98 Fun Facts About The Blacklist

Who plays Raymond 'Red' Reddington?

James Spader said yes only three days before filming began, after the part had been offered to Kiefer Sutherland, Bryan Cranston, Pierce Brosnan and Richard Gere.

On which network did The Blacklist air from 2013 to 2023?

NBC bought the series from Sony Pictures Television in 2012, launched it in September 2013 and aired all ten seasons, ending in July 2023.

Who created The Blacklist?

Jon Bokenkamp wrote the pilot and shared showrunning duties for eight seasons; he left in 2021, the day after the season-eight finale aired, but stayed credited as creator.

By what nickname is Raymond Reddington known in the underworld?

The Concierge of Crime had spent some twenty years on the run and stood fourth on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list when he walked into its headquarters and gave himself up.

To whom does Reddington surrender in The Blacklist's pilot?

Assistant Director Harold Cooper: Reddington walks into FBI headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, and gives himself up to Cooper, who runs the task force that follows.

What does Reddington secure from the FBI in return for his list, besides working only with Elizabeth Keen?

Immunity from prosecution is the heart of Red's deal; it is torn up in season six, when he is about to be executed, and restored only after he helps catch an assassin.

Which criminal does Red hand the FBI first, in the pilot of The Blacklist?

Ranko Zamani, a Serbian terrorist the FBI believed dead, plans to kidnap a general's daughter; Red, who hands him over, turns out to have set the plot in motion himself.

Who plays Elizabeth Keen?

Megan Boone played Liz from the 2013 pilot until 2021; her exit was settled early enough for the eighth season to be written as the character's final chapter, which ends with Liz's death.

What first name was Elizabeth Keen given at birth in Moscow?

Masha was the name she was born with; after the fire that scarred her wrist she was sent to live with Sam, the adoptive father who raised her as Elizabeth Scott.

Who plays Tom Keen, Liz's husband with a secret past?

Ryan Eggold plays Tom Keen, born Christopher Hargrave; he left in 2017 to lead a spin-off and came back to the parent show as soon as it was cancelled.

Who plays Harold Cooper?

Harry Lennix plays Harold Cooper, head of the task force, in all ten seasons; before acting took over he taught music in Chicago classrooms.

Which agent is the task force's cyber expert?

Aram Mojtabai began as a recurring character and joined the main cast in season two; actor Amir Arison left after season nine to star in The Kite Runner on Broadway.

Which intelligence agency did Samar Navabi come from?

Mossad is where Samar Navabi served before joining the task force in season two; in season six the agency sends assassins after her, judging her illness a liability.

Who is Dembe Zuma?

Reddington's bodyguard and confidant: Dembe, played by Hisham Tawfiq, guards Red through the first eight seasons, then reappears in season nine as an FBI special agent.

What is the real name of Mr. Kaplan, Red's 'cleaner'?

Kathryn Nemec: Mr. Kaplan, Red's cleaner played by Susan Blommaert, is revealed as Kate Nemec, who once looked after the young Liz.

Which veteran actor played Fitch, a senior member of the Cabal?

Alan Alda plays Alan Fitch, a senior US intelligence official and Cabal insider, who is killed in season two when a bomb strapped to him cannot be disarmed.

Which actor played Berlin, the villain of The Blacklist's first season?

Peter Stormare plays Berlin, whose vendetta against Red drives the first season; Red finally shoots him dead in season two, after the two share a bottle of vodka.

What is Glen 'Jellybean' Carter's job for Reddington?

Tracker: Glen, played by Clark Middleton, used his job at the DMV to find people for Red; after Middleton died in 2020, the show gave Glen a memorial with Huey Lewis as a guest.

Who plays Marvin Gerard, Red's lawyer?

Fisher Stevens plays Marvin Gerard, a former top defence lawyer; in the season-three episode named after him, Red stages a diner hostage-taking as cover for breaking him out of custody.

Which real-life fugitive financier did Stacy Keach play in The Blacklist's sixth season?

Robert Vesco fled the US accused of taking some $200 million of investors' money and was reported dead in 2007, amid suggestions that he had faked his death.

What do the task force call their black-site headquarters?

The Post Office is the task force's secret black site; in season one armed raiders storm it, and Reddington locks himself and the wounded Ressler inside its bulletproof holding cell.

