The Blacklist Season Finale Answers Some Questions, Creates More

Last night was a big night for The Blacklist which wrapped up its fifth season. The Blacklist is a hit NBC crime drama series that stars James Spader as criminal mastermind Raymond “Red” Reddington and Megan Boone as FBI profiler Elizabeth “Liz” Keen. Reddington turned himself in to the FBI after years of eluding them, offering his help in catching other criminals but there’s a catch: he speaks only to Liz Keen, who is a new agent starting that very day.

MAJOR spoilers ahead! If you have not seen The Blacklist season 5, episode 22- “Sutton Ross” and do not want to be spoiled, turn back now. You have been warned!

The Blacklist- Season 5, Episode 22- “Sutton Ross” (No.17)

In the fifth season, we have Tom Keen return to the show following the cancellation of the spinoff show The Blacklist:Redemption. The hook for the season is a mysterious bag of bones that Red has been hunting all season, which eventually leads to the involvement of Ian Garvey, a US marshal who has ties to a crime organization called the Nash Syndicate, and the subsequent death of Tom Keen after being beaten, tortured, and stabbed by Garvey. Liz was attacked too and was in a coma for nearly a year before learning of her husband’s death. Liz, now back on her feet, sets out to uncover the truth about the bag of bones and uncover Red’s secret in order to fulfill the wish of her dead husband (that being for her to know the truth about the bones in the suitcase and learn Red’s secret). After a very long game of waiting for an answer on the identity of the bones, we have been promised that the reveal will come in this episode.

The episode centers around a blacklister named Sutton Ross, number 17 on Reddington’s blacklist. Early on in the episode, Harold Cooper, the director of the FBI, tells Keen that he and the team will help her get the duffle bag, even if it is against Red’s best interests. When Ross is captured by the FBI and questioned by Ressler and Keen while in custody. Ross asks to speak privately with Keen: no recordings, no cameras, no one else. Keen agrees and Ressler leaves. Ross and Keen talk and Keen is eventually attacked and taken hostage by Ross. Ross escapes with Keen before the FBI can stop him from doing so. Then the tables turn, Ross demands that Red exchange his life for Keen’s, telling him to go to a payphone alone, but as the cliché goes, he doesn’t go alone and the FBI follows him. Red allows himself to be taken, being brought out in a gray van while the FBI chases three other vans that were all decoys. Ross now has Red and Liz, allowing the two of them to have a moment in which Liz shares regret over not letting things with the bag go and getting them in this mess. Red tells her that she doesn’t have to apologize to him ever and then Ross takes her away into another room. Ross then forces Red to reveal the secret within the duffle bag of bones and just as Red is about to do so, the FBI arrives at the last moment and stops it. Red comforts Liz in the other room and shoots Ross twice as he leaves with the duffle bag. Here’s where the twist ending comes in, Liz stands at her husband’s grave and has “conversation” with his “ghost” in which she reveals that the whole thing was a plan she had. She told Ross what to do, even told him to make demands and how to get them to leave the FBI base. From there, she had Ross attack her to make it look like she had been badly beaten and her half-sister, Jennifer, was the one who had the duffle bag and revealed the truth, which was in the DNA report. The report reveals that Raymond Reddington is dead and has been for 30 years and his bones are the ones in the duffle bag. The man we have been watching for the last five seasons of the show is an imposter who is simply posing as Reddington. Liz explains to “Tom” that she is going to figure out who he really is and “destroy him”. Liz is now working with Jennifer in order to do so. Red, believing his secret is safe, burns the bones.

While the reveal was a letdown in my opinion at least, the story can go several interesting ways with this. Who is this fake Red? Why did he assume the identity of the real Red? Why is he obsessed with Liz if he isn’t actually her father? Why did he kill the real Red? What actually happened on the night of the fire? Viewers may recall that Red has burns on his back, as shown in season one of the show, so he must’ve been there. Hopefully, our questions will be answered soon.

The Blacklist was recently renewed for a sixth season by NBC, meaning we will see Spader, Boone, and the rest of the cast when the show returns.