Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Elizabeth Keen joins the woman she believes is her mother in abducting Dom to extract Red’s secrets. When Reddington kills that woman, Liz turns against him. She abandons the FBI’s rules, recruits allies and joins forces with Neville Townsend, whose vendetta against Red threatens everyone close to him. Red and the task force try to contain Liz’s campaign while her search for answers exposes more of the intelligence network and the people who shaped her childhood. The apparent Katarina is eventually identified as Tatiana Petrova, an operative caught in a deception built by Dom and Ilya, rather than Liz’s biological mother.
As Townsend closes in, Red takes Liz to the Latvian hub of his operation and recounts the chain of events behind the impostor Raymond Reddington: Katarina’s life as a Russian spy, the original Reddington’s death, Liz’s childhood and the creation of Red’s criminal identity. The account strongly points toward Red being Katarina, but the show never states that identification aloud; Liz is interrupted before she learns the answer. Red kills Townsend, then proposes that Liz kill him publicly and inherit his empire. She cannot pull the trigger: Townsend’s associate Vandyke shoots Liz in the back, and Red kills him before Dembe carries Red away. Liz’s death is shown and confirmed.