The eighth season of the American crime thriller television series The Blacklist premiered on November 13, 2020 and ended on June 23, 2021.
The series was created by Jon Bokenkamp, and continues to be produced by Davis Entertainment, Universal Television and Sony Pictures Television, and executive produced by Jon Bokenkamp, John Davis, John Eisendrath, John Fox and Joe Carnahan. This is the last season to star Megan Boone.
Premise
The eighth season follows Elizabeth Keen and her mother Katarina Rostova in their attempts to take down Reddington, who eventually kills Rostova. Elizabeth then goes on a vengeful crusade against Reddington, going rogue from the FBI and gathering her own resources and people to destroy him. She enters into an alliance with a powerful, dangerous criminal Neville Townsend, the author of Townsend's Directive. This alliance however, puts Elizabeth, Reddington, the FBI task force, and her attempts to discover more about her and Reddington's past in great jeopardy.
Cast
Main
James Spader as Raymond Reddington
Megan Boone as Elizabeth Keen
Diego Klattenhoff as Donald Ressler
Harry Lennix as Harold Cooper
Amir Arison as Aram Mojtabai
Laura Sohn as Alina Park
Hisham Tawfiq as Dembe Zuma
Recurring
Laila Robins as Katarina Rostova/Tatiana Petrova
Reg Rogers as Neville Townsend
Ron Raines as Dominic
Wilkinson
Ginger Mason as Agnes Keen
Kecia Lewis as Esi Jackson
Drew Gehling as Skip Hadley
Deirdre Lovejoy as Cynthia Panabaker
LaChanze as Anne Foster
David E. Harrison as Ivan Stepanov
Lukas Hassel as Vandyke
Christopher Gurr as Godwin Page
Rana Roy as Priya Laghari
Guest stars
Huey Lewis as himself
Laverne Cox as Dr. Laken Perillos
Susan Blommaert as Mr. Kaplan
Lotte Verbeek as younger Katarina Rostova
Dikran Tulaine as Maxwell Ruddiger
Valarie Pettiford as Charlene Cooper
Fisher Stevens as Marvin Gerard
Brett Cullen as Frank Bloom / Ilya Kozlov
Jonathan Holtzman as Chuck
Dane West as The Storyteller
Tribute to
Brian Dennehy as Dominic Wilkinson
Clark Middleton as Glen Carter
Tobias Core (unknown role)
Episodes
Production
Casting
Laura Sohn, who had a recurring role in the previous season as Alina Park, had become a series regular. Ron Raines replaced Brian Dennehy as Dominic Wilkinson, due to the death of the latter prior to production. Clark Middleton, who portrayed Glen Carter, Reddington's tracker, died in October 2020. Megan Boone left the series after eight seasons. She was also absent from episodes 5 through 13; stand-ins were used when necessary.
Filming
Production for the eighth season began in September 2020 with full safety protocols in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Departure of Jon Bokenkamp
Series creator Jon Bokenkamp announced in June 2021 to leave the series after eight seasons to move on new projects.