Which hat is part of Reddington's signature look?

A fedora was the leading man's own idea: the producers said no hat, he insisted on trying one for the pilot, and they ended up agreeing it made the character.

How did The Blacklist finish its season-seven finale after the pandemic shut down filming?

With graphic-novel-style animation: the unfilmed scenes of 'The Kazanjian Brothers' were drawn instead, the cast recorded their lines at home, and the season ended three episodes short.

Where was The Blacklist actually filmed, despite being set in Washington, D.C.?

New York: the task force's headquarters set stood at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan, the studio complex where Law & Order was made, and Washington landmarks were shot on location.

How does Raymond Reddington die in The Blacklist's series finale?

Gored by a bull: weakened by illness, Red walks unarmed onto an abandoned Miura ranch in Andalusia, Spain, and Ressler arrives moments too late to help.

How does Elizabeth Keen die at the end of The Blacklist's eighth season?

Shot by a rival's henchman: Red had asked Liz to kill him and inherit his empire, and as she hesitates one of the dead crime lord Neville Townsend's men shoots her in the back.

Which congressman investigates the task force in The Blacklist's final season?

Arthur Hudson, played by Toby Leonard Moore, builds a case against the task force; in the last episodes he shoots Dembe in the neck and is killed by Red on the spot.

Where is Reddington living with the healer Mierce when The Blacklist's task force finds him in season nine?

Cuba: two years after Liz's death, Cooper finds Red there with Mierce and her sister Weecha, his new bodyguard, and he rejoins the task force only after Dembe is hurt.

Which character joins The Blacklist's task force in season ten as the daughter of the late agent Meera?

Siya Malik, an MI6 officer played by Anya Banerjee, joins the task force in season ten to learn about her mother Meera's death.

What was the Tom Keen spin-off called?

The Blacklist: Redemption followed Tom Keen for eight episodes in early 2017 before the network cancelled it.

Which two actors played Tom Keen's parents in the spin-off?

Famke Janssen and Terry O'Quinn play Scottie and Howard Hargrave of the private military firm Halcyon Aegis; Scottie has no idea that the operative she hires is the son who vanished as a child.

Which streaming service paid a reported $2 million an episode for The Blacklist in 2014?

Netflix's deal with Sony was believed to be the biggest streaming deal yet for a single TV series, beating the $1.35 million an episode it had reportedly paid for The Walking Dead.

Which episode of The Blacklist aired straight after Super Bowl XLIX in 2015?

Luther Braxton: the post-Super Bowl episode, with Ron Perlman as the title villain, drew about 26 million viewers and launched the show's move to Thursdays.

Which guest star played the title blacklister of The Blacklist's 100th episode?

Nathan Lane plays Abraham Stern, the title blacklister of the 100th episode in January 2018, numbered No. 100 to match the milestone.

Which TV weatherman played himself in a 2020 episode of The Blacklist, meeting Red face to face?

Al Roker of the Today show appears in 'Roy Cain', which was promoted as the show's 150th episode although it was the 151st to air.

Which actress played Carla Reddington, one of Red's ex-wives, in season two?

Mary-Louise Parker plays Carla Reddington, who is living under the name Naomi Hyland when Berlin kidnaps her as part of his vendetta against Red.

In The Blacklist episode titles such as 'The Stewmaker (No. 161)', what does the number stand for?

Place on Red's list: every target has a numbered spot on the Blacklist, and the No. 1 position turns out to belong to Elizabeth Keen herself.

What job does Tom Keen appear to hold when The Blacklist begins, before his cover is blown?

Schoolteacher is the cover: the mild elementary school teacher Liz married turns out to be a covert operative planted in her life, hired first by Red and then by his enemy Berlin.

What does The Blacklist eventually reveal about the man the FBI knows as Raymond Reddington?

He is an impostor: a bag of bones turns out to belong to the real Raymond Reddington, Liz's father, and the series ends without ever stating who took his name.

Which lawyer did The Blacklist's star play in The Practice and Boston Legal, winning three Emmys?

Alan Shore won the star Emmys on two different shows, in 2004 for The Practice and in 2005 and 2007 for its spin-off Boston Legal; Denny Crane was William Shatner's role.

