The Blacklist was a TV staple through a rapidly changing TV landscape. It began airing during the prestige TV era, and continued on as more TV resources shifted to streaming and prestige fell away in favor of populist shows. It ran through three different Presidential tenures. It lasted through a pandemic and the exit of lead Megan Boone. Yet, as the 2023 summer TV schedule waned, it finally said its goodbyes, and now other The Blacklist cast member James Spader is opening up about Season 10's – and the series’- twist ending and how he felt about it.
First, if you haven’t seen the series finale of the The Blacklist, I am going to get into spoilers in the next couple of paragraphs, so now may be a good time to bail or scan down later in the article! There had been clues for years that Red was ailing on the NBC show, and his death is exactly what happened, just maybe not how you might have guessed. After some drama involving Dembe getting shot and Red donating blood, the longtime TV character found himself escaping to Spain where he was out for a walk when he was ultimately trampled by a bull. It was Ressler who found his body and returned Red his hat.
Speaking to the AP, James Spader opened up about The Blacklist's final episode actually filming in Spain (which is a real thing that happened), and how he felt about the show’s final TV outing heading international, given its wide an international collective of characters over the years. In short, he felt the final episode “completed a circle” for Red:
I really felt like this was complete and I loved how it really completed a circle, in a way. It wasn’t just an unbroken line from point A to point Z, but it was a circle of sorts.
How fitting it was to linger on Red’s hat after the incident and for Ressler to set it down where it belonged, near its owner, for the last time. How fitting it was for Red to get away one last time, only for a bull to be his demise. End of spoilers!
The Blacklist Ending: NBC's Decision And How James Spader Feels
As for the show actually ending? Spader told the outlet that he was just happy the network had made a decision ahead of the the final episodes and not after to cancel the show. It enabled the creative team to “commit” in a way some network shows are never able to when they are given a surprise cancelation notice. He said of the NBC decision:
I was very, very glad we were able to end it exactly the way we wanted to end it. It was deliberate and we weren’t taken by surprise in terms of when the ending was going to come. You’ll see that the ending has conviction and we commit to it.
The Peacock network announced this winter that The Blacklist had officially been canceled, though it wasn’t a gigantic surprise. Megan Boone left back in Season 8, and while Reddington is an interesting enough character –and arguably he and Dembe were the most interesting characters – to keep people invested after her exit, the show was getting a little long in the tooth anyway. I mean, 218 episodes is a lot of episodes! Announcing in advance seemingly gave the cast and creative team time to prepare, as Spader’s comments indicate everyone was aware what the score was going to be when the Season 10 finale was filmed.
A lot of people theorized that Reddington’s destiny was going to ultimately be dying, and the show certainly gets bonus points for the creative way it went about it. I do think the character will go down as one of James Spader’s most memorable, but I’m very interested to see what the actor tackles next.
In the meantime, catch up on the best The Blacklist episodes with a Peacock subscription.
