Who Is Raymond Reddington?

Answer The Question

Was Raymond Reddington Katarina Rostova

Liz’s Father Is The Real Raymond Reddington – The Blacklist s eason 6 seemingly revealed the truth about who is Raymond Reddington, revealing that yes, Raymond Reddington IS Liz’s father — but the man Liz knows isn’t Reddington. The Blacklist ‘s real Raymond Reddington was in a relationship with Liz’s mother Katarina Rostova, who was really a KGB agent sent to seduce and enter into a relationship with him.

Why did Ilya Koslov become Reddington

Background – Ilya Koslov is a former KGB intelligence officer and a childhood friend/lover of Katarina Rostova, Also, Ilya is one of Raymond Reddington´s oldest and dearest friends and they seem to know each other since they were children. After Katarina Rostova staged her suicide in Cape May, Ilya helped her disappear.

Ilya devised the plan to impersonate Raymond Reddington in order to gain access to the money the Cabal placed in his name to frame him for treason, so they could fund Katarina´s new life. A year later, Ilya was called by Katarina Rostova´s father Dominic Wilkinson to a meeting at a cafe in Belgrade. Dom told Ilya that his plan with Katarina didn´t work and informed him that Katarina´s enemies joined forces and formed the Townsend Directive to hunt and kill her.

Afraid that the Townsend Directive could harm his granddaughter Masha, Dom enlisted Ilya to help him kill Katarina to calm down the Directive and keep Masha safe. Still in Belgrade, Ilya, following Dom´s plan, lured Katarina to an ambush where he and Dom tried to kill Katarina with a car bomb in front of the whole Directive, but they failed and ended up killing her new husband instead.

Who is Raymond Reddington season10

An end of an era. The Blacklist concluded with a thrilling two-hour Season 10 finale on July 13, 2023. Have questions about how everything all went down? Keep reading for The Blacklist ending explained (warning, spoilers ahead)! The Blacklist, NBC’s long-running crime thriller, follows the story of Raymond ‘Red’ Reddington, played by James Spader.

Red is a former US Naval Intelligence officer who becomes a high-profile criminal. After escaping capture for decades, Reddington surrenders to the FBI and gives them the “Blacklist,” a compilation of the most dangerous criminals in the world. He collaborates with FBI special agent Elizabeth Keen, played by Megan Boone ( she exited ahead of Season 9 ), to help catch the criminals in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

NBC announced in February 2023 that The Blacklist was canceled after Season 10, “After 10 years, hundreds of Blacklist cases and more than 200 episodes produced, we’re honored to reach our conclusion,” showrunner John Eisendrath said in a statement to NBC, Spader spoke about The Blacklist finale to The Associated Press in July 2023. He shared what it was like filming The Blacklist’s final moments (which we now know includes his unfortunate death). “I was very, very glad we were able to end it exactly the way we wanted to end it.

It was deliberate and we weren’t taken by surprise in terms of when the ending was going to come,” Spader explained. “You’ll see that the ending has conviction and we commit to it.” He continued about his character’s ending: “I really felt like this was complete and I loved how it really completed a circle, in a way,” he added.

“It wasn’t just an unbroken line from point A to point Z, but it was a circle of sorts.” The three-time Emmy award-winner also praised the character he’s played for many years. “He inhabits the whole world, he really does. He lives in it and he really loves it. With every twist and turn, we were kept on our toes in The Blacklist’s two-hour Season 10 finale. What happened? Well, a lot. In this final chapter, the Task Force is on the hunt for one of their own: their colleague and criminal genius, Red. He’s on the loose after shutting down the Task Force to protect the agents.

Congressman Hudson (Toby Leonard Moore) and FBI agent Nixon (Derrick Williams) are eager to find him before it’s too late. Red gets in touch with his former bodyguard Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq), and Dembe warns him that the FBI is after him. Red is worried about how Dembe’s future might be impacted by his actions.

(A few days prior, Red blew up a plane to fake his own death with Dembe’s assistance.) Dembe assures Red that he will arrest him if he gets the chance. In response, Dembe helps the FBI narrow into Red’s strategy; he warns them that Red will try different escape routes, disguises and use his network of connections to evade capture.

