‘The Blacklist’ season 4 spoilers: Lotte Verbeek to return as Katerina

When you have a performer like Lotte Verbeek within the world of your show, obviously you’re going to try to bring her back whenever you can … even if there are wrinkles that make it rather difficult for them to be a permanent fixture.

Enter Lotte Verbeek and “The Blacklist.” The actress, who is otherwise known for playing Geillis Duncan on “Outlander,” was a particularly big part of the excellent season 3 episode “Cape May” as Liz Keen’s mother Katerina Rostova. She was a great foil to James Spader, who gave an Emmy-worthy performance in the hour (but unfortunately was not nominated for it). Entertainment Weekly now reports that Verbeek is going to return, with executive producer Jon Bokenkamp saying the following about it:

“In the first two seasons, we used pictures and a few fragments of memory, but Lotte brought Katarina to life in ‘Cape May.’ The fan response to that character has been great. The episode itself was a departure, but we’ve found some really interesting story opportunities as a result.”

The challenge of bringing this Katerina back is mostly that you need a story convention to do so, whether it be a flashback or some sort of dream sequence. Maybe Red will see a few visions of her, or maybe she will appear to Liz in a dream. We’re excited to see how it comes together, with our only real reservation being that seeing her once more could end up taking away from some of the magic that was there with her in “Cape May.” What made that episode so interesting was how it was different than almost everything else out there.

(Photo: NBC.)