The Blacklist


The Blacklist is an American crime thriller television series created by Jon Bokenkamp and developed by John Eisendrath. It stars James Spader as Raymond Reddington, an international criminal and one of the FBI's Most Wanted fugitives who cooperates with the FBI in hunting down other criminals on his "Blacklist". The series also stars Megan Boone, Diego Klattenhoff, Ryan Eggold, Amir Arison, Hisham Tawfiq, and Harry Lennix.
The Blacklist was given a series order in May 2013, and ran from September 23, 2013, to July 13, 2023, on NBC. The pilot episode garnered 12.6 million viewers in the United States. The series was produced by Davis Entertainment, Universal Television and Sony Pictures Television Studios. Eisendrath, John Davis, and John Fox served as executive producers for the entire run of the series; Bokenkamp also executive produced the series for the first eight seasons. Other executive producers include director Joe Carnahan and Spader.
During its run, The Blacklist won a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award and was nominated for six more, and received nominations for two Golden Globe Awards, two Saturn Awards, and two People's Choice Awards. The series spawned a tie-in media franchise, including comic series, standalone novels, and a video game. A spin-off, The Blacklist: Redemption, also created and developed by Bokenkamp and Eisendrath, aired on NBC from February to April 2017. It shared the same fictional universe with the original series and was entirely focused on Ryan Eggold's character, Tom Keen.

Plot

With a few exceptions, an episode features one of the global criminals whom Raymond Reddington assists the task force in hunting down and capturing. In every such episode, the rank and name or alias of the featured criminal on Red's blacklist are displayed at the close of the opening sequence. Otherwise, only the episode name is shown. The action takes place primarily in present-day Washington, D.C., although other locations around the world are featured occasionally.

Seasons 1–8

Raymond "Red" Reddington, an ex-US Naval Intelligence officer who disappeared twenty years earlier to become number 4 on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, surrenders himself to FBI Assistant Director Harold Cooper at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. Taken to an FBI "black site", Reddington declares he wishes to help the FBI track down and apprehend the criminals and terrorists with whom he has spent the last twenty years associating. They are the individuals who are so dangerous and devious that the United States government is unaware of their very existence.
He offers Cooper his knowledge and assistance on two conditions: immunity from prosecution and cooperation only with FBI Special Agent Elizabeth "Liz" Keen, a rookie criminal profiler recently assigned to Cooper's task force. Keen and Cooper are suspicious of Reddington's interest in her, but he will only say that she is "very special". After Cooper tests Reddington's offer in locating and neutralizing Serbian terrorist Ranko Zamani in the first episode, Reddington reveals that this man was only the first on the "blacklist" of global criminals that he has compiled over his criminal career and states that he and the FBI have a mutual interest in eliminating them.
The COVID-19 pandemic halted filming of the seventh season finale, leaving it incomplete. To finish the episode, the creators used graphic novel-style animation to complete key scenes.
The mysteries of Reddington's and Liz's lives, and his interest in her, are an ongoing theme as the series progresses. She digs into her family's past, the question of his real identity and their connection, while he desperately tries to hide them. Each season, the danger to Liz caused by his reemergence intensifies, and Reddington uses Cooper's task force to protect her. The storyline ends with season 8, when Liz is murdered by a hitman seeking revenge for Red's killing a crime lord at the end of the season. The explanation of Reddington's identity and his interference in Elizabeth's life are never given.

Seasons 9–10

Following Liz's death at the end of the eighth season, Cooper's task force has disbanded and Reddington has fled the country. After an absence of two years, however, Reddington returns to help his former bodyguard, Dembe Zuma, who has in the interim become an FBI Special Agent with the assistance of Cooper, when a modern pirate named the "Skinner" nearly kills him. Red promises to retire and move to Cuba with his girlfriend once the Skinner is neutralized. However, when Red begins to take over management of the remains of his empire, he breaks his promise and decides to stay in charge of what he can still control.
Red and Cooper come to an agreement to resume his deal with the FBI and continue hunting down global criminals on his "blacklist" in honor of Liz's undertaking. Cooper manages to find the old task force members and re-create their division. The secret Red kept from Liz becomes irrelevant, and the story now centers on not only Red but also Cooper and the field agents Liz used to work with. Now, the task force must confront new criminals as well as familiar ones who have returned in order to take revenge on Red for his betrayal.
After the threat of the former Blacklisters is neutralized, the task force faces a new threat in the form of ambitious Congressman Arthur Hudson who suspects them of rogue behavior and works tirelessly to uncover their many secrets. They also contend with Red making unexpected moves by using them to shut down several central parts of his criminal empire for unknown reasons. It all comes to the point of no return when Reddington closes his operations center responsible for the blacklist and after a legal investigation is launched against the task force, Cooper must arrest Red to avoid prosecution against him and his task force. Reddington evades capture but is fatally gored by a bull in Andalusia, where Ressler discovers his body.