Red misdirects the feds by staging identical versions of his vehicle all over the city. They discover that he has been staying with Paula Carter (the mother of Glen Carter) – but he leaves just before the FBI arrives. They also intercept his safe house to see that it’s on fire – and Red utilizes his firefighter disguise to get away unscathed in a firetruck.

They are too late, yet again. The FBI has a hunch that one of their agents is helping Red. They track back a phone call and find out that it was Dembe who warned Red at the airfield. Dembe is arrested and is transported to HQ for further questioning. While in route, the vehicle – which holds Ressler, Dembe, and the FBI agents – is T-boned on the highway by Red.

Red emerges and pulls Dembe from the wreckage. But Dembe tells Red that he is not going with him. Hudson grabs an FBI agent’s gun shoots Dembe in the neck! Without hesitation, Red fatally shoots Hudson in the head and gets Ressler three times in his bulletproof vest. Red rushes away with Dembe to get him urgent medical attention at a nursing home close by.

Because he is losing so much blood, Dembe is in dire need of a blood transfusion. Red quickly volunteers to donate his blood knowing they’re a match – and he ultimately saves his friend with an impromptu transfusion. Cooper and Ressler get intel about the nursing home and arrive to see Dembe in the middle of surgery. Red, who is obviously unwell after the blood transfusion (and even coughed up blood at one point), fled to the small village of Carmona, Spain. Red asks Angela how to get to the Miura Ranch (which is the origin of his favorite Spanish bullfighter Manolete).

Red walks around in an open field in the Spanish countryside and encounters an angry bull standing in front of him. The bull charges at Red – and while they don’t show the exact moment he was killed – the next scene reveals Red’s bloodied body discovered by Ressler who was hovering in a helicopter from above.

After Red’s crumpled body was found, Ressler let the Task Force know and placed Red’s hat on his body as a final goodbye. We couldn’t help but get emotional at Dembe’s passionate monologue remembering his great friend. “More than anyone I’ve ever known he’s always been at peace with death. He says, ‘Death is inevitable. It will come for us all. And that inevitability robs death entirely of its significance,” Dembe said of Red. “What matters are the things that are not inevitable.

The things we create, the things we find, the left we take when everything in our life is leading us right. How we live.’ I’ve always loved him for that. For his remarkable refusal to go quietly into that goodnight.” The Blacklist is available to stream on Peacock, For more on heartbreaking character deaths, check out our gallery below of the Chicago P.D.

characters that we lost too soon.

Is Red actually Raymond Reddington?

Season 6: Who is Reddington, really ? – Season 6 picks up where Season 5 left off, with the shocking discovery that Reddington is an imposter and assumed the identity of the actual Raymond Reddington. Liz becomes fixated on learning more about Red’s mysterious past and his connection to her and the skeleton.

Is Raymond Reddington Elizabeth’s?

The Blacklist: Will Raymond Reddington’s true identity be revealed in the two-hour finale? The Blacklist, which streams in India on Netflix, will end its 10-season run on July 14, with a two-hour finale. The show, which began in 2013, was about one of the FBI’s most wanted criminals, Raymond Reddington (James Spader) surrendering to the authorities with a promise to collaborate and track down other criminals. The Blacklist, though, was never only about the names on Red’s blacklist and the task force deployed to carry out these investigations. It was also about his mysterious connection with Elizabeth, and, most importantly, who Raymond Reddington really is. With only two episodes to go to draw curtains on the show, audiences are nowhere close to finding out his real identity. James Spader as Raymond Reddington on the show One of the early revelations on the show was that Raymond Reddington is Elizabeth’s biological father, after he had a relationship with her mother, Katarina Rostova, a KGB agent sent in to seduce him. However, according to Mr Kaplan (Susan Blommaert), a former trusted aide of Red, he’s not the real deal.

In the season 5 finale it is revealed that the bones in the duffel bag that Mr Kaplan had belonged to the real Raymond and that the man pretending to be him is someone else. The question that has remained since is who is this someone? A popular fan theory is that Raymond maybe Katarina after all, because her whereabouts remain unknown and in a later season when Elizabeth asks him if he’d known her mother, he replies that he did indeed.

