Megan Boone on The Blacklist Finale: Red Still Has Leverage

When a plane is about to crash-land in New York, the FBI is betting on Red.
Although we last saw The Blacklist's Red Reddington (James Spader) on his knees, arrested by the FBI, he won't be sitting out the second part of Monday's finale (10/9c, NBC). "His relationship with the FBI is similar, but now obviously it's more complicated," star Megan Boone told reporters at a recent lunch in West Hollywood. "He still has answers they need to stop a major catastrophe, and that major catastrophe is Berlin. In their mind, he has information about Berlin that they need in order to stop civilian casualties and a huge catastrophe in New York City. He still has leverage."
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And when Red and the FBI deal with each other, Agent Liz Keen (Boone) has to be involved, a condition set up in the series' first episode. The two have had a rough time of it since Liz discovered that Red killed her father, but, for now, they're stuck working together. "She even says to him at the end of the first part of the season finale, 'I don't forgive you. Right now I want to kill you, but there are answers that I need, and I can't get them without you.' That's the nature of their relationship now," Boone says. "There's tension. They're very opposite, they have different agendas, but they rely on one another to see those agendas through."
The plane in question is transporting a prisoner who may or may not be the mysterious Berlin, someone who has been targeting Red first through the season's Blacklisters and now perhaps in person. As we now know, Liz's erstwhile husband Tom (Ryan Eggold) was actually an agent planted in her life and working for Berlin. "He has information about Berlin that we don't have," Boone says. "That's a touchy subject. There's something very, very surprising about Tom's involvement in the finale."
Tom has been on the run ever since Liz busted him as an agent in a spectacular fight that left their home in shambles. But don't expect her to be distracted by her feelings about their sham of a marriage. "She's focused. Laser-like focus," Boone says. "In the beginning she was very naive -- she had the wool pulled over her eyes ... These new challenges have introduced to her a truth about life and the dark underbelly of the world that she never knew existed. I think she always had an inkling, but she was always turning away from that inkling. Now she is head-on, full-force involved in the dark side of things."
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Lately, Liz has demonstrated a more ruthless side, such as when she injected someone she was questioning with the deadly Cullen virus to force information from him. Expect to see her get her hands dirty again in the finale. "Liz gets action. There are some fight sequences," Boone says. "I can't say if it's with Tom or who, but you're going to see some choreographed fight sequences, some shootouts and chases."
Although the finale will wrap up many of the ongoing mysteries, it will also open the door to more, thanks to characters who've receded into the background until now. "What I really like about the finale is it leaves you in a place where you get a sense of where we're going for Season 2, and it's exciting. It's a new direction," she explains. "I thought the writers did a great job teeing us up for a really successful second season. Season 2 will partially be about exploring the ensemble too, breathing a lot more life into the group and the tactical team and what is in their past. On The Blacklist no one is who we think they are, and that's a theme that I think has made the show very interesting."
Does this mean a focus on the relationship between Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) and Liz? "Everybody's curious about that," Boone says with a laugh. "That's a smaller, more detailed element of the second season. That isn't fully formed, but the feelings and the things you see there between Liz and Ressler, they're going to remain. That dynamic and that chemistry and that relationship is going to be there. Where that takes us plot-wise, that remains to be seen."
The Blacklist airs Monday at 10/9c on NBC. Check out a preview of the finale below:

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