The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for all 10 seasons of The Blacklist
Being a big fan of James Spader when he was on Boston Legal, I was quite excited when he started a brand new series over a decade ago, The Blacklist. Put Spader in a suit and let him mug for the camera, and I'm there. I watched the show's first three seasons and really enjoyed them, but after Season 3, I ended up cutting the cord on my satellite TV, and I fell out of watching many of my favorite shows regularly, including The Blacklist.
But then earlier this year, the tenth and final season of The Blacklist arrived on Netflix. It took me a while to get around to it, but after so many years, I had forgotten many of the details of the show I had seen. So my wife and I started at the beginning and for about three straight months watched every Blacklist episode.
On the whole, I think the show is fantastic, but there is one part that has become one of my favorite TV moments ever. The solution to the mystery of Raymond Reddington's identity is a masterstroke. This made me very confused when, looking over articles from the time of the episode, as well as many more recent comments about the show, it seems many believe The Blacklist never resolved one major mystery that seemed pretty clearly answered to me.
The Real Identity Of Raymond Redington Was A Major Blacklist Mystery
The broader storyline of The Blacklist Season 5 was primarily concerned with the identity of a set of human remains. FBI informant and “Concierge of Crime” Raymond “Red” Reddington had been in possession of them, but he lost them in a power struggle with his associate Mr. Kaplan.
Red insists the bones are his property and that their identity is his business and nobody else’s. Following a long drawn-out fight which results in the death of the husband of FBI Agent Elizabeth Keen, our show’s other main character, who believes at this point she is Red’s daughter, we discover the truth. The bones belong to Raymond Reddington, meaning the man using that name for the entirety of the series is somebody else.
As the show progresses from there, we learn important details. The person claiming to be Red had extensive plastic surgery. Also, a woman almost certainly Liz’s biological mother whom she never knew, KGB Agent Katarina Rostova, was aware of the person’s transformation and intimately involved in making it happen.
How Liz's mother could assist in covering up the death of Liz's father is just one of the difficult questions to answer as Liz Keen goes rogue. She comes to believe Red is a Russian spy and ultimately decides to turn herself into a criminal in order to expose his real identity.
The Blacklist Reveals Red's Identity Clearly, It Just Never Says The Words
For the next three seasons following the bones' identity being revealed, the identity of the man calling himself Raymond Reddington becomes the broader plot outside of the weekly criminal takedown on The Blacklist. At various points, we think we know the answer. Liz’s grandfather, whom she didn’t know she had, reveals that Red is a former KGB agent called Ilia Koslov, but we learn later that Grandpa lied. Then, a woman claiming to be Liz’s dead mother, Katarina Rostova, turns up, but she is as in the dark about Red's identity as anybody, and ultimately it turns out she’s not who she claims to be either.
We learn that the real Raymond Reddington had been framed by “The Cabal,” the organization Red and the FBI took on early in the series, so that he looked like a traitor and would be unable to reveal the group's existence. Part of that frame-up involved putting a lot of money in Red’s name, so when Liz’s mother runs afoul of the same group, she and her friend Koslov decide to impersonate Red to get the cash.
In Season 8, however, what is arguably the true end of the series, with the final two seasons acting as a sort of post-script, answers are given. The penultimate episode, “Nachalo,” is largely an episode in which Red reveals the truth to Elizabeth. We learn that not only did Katarina take Red’s money, she took his name. She took the man who was believed to be a traitor to his country and built a mythology around him. She bought and sold information and built a network that became the foundation for the Blacklist, Red’s list of criminals that the FBI spends the show taking down.
Why does a KGB agent who is already skilled in espionage take on the name of someone else to do this? Part of it is to protect herself, and her daughter. It turns out Katarina is the Russian spy that Liz believed the false Reddington to be, and people want Katarina dead for this. They may try to hurt Liz to get to her, but turning Raymond Reddington into the king of the criminal world means the resources to protect Liz will be available. The other reason to become Red is in the song that plays during a montage where we see Katarina, begin her work as Red, but never see her face: James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.”
The Final Scene Of Season 8 Tells The Story
The final confirmation, however, comes in the final moments of Season 8. Raymond Reddington wants Liz to take over his empire to control The Blacklist, but he believes the only way she can do that, and look strong in the eyes of the criminals she will be working with, is to kill Reddington. The two work out a plan to do just that. Red’s incentive is a letter that reveals his identity. He won’t show her the letter beforehand because he thinks if she knows the truth, she won’t go through with it.
In the final moment, however, Liz can’t pull the trigger. We learn later it’s because she has seen the letter and already knows the truth. But then a different gun is fired. A man shoots Liz in the back, a punishment to Raymond Reddington for his previous transgressions.
As Liz falls to the ground, Red grabs for her. He cradles her as she falls and begins to bleed out. We get a “life flashing before your eyes” montage. At first, it's from Liz's perspective. We see Liz and her husband, happy. We see Liz and her daughter, smiling. Then we see Liz and Red, the happy times the two have shared over the past several years.
But as Liz's life begins to fade, the perspective clearly shifts. The scene's focus shifts from Liz's thoughts to Red's feelings as the woman he cares for dies before him. We’re no longer seeing through Liz’s eyes, but Red’s. The montage continues with images of Red holding a dying Liz intercut with Katarina Rostova holding a young Liz. We see Katarina kiss her new baby. Then we see Red lay a kiss on Liz's head for the final time. We know that Liz doesn’t remember her mother. These memories are not hers. The shots are either from the perspective of Red or the perspective of Katarina; the truth by way of the Kulashov Effect. These are Red’s memories because Raymond Reddington has always been Katarina Rostova.
Many Fans Seem To Still Be Confused About The Solution
It is true, as far as it goes, that The Blacklist never gives the answer to the question in a straightforward way. At no point does Reddington say “I was born Katarina Rostova.” This has seemingly led to a great deal of confusion among many who watched The Blacklist. Some are still asking the question “Who was Raymond Reddington?” Many of them, it should be pointed out, do understand what the show seemed to say, but the lack of a declarative statement still makes them wonder if they understood properly.
Maybe that's why two seasons later The Blacklist would offer one final hint. In Red's final conversation with Agnes, the now-preteen daughter of Liz. Red offers the young girl some advice on how to deal with boys. Agnes remarks that "Pinky," as she calls him, sounds like "such a mom." Red's response: "I guess I just can't help it."
While not giving a simple reveal to the answer does, technically, leave things open to interpretation, the fact is that the show very clearly tells you what the answer is as long as you're watching and listening.
This revelation wasn’t a shock to everybody. It’s clear from looking at old articles and posts that many suspected that exactly this twist would come. Red clearly had a parent’s love for Liz, but he always insisted, from the very first season, that he wasn’t her father because he was her mother.
No, The Blacklist never hands you this answer, but that’s part of the reason it works so well and why I loved the reveal so much. It lets you come to it at your own speed. The show doesn't give you the answer because it lets you discover the answer yourself. You get to solve the mystery of Raymond Reddington.
