest star Nathan Lane. …

Variety: Tonally how does the episode differ from a usual “Blacklist” episode?

Megan Boone: This episode is very cinematic. It’s a standalone episode that centers around Liz after Tom’s death, which gives it a very reflective tone and it definitely goes off formula for the show. …

Variety: You’re in nearly every scene of “Ruin,” what was it like doing that extra heavy lifting?

Megan Boone: This is a very time-intensive episode but this kind of work is the kind of stuff I’ve always wanted to do my whole life. I liked the quiet quality of the scene-work and the very internal nature of the character. Every line has subtext in some way. …

Variety: How much of this new, darker Liz carries forward into the back half of the season?

Megan Boone: I really tried to make it a point not to just spring back into action in the next episode as if nothing happened; I wanted to carry a feeling of “Ruin,” throughout the rest of the season. So you’re going to see Liz approach the next phase of her life exploring questions like will she lean on this genetically darker impulse that she has and behave like Red, or forge her own path? …

Variety: Executive producers John Eisendrath and Jon Bokencamp mentioned Liz takes up some of that espionage mantel Tom has held in the past, what has that been like to play?

Megan Boone: I definitely felt a shift. It’s one I’ve really wanted to see, where Liz is totally capable. … The arc of a character, especially on a show that extends to its 100th episode, needs time to evolve, especially when Liz Keen is the character on a journey like she is here and is changing in her life throughout the show. There were times where I was impatient to see this happen but it’s so exciting to see her really take charge in the same way that some of the men in her life have done in past.

At this point, it’s difficult to imagine how The Blacklist could outdo the midseason finale cliffhanger. That episode saw the death of a character who was around from the very beginning and had been deemed strong enough to carry a spinoff, even if the ratings saw that spinoff get the axe. …

[Jon Bokenkamp:] It’s interesting to not know, and how you write toward that. We’ve decided that we love the characters enough that if, for whatever reason, we didn’t have an opportunity to come back, we just have to find another way to do it, but we’re not going to rush to some ending out of fear that we’re not coming back. We have a story that we’re telling that we really like, and it’s going to take the time it takes to tell it.

We’d go, ‘‘He has the protection of Liz’s love! If you kill him, you lose the love of the person who means the most to you in the world.’’ To Spader’s credit, at the end, he was like ‘‘We can’t kill Tom!’’ [They all laugh.]

Ryan Eggold: I think now made the most sense. Having done the spin-off and the network canceling that, it was sort of anticlimactic to come back.

TVI: How will Tom’s death affect Liz’s life?

Eggold: Tom was one of the few things really grounding her; he provided an emotional anchor. Without that, with the volatility of her job and her relationship with Red, that hole will have to be filled in some way. And it might be filled with the wrong things.

Eisendrath: She’ll have to find a way to avenge what happened.

Bokenkamp: She feels that the devil is her father, and we’ll see her go more toward a darker side. That comes naturally to her. She’ll be wrestling with what is the right thing to do to move forward.

TVI: Tom—like Red—had the ability to be hated for the horrible things he did and then be forgiven when he did something kind, didn’t he?

Eisendrath: Tom is almost like Pinocchio. He’s like this broken sort of bad guy who’s done horrible things and he just wants to be normal. … All the things he’s done in the past is a lot to overcome, and early on we’d hear from people that Tom treated Liz so badly, how can you let her take him back? But we’ve always felt that Tom and Liz’s love was real. Tom died trying to get to the truth and protect her. It’s ultimately a love story.

Eggold: At the end, in the car, as they were both near death, I remember saying, ‘‘I can’t live without you. Please stay.’’ Tom was mildly sociopathic when we first met him. He didn’t have a lot of empathy for other people, he could kill easily. Falling in love with Liz brought out in him a real human being.

TVI: Tom died because of those damn bones, soon after he discovered their identity by reading the results of a DNA test. The presumption is they’re Liz’s mother’s. Will we find out the truth this season?

Eisendrath: You’ll find out more about it, but not everything. [[ Are they expecting a sixth season? ]]

Bokenkamp: There are big answers coming!

Jon Bokenkamp: No, there wasn’t. … Tom’s love for Liz has always been what’s kept him alive thus far. Red would have killed him in the first season if he hadn’t cared so much for Liz and if Liz hadn’t cared so much for him. So it was never our intent that Red would actually murder Tom. … That was just our way of indicating to the audience that something bad was going to happen. It was almost like a premonition that the walls of that apartment had. Something bad is going to happen. And we knew that by Episode 8, we would work up to that moment and see exactly what had unfolded. Hopefully it was a fun misdirect.

Also, there’s this great conflict between Tom and Red. The suitcase, all the baggage they have from the past — it all comes out in this season, and that was our way to acknowledge to the audience that something was off and someone would be on a collision course with disaster. …

TVLINE: Speaking of that suitcase, this episode ends without revealing anything else about where those bones are, whose bones they are or the information that Tom got from those DNA results. Where will that storyline go when the show picks up in January?

JB: When the show comes back, it’s a really, really unique, out-of-pattern, different episode. Things have really been blown up with Tom’s death, and Liz trying to figure out how to move forward is a story that we really dive right into. It’s like an episode we did called “Cape May,” and we did a flashback episode with Mr. Kaplan. This, like those, is one of those out-of-pattern episodes that promises to be super-emotional and raise some really great questions. It’s not a Case of the Week. It’s like an independent movie that we tell when we come back.

TVLINE: … Now that Tom is gone, how will Liz and Red’s relationship be affected?

JB: It’s going to confront both of them with some harsh truths, some of which have been ignored or side-stepped. Tom died in search of the truth of why Reddington came into Liz’s life, and he ultimately found, in that paperwork, answers that not many other people on the show understand. … [H]e had unlocked something massive, and the fact that Reddington was omitting that from what he had told Liz will be something they’re going to have to confront. …

They have to confront the idea that Liz is his daughter, and within her DNA is the possibility to do some incredibly dark things. That terrifies Reddington …. Liz is also super-aware of that. She doesn’t like the idea that her father is, in some ways, the devil. She wants nothing more than to be normal and have a normal life. And yet, she’s been sucked into this world that she’s having a hard time fighting back against. That, more than anything, will be something that Liz and Red will have to confront. It’s not only [about] why Tom died and who is behind his death …. But deeper than that, the bigger question is: Who is Elizabeth Keen?

Jon Bokenkamp: Largely because of what it’s going to do to Elizabeth Keen. As you probably know, Tom died in the original pilot, and then died in episode 17, and in episode 22 probably. But Ryan just brought a special and different dimension to the show that we really liked. It did feel like it’s time to shift that. I think the big question of what his death will do to Liz is why to come back. How is she going to handle this? How does she resist the temptation that she might have within her own DNA to act and react like Reddington would? Does it rip her apart? That’s the why now: For the back half of the season to see what it does to Liz.

John Eisendrath: I remember we were at an early meeting with NBC, and we were pitching stories and the subject of Liz’s love life came up regarding Tom, and I remember Bob Greenblatt pointed to a poster that was in the room and the poster was of Red and Liz. He was like, “You know, that is the love story of the series.” I think he’s right. Ultimately, the love story is between Red and Liz, and Tom’s death will have the largest effect on that relationship pretty much since Red turned himself in.

EW: How will Liz deal in the aftermath?

Bokenkamp: That’s the big question. When we come back in episode 9 in January, it’s a very different and atypical episode. It’s not a Blacklister of the week. It’s a very quiet, interesting little movie. It’s almost like the episodes we’ve done with Mr. Kaplan or “Cape May” that are a little bit of a departure, they’re more reflective and very character-heavy story. It represents her walkabout of deciding what to do. That story, and her story beyond that, are filled with very big choices.

Eisendrath: As you go on in the series, you don’t have many firsts left, which is so central to getting a series up and running in the beginning, but there are a lot of secrets that Tom took with him to the grave regarding the suitcase and the bones, and Liz doesn’t know any of that. She doesn’t know that Mr. Kaplan was involved. Unpacking those will be like a new series of firsts. This gives us an incredible series of firsts that will rock Liz’s world and deeply impact her relationship with Red.

Much more at link.

