Megan Boone is leaving “The Blacklist” at the end of the NBC drama’s currently airing eighth season, TheWrap has learned. Boone has starred on the series as FBI agent Elizabeth “Liz” Keen alongside James Spader as criminal mastermind Raymond “Red” Reddington since the show premiered in 2013.
According to Deadline, which first reported that Boone is leaving the show, Boone’s exit — a mutual decision between the actress and producers — has been in the works since before “The Blacklist” was renewed for Season 9 in January, giving the writers time to plot out the end of Liz’s storyline in next week’s Season 8 finale.
Along with Boone and Spader, “The Blacklist” also stars Diego Klattenhoff, Amir Arison, Hisham Tawfiq, Laura Sohn and Harry Lennix.
John Eisendrath, Jon Bokenkamp, John Davis and John Fox of Davis Entertainment, James Spader, Lukas Reiter, Laura A. Benson, Daniel Cerone and Sean Hennen serve as executive producers.
“The Blacklist” is produced by Sony Pictures Television Studios and Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group.
NBC declined to comment Tuesday, and reps for Boone and Sony Pictures Television did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request.
The penultimate episode of “The Blacklist” Season 8 airs Wednesday at 10/9c on NBC. As “The Blacklist” viewers will remember, the previous episode ended with Red revealing to Liz that he is in fact N-13, the elusive spy she’s been hunting this entire season. He takes her to Latvia, to what he describes as the “epicenter,” and opens the door to the promise of answers that Liz has been seeking about the Blacklist.
“At the end of the previous episode, Reddington took Elizabeth Keen to a secret outpost in Latvia,” “The Blacklist” creator Jon Bokenkamp told TheWrap last week. “In this next episode, we’ll step inside that outpost and travel down the rabbit hole for what promises to be a really wild ride. This is a different episode in so many ways — because it’s out of pattern, because it’s black and white, but mostly because it’s filled with answers. The episode is titled ‘Nachalo,’ which translates from Russian to ‘the beginning.’ And that’s where we’re going: back to the beginning, back to the truth behind why Raymond Reddington entered Elizabeth Keen’s life in the first place.”