The ninth season of The Blacklist has come to a thrilling end on NBC. While it wasn’t quite as bloody of a finale for the Task Force as the one that closed Season 8 and killed off Elizabeth Keen, it did deliver the departures of two series regulars: Amir Arison and Laura Sohn, who respectively play Aram and Park. Arison had been a key part of the show going back to the very first season, and the actor explained his decision to leave in a touching message to fans.
The Blacklist said an official goodbye to both Aram and Park in the Season 9 finale, although without killing either of them off. While Park was stepping away from the Task Force due to her headaches and her pregnancy following a miscarriage earlier in the season, Aram made the decision that he needed to take some time away to just live his life and spend some time in New York with no plans or missions to have to worry about. According to Amir Arison in his Twitter message, his real reason for bowing out of The Blacklist also involves New York. He wrote:
I did my first play in the 2nd grade and have been doing theatre ever since. I always dreamed of doing a Broadway show but, over time, that aspiration evolved into television with the hope of working on a great series. 9 years ago I auditioned for The Blacklist, a show that has everything: drama, suspense, character, comedy, relationships, and a universe of rich characters lead by James Spader with endless opportunities created by Jon Bokenkamp. I was welcomed into that world and gifted with the role of ‘Aram Mojtabai.’ The Kite Runner is one of the most extraordinary novels I have ever read and its stage adaptation for Broadway is both breathtaking and timely. I could not pass up the opportunity to fulfill another childhood dream.
Amir Arison was certainly successful when it came to his goal of joining a great series, and not many actors are lucky enough to play a meaty role on an action-packed network TV show for the better part of a decade. Even as he gave a special mention to creator Jon Bokenkamp (who departed The Blacklist at the end of Season 8 along with actress Megan Boone), he made it clear that his dream of Broadway hadn’t died, and he had the opportunity to star in a stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kind Runner, which was a huge hit as a novel and spawned a 2007 movie of the same name.
According to Arison, he couldn’t pass up the chance to be part of the Broadway adaptation as a fulfillment of a childhood dream by joining a “breathtaking” production. The actor is top-billed in the project, which was adapted by playwright Matthew Spangler. The website for the production also reveals that The Kite Runner will run for 17 weeks only, from July 6 to October 30. So, does that mean that Aram could be back when The Blacklist returns, considering that Season 10 isn’t arriving until 2023? Arison continued, addressing Aram’s future on the show:
Showrunner John Eisendrath, the producers, writers, studio, and network have been incredibly supportive of my decision, and Aram remains ‘alive’ with the potential for a possible return at some point. Story-wise it feels so organic with the events of this past season, and I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.
Only time will tell whether or not Amir Arison returns to The Blacklist as Aram, but the actor mentioning the character’s potential return in the same message that explains his farewell seems to bode well for fans to get to see Aram again. The character certainly earned a break after Season 9, which revealed not only how eventful the time jump was for him in the wake of Liz’s death, but also all the new challenges he had to face with the new Task Force and repercussions of Cooper being framed.
For now, you can revisit Aram’s earlier days on The Blacklist via streaming services. Fans with a Netflix subscription can find the first eight seasons, with Amir Arison’s debut as the future fan-favorite in the third episode of Season 1. For more recent episodes of what currently stands as Arison’s final season as a series regular, be sure to check out a Peacock subscription.