Major spoilers ahead!!
The Blacklist season 8 finale aired on Wednesday, June 23 and fans are pissed.
Actually, that’s an understatement. They’re mad as hell.
If you haven’t watched the finale yet, you’re going to want to avert your eyes at this point. We’re about to completely reveal what happened.
The season 8 finale spent most of the episode with Liz trying to decide whether or not she should agree to Red’s plan to kill him and take over his empire.
For the most part, it was rather anti-climactic since fans already knew actress Megan Boone was leaving the show and James Spader would be staying on.
Anyways, the real action didn’t happen until the last few moments of the episode when Liz was shot. She looked into Red’s eyes and saw a montage of herself with her mother mixed with images of her with Reddington. The clear implication was that Reddington is, in fact, her mother Katarina Rostova.
The ending seemed to confirm the long-held fan theory of Redarina but wasn’t brave enough to actually say it out loud.
Needless to say, fans were not impressed. Even the most die-hard fans felt disrespected. Some of the comments included:
Fans have every right to be mad. Hell, I’m mad. I came to the conclusion years ago that we would pretty much never get a straight answer about, well, anything in this show. But after nearly a decade of half-truths and fake-outs, this felt like the worst way imaginable to reveal Reddington’s identity. In fact, it felt cowardly. The writers didn’t even have enough guts to come out and say Reddington’s true identity. They only wanted to imply it.
On top of that, I personally find the Redarina plotline to be absolutely absurd. If Red is truly Liz’s mother, why was he such an asshole to her? He claimed that his only purpose in life was to protect her, but, in reality, he often prioritized protecting himself instead. He did anything and everything to protect his identity, even if it hurt Liz. To claim that he built his empire to protect her is just utter nonsense. And to refuse to tell her his identity was for his sake, not for hers.
With Liz now dead, many fans are questioning why the show is even going ahead with season 9.
Although many fans weren’t a fan of Liz’s character, most can admit that the show was held together by Liz and Reddington’s relationship. And without it, the show just doesn’t make much sense.
In reality, the show should have ended a long time ago. But instead of giving fans good, thoughtful content, they decided to milk the show for all its worth. They took a great cast and premise and squandered it. What could have been a great five-season show turned into a series that overstayed its welcome. The Blacklist‘s legacy has been ruined and the writers and producers have nobody to blame but themselves.
It’s unfortunate that, like many other series (Dexter, How I Met Your Mother, etc.), they dragged it out rather than letting it run its natural course.
If you want to relive the glory days, you can watch the early seasons of The Blacklist on Netflix and Peacock.
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