In the season 8 finale, when Elizabeth is shot and killed, there is a flashback of her mom holding her as a baby, as Red kisses her on the forehead, which fans say is proof enough that Katarina had surgery to transform into Reddington. Some fans, though, are inclined to believe that the real Raymond may have just faked his death and that the character James Spader has so brilliantly played over the last 10 seasons is the real dea, after all.

Who is Reddington to Elizabeth Keen?

Spoilers: The Ending of ‘The Blacklist’ Is So Bad! By | | July 18, 2023 | By | | July 18, 2023 | Spoilers for the entirety of The Blacklist After ten seasons, The Blacklist — a show that most people quit watching after two seasons and that lost most of its remaining viewers after Elizabeth Keen’s death in season 8 — is finally over. Red Reddington is dead. He is gored by a bull. Oh, the indignity. Did James Spader piss off the writers or something? Let me back up briefly. I don’t really watch The Blacklist, except to check in on it every few seasons to see if the series has finally answered the question about, Liz Keen (Megan Boone) was killed off in the season 8 finale, but the episode did not specifically answer (more on that later).

In a nutshell, the two-part finale went like this: It seems they must have run out of names on The Blacklist because the Reddington Task Force, which has been working with Reddington for all these years, was tasked by Congressman Hudson (Toby Leonard Moore) with rounding him up and putting him in jail.

The Reddington Task Force reluctantly agreed. They worked diligently to track him down, but their heart wasn’t really in it. It’s essentially a two-episode game of cat-and-mouse. After Congressman Hudson tightens the screws on the task force and actually arrests Agent Dembe Zuma (Hisham Tawfiq) — an FBI Agent and Reddington’s foster son — for conspiring to help Reddington evade authorities, Reddington attempts to free Zuma from custody.

A standoff ensues. Hudson shoots Zuma in the neck, and Reddington shoots and kills Congressman Hudson, who was an insufferable character anyway. Zuma survives because Reddington gives him a direct transfusion. Reddington has some bizarre condition where donating blood in a direct transfusion is potentially lethal.

He escapes to Spain. He takes a long walk, clearly expecting to die, but instead of dying from his condition, he is confronted by a bull. He stares down the bull. The bull stares him down. The bull charges him, and Reddington is gored. The End. The question of Red’s relationship to Liz Keen, the central question of the series for eight seasons, still persists.

Apparently, after Keen’s death, however, viewers (or the writers) more or less lost interest in answering that question. There is a long-running theory, however, that Reddington is actually a character named Katarina Rostova, who was Keen’s mother. The theory is that Reddington transitioned. That is not exactly confirmed in the finale.

However, the episode’s director that the show had basically resolved that question (purportedly at the end of season 8) but that “there will be an exchange in the final episode that will say it indirectly.” That exchange, presumably, is the one between Red and Agnes Keen, the daughter of Elizabeth and Tom Keen.

In that exchange, Agnes says that Reddington is “acting like a mom,” and Reddington responds, “I just can’t help myself.” It’s not a full acknowledgment, but combined with the director’s message, it certainly seems to suggest that, in the end, Red Reddington was Keen’s mother, all along. I suspect that the series didn’t fully unpack or acknowledge that because it would have meant owning up to a lot of holes in the logic.

So there you have it. Reddington is Keen’s mother, and also, he is dead, having been killed by a bull in Spain in a very Sons of Anarchy -like ending. My apologies to anyone who stuck around all ten seasons for that, Header Image Source: NBC Most Viewed : Spoilers: The Ending of ‘The Blacklist’ Is So Bad!

Does Dembe know the truth?

Season 5 – In a shocking twist, it was revealed that Red is not the real Raymond Reddington but actually an imposter who assumed the real Red’s identity 30 years ago. The real Red has been dead for quite some time, and while fans were left reeling over that wild conclusion, Dembe was sitting back and relaxing.

Is Reddington Elizabeth’s mother

Who is the Real Raymond Reddington? – From season 6 of the series, fans are given a glimpse into who the real Raymond Reddington is. He was revealed to be the man Elizabeth’s mother Katarina Rostova, who was a KGB agent, was in a relationship with. The story arc revolves around the fact that she had been sent to seduce and begin a relationship with him.

