Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Red’s war with Berlin continues as the task force follows blacklisters whose crimes connect to wider political and criminal networks. Liz keeps probing Tom’s double life, then holds him in a hidden cell while she tries to learn who trained him and why he married her. Red finds Berlin’s daughter Zoe alive, exposing the lie behind Berlin’s revenge. Berlin kills Alan Fitch with a bomb; Red later shoots Berlin. Samar Navabi joins the task force, bringing Mossad experience and a personal history that becomes relevant to Red’s investigations.
The season’s second half shifts toward the Cabal and the Fulcrum, a record of the group’s crimes that Red and the Cabal both want. The Director, Peter Kotsiopulos, works to seize it, while Red tries to expose the organization and keep the evidence out of its hands. Liz’s cover-up of a murder committed by Tom brings her before a judge; Tom returns to confess, but political pressure and the Cabal’s reach keep the case from ending cleanly. Cooper, meanwhile, is told that he has a terminal brain tumour, a diagnosis that later proves to have been manufactured.
In the finale, Liz is framed for a senator’s assassination and escapes questioning with help from Red and Cooper. She confronts Attorney General Tom Connolly after learning he has been working for the Cabal and helped arrange Cooper’s false diagnosis. Connolly threatens the task force, and Liz shoots him dead. The shooting unlocks her memory of the night of the fire: as a child, she shot her abusive father to protect her mother. Red helps Liz flee, and she accepts that her name will appear beside his on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Tom leaves by boat as the task force’s future changes.