Who directed The Blacklist's pilot episode?

Joe Carnahan, the director of The Grey, shot the 2013 pilot, stayed on as an executive producer and came back to direct the show's post-Super Bowl episode in 2015.

David Strathairn plays which Cabal leader in seasons two and three?

The Director is Peter Kotsiopulos, head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service; Red has him kidnapped and uses the threat of a war-crimes trial at The Hague to force Liz's exoneration.

Who plays FBI special agent Donald Ressler throughout The Blacklist?

Diego Klattenhoff plays Donald Ressler in all ten seasons; in the finale he is the agent sent after Red, and he reaches the Spanish ranch moments too late.

Which hit show was the lead-in for The Blacklist's pilot, which drew over 12 million viewers in 2013?

The Voice handed its audience to the new drama at 10 p.m. on Mondays, and after that start the network extended the planned 13-episode first season to 22.

Who co-ran the show from the start and became sole showrunner after season eight?

John Eisendrath, executive producer and co-showrunner since the pilot, ran the final two seasons alone after the creator left in June 2021.

Which former KGB spy is revealed to be Liz Keen's biological mother?

Katarina Rostova, the KGB operative played in flashbacks by Lotte Verbeek, is Liz's mother; Laila Robins's later 'Katarina' turns out to be a body double, Tatiana Petrova.

What job does Cynthia Panabaker hold when she first appears in season three?

White House counsel: Cynthia Panabaker, played by Deirdre Lovejoy, enters in season three as counsel to the President before later becoming a senator who oversees the task force.

According to his FBI file, in which branch of the US military did Raymond Reddington serve before turning criminal?

The Navy: the file says Reddington graduated top of his class at the Naval Academy and rose in Naval Intelligence, then vanished and resurfaced as a broker of crimes.

What is rookie agent Elizabeth Keen's FBI specialism when Reddington asks for her by name in The Blacklist's pilot?

Criminal profiling is her field, and she is so new to it that Reddington's insistence on dealing with her alone makes her own bosses suspicious.

Before the task force is formed in The Blacklist, what has FBI agent Donald Ressler spent five years doing?

Hunting Reddington cost Ressler his engagement, so he bristles at having to treat the man he chased as a colleague.

What name does Liz Keen give her daughter, after her adoptive grandmother, in The Blacklist's third season?

Agnes is born by emergency Caesarean while her parents are being hunted, and Liz refuses to let Red see the baby.

What is inside the suitcase, dug up by Mr. Kaplan, that Reddington hunts for throughout The Blacklist's fifth season?

A human skeleton fills the case, the key to Red's greatest secret, and Tom Keen is killed trying to learn whose remains they are.

In The Blacklist's backstory, from whom did Reddington rescue Dembe Zuma, then a half-dead boy of 14?

Human traffickers had held Dembe for eight years. Red nursed him back to health and made sure he got an education, which explains his fierce loyalty.

Which Marvel villain did the actor behind The Blacklist's Raymond Reddington bring to the screen through motion capture?

Ultron, the rogue robot of Avengers: Age of Ultron, reached cinemas in 2015, while The Blacklist was in its second season.

Agent Meera, a first-season member of The Blacklist's task force, is played by the star of which football film?

Bend It Like Beckham made Parminder Nagra a star in 2002, and years on the medical drama ER followed before she joined the pursuit of Red's blacklisters.

Before The Blacklist, the actor who plays agent Donald Ressler was Marine captain Mike Faber in which spy drama?

Homeland cast him as a Marine whose best friend comes home after eight years missing in Iraq, by which time Mike has grown close to his friend's wife.

After Tom Keen was killed off in The Blacklist, the actor who played him took the lead in which hospital drama?

New Amsterdam starred him as Dr. Max Goodwin from 2018 to 2023, beginning the year after Tom Keen's death and the end of his short-lived spin-off.

The capture of which real fugitive mob boss, after 16 years on the run, helped inspire The Blacklist?

Whitey Bulger was caught in 2011, and the writers wondered what would happen if such a man walked in and offered up names on his own terms.

Which writer inspired The Blacklist's seventh-season episode in which Red's fellow dinner guests start dropping dead?

Agatha Christie's whodunits shaped the special episode, which reunites Red with an old flame, the thief Cassandra Bianchi, at a remote dinner party.