Eisendrath: There’s not any one particular answer. Yes, he was supposed to die in the pilot. We feel like we had given the character of Tom just so many different avenues to pursue: opportunities with Liz to love, to hate, to fight, to get divorced, to annul their marriage, to get remarried. Ultimately in the end the short answer is that, when the series ends, whenever it ends, it’s ultimately a parent-child story and Tom was the most important person in Liz, ‘the child’s’ life. His passing is going to change the dynamic of who Liz is, how she behaves, and what her relationship is with Red in ways that are a huge new engine for her going forward in the show. …

Eggold: It’s a tragic but fitting ending. There’s always been a twinge of Romeo and Juliet to their relationship and there’s always been this idealistic dream that they would get away from this crazy world with the truth in hand and have peace and have Agnes and live in a beautiful home in the middle of some beach somewhere. The episode delivers an enormous, violent dose of reality. It’s a catalyst for Liz. In terms of the ‘when’ of it all, I don’t know there’s a right time but it is a really fitting, tragic ending. …

Variety: The finale jumps ten months into the future and when the show returns a couple more months have passed. Why such a big leap?

Eisendrath: We wanted to skip some of what we would have been obliged to play if we just had Liz wake up the next day in that raw state of frozen depression. What we want to play is her active, avenging desire mixed in obviously with the pain and the agony of losing the person she loves the most. We wanted to get to a place where she is moving forward and active in her search, in her hunt and in her healing.

Bokenkamp: The time jump also raises a lot of questions. What is Liz going to do, what has happened to the task force, where is Reddington? It shapes the dynamic in a really interesting way that helps us tell compelling stories. …

“I feel incredibly lucky to have played a role with such a uniquely dynamic evolution,” Eggold said in a statement to THR. “I’m grateful for the time spent working with Megan, James and the entire cast. I’m thankful to the incredibly hard-working crew for consistently making the show better. Sony and NBC have both been deeply supportive, conscientious and adept in managing the show. Mostly I’m indebted to Jon Bokenkamp, John Eisendrath and the writers for continuing to elevate the show creatively and always impassioning me to further explore the true nature of this character. I will miss this TV family immensely and diligently look forward to the opportunity to embody new characters and tell new stories.”

Entertainment Weekly: Ian seems to think whoever controls the bones will have something over Red. Is that the only reason Ian wants them or is there a deeper connection there that you will unveil?

Jon Bokenkamp: I think it’s potentially both. The contents of the suitcase are devastating to Reddington. He obviously is going to great lengths to bury this secret, put it back in the ground where it belongs, and to let it be lost to the sands of time. That said, is there a bigger emotional hook or something more personal to Reddington that he’s afraid of as well? I think so. As we get into the back half of the season, we’ll explore more of what the bones represent and why they’re so damning to him. …

EW: Will you definitively say whether Tom is indeed alive or deed in the fall finale?

JB: … I think we have a really unique and fresh springboard that is going to send us into the back half of the season in a very unexpected way. I’m really proud of this fall finale. It’s incredibly emotional. It’s got a great pace. It’s a freight train. It’s a very urgent episode, and yet at the same time, we have moments within it that are just incredibly emotional and really boil down to putting our main characters — the people who are the center of the show — in some great moments together. …

EW: Will we get some more info in the fall finale about whose bones those are?

JB: Yes and no. I’ll say this: Tom is basically holding Red’s secret in his hands, and holding — as Red feels — Red’s destiny in his hands. He gets as close as anyone has gotten to unlocking the deeper mythology of the show. So we’re not answering everything for the audience, but big pieces fall into place.

… In a way, the show is thrown up in the air. As much as we did this with Reddington in losing his empire — and he’s been clawing his way back, trying to figure out who he is without all the money and power, and has been on this path of self-discovery and trying to earn his way back to the top of the most wanted list — we find Liz in that same position where she’s in an incredibly vulnerable place. As is Reddington.

TVGuide: Why does Tom opt to not show Liz the suitcase after Liz catches him up on the big secret?

Bokenkamp: … Mr. Kaplan had no idea that it would be revealed to Liz that Reddington is her father, and that changes everything. It brings Liz and Reddington closer together than ever and I think Tom is suspect of Reddington. Reddington is constantly weaving stories and misrepresenting the truth and isn’t to be trusted, at least in Tom’s mind. He feels like if he tells Liz about these bones, Reddington will probably have some way to slither out of this – a way to manipulate the situation, a way to twist it so that the truth remains hidden. And so Tom feels, as an operative, it’s probably a better choice to get to the bottom of this, find out what or who the bones represent, and then go to Liz with the truth. …

TVGuide: I couldn’t help but notice that Liz seems proud of her dad, especially when he reveals part of his plan to get his empire back up and running. What changes about their working relationship because of the news that he’s her dad? [ Notice JB pushes back … ] 

Bokenkamp: I don’t know that Liz is excited about rebuilding Reddington’s criminal empire, rather she realizes that she has to do that in order to enable him and help him enable the Task Force to take down criminals. … [S]he is concerned that this man is her father and that she is essentially committing crimes with him to rebuild his empire and that there is a very fine line that she wants to be careful not to cross. In the first episode she plants her flag very firmly saying that she is an FBI agent and that she is not going to fall away from that moral compass, and that I think is going to be a struggle for her. She’s so close to the flame with Reddington that it’s very difficult to maintain that moral direction and, in fact, we’ve seen that in all the characters. The entire Task Force is darkened a little bit because of their involvement with Reddington …

TVGuide: Was there any particular scene in the premiere the exemplifies the struggles Liz will have this season now that she knows she’s working with her dad? 

Bokenkamp: … [W]hat continues to be clear is that Reddington is never telling the FBI everything and that is something incredibly frustrating to Liz and incredibly frustrating to Harold Cooper and the rest of the Task Force trying to wrangle this man in and get him to cooperate. … [T]hey can never really know what his intentions are, they can never really know what his endgame is and so that is a good example of the sort of thing that [ Liz is ] dealing with. Also Reddington hanging out in the pool when she needs a case is a good example of the kind of bon vivant attitude that he has in which he’s really more interested in hanging out, meeting people and smelling the roses than going out committing crimes. That is something that’s probably a little frustrating too.

TVGuide: Ressler looks dead in the water. He’s now being blackmailed, and I’m not convinced that Cooper is satisfied with this whole “it was an accident” conclusion. What does his life look like going forward?

Bokenkamp: Well, yeah. Things do not look good for Ressler. Ressler has found himself in a an incredibly uncomfortable position, a place that he probably never thought that he would end up in. Our Boy Scout of the show has now contracted a blacklister [?] to clean up and cover up a death and that cannot end well. …

TVGuide: What questions should viewers be asking as we move through Season 5?

Bokenkamp: I think in looking ahead at Season 5, the biggest questions viewers should be asking themselves are firstly, what is Reddington after? We still don’t know why he came into Elizabeth Keen’s life. Yes he is her father, but there’s clearly something else going on here. There’s clearly a larger mystery that has yet to be unraveled and that is something to pay attention to and to slowly watch unravel. The other thing to look out for is Reddington’s empire building.

“I come from a feature film background,” notes Bokenkamp …. “You have to know what the answer is before you start.

“But with The Blacklist, it’s been an evolution.”

Part of the mystery stems from the shadowy nature of the show’s central character, Red Reddington (James Spader).

Red is a former FBI agent and master criminal who at the start of the show surrendered himself back to the FBI. He then cut a deal wherein he would lead an agency team headed by Harold Cooper (Harry Lennix) to even worse criminals in return for his freedom and the tacit understanding he could continue his business enterprises and maintain the lavish lifestyle.

He also demanded upfront that he work with rookie agent Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), and over the show’s first four seasons there was a pointedly measured trickle of details on his motivation – which turned out to be that Red and a former Soviet spy were Elizabeth’s biological parents.

Slow-release information, and not just about Red and Liz, has been a trademark of The Blacklist.

“There are larger truths to all these characters,” says Bokenkamp, in the tone of a man who has no intention of releasing those truths before their time. “When it is all over, we will know things.”

“We have a detailed list in the writers’ room of what remains open-ended. I hope when it’s over that viewers will feel satisfied, and not just over the way Red came into Liz’s life.”