• He found out all about it when Liz was only about four years old, and there had been a huge fallout that ended with a young Liz shooting him in the back while he was attacking Katarina, followed by a fire outbreak.
• Based on the story arc, the shot was fatal for Reddington despite being pulled out of the fire by Katarina and her lover, Ilya Koslov.

Ilya then assumed the identity of Reddington after his death and even went through plastic surgery to fit in.

What is Reddington’s big secret?

Does Reddington’s True Identity Matter Anymore? – Elizabeth Keen was the character most invested in revealing who Raymond Reddington really is, She wanted to understand why he cared about her so much and whether he was her real father. Following Elizabeth’s death in the Blacklist season 8 finale, the emotional stakes behind uncovering Reddington’s identity were significantly diminished.

• There are characters still alive on The Blacklist who could learn the truth, but it won’t have the same impact as when Elizabeth was alive.
• As Gee suggested, those paying close attention to what Reddington has said throughout the series already know the truth.
• The prevailing theory is that Reddington is actually Elizabeth’s mother and former KGB intelligence officer Katarina Rostova.

The montage of intercutting scenes featuring Reddington and Katarina that played as Elizabeth died added further credence to this theory, suggesting that Elizabeth came to the realization in her final moments even though it was never said aloud. The Katarina theory may be indirectly confirmed by the exchange that Gee teases for the upcoming Blacklist series finale.

While it may not matter as much to the surviving characters, Reddington’s identity still matters a great deal to many who are still watching The Blacklist, Given how much the series has teased this mystery over the years, not directly confirming Red’s identity could end up being a divisive way to end the show.

Beloved characters, including Tom Keen and Mr. Kaplan, died in part because of the secret surrounding the real Reddington’s bones. Their sacrifices and many other iconic moments in The Blacklist may not hold up if Reddington’s identity is left ambiguous.

Why is Dembe so loyal to Reddington

Throughout the 10 nail-biting seasons of The Blacklist, we’ve seen many dedicated agents team up with Raymond Reddington ( James Spader ) to take down his infamous list of Blacklisters. But when operations went belly-up, Dembe Zuma ( Hisham Tawfiq ) never failed to have Red’s back.

Dembe has been a fan favorite since his first introduction in The Blacklist premiere as Red’s stoic personal driver and bodyguard. But we quickly learned that Dembe was much more than a chauffeur. He was adopted by Red as a young child after being rescued from a child trafficking ring. Red raised Dembe and later included him in his criminal syndicate.

Dembe remained loyal to Red his entire life, and in many ways, he completed Red. While Red is keen on a lavish monologue, Dembe is a man of limited words. When Red was raging and maniacal, Dembe knew to remain calculated and on guard. Red is known to be ruthless to many, but his love for Dembe is an Achilles heel.

By the series finale of The Blacklist, many aspects of Dembe and Red’s relationship have changed. Still, we saw just how far Dembe and Red were willing to go to protect each other, and it led to some intense moments between the beloved characters. Red was on the run from the feds while Dembe was tasked with arresting him.

Dembe was shot during the pursuit, leading Red to provide a life-saving blood transfusion that may have contributed to his tragic death. While Dembe recovered in the hospital, fans were awe-stricken as the typically tight-lipped man delivered one of the most heartwrenching monologues in all of The Blacklist,

1. He reflected on his many adventures with Red and how much he admired his fearlessness toward death, despite being surrounded by it constantly.
2. He then explained the core lesson of his time with Red was learning to “rage against” death, by enjoying life’s simplest pleasures.
3. You’d never imagine this is how it would end,” Dembe told Harold Cooper (Harry Lennix) in the tear-jerking scene.

“But our time with him, our time together, it was never about how it ended. It was about the adventure. About life. About Raymond constantly reminding us, showing us, imploring us to rage.” NBC Insider chatted with Tawfiq a few weeks ago about the legacy The Blacklist leaves behind amid the emotional crescendo that was the explosive series finale.

Why is Reddington mad at Dembe

Season 9, Episode 9 of NBC’s long-running thriller series The Blacklist is called “Boukman Baptiste,” and it’s a pretty special episode, focusing on a character who doesn’t get a ton of episodes devoted to him: Dembe Zuma ( Hisham Tawfiq ), Red Reddington’s ( James Spader ) former right-hand man who left the crime boss’ employ during the time jump between Seasons 8 and 9 and started working for the FBI.

