Is the blacklist ending in 2022?

NBCs The Blacklist Season 7 Finale Beats COVID-19

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 22: James Spader attends the Build Series to discuss his show "The ... [+] Blacklist" at AOL HQ on September 22, 2016 in New York City. [Photo by D Dipasupil/FilmMagic]

On Friday May 15, 2020 NBC aired the Season 7 finale of The Blacklist, and it took creative guts and a herculean effort to do so because production shut down due to COVID-19, turning a planned 22-episode season into a 19-episode season. More critically, the finale only had about half of the film in the can. The risky, daring solution was to complete it in animation.

There was perhaps no other way out. The finale is vital to the story arch for upcoming Season 8. It needed to pull several storyline strings together for this American crime series that began in 2013. And it is intricate. The show follows Raymond Reddington [James Spader], a former military officer turned criminal, who voluntarily surrenders to the FBI and offers his services as an informant of the most dangerous criminals in the world his blacklist. He insists on working exclusively with one particular FBI profiler by the name of Elizabeth Keen [Megan Boone]. Through seven seasons, questions remained as to why Reddington wanted Keen as his partner. But that is not what this column is about.

This article is about the creative fortitude needed to finish the finale for Season 7 with a blend of live-action and animation, giving half of the scenes a comic book quality. The episode called it, An unusual solution for a trying time, and it worked well enough, bouncing from live to animated characters. The fluidity was achieved via a well-known storyline, animated characters that for the most part resembled their live counterparts, and voiceovers that made for smooth transitions. You can find the trailer here.

The Blacklist - Season 7

This was not an easy task. First, it was risky to partially animate a beloved series in its seventh season. And this was no easy episode to do even live. Without providing any spoilers, the finale intricately wove together a tapestry of secrets, lies, truths, backstabbing, generations of betrayals, loyalties, vendettas, life and death. To take the creative risk to achieve this in a half-animated form is simply amazing. Hats off to creator and executive producer Jon Bokenkamp, co-showrunner John Eisendrath, director of the finale Michael Caracciolo, writers of the finale Kelli Johnson and Sam Christopher, and the rest of the creative team.

The animation worked. No, it wasnt the type of animation that you would find in a video game that would take years to make and $50 million to produce. But its rough nature was almost in recognition of our rough times, and a tribute to the team that went far beyond to find a workable solution to what appeared to be an unsolvable problem.

The actors recorded their dialogue for the animated portions from their homes and uploaded it to a team in Los Angeles. The animation was created by Proof, Inc. in London and Atlanta, using the expertise of some 35 artists who created about 20 minutes of footage for the graphic novel-style episode, giving it an old comic book feel. Editors and composers were back in L.A. Thought bubbles and text boxes were added to help the audience understand what the characters were thinking when the animation might not have allowed. A final scene shows Agent Keen atop a building as she scans the dark cityscape, almost like a superhero, or super villain, plotting her next move. Kudos to all those who brought it to life.

The episode also featured the actors and crew speaking to the camera as themselves, first providing a rationale for the animated sections, and at the end as a thank you to the audiences for hanging in there. You have to give a great round of applause to the cast for playing along with such an experimental move, professionals all: 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, Hisham Tawfiq as Dembe Zuma, and Laila Robins as Katarina Rostova.

You also have to give kudos to the suits. The Blacklist is a production of Davis Entertainment in association with Sony Pictures Television and Universal Television, so the decision to complete the finale in animation must have given somebody a degree of angst. You know who you are.

The Nielsen ratings found that it netted nearly 4.1 million viewers, down slightly from the previous episode, but the DVR numbers are not yet in. Regardless of how many watched, or what their opinions will be, this was a smart, creative solution to a wicked problem. NBCs The Blacklist caught the virus and beat it with bold creativity and teamwork. Congratulations.

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