Decoding the Conclusion of The Blacklist: Season 10 Finale Recap and the Demise of Raymond Reddington

An end of an era. The Blacklist concluded with a thrilling two-hour Season 10 finale on July 13, 2023. Have questions about how everything all went down? Keep reading for The Blacklist ending explained (warning, spoilers ahead)!

The Blacklist, NBC’s long-running crime thriller, follows the story of Raymond ‘Red’ Reddington, played by James Spader. Red is a former US Naval Intelligence officer who becomes a high-profile criminal. After escaping capture for decades, Reddington surrenders to the FBI and gives them the “Blacklist,” a compilation of the most dangerous criminals in the world. He collaborates with FBI special agent Elizabeth Keen, played by Megan Boone (she exited ahead of Season 9), to help catch the criminals in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

NBC announced in February 2023 that The Blacklist was canceled after Season 10. “After 10 years, hundreds of Blacklist cases and more than 200 episodes produced, we’re honored to reach our conclusion,” showrunner John Eisendrath said in a statement to NBC. “It’s been incredibly fun to create the strange, devious, and delightful Blacklisters to challenge Raymond Reddington and our FBI Task Force each week.”

Spader spoke about The Blacklist finale to The Associated Press in July 2023. He shared what it was like filming The Blacklist’s final moments (which we now know includes his unfortunate death). “I was very, very glad we were able to end it exactly the way we wanted to end it. It was deliberate and we weren’t taken by surprise in terms of when the ending was going to come,” Spader explained. “You’ll see that the ending has conviction and we commit to it.”

He continued about his character’s ending: “I really felt like this was complete and I loved how it really completed a circle, in a way,” he added. “It wasn’t just an unbroken line from point A to point Z, but it was a circle of sorts.” The three-time Emmy award-winner also praised the character he’s played for many years. “He [Red] inhabits the whole world, he really does. He lives in it and he really loves it. And he loves life. I guess one would understand the value of life if one has to take it every so often.”

Read about what happened in the action-packed two-hour Season 10 finale below.

The Blacklist Ending Explained

With every twist and turn, we were kept on our toes in The Blacklist’s two-hour Season 10 finale. What happened? Well, a lot. In this final chapter, the Task Force is on the hunt for one of their own: their colleague and criminal genius, Red. He’s on the loose after shutting down the Task Force to protect the agents. Congressman Hudson (Toby Leonard Moore) and FBI agent Nixon (Derrick Williams) are eager to find him before it’s too late.

Red gets in touch with his former bodyguard Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq), and Dembe warns him that the FBI is after him. Red is worried about how Dembe’s future might be impacted by his actions. (A few days prior, Red blew up a plane to fake his own death with Dembe’s assistance.) Dembe assures Red that he will arrest him if he gets the chance. In response, Dembe helps the FBI narrow into Red’s strategy; he warns them that Red will try different escape routes, disguises and use his network of connections to evade capture.

Red misdirects the feds by staging identical versions of his vehicle all over the city. They discover that he has been staying with Paula Carter (the mother of Glen Carter) – but he leaves just before the FBI arrives. They also intercept his safe house to see that it’s on fire – and Red utilizes his firefighter disguise to get away unscathed in a firetruck. They are too late, yet again.

The FBI has a hunch that one of their agents is helping Red. They track back a phone call and find out that it was Dembe who warned Red at the airfield. Dembe is arrested and is transported to HQ for further questioning. While in route, the vehicle – which holds Ressler, Dembe, and the FBI agents – is T-boned on the highway by Red. Red emerges and pulls Dembe from the wreckage. But Dembe tells Red that he is not going with him. Hudson grabs an FBI agent’s gun shoots Dembe in the neck! Without hesitation, Red fatally shoots Hudson in the head and gets Ressler three times in his bulletproof vest.

Red rushes away with Dembe to get him urgent medical attention at a nursing home close by. Because he is losing so much blood, Dembe is in dire need of a blood transfusion. Red quickly volunteers to donate his blood knowing they’re a match – and he ultimately saves his friend with an impromptu transfusion. Cooper and Ressler get intel about the nursing home and arrive to see Dembe in the middle of surgery. The nurse reveals to them that although he was a match, Red shouldn’t have been a donor because he was displaying symptoms of shortness of breath and oxygenation. At this point in the finale, that’s when things start to go downhill for the ex-con.

Red, who is obviously unwell after the blood transfusion (and even coughed up blood at one point), fled to the small village of Carmona, Spain. Red asks Angela how to get to the Miura Ranch (which is the origin of his favorite Spanish bullfighter Manolete). Red walks around in an open field in the Spanish countryside and encounters an angry bull standing in front of him. The bull charges at Red – and while they don’t show the exact moment he was killed – the next scene reveals Red’s bloodied body discovered by Ressler who was hovering in a helicopter from above.

After Red’s crumpled body was found, Ressler let the Task Force know and placed Red’s hat on his body as a final goodbye. We couldn’t help but get emotional at Dembe’s passionate monologue remembering his great friend.

“More than anyone I’ve ever known he’s always been at peace with death. He says, ‘Death is inevitable. It will come for us all. And that inevitability robs death entirely of its significance,” Dembe said of Red. “What matters are the things that are not inevitable. The things we create, the things we find, the left we take when everything in our life is leading us right. How we live.’ I’ve always loved him for that. For his remarkable refusal to go quietly into that goodnight.”

The Blacklist is available to stream on Peacock.

For more on heartbreaking character deaths, check out our gallery below of the Chicago P.D. characters that we lost too soon.