4月21日，罪惡黑名單的粉絲看到了詹姆斯·斯派德發表了一個劇情的可能走向，在雷蒙德·雷丁頓失去了他的同伴伊莉莎白·基恩---上一集中莉茲在生下女兒後死去。現在，伴隨著度過了最悲傷的時期後，雷丁頓的整個團隊都致力於追捕兇手…但有個更值得關注的問題是：莉茲真的已經死了嗎?
首先一個最支持莉茲沒有死的證據是莉茲的死亡會影響收視率。為什麼她的死具有那麼大的爭議性，難道電視劇為了突出紅魔這條主線而相對地犧牲了基恩這條輔線?(紅魔帶動主線，莉茲推動豐富了情節的發展)
伴隨著她的離去也留下了許多觀眾未知的疑問…劇情直到現在依然沒有告訴我們紅魔和莉茲之間的關係。紅魔是莉茲的父親嗎?或者是更複雜的關係?我們無法完全明白為什麼兩年前紅魔會進入到莉茲的生活中去，而且最重要的是：莉茲如果真的離開了那麼將無法再跟觀眾解釋這些懸而未決的疑問了。
但是，最有利的證據支持莉茲是假死的原因，是出於她暫時的離開對故事情節的發展是無關緊要的。這一季中，編劇把梅根·布恩現實中的懷孕寫入到了劇情中。因為這季黑名單有22集的集數，而梅根·布恩的預產期卻是在劇情還未拍完之前，這就意味著布恩因為需要時間休產假而無法持續拍攝。至此所有的一切表明，莉茲的死亡以及未來的葬禮，一切都可能是編劇為了布恩在現實生活中照顧孩子而暫時離開拍攝所做出的合理解釋。
最後一點當然是之前有過這樣的先例：編劇為女主角提供一個合理的劇情發展，好讓女主角暫時離開拍攝。如在拍X檔案第二季的時候史考莉(吉蓮·安德森)在現實中懷孕了，所以製作人將劇情發展成史考莉被外星人綁架了。瑪莉絲卡·哈吉塔飾演的奧利維亞·本森離開SVU成為了FBI的臥底。還有就是上季中，在傑茜駕到中編劇為傑茜安排了履行陪審員義務要離開一段時間的情節，方便允許佐伊·丹斯切爾在現實生活中可以休產假。
黑名單甚至已經在之前做過這樣伏筆：之前紅魔的同夥卡普蘭先生在那次綁架中讓莉茲假死，並造成對紅魔具有巨大打擊的假象…但是，目前為止我們依然無法確定莉茲是否是真的死了，至少在布恩休完產假回來之前我們無從得知真相。
On April 21, Blacklist fans watched as James Spader delivered a series defining performance, as Red Reddington mourned the loss of his partner Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) -- who passed away during the birth of her daughter the episode prior. Now, with the grieving period behind them, the entire post office team is on the hunt for a killer... But one question remains: is Liz really dead?
The first piece of evidence that points us in the direction of a big fat "no" is that Liz died during a commercial break. Why would the death of, arguably, the show's main central character (Red is the star, Keen drives the story) be handled so relatively casually?
There's also the dangling questions left by her passing... To this day, we still don't fully understand Red's connection to Liz. Is he her father? Is he something else? We don't fully know why Red entered Liz's life two years ago, and there's no way the show would remove her without answering that central question, first.
But, the biggest evidence supporting the idea Liz's death is a fake out has nothing to do with story at all. This season, Megan Boone's real life pregnancy was written into the show. Because The Blacklist features 22-episode seasons, the birth of her child was eventually going to happen before the end of production, which means Boone was going to need time to go on maternity leave. All of this -- the death, the mourning, the coming funeral -- it could be merely story justification for Boone to not be on screen while she takes care of her real life newborn.
That last bit certainly has its precedents: shows have written out female characters to provide maternity leave pretty much since the dawn of television. In Season 2 of The X-Files Scully (Gillian Anderson) was abducted by aliens.Mariska Hargitay's Olivia Benson left SVU to go "undercover" with the F.B.I. And just this past season, Jess went on "jury duty" on New Girl, conveniently allowing Zooey Deschanel to go on a maternity leave back in the real world.
Blacklist even provided a good out in the episode: it's possible that Red's co-conspirator Mr. Kaplan (Susan Blommaert) slipped Liz a powerful knockout agent to make Liz appear dead to Red... Though we probably won't know for sure for a while; at least until Boone gets back from maternity leave.
（編輯：何瑩瑩）