After eight seasons of twisting, turning, yearning, burning, and lots of other exciting verbs, The Blacklist star Megan Boone is now giving fans some real-life shocks, as it's being reported that the actress is exiting the NBC drama with the upcoming Season 8 finale. As it stands, Boone will no longer be a series regular when the already renewed Season 9 makes its network debut later this year. But there is a little bit of a silver lining to be found woven through this not-so-happy news.
It appears as if Megan Boone's exit was not birthed from a spur-of-the-moment decision, as Deadline reports the actress' departure was something the writers and producers knew about much earlier during the production process for Season 8. It was a mutual decision, without any bad blood tainting the exit. As such, the writers were able to craft a proper and thought-out ending for Boone's character Liz Keen, as opposed to having to haphazardly throw a conclusion together at the last minute. While that may not be the best-case scenario for Blacklist fans who don't want to see Liz leave, it will definitely help the show's legacy for her exit to be a more natural piece of the puzzling and theory-friendly plot.
This news does make quite a bit of sense in the wake of the reveal that the final two episodes of Season 8 will go hard on giving The Blacklist fanbase some long-sought answers to some of the mystery drama's biggest questions that have been floating around since the very beginning. Of course, just because audiences will learn more doesn't mean that things will be equally positive for the characters themselves.
Is it possible that the plot points that get resolved and/or introduced in the final two Season 8 episodes will lead to Liz's death, possibly at the hands of James Spader's Red Reddington? As poetically sound as it'd be to have Liz and Ryan Eggold's long-gone Tom Keen spending the afterlife together, it would be a wild left turn for The Blacklist to kill Megan Boone's character off right when a bunch of big reveals are made. Of course, we'd probably later learn that she didn't really die, and that she hadn't been the real Liz Keen since Season 3 or something.
Don't expect Megan Boone to go and hide under a rock for the next few years, either. While no follow-up projects have been announced just yet, the actress is reportedly in the process of securing her next project. Though The Blacklist is her main claim to fame, her work across eight seasons speaks for itself, and I wouldn't be surprised if she lands on another network drama in the near future.
This news obviously makes those next two episodes of The Blacklist all the more vital for fans to watch, so be sure to tune into the final Season 8 installments, which are airing on NBC over the next two Wednesday nights at 10:00 p.m. ET, following coverage of the Olympic trials. And stay updated with all the shows that are yet to premiere as part of the 2021 Summer TV season.