The episode tells the story of why Dembe joined the FBI, and gets deep into the rift between the longtime best friends. And in this exclusive clip, Dembe is the one going on the offensive. In Season 8, an ailing Reddington wrote a letter to Liz Keen ( Megan Boone ) explaining who he really was — seemingly her mother, Katarina Rostova — and gave it to Dembe with instructions to give Liz the letter after his death.

But Season 9, Episode 8 confirmed that Dembe gave Liz the letter before her death —which means she died knowing the truth about Red, who is still very much alive. Red is angry with Dembe for disobeying him, and holds him largely responsible for Liz’s death, accusing him of failing to protect her from the man who shot her.

Red having that information deepens the split between him and Dembe, and things are getting worse in Episode 9.9 Shows Like The Blacklist to Watch if You Like The Blacklist In “Boukman Baptiste,” the title character — played by The Wire veteran Gbenga Akinnagbe — is attacking Red’s top lieutenants in an attempt to eventually get to Red himself.

That puts Dembe and his loved ones in danger. In the clip, Baptiste has kidnapped someone close to Dembe, and Dembe tells him not to hurt her, and he can get him some people so close to Red that if they go down, Red will follow soon after. “You think he believes that you’re really going to help him take down Reddington?” Agent Ressler ( Diego Klattenhoff ) asks Dembe after he ends the phone call.

• He should,” Dembe says.
• Because it’s true.” Damn, Dembe! What a turn! We have a suspicion Dembe might be giving himself up to Baptiste, though.
• That seems like something Dembe would do.
• We’ll see if our suspicion is true when The Blacklist airs Thursday, Jan.20 at 8/7c on NBC.
• This will be the last episode before The Blacklist takes a hiatus while the Winter Olympics air on NBC.

It will return in late February.

Does Reddington love Liz?

Reddington meets Agnes Keen just before a tragedy occurs – Agnes Keen ( currently played by Sami Bray ) enters Reddington’s life through her late mother and former Reddington Task Force member, Liz Keen. Before her tragic death, Reddington’s relationship with Elizabeth was paramount, so as soon as she had Agnes, that love carried over.

1. Upon meeting Reddington for the first time, Agnes immediately grows fond of his elaborate stories, referring to him as “Pinky.” Agnes’ father, Tom Keen, was sadly killed in Season 5 of The Blacklist, and Agnes loses her mother after her assassination in the Season 8 finale.
2. Agnes has a lot of support and loving people in her life to help her through these traumas.Task Force leader Harold Cooper ( Harry Lennix ) immediately becomes her guardian once she loses both parents.

Because of Reddington’s proximity to the crime world, Cooper keeps Agnes away from him, which creates a rift between the two friends.

Is Reddington the good guy?

Raymond Reddington

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Genius-level intelligence Con artistryCharisma Manipulation Helping the police catch criminals Help the police catch his “blacklist” of wanted criminals in return for immunity from prosecution (succeeded) Protect Elizabeth Keen (failed)Protect Agnes Keen (succeeded) Treason International terrorism Anti-Villainous Mastermind Raymond “Red” Reddington is the villainous protagonist of the NBC series The Blacklist,

Who killed Raymond Reddington

Did Red die on The Blacklist Season 10 finale? – Yes, red does die in the last episode of The Blacklist. Red was killed by a bull while out for a stroll in the countryside of Spain. Red and the animal engaged in a tense standoff in the film’s epilogue. The next scene showed Red’s bloody body being found by Ressler (). who had tracked him down in Spain after the bull came at him and killed him, albeit we weren’t able to see the precise moment? Ressler notified the Task Force after Red’s mangled body was discovered and laid Red’s hat on his body as a final farewell.

• More than anyone I’ve ever met, he’s always been at peace with dying.
• Death is a given, he claims.
• We’ll all be affected by it.
• And the inevitable robs death of all its importance,” Dembe Zuma () observed of Red.
• Things that are avoidable are important.
• When everything in our lives is pointing us in the right direction, we take a left and create, discover, or choose.

how we reside. That is why I have always cherished him. Because of his extraordinary refusal to bid that evening softly.

Why is Reddington obsessed with Liz?