The question of The Blacklist’s final destination comes up because five seasons is a mature lifespan for a TV drama. There have been 89 episodes already, which takes it way past the length of the average feature film, and as happens with virtually every drama on television, its audience has gradually declined.

It’s still a strong show, with a weekly audience of almost 10 million once time-shifted viewership is factored in. But at some point it’s going to wrap up, and the timing of that farewell is one of the X factors to which Bokenkamp alludes when he talks about where it’s going.

“James has felt all along that Red is as happy in a cave as he would be at a high-end cocktail party,” says Bokenkamp. “He has always moved in and out of different worlds.

Not that Red or the FBI team will ever run out of either enemies or enigmas. Tom Keen, for instance, a character who was originally slated to be killed off both in the pilot and then later in season 1, may be delivering Mr. Kaplan’s troubling final message to Liz. “Tom’s story is another one that we didn’t plan,” says Bokenkamp. “But when Redemption ended, we had a place for him to come back. He, Red and Liz are a triangle, and both Red and Tom would be happy if the other one were gone.” …

So Red Reddington, another great character for one of modern TV’s great actors, has miles to go before he sleeps. Or swims.

BOKENKAMP: I think James [Spader] is a big part of that, in terms of keeping the character fresh. The stories are hard to tell. The cases are difficult to break. It’s hard to find the Blacklisters that we hope you wouldn’t find on every other show. One of the things we take great pride in is that our bad guys are the people the FBI doesn’t know about. That is challenging. But I have to say, writing the character and his voice is just really a blessing. It’s super fun. He’s a guy who’s constantly trying to surprise himself. He’s always trying to embrace new experiences, so there aren’t really limits with where he can go. …

When you have someone like James Spader … , do you just throw anything and everything at him because you know he can pull it off? Is there anything you’ve ever found that he can’t do?

BOKENKAMP: Not really. He’ll tell us, if he thinks something is too far or if something tells us too much about the character. One of the things he’s very good at is being very protective of the character and having him remain a bit of a mystery. One of my favorite things to do is to Google strange, far flown places and hear him try to figure out how to say them. I’ve never met anybody who can play a run-on sentence without that many commas and no periods, and it ends up playing great.

… Did you have a five-year plan, at the beginning of this show, and did the long-term plan look anything like how it’s playing out now?

BOKENKAMP: We did not pitch what the entire plan was to the network, but we have always had an endgame in mind. I come from writing features, and it’s hard to sit down and write a movie and just start on page one and go, “Well, we’ll see where we end.” It’s like a math problem. You have to know what you’re working toward. We have always had that bible in our heads, which makes it very difficult, at times, to write the show. … So, we’re exploring it and finding it, as we go along, but we also have looked at the map, before we took this road trip, and have a very good idea of where we’re going. We have the same destination in mind.

Now that you’re five seasons into this show, are you thinking more specifically about when that endgame is?

BOKENKAMP: We’ve always talked about it. We don’t have plans for landing that just yet, but it’s always part of a constant conversation. James has been one of the first people to say, we don’t know how long we’ll be on. We’ll be on as long as we can, so we’re always trying to pace ourselves, in terms of how much mythology we’re unpacking and how quickly we’re getting to our endgame, and along the way, we find great distractions and side trips. … [ Emphasis added. Guess I was just glad to read that – LizzieB ]

[W]hat does it mean to you that the show has lasted so long?

BOKENKAMP: … It is a big milestone, and to me, it just speaks to what a great team we have, between the cast in New York and the production. I’m always dumbfounded when I see a script be able to come to life and see how much better production makes it, and how international and big it feels. It really is a movie, each week. The idea that we’re very close to 100 of them is just mind-boggling.

How are you approaching the 100th episode? Do you have special plans for it?

BOKENKAMP: … Episode 11 will be our 100th episode. We have big turns and big changes that are coming, that are going to be really great story turns. … [W]e’re very aware of the fact that it’s our 100th episode and we hope to have some surprises up our sleeve.

Last season dealt with the dismantling of Reddington’s entire criminal enterprise. … Is that freeing for him, or does that make him unsettled and nervous?

BOKENKAMP: If he is unsettled by it, he certainly isn’t going to share that. … There’s this childlike wonderment of the world around him. He’s been existing in this bubble, protected by money, assets and allies, and all of a sudden, he’s stripped of all of that. I do think it’s incredibly liberating for him. … He’s so unafraid and open to new experiences and the weird and the wild that this is the last thing he expected to happen, which is exactly why it’s the perfect thing to happen right now. …

Is Reddington somebody who has any self-doubt, or is that a completely foreign concept to him?

BOKENKAMP: Oh, I’m sure he has plenty of self-doubt. Often, what’s very interesting to me is when we find those things that make him afraid, and we certainly have that this season. There’s a very big new storyline involving a suitcase and some human remains that has him terrified. …

What are the biggest challenges in writing more than 20 episodes of a drama for television, and specifically for this show? …

BOKENKAMP: … It always feels like it’s almost impossible to pull off. The episodes are very big and they’re packed full of story. … [W]e’re in this great place where we’re basically writing a new movie, every 10 or 14 days, and they’re being made at a really great level. Yes, it’s terrifying, and looking at that white board and figuring out what the next story is, is terrifying, but somehow everyone rallies and we’re able to put it together. It’s a blast to be able to do it.

EntertainmentWeekly: Is Tom Really Dead?

Jon Bokenkamp: Tom Keen has definitely kicked the hornet’s nest and he is definitely on a collision course, and it will involve Red, but to find out what really happens is something you’re going to have to tune in for in upcoming episodes.

EW: How far ahead is that flash forward in those final few minutes?

JB: It’s not very far ahead at all. What gets Tom into this whole hot mess and the situation that he’s going to be confronting very soon is a story that begins in episode 2, so what we saw was a little bit of a peek ahead, a little bit of a premonition almost, and that is a direct result of things that are going to start happening immediately in our second episode.

EW: When might we catch up to that point this season? Are we waiting until midseason or might it happen sooner rather than later?

JB:I don’t know how to answer that. I really don’t. I mean, I do know how to answer it, but I don’t want to give anything away. It’s definitely not something we’re going to drag out all season. It is a story line that is very present, it occupies a lot of air and real estate in the first half of the season. …

EW: … What was that thought process like in the writers’ room of bringing Tom back after Redemption … ?

JB: He’s been part of the landscape of the show since the pilot. He, Liz, and Red had a very complex relationship. So it felt super natural to bring him back after the spin-off and come back and come home to his child and not really his wife at the moment, but to come back to Liz and Agnes. … Reddington is in a completely different headspace, he’s rebuilding, and as you can see in the first episode, it’s not nearly as dark as some of the seasons in the past. That said, it is still The Blacklist and there are still very dangerous story lines that are bubbling underneath the surface and we wanted to be clear, to let everyone know, that dramatic turns are coming. …

EW: Would Liz ever be able to forgive Red for killing Tom? …

JB: … Thus far, Liz has really been the kryptonite for Tom. She is why he has been untouchable. That said, it is feasible that Tom could get himself in enough trouble that Red himself could feel threatened and cross the line. But that’s a really important point that you bring up: Could she forgive him? And would she forgive him? What would it do to their relationship? It is super complex and it is something we’ve talked about a lot in the room.

EW: Could Tom have actually done something to Liz that would warrant that response from Red?

JB: … I do believe what he’s digging into and the itch that he’s scratching is one he thinks is helping Liz, and he believes he’s doing right by her. Everything that he’s doing is for the right reason. Yes, the dynamic between those three characters, it’s almost even more pronounced, even more on the surface now ….

EW: Tom decided against telling Liz about the suitcase in the premiere. Can you talk about why and when we might get more information on whose bones those really are?

JB: Because Liz has had this revelation about her father, and because she really is probably closer to him than she’s ever been, that worries Tom. He knows that Reddington is manipulative … Tom feels that she would probably run to Red and may reveal what Tom knows and Tom worries that could get her into trouble …. From Tom’s point of view, it may be better to not say anything and figure out what Mr. Kaplan had intended. Remember, Mr. Kaplan unearthed these revelations in May. When she tasked Tom with the suitcase, she did not know about the paternity issues that were being resolved. Had she known that, she may have had a bit of a different plan, at least that’s where Tom’s head is.

