How did James Spader's The Blacklist Season 6 finale do in the ratings? Short answer: Pretty well! Long answer below.
The Blacklist Season 6, Episode 22, "Robert Diaz," closed out the 2019 season with 4.45 million viewers and a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic. That marked the highest number of viewers all season, and a tie with the demo rating for last week. Go Task Force!
However, gotta say it, that 0.6 was not a ratings high for the season. The high for Season 6 was the 0.85 of the premiere. But it's impressive that the finale had more overall viewers than the premiere, especially when you consider The Blacklist had to deal with another schedule change.
The Blacklist started Season 6 on Thursday, January 3 at 10 p.m. It then continued Fridays at 9 p.m. until it switched to 8 p.m. for the final few episodes. The Blacklist as a series started on a Monday -- September 23, 2013, at 10 p.m. earning 12.58 million viewers and a 3.8 rating.
The numbers have dropped a lot since then, but The Blacklist fans who have stuck with the show through its moves across the schedule are holding strong. Some fans may get frustrated with the Who Is Red, Really? storyline being stretched out, but others aren't going anywhere until they get the truth.
The Blacklist creator Jon Bokenkamp had said at one point that the show would end with answers on who Raymond "Red" Reddington really is. Since NBC had already renewed the drama for Season 7 by the time he said that, it seemed pretty clear that any "answers" we got on Red in Season 6 would not be the end of the story.
SPOILERS ahead from The Blacklist Season 6 finale.
The Blacklist Season 6 finale certainly opened that Red identity can of worms back up. It changed the whole situation for Red and Liz -- not to mention her mother, Katarina Rostova -- and got fans questioning if Red was really Ilya, as Liz was told. Who was the stranger sitting with Red on the bench? Could that have been the real Ilya, or Red's brother, or just some other close friend from childhood? At least Dembe is back in the family, as the Task Force moves forward in Season 7. But they will be moving forward without Red, at least temporarily, since he was stabbed and Red-napped by Katarina in the middle of a Paris street.
The Blacklist Season 7 will premiere at some point on NBC, although we don't know the date yet. Stick with CinemaBlend through the hiatus, since we'll be covering all updates and posting the many questions we hope to be answered in the new season.
