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Episode review: "We just have to trust each other, like old times." [S05E9/10]

Wow. That was... a lot. How overwhelmed are you feeling after a double dose of our favorite show and knowing that there is only one episode left?

Y: What can I say... I’m usually left exhausted and a ball of anxiety and emotions after one episode of Blindspot. Hit me with two back to back, and I need a couple of days to recover and go back to being a semi-functioning human.

L: I mean, I feel less traumatized than last week? Slightly? But also pre-emptively overwhelmed thinking about what’s going to happen in that last hour. Maybe it’s good that we get this extra week in here...

Let’s take this in pieces. In the first hour, we see our team, after two seasons, finally get an edge over Madeline. How did they get there, and what does it cost them?

L: Our team starts this episode exactly where we left them: In Madeline’s custody in the NYO, grieving for Patterson (as we all were for the week leading up to this episode). In fact, the only people who aren’t grieving for Patterson are Madeline and, well, Patterson, who doesn’t have time for questions about how she survived, because she has a team to rescue. And preferably before Madeline convinces one of the team to confess to all her sins (in another superb bit of cross-cutting, from one interrogation room to another). Madeline is pretty persuasive, even threatening Tasha’s unborn child (how the hell did she find out about that?!), so it’s a good thing our team is pretty stubborn.

I’m not gonna lie, I really thought they’d stretch out the “Patterson is dead” thing longer than they did, but I am not going to complain that we got her back so quickly! Patterson starts by rescuing Boston, arriving just as Madeline’s thugs do, and then cooks up a plan to get Afreen to help her and Boston sneak into the NYO by exploiting the gender-bias on their facial recognition software. (And to cut the software some slack, I hardly recognized Patterson and Boston when they showed up. Josh Dean is fabulous as Boston in these two episodes, as always, but man, he sure makes one hell of a drag queen.) They cleverly send a message to Jane, who is about to confess to all of Madeline’s sins, via a morse code signal in the light on the camera Madeline is using to tape her confession. And then they rescue Tasha and Rich, in short order.

Weller is more heavily guarded, but fortunately Rich is no stranger to crawling through the ductwork at the NYO. And then we get another surprise, when Agent Rose walks in just as Rich reaches Weller. This is one of my favorite scenes in this episode, because it is one of the first that answers a question that’s been nagging at me all season: Does the rest of the NYO truly believe that the team is guilty of all of the crimes they’ve been accused of? Agent Rose has been around since season one. She’s worked under Mayfair, Weller, Reade... and now she’s working under Madeline. She knows what kind of person Weller is, and she knows dedicated this team is. She’s seen them put themselves in harm’s way to save others over and over again. And now she has to decide whose side she’s on. “Agent Rose, you know me. You know my team. We are not what Madeline says we are. You see that, don’t you?” And Weller-the-boss did not underestimate the loyalty of his former employee; she tells him to cuff her so it looks he overpowered her and got away.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this scene, and I think it might be good that some time has passed since the team was branded as criminals and Madeline took over. I am sure that life under Madeline’s reign has not been a party for the agents in the NYO. Even if they were persuaded to believe her about the team (or to follow Weitz’s lead) in the beginning, that confidence must have waned the longer they had to work with Madeline. I’m sure they wondered about the thugs that she brought in, and I doubt anyone was pleased about the draconian security measures she imposed upon them. If this particular scenario—the team locked up at the NYO—had happened right away, it’s possible that there wouldn’t have been as many people willing to stick their necks out for the team. But as it is... Madeline, like so many things, you brought it on yourself. And I can’t deny that it sure was fun watching her come unglued as she realized that the team was slipping through her fingers, right there under her nose.

In the meantime, Patterson has discovered that Madeline has covered her tracks very neatly, placing all the blame for her misdeeds on Weitz. Well, now we know why Madeline has been keeping him around; he’s a very useful fall guy. But fortunately for Weitz, William Patterson is in his corner, and she is able to obtain the original data, all the evidence they need to incriminate Madeline. But just having that information isn’t enough; they need to make it public, so that there is no way that Madeline can bury it. Tasha picks up her phone and calls Megan Butani, Reade’s former fiancée, who we remember is a reporter for “The New York Star.” I guess that answers the question of whether she got deported or was able to stay in the US. Tasha asks Megan to remember what kind of man Reade was and that there is no way he was guilty of the crimes Madeline pinned on him. Megan reminds Tasha that Reade dumped her because he was in love with Tasha, and Tasha tactfully doesn’t mention that she’s expecting his love child as she asks Megan to go public with all of the evidence they have on Madeline.