EW: Liz kind of puts her foot down in the premiere that she won’t become like Red, but will that continue to be a struggle for her?

JB: [Liz] is in tune enough with her own inner demons to know that it is not out of the realm of possibility that she could, quite easily, spiral into a darkness that would be not unlike Reddington. … [W]e’ve seen that she murdered the attorney general and went on the run, but our entire task force has been tainted by Reddington and the cloud that hovers over him. He’s a very persuasive and intoxicating type of man. …

Of course, we didn’t actually see Red’s bullets hit Tom during that time-jump scene, nor did we necessarily witness Tom taking his last breath. So, all told, it’s possible that Tom is still with us by season’s end — even though he gets pretty banged up along the way.

We talked with series creator Jon Bokenkamp about that episode-ending twist, and though he wouldn’t confirm that Tom actually bites the dust in Season 5 — “You’re going to have to tune in to find out,” he offered — he did shed some light on how and why Tom will find himself in mortal danger this year.

TVLINE: Tom isn’t necessarily dead when we see that flash-forward, but it’s not looking good for him. Why go down this road with the character?

It was partly to give contrast to the lightness and the fun that Reddington’s having in rebuilding his empire. The show, I hope, is more fun this year. Reddington is really having a blast. But I didn’t want people to confuse that with the notion that we might somehow become a different show because we’re on at a different time period. We thought, “Why not give a taste of something that’s going to come?” …

TVLINE: What was Tom going to tell Liz before she revealed the news that Red is her father?

He was going to tell her, “Mr. Kaplan had a big secret, she sent me to this bus locker and I found a suitcase full of bones.” That big secret that Mr. Kaplan wanted Tom to share with Liz — in the moment, he felt that the landscape had shifted under him, and even under Mr. Kaplan. They didn’t know this information, that the DNA report had come out and Reddington was her father. Tom finds himself in a place where he realizes she’s closer to Reddington than ever. She’s probably just going to talk to Reddington about this, and he’s going to find some way to twist and manipulate the situation. Tom, out of love for Liz, feels like this is something he has to solve and understand before he can put it at Liz’s feet. 

TVLINE: Turning to some other aspects of this premiere, the episode had a real fun, light tone as Red took on this new case. Will that continue moving forward?

That’s part of the coloring of this season. Personally, I love watching James [Spader] have fun. One of the things the audience loves is watching James just relish the strange, uncomfortable and weird situations that he finds himself in. We think the show is more fun that way, although we’re still going to have some really great, compelling and dangerous bad guys. We’re still a Case of the Week show.

TVLINE: How quickly does this blackmail situation between Agent Ressler and Henry Prescott take a turn for the worse?

That’s a really exciting storyline this season. Ressler fancies himself, and began as, a real Boy Scout. When we met him, he was the one hunting down Raymond Reddington. And now, he’s actually contracted with a blacklister to cover up a murder. It is a storyline that we think has legs. It’s going to be a slow burn, … and Henry Prescott is going to relish every moment of the fact that he owns Donald Ressler. …

“The cap is nothing compared to the bathing suit,” Spader said, dryly, of the character whose good-life perks included a private jet and sharply tailored suits usually topped by a fedora, wool or straw. But the lawless mastermind is down, not out, as he adjusts to his new circumstances and engineers a comeback.

Red always “greeted life with great gusto, for good or ill. So I think that’s how he’s living life right now,” Spader said. In a series that revels in changing up the action and the outcome, Red’s fall from power has opened up more “opportunity for fun,” he said.

Sardonic humor has been a constant in “The Blacklist,” despite the parade of brutal killings committed by Red, his hirelings and enemies. It works because of Spader’s finesse at creating the hate-him, love-him Reddington, shades of the heroic antiheroes he’s so skillfully crafted before.

Among recent examples: W.N. Bilbo, President Abraham Lincoln’s wheeler-dealer for Congressional anti-slavery votes in the 2012 film “Lincoln,” and, in Spader’s last extended series run before “Blacklist,” the brilliant but flawed lawyer Alan Shore on five seasons of “Boston Legal.”

An element of danger often colored Spader’s youthful handsomeness (see the film “Secretary,” for one), and maturity has only made him more adroit at leavening ruthlessness with charm. The intelligence he brings on-screen also is a constant in his conversation.

“I like playing bad guys you’d like to spend time with, or good guys that are complicated enough to keep your attention,” he said. The veteran actor, who’s an executive producer on “Blacklist,” gives a thumbnail analysis of the two dramas and why he thinks his current vehicle has more miles left.

“Boston Legal” had a formula in which the “numbers kept changing, but it had an equation,” he said. And while it had a “volume of material, it wasn’t particularly difficult to film, although you have to figure out a way to make a courtroom entertaining.”

“But this show has never had an equation. … Episode to episode, the tone is very different. Even within an episode the tone can change, jarringly,” he said. But he’s protective of “The Blacklist” and his character.

“When I see something that I feel is inappropriate or not right for him … I certainly speak up,” he said. “But I tend to speak up about everything and anything.”

At the same time, Liz finally has the family she has always craved. And now that there’s no longer this secret between them, the show is able to lean into lighter elements this year. Take Red, for example: He’s really relishing his unemployment, knowing full well the Task Force will have no choice but to help him rebuild his empire. However, that void won’t be empty for long.

“[There’s] a Rogue’s Gallery of desperate, dark people who see an opportunity in Reddington being wounded,” executive producer Jon Bokenkamp says, cautioning that the mysterious suitcase now in the possession of Tom (Ryan Eggold) will swiftly lead to chaos. “Red feels that it represents a real danger, not only to him, but perhaps to Liz,” Bokenkamp says. “He is still withholding his real agenda from her.” Read our full interview with Bokenkamp below to get the scoop, and read our interview with Megan Boone here.

Entertainment Weekly: Where are we picking the new season back up?

Jon Bokenkamp: It’s pretty immediate. We pick up immediately after because we have a number of stories that felt like they were too pressing to jump past. So, you’ve got Ressler who has hired a blacklister, Tom who’s got a secret from Kaplan, Red with the revelations that Liz is his daughter. And so, there’s all of this stuff that’s happening that it felt like, “Well, how can we miss any time?” So, we come back in the immediate aftermath.

EW: Tom and Liz will quickly reunite. What is that like for them emotionally?

JB: That’s interesting. It’s a relief that Tom is back for them and that they can be a family again, and they can physically be together. I think it’s also an incredible source of conflict in their relationship because Reddington has really no love for Tom Keen. Elizabeth Keen is kryptonite to Tom. She is the thing that keeps him alive. In fact, Reddington probably would’ve killed Tom a long time ago had Liz not cared for him so much. And so, in terms of them as a couple, I think it’s great news that Tom is back. In terms of the dynamic of that threesome, that now very literal familial threesome, it is a powder keg.

EW: Tom is obviously in possession of this mysterious suitcase. What can you tease in regards to that and how quickly that will unfurl.

JB: It comes into play fairly soon within the first two or three episodes. And in terms of what he’s got, Kaplan had a contingency plan and wanted a much larger truth to be revealed to Liz. We revealed this paternity issue and in a way, it’s ultimately not why Reddington is there. It’s not his big secret. He is still withholding his real agenda from her and that is a little bit of a new dynamic. This suitcase is out there with Tom and floating around, and Reddington doesn’t know where it is.

EW: Would you say she’s even more loyal to Red now following the news?

JB: Totally, 100 percent. That’s part of the baggage that she’s dealing with, with Tom. She has reason to trust him and give him more latitude, to give Reddington more space, because he has been there by her side. And most of the time, if not all of the time, it appears that he’s there with her best interest in mind and yet she doesn’t always get the entire truth from him — she gets pieces of the truth. …

EW: Will Liz learn more or at least want to know more about her background now that she knows the truth?

