Liz Keen's Blacklist funeral will be a sea of black, without a hint of Red riding the grieving tide.

The Post Office team will gather to inter their fallen comrade during "The Artax Network," but the list of mourners will be shockingly short. While the majority of Liz's (Megan Boone) coworkers will join Tom (Ryan Eggold) at the cemetery, Red (James Spader) and Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq) will pass on the entire affair.

"Dembe doesn't even come to the funeral for Liz, and neither does Red," Tawfiq informed Entertainment Weekly. "We can understand Red not going, maybe he's just so heartbroken, but I thought that Dembe would either try to encourage him to go or, if he gave him his space, then I would go as a representation. But I didn't go."

The pair's absence can be attributed to Red's search for revenge. We know Mr. Reddington is a man who would wage war until the ends of the earth to avenge those he cares about, and Liz's death will send her pseudo father down a path he hasn't traveled since the tragic demise of his own wife and daughter. Despite the dangerous nature of their day jobs, Red was completely blindsided by the profiler's losing battle with mortality.

"He finds himself, in the first half of the season, all of a sudden with somebody and therefore responsible for them, that he is completely unprepared for them to come to an end," Spader told Entertainment Weekly.

While Red works the revenge case from one angle, the FBI will also follow their own leads in episode 20 (see a preview below).

"After an unexpected loss devastates the FBI task force, they must track down their assailants; a mysterious group whose agents operate using a worldwide satellite network," NBC teased. "Meanwhile, Reddington (James Spader) is forced to confront a ghost from his past -- one who knows many of Red's secrets."

Find out more when The Blacklist airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.

Tags: The Blacklist television nbc