My personal conjecture: He is not related to Liz, but has a heart felt connection to her, that stems from some very catastrophic event involving the death of her parents, that he feels personally responsible for, and thus felt that he must step in and make it up to her by becoming her lifetime protector/guardian.

Why was The Blacklist cancelled

Why is The Blacklist cancelled? – Why is The Blacklist canceled? NBC announced in February 2023 that The Blacklist was ending after the Season 10 finale this summer. “After 10 years, hundreds of Blacklist cases and more than 200 episodes produced, we’re honored to reach our conclusion,” Eisendrath said in a statement to NBC,

“It’s been incredibly fun to create the strange, devious, and delightful Blacklisters to challenge Raymond Reddington and our FBI Task Force each week. We would like to thank everyone at NBC and Sony, our extraordinary crew who make the impossible happen every day, our endlessly inventive writers and producers, and our remarkable cast who brought life to these characters.

We appreciate our dedicated fanbase who came along for this wonderful ride and are excited to share this final season with them.” Lisa Katz, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming’s president of scripted content, added in a statement: “It isn’t often that a series resonates so deeply with an audience that it airs for 10 seasons, but The Blacklist proved to be a perfect combination of highly talented producers, stellar writing, a cast that never failed to deliver, and a crew that always rose to the occasion,” she wrote.

“A huge thank you to our partners at Sony, everyone from the past decade who made this show an integral part of NBC’s storied history and, of course, a special nod to James Spader, whose performance remains nothing short of spectacular.” After the announcement, Spader revealed why he thinks the show had to end with Season 10.

“I think if the show went beyond this year, it would turn into a very different show,” he said in an interview with NBC, “And I think that the thing that has been nice about this show was that we’ve never really had a really clear paradigm for the show.

Is Red Reddington evil

In the recent season it has become clear he is a villain primarily devoted to his own needs. He is not even Raymond Reddington a hero devoted to service to the United States but someone who was able to steal Red’s identity.

Who is Tom Keen working for?

Tom Keen –

Christopher Hargrave A.K.A. Tom Keen (No.7) – an agent of the Major that was hired by Reddington and later betrayed him to work for Berlin to spy on Elizabeth. Betrayed everyone to protect Elizabeth and even killed a cop to make sure he didn’t incriminate her. The Major (No.75) – leader of a ring of black market spies who gave Tom the job to spy on Elizabeth for Reddington before switching to Berlin when he offered twice as much money. Ranko Zamani (No.52) – brought into the United States by Reddington to prove that he could provide intelligence on dangerous criminals for FBI protection. Reddington had him attack Tom and plant blood on the carpet over the secret compartment where Tom kept his box of passports and a gun. The blood stain caused Elizabeth to tear up the carpet, thus finding the box and she started to doubt Tom, especially after finding a gun he used to kill Victor Foken. Tommy Phelps A.K.A. The Courier (No.85) – held an NSA agent captive. Upon the death of the Courier and his rescue, the NSA agent gives Elizabeth the unredacted case file of Victor Foken, including a security photo of Tom leaving a building where it took place. The photo causes Elizabeth to doubt Tom even more. Gina Zanetakos (No.152) – Reddington informed Elizabeth that Gina was Tom’s lover. This was meant to make Elizabeth doubt Tom more and discover the truth. Elizabeth also discovered Gina in the photo of Tom, walking into the building as Tom was walking out. Owen Mallory, head of the Cyprus Agency (No.64) – Reddington brought up the adoption agency around the time Elizabeth and Tom were going to adopt a baby. By seeing the dark side of an adoption agency, Elizabeth had second thoughts. Thus Elizabeth was prevented from starting a family with Tom. Clock, Driver, Fingers and Gunner Pavlovich (No.119-122) – hired by Zamani to aide in his plan and later hired by Reddington to bring Tom out of hiding, capture him, and take him to Elizabeth for questioning.

What is Katarina Rostova’s real name

‘The Blacklist’: Was Raymond Reddington’s Identity Actually, Finally Revealed? (Warning: This post contains spoilers for Wednesday’s episode of “The Blacklist.”) “The Blacklist” returned with a new episode this week, an hour that revealed almost the entire backstory of Raymond “Red” Reddington (James Spader) and Elizabeth Keene’s (Megan Boone) relationship.

