One more article:

https://ew.com/tv/2019/12/13/the-blacklist-season-7-fall-finale-liz-katarina-red/

Tuxie400 wrote:

KathyN wrote:

These are the 3 different interviews with the Johns. Eisendrath says that they won't reveal the secret until the last episode of the series.  And that they considered killing off Katarina 3 different times but liked the actress so changed the story. (sort of like Tom, my comment, not theirs).  If they were going to kill her off immediately, how can she be Liz's mom?  So that's a spoiler for me too.

https://tvline.com/2019/12/13/the-blacklist-recap-season-7-episode-10-katarina-alive-dead/

https://e-news.us/the-blacklist-bosses-tease-liz-s-alliance-shift/

https://www.thewrap.com/blacklist-katarina-rostova-fake-death-ilya-koslov-red-identity-liz-keen-fall-finale/

 

I did find it interesting they first just thought Laila's character would be a one shot who would get killed off immediately. I think they were desperately looking for ways to extend the story.

Maybe the season 7 renewal and possibly a season 8 renewal makes a lot of decisions for them or points them to make certain decisions. I can see that if they have the possibility of a season 8 that they would need to keep various characters hanging out somewhere so they could use them again to keep the story going. Especially if they have anything to do with the the show's core secrets storyline.