Now that Mr. Kaplan is dead, it is presumed that Red (James Spader) will rebuild his empire in the upcoming new season of The Blacklist fifth season. Of course, he’s going to need the help of Liz played by Megan Boone.
If you don’t want any more spoilers, now would be a great time to warn you that there’s more.
The premiere episode is titled, “Smokey Putnam” and NBC has released its synopsis,
“With his criminal empire in ruins, a surprisingly carefree Red (James Spader) enlists Liz (Megan Boone) in an unlikely plan to simultaneously earn cash and deliver a new Blacklister to the Task Force. As Liz faces the new reality of working alongside her father, Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) finds himself in a precarious position and Tom (Ryan Eggold) weighs his options. Harry Lennix, Amir Arison, Mozhan Marnò and Hisham Tawfiq also star. Michael Aronov, James Carpinello and Aida Turturro guest star.”
This would be the first time that Red and Liz will be working together after finding out their father-daughter relationship. She also needs to get used to the idea that her mentor is also her father. Although this may not be a bad thing, but Red is a high-profile criminal and who wants a criminal father anyway? However, Red is portrayed differently on The Blacklist so he does have a likable character.
According to musictimes, in this season it is not certain yet if Liz will quit the Task Force and be heavily involved in her father’s criminal activities but being almost like her father and being trained by Tom (Ryan Eggold) for years, it may be possible that she would play both sides.
Another storyline that would probably happen is the first meeting of Liz and Katarina’s father. However, it all depends if Red even allows it to happen. He is not yet ready to confess everything to Liz and will not risk Dom spilling more of his secrets.
Even though it was already confirmed that he was Liz’ real father, he may not be entirely honest. There was a scene where he went to the farm looking for a suitcase that apparently contains skeleton pieces of an unknown person. So it’s still may be possible he’s not Liz’ real father.
On the sneak peek trailer of the Season 5 for The Blacklist, Red still wasn’t able to get the suitcase because Tom already had it. And in the last episode of the fourth season finale, Tom was instructed by Mr. Kaplan to deliver it to Liz. But with the show’s twists and turns, it may not even reach Liz at all.
Red’s back story would also be revealed in the new upcoming season especially the time he spent in Russia. Jon Bokenkamp, executive producer of the show teased that “there were a lot of interesting materials to use from Red’s secret connection to the Russians.”
It is also worth knowing that one connection may be is that Katrina is Russian and Red used to be a naval intelligence officer who communicates with the Russians.
It was earlier reported that The Blacklist Season 5 returns to NBC on October 4 but it was later moved to September 27. Few more days and we’ll find out what happens!