Which rock singer plays himself in The Blacklist's eighth-season tribute to Red's late friend Glen Carter?

Huey Lewis appears in the episode that mourns Glen, written after actor Clark Middleton died of West Nile virus in 2020. The character dies of it too.

After Tom's death in The Blacklist's fifth season, in which US state does a grieving Liz hide out in a remote cabin?

Alaska is where Liz lives under an alias until four killers chasing a protected witness reach her cabin in an ice storm.

Glen Carter, an associate Reddington nicknames Jellybean in The Blacklist, holds a day job at which government agency?

The DMV employs Glen, who is forever letting Red down yet never loses his trust. Actor Clark Middleton played him for six seasons.

Long before she became Reddington's cleaner in The Blacklist, what was Mr. Kaplan to the young Liz?

Her nanny in childhood, Kaplan later joined Red on a single condition: that she would always put Liz's interests ahead of his.

Liz Keen becomes a fugitive at the end of The Blacklist's second season after shooting dead which senior official?

The attorney general, Tom Connolly, was secretly part of the Cabal, and his death puts Liz among the FBI's most wanted, beside Red.

On which charge is Reddington put on trial, facing the death penalty, in The Blacklist's sixth season?

Treason is the charge after Red's arrest ends 30 years on the run, and he is about to be executed when a reprieve arrives.

From which agency does agent Meera join The Blacklist's task force in its first season?

CIA operative Meera works alongside the FBI team for a single season: she is killed in the first-season finale.

Which real-life development for The Blacklist's lead actress in 2015 was written into the third season's plot?

Her pregnancy became Liz's too, and the birth, the apparent death that follows and the character's weeks off screen all grew from it.

Jolene, who flirts with Tom Keen in The Blacklist's first season, was played by the future star of which comedy?

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel made Rachel Brosnahan an Emmy winner in 2018, four years after her six episodes as Red's quarry Lucy Brooks, alias Jolene.

In The Blacklist's seventh season, a fugitive who claims to be Liz's mother enters Liz's life by posing as what?

A friendly neighbor is her cover, adopted after she kidnaps Red in search of whoever framed her and set hunters on her trail.

In which city is Reddington abducted in the final scene of The Blacklist's sixth season?

Paris is where Red goes to warn a woman from his past that the KGB is on her trail, only for her to seize him instead.

With his empire in ruins as The Blacklist's fifth season opens, where does Reddington set up his new base?

A budget motel is his headquarters after Mr. Kaplan's war wrecks his business, and he enlists Liz to help him rebuild.

Whom is President Diaz secretly plotting to have killed in The Blacklist's sixth-season finale?

The First Lady knew that Diaz had run over a mother and child while drunk and covered it up, so the gunman at the debate was aiming at her.

What is the name of the blackmail file on the Cabal that drives the plot of The Blacklist's second season?

The Fulcrum records the Cabal's assassinations, and Red admits he never had it: the rumour that he did was what kept him alive.

Which villain of The Blacklist's third and fourth seasons, a tycoon with a blood disease, claims to be Liz's father?

Alexander Kirk kidnaps Liz to win her loyalty, then abandons his obsession on discovering that she is not his daughter after all.

Which corrupt US marshal and drug kingpin fatally stabs Tom Keen in The Blacklist's fifth season?

Ian Garvey wanted the secret Tom was carrying as leverage over Red, and Liz wakes from a ten-month coma to learn her husband is dead.

Which New Jersey seaside town names a third-season episode of The Blacklist in which a broken Red mourns Liz?

Cape May sees Red rescue a mysterious woman from drowning herself and confide his grief to her. Unusually, the episode has no blacklister.

Which first-season blacklister escapes prison to lead Red's old enemies against him in The Blacklist's final season?

Wujing, the second blacklister to be jailed, learns behind bars that Red was the informant who put him there and recruits freed blacklisters for revenge.

Where does Liz secretly keep Tom prisoner for several months in The Blacklist after staging his death?

On a boat, Tom is questioned for months, and he strangles a harbormaster who nearly discovers them before Liz finally lets him go.

What was the job of Donald Ressler's father, who was killed by his own corrupt partner, in The Blacklist's backstory?