JB: Yes, but this season really is about pushing forward. And in a number of ways, oftentimes the show looked back at the mythology and at a deeper mythology. This season, rather than being about her looking back at secrets and the uber truth to the center of the show, in fact, they both are more interested in looking forward and rebuilding. That really is the headline of what’s happening is that Reddington is decimated in trying to save Liz from Mr. Kaplan. His entire empire has been destroyed; he has nothing. So when we meet him in season 5, he’s the same character, but in a completely different headspace. He’s rebuilding and that is a monumental undertaking and one that he really relishes, one that he’s having a great time doing. …

EW: Because his organization was totally blown apart, how does that change the cases this year? And does that make Cooper ever more nervous knowing that now, in a way, they really are truly helping Red rebuild an organization rather than keeping an organization alive?

JB: Yeah. I think one of the things I’m most excited about is there’s a great conflict at the center of it where our task force is helping rebuild a criminal mastermind and they don’t want to do that. And yet, they realize there’s potentially a greater good in it and so they’re having to go along with it. You have this dynamic where, once again, Reddington feels completely in charge by virtue of the fact that he’s almost more whimsical and more carefree, which makes him more dangerous and more unexpected. And yet, there’s not this emotional baggage that casts a darker shadow over the season. … And we get to see, I don’t want to say a lighter side, but a much more vibrant, fun side like we had maybe in season 1…. That’s the thing that is so difficult for Cooper and Ressler and the rest of our task force, is that the guy’s actually enjoying the fact that he’s somewhat unemployed and having to rebuild an empire, and he knows that they have no choice but to help him.

EW: What new threats will the team be facing this year, especially in the wake of hearing that we’re not actually going to be seeing Gale (Enrique Murciano) back next season? So who replaces him in that sense?

JB: I don’t know that there’s a replacement so much as the ongoing threat that Reddington and the task force are connected. In terms of the threat, the threat is really more a present one in terms of what other forces and entities move in to try to take over the void that’s left by the Reddington. …

EW: As you finally reveal something that we’ve all suspected from the beginning, are you looking to what the end game is for your show?

JB: We know the end game, but we’re not looking toward it. I certainly hope there’s a long life in the show. But yes, since day 1 we’ve been plotting our way toward an end. I think it would be impossible to write the show without that.

Jon Bokenkamp: I think the biggest change that comes about is her self-awareness of who Elizabeth Keen is, where she comes from, and what’s in her DNA. I think there is a looming concern that she is more like this man than she wants to be. She’s probably always struggled with that in the back of her mind, but this season we really want to confront her with that question in a direct way. We want to see what she can withstand, as though she hasn’t been through enough already. I think that’s really the biggest change, since there is this thing that was subtext for so long. Can she stay above the fray and be this great FBI agent, or will she have that impulse like the one the led her to murder the attorney general?

CM: This has also left Reddington in a really interesting spot right now. Mr. Kaplan devastated so much of his empire and what he knows. Where are we now with him when we come back?

JB: Season 4 got a little dark at times, as our show can. What is really fun to watch this season is Red rebuilding because he is starting with nothing. That could be a real downer — like his resources are gone and his friends have jumped ship. But, he loves it! He loves the idea of being presented with the challenge of trying to rebuild an empire, and he finds a great joy in the idea that he can reboot.

CM: With Terry O’Quinn, is there any plan to revisit [Howard Hargrave] or what happened with him [at the end of The Blacklist: Redemption]?

JB: We are going to address Tom and his family and what happened there, because I do think the two shows, while they were different, occupy the same landscape. They were in the same universe, so we do want to address that, but we won’t have Terry or Famke [Janssen] coming back — though we were really lucky to have that whole crew and everyone [who appeared] on that show.

This is one of the great things about The Blacklist — we often have great, wild, and crazy scenarios where people who we thought might be gone can find their way back into the show. It’s not out of the realm of possibility, but for now we don’t have plans to bring them back.

IO: What’s James like in person when he’s not acting? Does he have any similarities to his character in The Blacklist?
JB: It’s funny, John [Eisendrath] has said this before, at a certain point the character becomes the actor and the actor becomes the character. And you start writing toward that actor’s strengths and what they do well, and avoid what they are not so strong at. You see sort of a presence only they can bring to that character. In terms of what James is like, he’s incredibly professional. He’s dedicated to the script, which I think is rare in television. He’s somebody who’s not going out and ad-libbing and winging it. He’s incredibly protective of the character. Raymond has sort of an odd moral compass. He’s a ruthless man, he’s a criminal. But at the same time, he’s an antihero who has a very specific moral code and I think James is very good at calling us out when he thinks Reddington is doing something out of character.

IO: Is there a real ‘Black List’ in the real world?
JB: Well, the government has a kill list. That exists. A lot of things we use in The Blacklist are grounded in truth. I’m not a huge conspiracy theorist, but I’m also not terribly naïve. … I think that there is certainly money and power that have an influence, and I think Reddington’s perspective on the world and his cynicism and his wild delight for life are sort of a nice juxtaposition.

IO: Given the bruhaha in the news media about whether the Russians hacked the election, are you planning to write more Russian plots in future episodes?
JB: There are larger conversations that happen behind the scenes. Maybe I like to let my mind go wild.

IO: Do you do any actual collaborating with the FBI?
JB: Yes, we work with Brad Garett who’s a former FBI agent. There are certain times where he’ll tell us what’s more realistic.

IO: When you first started the series, did you intend from the onset for the audience to wonder whether Red may be Liz’s long-lost father?
JB: I think that was always part of the mystery. It wasn’t ‘was she his daughter’ so much as who is this man, which is the larger question. The Blacklist is very much a ‘chosen one’ story. “A man walks into the FBI one day and only speaks to Liz and knows things that are mysterious and uncomfortable and the question of ‘why her’ is really a series long question. We had chances to answer it, but I think that’s what makes the character of Red mysterious because just when we think we understand him, we don’t. I personally like the chameleon aspect.

[ Note: Emphases added. Very minor edits ]

JB: … [Y]es, as we come back, Dembe is who our entire team is hunting.

EW: Is there more to what we’re seeing, though?

JB: Yeah. What’s fun is that we pick up weeks later. It’s almost real time. It takes eight weeks for Reddington, in the time that we’re down, to hunt Dembe before he gets his big lead that brings him back in episode 16. …

EW: How is this going to ultimately affect Red moving forward?

JB: He’s been dealing with a number of hits. … He’s watching his empire crumble and I think he’s having to step back and reassess what he’s doing, why he’s doing it, how long he can survive, how many hits his business can take. I think he is very reflective and stepping back and taking stock in what he’s become. … It’s not just Reddington — it’s our task force, it was Mr. Kaplan, it was Dembe, it was Liz and Cooper, and the whole team has been enabling him. So whatever blood has been spilled, to a certain extent, is on their hands as well. That’s something that, not only Reddington, but the entire task force is really struggling with as things are in such fractured place.

Eggold isn’t nervous about headlining the new series, as he says, “I don’t feel too much pressure or anything so much as I feel passionately about searching for what this show is. I can’t wait to figure out this dynamic and see where the characters go.”

Explaining the narrative of the series and how it’s different from it’s predecessor, Eisendrath reveals, “Ultimately we strayed a long way from a potential father/daughter story to a mother/son story. We really stretched ourselves for that. In in this case, we’re telling, ultimately, a story for the audience to enjoy about an odd, weird, uncertain dynamic between a parent and child. So it’s a much different story and though it will be weird and twisted and have lots of secrets, I think [it’s] much more relatable to viewers.” …

Describing her character, Scottie, actress Famke Janssen, says, “I think she’s a complex woman, with many different layers. She has this incredibly soft and broken side to her that’s so beautiful and relatable. But, at the same time, this is a woman who operates in an extremely tough environment and she has to be strong. And, she’s ruthless, and she’s unpredictable, and we never quite know where we stand with her.”

Summing up what viewers can expect from the series, Bokenkamp smiled as he said, “This show really is sexy and, yes, there is a sense of fun. We want it to be a big, explosive, wild ride.”

JON BOKENKAMP: I think it’s best to let the show and its characters answer that. Anything that’s meaningful is in the scripts and on the screen. Everything else is noise.

EW: Should we trust what Red told Kirk about being Liz’s father or was he just telling Kirk what he wanted to hear?