• We say almost, because the installment, titled “Nachalo,” ends before Liz can get the answer to exactly who Red is — though it’s pretty much guaranteed that reveal will come on next week’s Season 8 finale.
• The big truths we do have by the end of the hour are that Liz’s mother, Katarina Rostova, is still alive — because the now-dead woman Liz thought was Katarina Rostova (played by Laila Robins) is not Katarina Rostova.

And we’re left with some big clues as to who Red really is, though not an outright answer. During Wednesday’s “The Blacklist,” Red, who revealed to Liz in the previous episode that he is in fact N-13, the elusive spy she’s been hunting this entire season, brings Liz inside the “epicenter” of his operation in Latvia and begins to tell her the story, the true story, of her life and how he came into it.

Through black-and-white scenes featuring multiple “Blacklist” characters we know and love telling us the story, Liz is given a detailed explanation of how her then-married mother, Katarina Rostova (Lotte Verbeek), became a spy and struck up a relationship with her father, the real Raymond Reddington, to gather intelligence on the U.S.

operative at the request of Dom, Katarina’s father, and the KGB. She became pregnant with Liz (real name Masha Rostova) and let her husband, Constantine Rostov, believe the child was his, while continuing on with her relationship with Raymond, who was also married and had another child. Photo by: Sony Pictures Television It’s revealed that the woman we believed to be the present-day, now-deceased Katarina Rostova (played by Laila Robins), is actually a woman named Tatiana Petrova, the person who was tasked by Ilya Koslov and Dom with taking over her identity so the real Katarina could go into hiding to keep herself and Liz safe, sending the little girl off to live with Sam, who becomes her adoptive father.

But the real Katarina knew that Sam wouldn’t be able to protect Liz forever on his own, so she “created” and “constructed” a new Raymond Reddington, because the U.S. government — and the rest of the world — never found out he had died, and this version of Red was one Katarina could control would be able to watch over Liz.

“What does that mean, constructed?” Liz asks the storyteller version of her mother, who says, “It meant a complete transformation,” as a scene of a surgery is shown, while James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World” plays. Then this new version of Red is seen picking up 13 packets of classified KGB intelligence from Ivan Stepanov, part of the plan that would allow him to pose as the real Raymond Reddington, a man who was known for having extensive secret intelligence, and expand his intelligence network — a.k.a.

• The Blacklist — as a way to secure Liz’s safety.
• Meanwhile, Tatiana was trying to figure out where the real Katarina was in order to get her own life back, and she tried to get close to Liz and told her she was her mother Katarina, in a long con to get the location of the real Katarina out of Red.
• This instead got Tatiana dead at Red’s hand.

Liz says to the imaginary black-and-white version of her mother telling the story, “Now we have the why, now I want the who. Who is he? Who became Reddington? And where have you gone? You are my mother, but you let someone else watch over me, let me believe you were dead, but you are living.

Where are you?” As Liz is demanding these answers, the black-and-white story is receding as shouts and shots ring out in the real location they have been this whole time, Red’s “epicenter,” which is being stormed by Neville Townsend. Liz loses her mother’s face in her mind as she hears Red’s voice shouting at her while she keeps demanding to know who he really is.

The scene is done in such a way that it strongly implies Katarina is the one who became Raymond Reddington. Then, Liz gets shot. Red and Dembe take Liz down into a bunker and block the hatch to protect them all from Townsend, who says Liz tipped him off to their location in order to gain her freedom by allowing him to kill Red as revenge for what Red did to Townsend’s family.

The episode ends with Red pressing a button that puts the entire epicenter of his intelligence up in flames, both killing Townsend and destroying his decades of collected intelligence. But we still don’t have confirmation of who Red is, even though Katarina becoming Red is a definite possibility at this point, so it’s likely that piece of the puzzle will be revealed on next week’s Season 8 finale.

, that episode is expected to feature the conclusion of Liz’s storyline and will be the last to feature Boone, who is exiting “The Blacklist,” as a series regular. The show has already been renewed for Season 9. The Season 8 finale of “The Blacklist” airs next Wednesday at 10/9c on NBC.

Is Reddington a daughter?

Jennifer Reddington is the daughter of Raymond Reddington and Naomi Hyland, She is the half-sister of Elizabeth Keen,