‘The Blacklist’ Bosses Tease Liz & Katarina’s ‘Alliance’ & A Major Season 7 ‘Shift’

‘The Blacklist’ fall finale featured so many epic twists and turns. HL spoke EXCLUSIVELY with the EPs about that crazy Katarina twist and what to expect when the show returns.

Contrary to what Red thinks, Katarina Rostova is very much alive. Red believes that Katarina is dead and he watched her die, but that is not the case. On the other hand, Liz knows Katarina is alive and is helping her stay hidden. This kicks off a whole new journey for Liz on The Blacklist as she searches for answers about her mother. HollywoodLife talked EXCLUSIVELY with EPs John Eisendrath and Jon Bokenkamp about what this twist means for the show.

“With Liz and Katarina, there is the promise of this relationship sort of evolving and growing behind Red’s back, which is probably not a good thing, but it allows for the audience to sort of step into Liz’s shoes and work the mystery with somebody who grew up with the mystery,” Bokenkamp told HollywoodLife. “Not only is she a spy, she was at the heart of everything that sort of bloomed from the mythology that is our show, so it shifts the dynamic in a really fun way. It’s not like Liz sort of teaming up with her sister, who was somebody from outside of this world. This is like right into the heart of darkness and she’s trying to unlock the mystery. I think that’s going to not only offer some great answers but also be a lot of fun in terms of watching how this unfolds.”

Despite Liz and Katarina’s relationship now, should Liz ultimately trust her mother at the end of the day? “I think that Liz is trying to answer that question for herself,” Eisendrath said. “Katarina is her mother, so she has an obviously incredibly powerful emotional pull for Liz regardless of her absence in her life. So Liz is naturally curious and wants to, in many ways, give her the benefit of the doubt because her life would be a lot better if she could ultimately trust her mother. Like I said before, she has a self-interest in potentially aligning herself with her mother because she thinks that her mother and she both want the same thing, which are truths that Red seems to be withholding. So it’s an alliance that’s not only based on trust but it’s based on self-interest.”

As far as Red goes, he thinks he can go back to business as usual. Bokenkamp teased that with Red being in the dark means “we can shift the tone a bit. It doesn’t mean he won’t catch up. I think how he does or if he does is what’s going to be a lot of fun. I think one of the things that is nice about this turn of events is that it allows the show to take a breath and take on a bit of a different color when we get back.”

During the fall finale, there was a moment where Ilya Koslov told Red, “I didn’t tell her.” There are still a lot of unanswered questions with Ilya and Bokenkamp said that the show will revisit Ilya eventually. “We know that Ilya is at the heart of this truth with the secret,” he said. “He is an incredibly important part of the show. We will see him again when we come back in March, but that story isn’t as urgent as the story that we’re telling with Liz and Katarina. He’s still out there but in a bit of a reduced capacity. At least for now.”

As for the rest of the task force, you can expect “a lot” to go down. “We are going to continue Aram’s relationship with Elodie and that story is going to have a sort of a climax in the back half,” Eisendrath teased. “We’ve introduced Agent Park and we’ve talked about her issues with Anchorage and that secret is going to get unpacked in the back half, and we think we have a really good story for Ressler introducing part of his past. Years ago we talked about a story about how his father passed away but there are certain truths about what happened then that we are going to also unpack in the back half. We have lots of stuff for each of the characters.” The Blacklist season 7 will return in March 2020.