JB: Well, he did say he was her father and he sounded like he meant it. That said, he was also heavily drugged with god knows what. I’ll let you decide.

EW: Kirk says there’s nothing that could stop him from killing Red, and yet he actually stopped. What can you tease of what’s really going on and when we’ll find out what Red whispered?

JB: The truth is, we’re not going to find out what he said. That whisper was a secret between the two men who loved Katarina. Besides, if you really knew what Red said the show would probably be over.

“[They are] people who live sort of in the fringes or extremities of our society, their lives are lived in the extreme, and that makes for a good drama,” Spader adds. “But it also allows people to visit those sort of extreme aspects of our societies, and it transports people to a different place and a different sort of sensibility.”

In the original outline for the series, Red Reddington was written as a far more serious – and sinister – figure than he ultimately became. The shift occurred, producers John Bokenkamp and John Eisendrath have said, mostly because of the wry nuances in Spader’s performance.

“I saw a great opportunity for humour, or irreverence,” Spader says. “I think that is a better way of putting it really, because it’s not a jokey show at all. Just a sort of irreverence, and a way to have fun with it, in the middle of the intensity. It’s nice to have some lightheartedness, it makes it more fun to play.”

“You’ve got a guy who’s spent a good portion of his life being faced with adversity, he’s capable of very, very bad things, but he’s got a very well developed heart, which you see in a lot of his dealings with a lot of people,” Spader says.

“He has a tremendous feeling … and when faced with a child, I think the child represents life, you know? The beginning of life. For a man who’s lived right on the brink of death, he’s so close to the end of his life throughout his whole life. He’s just one misstep away. To be faced all of a sudden with life, it’s incredibly moving.”

From the day he walked into government custody promising to help the FBI track down the most dangerous criminals in the world, James Spader’s character in The Blacklist, Raymond “Red” Reddington, has played a high stakes game.

As the series has evolved, and a larger mosaic to Reddington’s character has been revealed, a daughter-like figure (if not an actual daughter) is in the narrative – FBI profiler Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) – and a tender side to Reddington has been revealed.

For the most part, Spader confines the bigger conversation – about the show’s over-arching themes, its direction, and his character – to one long talk each year.

“After we finished shooting the pilot [producers] John Bokenkamp and John Eisendrath came over to my house and we sat and talked about the show as a whole, where it could go, and what the shape of it could be,” Spader says.

“That has continued; what we tend to do is, in the spring, during our vacation break, we tend to talk about the long term, the whole season and how that fits into a larger picture of the future,” he adds. “Then we talk about the specifics.”

The last season wrapped with Reddington in a very vulnerable place, seemingly betrayed by the person he trusted the most. “I think you saw a lot, frankly, for him, considering who he is, I think you saw a lot of [vulnerability],” says Spader.

“But he’s got to move forward,” he adds. “He’s got to find a way to move forward. He’s not a person to wallow. So, the season opens with everybody in trouble. The whole group. They’re all at odds and conflicted. It’s a mess. I think that’s a pretty good starting point.” …

Away from the set, Spader and his partner Leslie Stefanson live with Spader’s two sons with former wife Victoria, Elijah and Sebastian, and a younger son, Nathaneal. In his spare time – of which there is precious little – Spader says reading is his greatest passion.

“There’s not enough time in a lifetime to read even a fraction of the amount of stuff that you may want to read in your life. I devote a lot of time to that,” he says. “Besides eating and the hangout with the family and sleeping and making love, I can read for months. I just love it. I love it.”

Spader says reading, more than any other factor, drove him into his acting career. “It’s not about acting, really,” he says. “It’s really because I love stories, and I love other people’s lives and I love other things that I am not familiar with. I love the consumption of that.

“It all started with just playing make-believe as a kid, but your playing make-believe is also informed by your reading, what you read as a kid, the stories you’re hearing,” he says. “I didn’t watch a lot of television or go to the movies and stuff as a kid. It was all books.”

TVGuide.com: What can you tell us about the man we see dragging Mr. Kaplan through the woods?

Jon Bokenkamp: Boy, what can I tell you? We’re gonna go down the rabbit hole with Mr. Kaplan into a sort of unexpected world, I think. She has been left for dead and has been rescued. That could be good and that could be bad, and maybe full of a couple turns and twists. … What we don’t typically do is slow stuff way down. That is going to be a story that is a little bit of a slow burn for us. It’s not going to be completely answered in the next episode or even the one after that. … I think it’s going to be rather interesting.

TVGuide.comWhen will she and Red cross paths again?

Bokenkamp: That’s interesting. What’s unique about this, and we don’t often do this, but this is a story that’s sort of happening in a vacuum. Red has, for all intents and purposes, killed Mr. Kaplan. And yet she has managed to barely survive. So, we’re telling a story that’s sort of parallel to the lives of Red and Liz (Megan Boone) and Tom (Ryan Eggold) and Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) and the task force. We did that a little bit in the first season, where we saw this – we called him the Apple Eating Man, who was watching Tom and Liz. And we had a run of episodes where we didn’t know who these people were. Finally, in that case, those stories converged. Here, we may take a different route, or we may end up in a different place. But one of the things that’s unique about it, and I think sort of unusual, is that we’re just telling a little short story with Mr. Kaplan off on her own, really untethered to Red or Liz or what’s going on with Agnes or Alexander Kirk (Ulrich Thomsen). She’s sort of in her own bubble off in the wilderness, in her own little movie.

TVGuide.com: It sounds like it will be a while until those stories converge again. How is Mr. Kaplan feeling towards Red at the moment?

Bokenkamp: One thing about Mr. Kaplan – she knows how Red feels, and I think she knows it would probably not be wise to go say, “Hey, I’m alive and well.” Or, “alive.” I don’t know about “well.” So we’re not in a big rush to play scenes between Red and Mr. Kaplan, if we will. Her condition is super grave. She’s been shot in the face, is clinging to life at the moment. I think any stories with her at the moment are really just about survival and staying alive, and that’s about it. That’s all that’s on her plate right now.

TVGuide.com: Switching gears to Liz, she’s trying to figure out who’s telling her the truth about her past – Red or Alexander Kirk. Are the writers dropping “clues” along the way so that viewers could potentially figure this out on their own, or will we be going on the journey along with Liz?

Bokenkamp: I think the audience has all the information that Liz has. I don’t know there are clues so much as truths about who these men are to her. They’re both telling different sides of the story. Maybe through the lens of history some things are remembered slightly differently. But I think what’s interesting about Kirk is that he’s coming in with a story that he’s incredibly passionate about, and truths that he believes in his soul – even so much that they’re turning up in Liz’s mind as memories.

In our second episode, she’s remembering moments with her mother. She’s digging up items that clearly were not planted. These are 25-year-old items that were buried. She’s found her journal, and read truths that were not fake, that are grounded in the mythology of the show. Again, that’s one of the things that makes Kirk so dangerous to Reddington, is that he has real, concrete answers. … [H]opefully the audience will be able to understand that we’re playing fair with them and that the truths are being laid out as these episodes progress.

TVGuide.com: We saw Liz’s mother in her memories. Is there any chance Katarina is still alive?

Bokenkamp: Well, they never did find her body. That is true. She, as the story goes, walked off into the water and committed suicide at Cape May, and sort of washed away. But it is true that her body was never found. { … }

TVGuide.com: The last time we spoke, you said the writers were just starting to discuss how to launch the spin-off The Blacklist: Redemption. Is there anything more you can share about that?

Bokenkamp: That is something that we’re still kind of figuring out. We have a plan. … I don’t know what to say there. I don’t have anything quite yet without blowing stuff.

TVGuide.com: Is it fair to say that seeds have been planted in these first few episodes about the plot that will carry Tom over to Blacklist: Redemption?

Bokenkamp: I think seeds were planted even before that. The draw that is going to have to pull Tom away from this whole world is something that has sort of been woven into the show for some time. It goes back years for him. We have a really compelling story for who Tom is, how he came to be. …

TVGuide.com: A fan on Twitter asked if we’ll ever find out who sent Red the mysterious painting in Season 3.

