Does ‘The Blacklist’ season 4 really need to continue Red – Liz mystery anymore?

Tonight, there is once again no new episode of “The Blacklist” coming on the air, but here’s the good news: This is probably the last time that we’re going to be saying this for a long time. New episodes are going to begin starting in one week’s time, and from there we imagine that there will be almost a new episode every week in one way or another between now and the end of the TV season in May. (We should note that we are including “The Blacklist: Redemption” in here, given that this will run for eight weeks coming up.

Clearly, there is a lot of story left to be told this season, and there are a lot of interesting directions in which the story could theoretically go. One direction that we certainly think would be interesting to explore is one where the central question is answered definitively: Whether or not Liz is really Raymond Reddington’s daughter.

Can you argue that we already got an answer to that question courtesy of what Red told Alexander Kirk? Certainly so, but that doesn’t mean that you should believe it in the slightest. Personally, we have a hard time doing that. There were reasons for Red to lie to him, including getting Kirk to go away once and for all.

The biggest reason behind spelling out the answer is that after such a lengthy run, there’s no longer value in the secret and the writers are putting themselves in an impossible position. The more that they choose to hype up this big reveal, the more difficult that they are going to make it on themselves to try to live up to what they’re selling. This is not going to be an easy thing for them to achieve, and with that, saving it to the end of the series could lead to an unsatisfying ending.

In revealing the answer now, you get a chance to move forward to the next mystery, since knowing the truth here doesn’t resolve everything when it comes to Red and Liz’s past. Meanwhile, it also does not mean that the show suddenly becomes devoid of Blacklisters. The central conceit remains the same, and there are different avenues to explore.

We understand the need for a good TV secret — it sparks discussion, and there are often many times when it gets people excited to see what’s next. However, there are also times when some secrets start to outlive their expiration dates. We may now be at one of these times.

(Photo: NBC.)