Why was elizabeth keen written out of blacklist
|
It looks like The Blacklist's season 8 finale is gonna be a doozy. Megan Boone, a mainstay on the show as the female lead opposite James Spader, is reportedly departing the NBC series after the upcoming finale episode, which is said to mark her last appearance as a series regular. Deadline was the first to report the news. NBC declined to comment, and a representative for Boone didn't immediately respond to EW's request for comment. Boone has starred on The Blacklist as Liz Keen, a rookie-F.B.I.-agent-turned-Blacklister and fugitive. This season revealed Liz to be No. 1 on the Blacklist. She didn't appear in eight episodes of season 8, due to her character being a fugitive. But it did raise some questions about her future on the show. The final two episodes of this run are titled "Nachalo" and "Konets," which mean "Beginning" and "End" in Russian. "[Red] is in a place where he knows that the only way he can protect Liz is by telling her everything, and he has every intention of doing that," executive producer Jon Bokenkamp told EW ahead of episode 20, "Godwin Page." "The answers that were suggested by Reddington in tonight's episode are an appetizer for what's to come." The show was renewed for a ninth season, as announced in January.
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched “The Skinner,” the Season 9 premiere of “The Blacklist.” “The Blacklist” has officially moved on from Liz Keen’s death. The NBC drama returned for its ninth season on Oct. 21 with the first episode since the exit of Megan Boone, who starred as the former FBI profiler since the pilot. While Boone left to work on other projects, Liz was shot and killed just as she was about to kill the terminally ill Raymond Reddington (James Spader) in order to take over his criminal empire and valuable blacklist. Of course, that happened just before Liz could learn Red’s real identity once and for all, but the show gave viewers enough information to guess that Red might actually be the adopted identity of Liz’s mother, Katarina. The premiere picked up two years after Liz’s death, with Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq), now an undercover FBI agent, getting badly injured in an explosion and ending up in the hospital while his partner was killed. His assailants, who were trying to steal important microchips, were sporting mysterious tattoos, which led a retired Cooper (Harry Lennix) to get his team back together to figure out which dangerous person or organization was responsible. He pulled Aram (Amir Arison) out of an investor meeting for his new cyber security business and took Alina (Laura Sohn) away from a class she was teaching, but a bearded Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) wasn’t interested in abandoning the car he was working on to get back in on the action, especially if Red was involved. Ressler still blamed Red for Liz’s death, and he wasn’t the only one. Red, of course, was the only person who could help identify this villainous tattoo, so Cooper had to track the man down in Havana. That meant Cooper had to be drugged in a bar, then taken to some strange place where Red was being guarded and cared for by a shaman. Once Cooper was suitably rubbed down with an egg (don’t ask), he got to have a chat with his old friend and learned quite a bit about a man known as the Skinner, who might be a 700 year-old pirate but is also the leader of a group of criminals who burn people alive, and his identity changes over time in a line of succession. He’s “more myth than man,” Red said, but they had to find the man who personifies the myth. While Red wasn’t exactly interested in joining Cooper’s little meetings with his recreated team, he was interested in the fact that Cooper is taking care of Liz’s daughter, Agnes, though Cooper didn’t think it was the best idea for Red to see her. Red eventually agreed to help the team by tracking down the Skinner’s predecessor, Vincent, who Red kidnapped with some acting work from Cooper, Aram and Alina. Red convinced Vincent that it was in both of their best interests for him to reveal the Skinner’s current identity, and got the name of a guy who just checked into a hotel in New York. Cooper and Alina got on a plane, joined by a surprise Ressler while Aram chased down his investor. Things went badly for Aram when he had to use the investor’s computer to hack into a database to identify a man being tracked by the Skinner, but he was able to find out that the Skinner was after the chief tech officer for the only company that makes the world’s most advanced microchips. Red then took off, taking all his resources with him, after Cooper still refused to let him back into Agnes’ life. The rest of the team, armed with only a unicorn printer courtesy of Agnes, visited Dembe to brief him on the somewhat dire situation. They got the name of the man who was kidnapped, but they didn’t have a whole lot more than that. Ressler then went after Red to tell him that he still had to care about the blacklist in honor of Liz, and the next name on the list is a former Skinner. Looks like Red and Ressler are going to be working together, and a new era for “The Blacklist” has begun, even if we still have no official confirmation on the identity of Raymond Reddington. “The Blacklist” airs Thursday at 8 p.m. on NBC.
EXCLUSIVE: The Blacklist is headed for a shocker. Megan Boone, the female lead opposite James Spader, is departing the long-running NBC series after eight seasons, I have learned. She will make her last appearance as a series regular in the upcoming Season 8 finale.
Your Complete Guide to Pilots and Straight-to-Series orders The decision about Boone’s exit was made early on, well ahead of The Blacklist‘s Season 9 renewal in January. That allowed the writers to craft the arc for her character, Elizabeth “Liz”” Keen, this season as her final chapter. I hear the decision was mutual, and Boone already is plotting her next move. Reps for NBC and Sony Pictures TV, which produces The Blacklist with Universal TV, had no comment. With Boone’s departure, Spader, Diego Klattenhoff and Harry Lennix remain the only original cast members on the show. Season 8 has completed Liz’s transformation from a wide-eyed rookie FBI agent to a criminal on the run who has embraced her dark side. In Episode 4, Liz was revealed to be No. 1 on the Blacklist. After watching Raymond “Red” Reddington (Spader) kill her mother, Katarina, Liz turned the tables on her former mentor who now became her target. Their tumultuous relationship will come to a head in the final two episodes of Season 8, aptly titled “Nachalo” and “Konets,” Russian for “Beginning” (Начало) and “End” (Конец). In a recent interview with TVInsider, The Blacklist creator Jon Bokenkamp teased that in “Nachalo,” “we’re going to go back to the very beginning and unpack answers to eight years worth of questions.” In the dramatic NBC promo, Spader’s Red says, “There is only you, me and the truth,” and Boone’s Liz is heard asking, “Tell me, who are you?” (which has been one of The Blacklist‘s biggest mysteries, especially after the bombshell several seasons ago that he is not the real Red Reddington.) At the end of the most recent episode, Red revealed to Liz that he’s N-13, the elusive spy she’s been hunting for. The series will now finally explain why Red entered Liz’s life eight years ago. As part of the Liz-as-a-fugitive storyline (and in part due to personal reasons), Boone did not appear in eight episodes this season, raising questions about her future on the show. Boone returned in the April 23 episode as Liz emerged from hiding. The Blacklist was a career-defining moment for Boone. The young actress had done one show as a series regular, NBC’s short-lived Law & Order: LA, when she was cast as the female lead opposite three-time Emmy winner Spader in the pilot. (Boone was actually cast first, with NBC going down to the wire on the role of Red, ultimately getting Spader for it.) The character-driven procedural was an instant, massive hit, turning Boone into a TV star overnight. Despite losing some ratings steam as it was moved around the NBC schedule, The Blacklist has remains a solid performer, and through its off-network deal with Netflix, the show has reached a global audience. Here is a gallery of Boone as Liz Keen through her eight seasons on The Blacklist. |
