The Blacklist Renewed for Season 9 at NBC

Raymond Reddington is returning for another season of crime and deceit, as NBC has made the [...]

By Charlie Ridgely

Raymond Reddington is returning for another season of crime and deceit, as NBC has made the decision to give a very early renewal to one of its long-running hits. Despite being just a couple of episodes into its eighth season, The Blacklist has already earned a Season 9 renewal. NBC announced the additional season on Tuesday afternoon, letting fans know that the James Spader series isn't going anywhere after this year, even in the midst of so much uncertainty.

NBC let everyone know about the renewal on Tuesday when a tweet featuring Redd's beloved black bowler hat broke the news. "We couldn't keep this secret for long," reads the tweet. "The Blacklist has been renewed for Season 9."

Three episodes of The Blacklist Season 8 have been released so far, though only one has debuted on the network recently. The first two episodes of the new season aired back in November, and the show returned to the Friday night lineup this past week. According to NBC, the season premiere has reached 7.5 million total viewers across the various platforms.

In addition to Spader, The Blacklist stars Megan Boone, Diego Klattenhoff, Amir Arison, Hisham Tawfiq, Laura Sohn, and Harry Lennix. The series is executive produced by Spader, John Eisendrath, Jon Bokenkamp, John Davis, John Fox, Lukas Reiter, Laura A. Benson, Daniel Cerone, and Sean Hennen. Bokenkamp created the series and serves as co-showrunner alongside Eisendrath.

Production on Season 7 was nearing its end last spring when sets were forced to shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. This resulted in The Blacklist utilizing animation to finish the episode that was being filmed at the time, purposing it to serve as the Season 7 finale. According to Bokenkamp and Eisendrath, The Blacklist has always been thought of by its creative team like a comic book, so the half-animated episode allowed that vision to come full circle.

"We've always talked about The Blacklist being a bit of a comic book," the showrunners told ComicBook.com "We've got a criminal anti-hero at the center of the show. A Rogues' Gallery of criminals each week. The look and feel of the show has a slightly alt, graphic novel feel to it that's baked into the DNA of what we do on a week to week basis. So we think when we started kicking around ideas for two to complete the season — when we looked back at the comic books that had been written by Nicole Phillips — an animated approach felt very organic."

Are you excited for more seasons of The Blacklist? Let us know in the comments!

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