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2 • Terre Haute Tribune-Star • February 26 - March 4, 2023 New dangers confront the Task Force as 'The Blacklist' returns for 10th and final season New and daunting challenges face Raymond "Red" Reddington and the Task Force as the NBC drama "The Blacklist" returns for its 10th and final season. Premiering Sunday, Feb. 26, the 22-episode round finds Red (series James Spader) confronting unparalleled danger. With his role as a covert FBI informant in danger of exposure, former Blacklisters will unite against him in their quest for revenge, thus putting he and the Task Force to the test as never before. The new season also features something of a blast from the past. Newcomer Anya Banerjee joins the cast as Siya Malik, an MI6 intelligence officer and daughter of Meera Malik, the Task Force member played by Parminder Nagra who was killed in the line of duty at the end of Season 1. Siya joins the Task Force in the hopes of learning more about the woman who was killed when she was a teen and inspired her to work in intelligence. For Banerjee, this represents her first major role since graduating from the Columbia University School of the Arts in the midst of a pandemic in 2020. She considers Nagra a major inspiration for her career and thus was thrilled at the prospect of playing her character's daughter. "I just had a feeling as soon as I received this breakdown," the native New Zealander explains, "I really felt an affinity towards the character and immediately launched into binge-watching all of that first season and to learn as much about my mother as possible." "There was just so much secrecy around how she died, why she died," she continues, "that it basically drove her crazy and fueled her to then go into a career in intelligence herself. So I could definitely relate to wanting to follow in the footsteps of someone as inspiring as Meera Malik. ... And yeah, she's just on a journey to find as much as possible about her mother's legacy and continue the important work that she started." As the new kid on the block, Banerjee joins a cast that also includes Diego Klattenhoff, Hisham Tawfiq and Harry Lennix. She calls being on set with a group that has been together so long "surreal" but considers it a treat to watch such pros as Spader, a three- time Emmy winner, work. "Ultimate master class," she says, "like talk about being launched into that playground. I'm constantly absorbing his attention to detail. He really knows how to transform the atmosphere on set into something truly magical. So I've had the pleasure of working with him quite a bit and yeah, just constantly learning from his specificity and at the same time his unpredictability. You can really see why this character has been able to drive 10 seasons of a show." Anya Banerjee joins the cast of "The Blacklist" for its 10th and final season, which begins Sunday on NBC. BY GEORGE DICKIE Color Page