Bokenkamp: That was a warning from, I believe, Alexander Kirk. … It was a sort of a warning shot from across the bow to Reddington, saying, “I know and I’m coming.” I wish there was some deeper mind-bending turn there.

TVGuide.com: Can we expect more from the Samar (Mozhan Marno) and Aram (Amir Arison) storyline?

Bokenkamp: Yes, very much so. Samar and Aram have a story that is playing out that I think we just hinted at at the end of last week’s episode. Aram has had a bit of a secret that he hasn’t been telling us, and that is certainly news to Samar and Ressler and everyone, that Aram is making dinner and having dates and having a life outside of the post office …

TVGuide.com: Will we see more of the FBI and Team Keen working together?

Bokenkamp: Yeah, for sure. They’re going to continue to work together. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be still some bad blood there. I think Samar specifically is really struggling with how to continue with this task force, when Liz sets the house on fire and expects everyone else to come put it out. … We are going to continue to have some significant ripple effects from the fact that Liz faked her death and betrayed the trust of the people who care the most for her. …

“It just— it only makes sense. Yet, everybody who’s applying for the job, no, they want ‘something that they’ve never done before.’ They want to do something that is ‘brand new’ … ‘take a flyer on me I’m worth the 10 million, you know, really trust me, I know what I’m doing. I can do it really I can.’ So that’s the battle. It’s a formidable one but it’s a valiant one and one must be vigilant.'”

TVGuide.com: Where/when do we pick up in Season 4?

Bokenkamp: We pick up literally right in the moment where Season 3 left off. … We dive right back into it headfirst.

How does the knowledge about Kirk being her father change Liz this season?

Bokenkamp: I think her first reaction is, ‘Where is my kid? What have you done with my child? Where is the man I was going to marry?’ I think she is incredibly suspicious. This guy has abducted her, taken her away from a life that she was trying to reboot. And he hasn’t entered her orbit in the most graceful of ways. So, I think she’s incredibly suspicious.

And yet, Kirk promises to offer and will offer some incredibly compelling truths that are hard to refute, and truths that I think Raymond Reddington is not happy to have exposed. … He’s going to open Liz’s eyes to her past … and I think it’s going to be really compelling.

… Should she — and the audience — accept that Kirk is her father as a definitive truth?

Bokenkamp: I think you should take it as seriously as Liz and everyone in the task force. In the [writers] room, we take it incredibly seriously. … [I]n our mythology in the past three years of the show, we have worked in the writers room incredibly hard to keep the stories clean, the mythology clean. … Kirk believes it. He has proof that he is Liz’s father. And in time, he will share that with her. I think the audience should take it incredibly seriously.

What is Liz and Red’s relationship this season?

Bokenkamp: I think it’s a real yin and yang, their relationship. Liz has faked her death to get away from Reddington, and to start her family and to try to have a fresh life, this idyllic life that she’s been grasping for since we met her in the pilot of this series. … I think it’s safe to say that they in some way are going to have to find a way to push forward and continue to go out and solve those cases, and work together.

Liz be able to regain the trust of her FBI colleagues? … Will any of the team members react in surprising ways?

Bokenkamp: I think their responses across the board are going to be surprising. The very people that you would think would be suspicious of this and think it would be a terrible idea may step forward and support Liz. And the people who you think might be the most caring and supportive may feel the deepest betrayed. So we have some really good stories.

Talk about Red’s mindset when we return. Obviously he must feel deeply betrayed by Liz as well.

Bokenkamp: … Immediately, the only thing that is going to matter to him is, 1) finding Elizabeth Keen and 2) finding her child. And, any reveals or news or information that Kirk has, it might be new to the audience but it’s going to be almost irrelevant to Reddington until he knows that Elizabeth Keen and her child are safe. That is at the forefront. It’s one of the things we love about the character, is that, even though he’s been so brutally betrayed, his love for her is so deep that he’s able to set all of that aside and go do what’s right by her and her child, and set this right. When we meet him at the top of Season 4, he will be on fire. I can assure you that.

How does he deal with Mr. Kaplan’s (Susan Blommaert) betrayal?

Bokenkamp: He is going to be confronted with what to do with Mr. Kaplan and how to move forward within the first two episodes. We’ll have a clearer idea of what Red has in mind by the end of Episode 2. … We’ve seen how Reddington deals with betrayal in the past, whether it was Newton Phillips in Season 1, who he suffocated with the plastic liner of an urn, or the Paul Rubens character who betrayed him and who ended up dead on an airport hangar floor. He’s not one to suffer fools or to stand down to people who betray him. As the character says, value loyalty above all else. And that loyalty has certainly been breached with Kaplan.

[T]he decision she’s made will have significant consequences. It is something [Red] will struggle with tremendously, and it is a story that we’re going to confront. …I wouldn’t want to be Mr. Kaplan at the moment. …

Can we expect any more back story for some of the smaller characters?

Bokenkamp: As the show has grown, I think one of the things that we’ve become better at is telling the stories of the other people that populate the show. … We’re going to continue to do that as we push forward, and we’ve got some really great stories, some that come out of Liz faking her death and … other stories that are completely independent. … There’s potentially some back stories coming up [but] not immediately. Not at least in the first few episodes.

Will we get to see more of Scottie (Famke Janssen) and Tom’s relationship this season, ahead of the spin-off?

Bokenkamp: …That is, quite honestly, something we’re still figuring out. … She’s not in any of the immediate episodes when we launch back, but that is definitely a possibility.

How will the show move towards Redemption in the first half of the season?

Bokenkamp: We’re fortunate in that the spin-off doesn’t happen until midseason. We do have this big story we’re saddled with at the moment that we’re telling that clearly involves Tom, and that he’s going to be an important part of. … [Tom’s] got a whole basket full of problems before his character can even consider going to a spin-off.

When we do land there, in probably February, I think it’s going to be a great, super rich emotional decision. In terms of how and when he leaves, those episodes have yet to be written … .

Will we still see him on The Blacklist?

Bokenkamp: We’re talking about it. It’s clearly possible to see him on The Blacklist, and vice-versa. There’s a potential that any of these characters could sort of drift into the spinoff to the extent that it feels organic. …

Anything else you can add about Season 4?

Bokenkamp: …[W]e’ve got a real rollercoaster coming, and it’s gonna be a blast.

CarterMatt – [E]very season almost has its own feel. Have you felt that way…?

Amir Arison – It’s true. Each season kind of has a certain through-line, or at least half a season or a quarter of a season, and then there’s some giant twist and it’s turned on its head.

[T]he first half of the season — was Liz on the run and what that meant for every character on the show. … [W]e still had a Blacklister every week [but] it didn’t feel as procedural. It felt more ‘Alias’ / ’24’-esque.

Then, Liz was caught and brought into the box and Aram had that enormous episode where he had to try and save her. The second half of season 2 had its own through-line, and then the last five [episodes] when Liz Keen ‘died,’ everything turned on its head. Doing those five episodes was unlike anything that I’ve done on the show.

Of course, as we’re heading into this season, the news is that Liz is very much alive. … But one character we didn’t see get that information is Aram, and that is something I can say we will see in the premiere: Aram receiving the news that Liz Keen is in fact alive. I can’t say what goes with that news, but it’s more than a few things. It’s a lot to process.

CarterMatt – I have to imagine that for Aram it’s difficult. He’s such an emotional heart of the group and he cares about her, … .”

Amir Arison – I agree [Aram] is more emotional than other Task Force members on the show, but everyone has a very unique response to her revival, if you will. I think our writers and producers do a phenomenal job with the responses being consistent with each character, but then also surprising us.

CarterMatt – You mentioned those five episodes where Liz had died, and what an interesting time that was for you as an actor.

Amir Arison – Well, there’s a production episode and a script element. They didn’t tell us anything, and I went script to script to script. I can say now, … I did see Megan [Boone] around. I had a feeling they weren’t killing off our main character, but at the same time as an actor I like to stay in the dark so I can play each episode as truthfully [as possible].

When I did get the [final Season 3] script, though, I will say that the final reveal of Alexander Kirk saying ‘hello Masha, I am your father’ was like ‘whoa, I did not see that coming at all.’ That throws off all kinds of theories and so forth, and I have to tell you that the season [4] premiere and episode 2 … so much happens. The premiere feels like a vintage ‘Blacklist’ premiere, but episode 2 feels like a finale. That’s how much happens. That’s how many bombs drop. It’s exciting. I can say unequivocally it’s an exciting season so far.