Cast and characters

Main cast

  • James Spader as Raymond "Red" Reddington: an ex-US Naval Intelligence officer and a master criminal turned FBI confidential informant. During seasons 1–8, Elizabeth and the task force's effort to uncover his true identity is a major ongoing narrative. During season 9, his main concern is ferreting out a traitor within his organization. During the final season, he faces off against former Blacklisters looking for revenge for their downfalls, and an ambitious congressman looking to take down the task force and, by extension, him.
  • Megan Boone as Elizabeth "Liz" Keen : Born Masha Rostova, Keen is an FBI special agent and profiler on Harold Cooper's task force. Her presence is part of Reddington's deal with Cooper for no apparent reason until her connection to Reddington becomes obvious.
  • Diego Klattenhoff as Donald Ressler: an FBI special agent on Cooper's task force.
  • Ryan Eggold as Tom Keen : Born Christopher Hargrave, later taking the adoptive name Jacob Phelps, Keen works as a covert operative and is Liz's husband.
  • Parminder Nagra as Meera Malik : a field agent with the CIA who worked with Cooper's FBI task force.
  • * Nikita Tewani as young Meera Malik.
  • Harry Lennix as Harold Cooper: the assistant director of the FBI Counterterrorism Division who uses Reddington to expose and stop people on his blacklist.
  • Amir Arison as Aram Mojtabai : an FBI special agent and cyber expert on Cooper's task force.
  • Mozhan Navabi as Samar Navabi : a Mossad agent who works with Cooper's FBI task force.
  • Hisham Tawfiq as Dembe Zuma : Reddington's bodyguard and confidant, who separated from him and turned FBI special agent with the help of Cooper in season 9.
  • Laura Sohn as Alina Park : an FBI special agent who previously worked in Anchorage.
  • Anya Banerjee as Siya Malik : Meera's daughter and an intelligence officer with MI6 who comes to work with Cooper's team.

    Recurring actors

  • Teddy Coluca as Teddy Brimley: Red's interrogator who uses extravagant methods to make his victims talk.
  • Susan Blommaert as Mr. Kaplan: born Kathryn Nemec, Kaplan is Red's cleaner. She has also been a nanny for Liz and therefore is feared for her collaborations with Reddington.
  • Alan Alda as Alan Fitch, senior member of the Cabal.
  • Clark Middleton as Glen "Jellybean" Carter: Reddington's tracker "with a twist". He has frequently let Red down but never loses his credibility despite criticism from other members of the team.
  • Lotte Verbeek as Katarina Rostova : the former KGB spy and biological mother of Elizabeth. She has been hunted worldwide after the establishment of The Townsend Directive. The question of her fate and location is one of the main storylines in the first eight seasons.
  • Deirdre Lovejoy as Cynthia Panabaker: a United States senator from Virginia, formerly a White House counsel who operates the legal aspects of Cooper's taskforce. She always tries to act as the law says, bringing trouble to Reddington's illegal cooperations.
  • Fisher Stevens as Marvin Gerard: a shadow counsel whom Reddington hires as his attorney. He manages most of the empire's dealings, and, being very proud of his achievements, stands up for the benefit of it.
  • Brian Dennehy and Ron Raines as Dominic Wilkinson: Elizabeth's grandfather who knows some unexpected information about Reddington's past.
  • Various actresses and Sami Bray as Agnes Keen: the daughter of Elizabeth and Tom who reflects after any major event occurring to Liz.
  • Aida Turturro as Heddie Hawkins: Reddington's financial manager and an owner of a smuggling corporation.
  • Jonathan Holtzman as Chuck: Reddington's hitman who works alongside Morgan and usually replaces his bodyguards.
  • Genson Blimline as Morgan: Reddington's operative who usually accompanies Chuck on their missions.
  • Fiona Dourif as Jennifer Reddington: the elder daughter of Reddington, adopted as Lillian Roth. She helps Liz investigate Reddington's true identity and their shared past.
  • Laila Robins as Tatiana Petrova: an operative in Reddington's organization. Assigned as a body double of Katarina Rostova meant to draw suspicion away from her, she ends up on the run instead. She manipulates Liz to get to Reddington, the only man who is aware of the true Katarina's location.
  • Alex Brightman as Herbie Hambright: a quirky cyber expert who previously worked for Reddington. He joins the Task Force as Aram's de facto replacement.
  • Toby Leonard Moore as Arthur Hudson: an ambitious US Congressman with a passion for exposing government corruption. He begins to dig into secrets about Cooper's FBI Task Force after noticing the extraordinary amount of funding they receive.
  • Seth Numrich as Rakitin: deep cover SVR double agent, who uses his security clearance within the U.S. government to funnel top secret intelligence to N-13 through a mutual friend in the East.