Police officer Ressler senior refused to take bribes and died for it, which helps explain why his son is such a stickler for the rules.

Before its eventual star signed on days before filming, which actor did The Blacklist's creator want to play Reddington?

Kiefer Sutherland was the hope, and Bryan Cranston, Pierce Brosnan and Richard Gere were sounded out too, before a long phone call three days from filming filled the part.

The Blacklist won its only Emmy, in 2014, for which behind-the-scenes craft?

Stunt coordination brought the win for the show's first season, and the same category supplied most of its later Emmy nominations.

Dave Porter, who composed The Blacklist's score, is best known for the music of which earlier drama?

Breaking Bad brought Porter an ASCAP award, and he went on to score its prequel Better Call Saul while still writing for The Blacklist.

On which talk program did The Blacklist's leading man break the news of its tenth-season renewal in 2022?

The Tonight Show got the scoop: he announced the renewal himself on air, where every earlier pickup had come by press release.

Heddie Hawkins, Reddington's money manager in The Blacklist, is played by an actress best known for which HBO drama?

The Sopranos cast Aida Turturro as Tony's big sister Janice. Heddie joins Red after he frees her in his first case of the fifth season.

Which veteran actor played Liz's grandfather Dominic Wilkinson in The Blacklist until his death in 2020?

Brian Dennehy died while the seventh season was still being made, and the part of Dom passed to Ron Raines the following season.

Which actor played Bastien Moreau, the assassin known as the Corsican, in The Blacklist's sixth season?

Christopher Lambert, the star of Highlander, played the nationalist killer obsessed with keeping his true identity secret.

Which actor played the Major, the handler who recruited Tom Keen at 14, in The Blacklist?

Lance Henriksen, the android Bishop of Aliens, played the spymaster who hired Tom out to Red, only for Berlin to double the price.

Hisham Tawfiq, who plays Dembe in The Blacklist, spent 20 years serving in which emergency service?

The fire department of his home city employed Tawfiq for two decades while he chased acting work, after a spell as a Marine in Desert Storm.

Which actor played Raleigh Sinclair III, the Alibi, who supplies killers with body doubles in The Blacklist?

John Noble, the eccentric scientist of Fringe, played the fixer whose near-perfect lookalikes give murderers an unbreakable story.

Which comedian played Mr. Vargas, the double agent who betrays and shoots Dembe, in The Blacklist?

Paul Reubens, famous as Pee-wee Herman, played Vargas across two seasons as a seemingly loyal mole who had sold out to the Cabal's man Solomon.

Which cult filmmaker appears as himself in The Blacklist's fifth-season finale, the episode titled 'Sutton Ross'?

John Waters, the maker of Hairspray and Pink Flamingos, shares the 2018 finale with Julian Sands, who plays the vengeful spy of the title.

Hans Koehler, the first blacklister of The Blacklist's sixth season, helps fugitives vanish through which trade?

Plastic surgery by Koehler has made many criminals unrecognizable, and a patient kills him to keep a new face secret.

What does Liz Keen eventually recall doing as a small child, a secret Red had blocked from her mind, in The Blacklist?

Killing her father to protect her mother is the truth Red had hidden, and the same night left the scar on her wrist.

Dembe Zuma is introduced in The Blacklist as a former freedom fighter from which African country?

South Sudan is the country he is said to come from, and he went on to earn a degree in English literature and to speak four languages fluently.

Which symptom, first seen after a near-drowning, forces Samar Navabi to quit The Blacklist's task force in season six?

Memory loss proves to be vascular dementia, and Samar resigns rather than tell her boss the truth about her condition.

What is the name of the private military company run by Scottie Hargrave, Tom Keen's mother, in The Blacklist?

Halcyon Aegis takes on black operations for the government, and Scottie offers Tom a job there without knowing he is the son she lost at three.

What are Liz and Tom in the middle of when Matias Solomon's gunmen surround a church in The Blacklist's third season?

Their wedding is cut short as Red arrives moments ahead of the attackers, and the guests hold off the gunmen while the couple escape.

In The Blacklist's fifth season, Red baits billionaire thief Greyson Blaise with a fake lost painting by which artist?

Rembrandt was the name on the forgery, and Red borrowed an Italian villa to throw a party around it before Blaise was arrested leaving with the canvas.