CarterMatt – One of the last things Red said to Cooper in a great scene last season was to ‘set [Aram] up with someone.’ Could we actually see that happen? It’s the Aram matchmaker game!

Amir Arison – How funny was that line? He compared him to a school-boy with an erection, something like that. I saw a draft of that line and I laughed out loud each time. Of course the way James [Spader] delivered it [added to it].

If you remember back to the finale, at around that same time Aram went on a blind date in a Ford commercial, and coincidentally ended up on a blind date with Samar! I don’t know if all the viewers saw that. Aram was trying to put himself out there.

I was telling some cast members what I think Aram’s backstory is. I think Aram, after Liz Keen’s death and after it looks like the Task Force is going to disband, I think Aram is going to have to lean in to other aspects of his life. I’ll just say that (laughs).

CarterMatt – How much more of Aram’s backstory have you been clued in on? Have the writers given you more, or do you just take what is given to you in the scripts?

Amir Arison – In terms of backstory, here and there there are little pockets of discussion, but in television you have to be ready for anything.

[E]arly on in season 2 when Aram talked about his background a little bit I did talk to [showrunner] Jon Bokenkamp about that and had some suggestions. We had a super-collaborative conversation about that.

The show is about Red and Liz, and we get little pieces of Samar’s background and Cooper’s background and Ressler’s background. We haven’t gotten so much of Aram, but stay tuned for season 4!

CarterMatt – You mentioned early on about some of the stuff you got to do before episode 10 of season 3, and I think in general that was Aram’s biggest year yet. Is that going to continue moving forward?

Amir Arison I love those storylines in the third season. They were unexpected and extremely exciting. This season, I can say from the first six episodes there is some stuff I’m getting to do on the show that I haven’t done before, and I am loving it.

As The Blacklist inches closer to revealing exactly who Reddington is to Liz, she will discover a shocking truth. “What comes to light is that it’s not really Reddington bringing all of this upon her, it’s her own history and where she comes from,” Boone teases. “Something you start to realize through season 4 is she was strapped with this from birth.”

In truth, Boone admits she doesn’t even know the real connection between Red and Liz. “I never really felt like it was useful to me to know anything about the relationship that Liz has with Red, or about Red’s history and why he takes such an interest in Liz, because Liz doesn’t really know,” she says. “I always wanted to maintain that mystery for myself. That being said, I don’t really know, maybe James Spader, Jon Bokenkamp, and John Eisendrath are really enjoying keeping it a secret from everyone.”

“It’s very complicated and it’s something that actually gets revealed — it’s a big reveal in episode 3 of season 4,” Boone says. “Like a lot of the people that crop up in our show, his agenda is not necessarily altruistic. He doesn’t have the best of intentions.”

Bokenkamp: “Over time, he will be unpacking truths that are undeniable about who Elizabeth Keen is, where she comes from, what her connection is to Kirk, to her mother and, ultimately, to Reddington.”

DigitalTrends: One of the extras from the previous season’s Blu-ray set showed how you guys worked on the Super Bowl episode [season 2, episode 9, Luther Braxton (No. 21)], where we got to see that big storyboard wall. Are you still using it to break stories?

Jon Bokenkamp: Oh my God, yeah — and it’s only growing. It’s more of a bible now. Occasionally, if we bump up against something like, “Does Liz speak Russian?” — we have to go back to the bible to keep it straight and to be on point with exactly what the backstory is.

We’re very religious about being honest and true to the mythology of the show, the origins of it, and where we’re planning to go. So, yeah, we’re meticulous about the mythology and maintaining the bible that we’re adding to, and checking against it to make sure we’re not contradicting ourselves in the storytelling.

DigitalTrends: Do you personally choose some of the songs that run with the montages at the end of certain episodes? Do you have specific songs in mind, or do other people bring their choices to your attention?

Jon Bokenkamp: It’s a little of both. I have very strong feelings about some stuff — either stuff I’ve listened to for many years, or stuff I’ve found that I feel will fit. I work very closely with John Bissell, who’s constantly sending me these packets of songs. He’ll say, “Hey, here are 20 songs you haven’t heard before.” Every once in a while, I’ll walk around the Paramount lot listening to them.

DigitalTrends: One of the most critical episodes from season 3 was Cape May [episode 19], a James Spader showcase that should be winning awards left and right, as far as I’m concerned. Was that actually shot in Cape May in New Jersey?

Jon Bokenkamp: I’m not sure exactly where they shot it. That’s another example of production making us look better than we deserve to be. But it was all on location, with very few things shot on a stage. It was all Spader and Lotte Verbeek [who appears as Red’s foil in that ep, ID’ed only as “Mysterious Woman”] and Michael Watkins, who directed it. They brought it to life.

DigitalTrends: What I also liked was that there was no Blacklister in that episode at all, which shows you can do an episode without having that be a given part of the plotline.

Jon Bokenkamp: [W]e feel emboldened by that episode, and we feel it would be a welcome breath of fresh air every now and then to go in and tell these stories that are a little bit different, more serialized, and a little more unusual. We really enjoy mixing it up and letting the show find itself, and not be beholden to one specific sort of format.

DigitalTrends: Season 3 ended in such a great way, and we’re looking forward to whatever comes our way in season 4.— as well as the Blacklist: Redemption spinoff series that’s set for midseason. If you could assess season 4 in, say, two words, what would they be?

Jon Bokenkamp: I would say: rollercoaster. It’s going to be a very adrenalized emotional rollercoaster. In a way, these people who have worked so closely together and have kind of become a family are going to have to somehow find it within themselves to move forward. It’s going to be a blast.

DigitalTrends: Seeing Liz’s father at the end of season 3, and having Ulrich Thomsen playing him, is a great casting move. [Thomsen portrayed the ruthless local businessman Kai Proctor on Banshee.] Is it fair to say we’ll see a lot of him in season 4?

Jon Bokenkamp: We’ll see him a fair amount, yes. He’s a critical part of season 4. Ulrich is a great actor, has great chemistry, and brings a real presence to the show. I think fans are going to have a great time watching him bring this character to life, one who has a lot of mysteries surrounding him. He’s not only going to raise questions, but he’s also going to answer questions as we move forward. I think he’s going to be a great addition. We’re going to have a great run with Ulrich.

That’s one of the things we like about the show — trying to surprise ourselves. Once you feel like you know somebody, you realize you don’t know them at all. That’s certainly the benchmark with Red. He’s this sort of chameleon who’s always shifting and changing. We’re getting closer and closer to understanding him, and the Cape May episode was a good example of that. But he’s still somewhat of an enigma to us.

DigitalTrends: I totally agree. So I have one question about the ultimate reveal of the series: Are we going to find out everything is happening in Red’s snow globe?

Jon Bokenkamp: What I’ll say about the trajectory of the show and where it’s going — and where it’s been going since Day 1 — is that we do have a grasp on who these people are, how they’re interconnected, and what the agendas are. …

We’re fortunate to know where we’re going, and fortunate to have smart writers on staff who are keeping us in line with that. I don’t think we could tell as complex a story or as emotional a story if we were just winging it.

DigitalTrends: So, just to confirm what you’re saying — no matter what season winds up being the last season of The Blacklist, you already know where you’re going to end up?

No matter how long we’re on? I have in my heart — and James [Spader] shares it, and [executive producer] John Eisendrath, and the people in the writer’s room do too — that we have a story, and it’s one we’re sticking to.

[T]he truth of who Reddington is guides us in every single episode. It also makes writing the episodes incredibly difficult, but it is our guide.

Listen, Liz has pushed Red away many times before and he’s always waited patiently in the wings. So despite the fact that she’s gone to extreme lengths to get away from him, I don’t think he’ll be changing his tactics any time soon. “He’s not insensitive to the fact of what she’s going through in her life right now and he’s aware of her knowledge of his feelings about all of it, and he’s made that plain,” James Spader tells me. “I think he would have an understanding for what led to this.”