‘The Blacklist’ Shocker: Megan Boone Leaving as Series Regular After Season 8

How will The Blacklist continue without Elizabeth Keen? That’s the question for Season 9 apparently.

Megan Boone, who has starred on the NBC drama since it premiered in 2013, is exiting as a series regular at the end of the current eighth season, Deadline reports. (The finale airs June 23.) Fortunately for fans, this wasn’t a surprise and Liz will be getting a proper exit storyline. This news also comes as Liz spent some time this season as a fugitive while Boone was missing from a significant portion of the episodes. She resurfaced in the April 23 show.

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'The Blacklist' Penultimate Episode Answers '8 Years Worth of Questions'

There are only two episodes left of the season, “Nachalo” (“The Beginning” in Russian) and “Konets” (“The Ending”), so fans may very well get a taste of how The Blacklist will say goodbye to Liz starting with the former on June 16. Heading into these episodes, Raymond Reddington (James Spader) has told Liz he’s the elusive spy she’s been hunting, N-13, and now he’s taking her to Latvia with the promise of the answers she’s been seeking — the Blacklist.

“These last two episodes are really sort of companion pieces,” series creator Jon Bokenkamp told TV Insider. “[With] the next episode, ‘Nachalo,’ we’re going to go back to the very beginning and unpack answers to eight years worth of questions.”

The finale “very much is an ending,” he continued. “It may not be the ending of the series, but it’s very much the ending of a story we’ve been telling for eight years.” That story, we now know, is at least partly about Liz.

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We’ll have to tune in to see how The Blacklist is going to continue on without Liz and Boone. After all, with Boone leaving, the only original cast members (presumably) continuing on for Season 9 are Spader, Diego Klattenhoff (Donald Ressler), and Harry Lennix (Harold Cooper).

The Blacklist, Wednesdays, 10/9c, NBC