‘The Blacklist’ season 4 spoilers: On the shared universe with ‘The Blacklist: Redemption’

At present, there are several interesting facets about “The Blacklist” and the upcoming spin-off “The Blacklist: Redemption,” with one of the primary ones being that for now, it’s still hard to figure out why Tom Keen would ever separate himself enough from Liz to go off and be the lead in his own series. Presumably, this would limit the amount of time that the two parties shared together, and while the spin-off is only set for eight episodes this season, that means that there are presumably eight episodes (at least) where Tom will be fairly limited on the flagship show.

Now that we’ve said that, the writers seem perfectly intent on having this world be as interconnected as humanly possible. In speaking about all of the crossover possibilities, executive producer Jon Bokenkamp said the following to Entertainment Weekly:

“Part of the fun of it is I feel like we have a handle on who our characters are … It’s going to be super fun to explore new territory and yet these characters are super specific. The Redemption characters and the various characters who we set up — and there will be more — those characters could pop over to The Blacklist and vice versa, but we don’t really know yet. We’ll have to see where the stories take us. We’re totally open to the idea. We love the idea.”

Given when the spin-off will start airing at midseason, we imagine that in three or four episodes down the road here, we could start to see some more seeds being planted. After all, it feels like the last thing that you want to do is have the origins for a spin-off come completely out of nowhere, since in that instance you’re blindsiding some of the viewers, even if it is with something that they could end up enjoying.

(Photo: NBC)