Ivy’s team is hustling Jane out of the NYO, so the team has to act fast. Madeline has put the whole NYO in lockdown, so the only way for them to get to Jane is to override the lockdown with an evacuation order. Unfortunately, that reveals to the goon squad that they’ve been hiding out in the server room, and the team is rounded up and taken on their second slo-mo walk through SIOC to face the music. We get two surprises then: First, that Weitz hasn’t quietly moved to Canada as he’d threatened, and second, that Agent Rose isn’t the only agent who has signed on to Team Rogue Agents. TRA emerges victorious from the shootout with Ivy’s goon squad, but Weitz is hit in the crossfire. And here we see illustrated the difference between him and the team; Jane took a similar hit, traveled back to the bunker, started searching for her husband, and then directed her own surgery without anesthetic. Sadly, Weitz, is not made of quite such resilient fiber, and passes away with a last dose of his signature snark.

Without Weitz (or Madeline, who has flown the coop), there is a bit of a power vacuum at the FBI. Without a boss to give them orders, Weller seamlessly slips back into the fearless leader slot, and the team heads out to track down Madeline with help from an anonymous tip. Tasha catches up to her on her private plane, but before she can bring Madeline in, Madeline drinks her poisoned champagne and shuffles off this mortal coil. (I’m honestly a little disappointed that Tasha didn’t see that coming, knowing Maddie’s fondness for using poison to get rid of her problems.) The location of the ZIP bombs is still unknown, although Shirley has that information on an encrypted memory stick he tries to sell to Ivy, but all he gets in return is a bullet between the eyes.

I’m not going to lie: I am a little annoyed with the way that Madeline went out. Committing suicide seems like a pretty easy way out after all that she’s done. I really wanted to see her back in prison orange, regretting all of her life choices. Same with Shirley (although I thought the way he went out was pretty harsh, even for him!). But even more, I’m disappointed that this wasn’t really any kind of end of the systemic corruption that our team (and Shepherd, for that matter) have been fighting since day one. Yes, we still have one more episode, but we have to deal with Jane being zipped and apprehending Ivy, plus (hopefully) a few minutes to give the team some sort of resolution, so I don’t know how much time is left to unravel a big conspiracy plot. I will be disappointed if we don’t get a resolution to the questions this show has been posing since the pilot.

And there are still a lot of loose ends left in the Madeline story. What about all the corrupt individuals she put in place? Weitz seemed to take the view that they were all like him, basically decent people who Madeline had tricked into doing something incriminating, but it’s equally likely that some of them were legitimately corrupt and just didn’t cover their tracks well enough, which allowed Madeline to discover their misdeeds and use them for her own ends. Lucas Nash comes to mind here. He was definitely under Madeline’s control. We know Shepherd wanted to put Keaton at the head of the CIA, which would imply that the current director and other candidates were corrupt. Is Nash still in power? Being freed from Madeline’s control doesn’t necessarily mean that those individuals will become model citizens; freed from her oversight, they could do whatever they want, including exploiting the position she put them in for their own gain.

And I am a little worried. I think it would have been better for the team if they’d brought Madeline in to face trial, rather than letting her go out on her own terms. As Weitz would say, “the optics” would be better that way. As it is, if there is any question at all about the evidence they turned up (which might not be admissible in court, or at least, it wouldn’t be in the real world), it could look like the team was just covering their own tracks rather than exposing Madeline. And ultimately... they did run, and they did refuse to turn themselves in. And when they were taken into custody, they escaped, which resulted in yet another shootout at the NYO in which the Director of the FBI was mortally wounded. And then they refused a direct order by the new interim director. But we’ll get to that in a minute...

Y: So much to discuss! So little time!!

I’m sorry, but I’m a little overwhelmed by how much was packed into the first episode, how much of it was absolutely brilliant, and how much I have to say about it all. First of all, I have to say that I absolutely loved the premise of this episode. The way it was set up and how it played out was so reminiscent of 2.21—including the building lockdown, Patterson doing computer stuff stealthily, the team sneaking their way around the office, and of course the ultimate showdown in SIOC and the director’s demise—and that episode is by far one of my favorite Blindspot episodes ever. So all of this made me very happy.

The interrogation scene was fantastic. The editing and cutting made it so much better. But by far the best thing was the head to head between the team and Madeline and the team’s tenacity and stubbornness. The way they took Madeline’s taunting and her threats and just sat there so badass and defiant. We’re going to talk about the team later—and by talk I mean mostly gush and fangirl and make weird noises about how much we love them. But for now, let’s just say that those interrogation scenes were a thing of cinematic beauty.

The way the case played out was really fun as well. There were so many little games of cat and mouse, some were through the FBI servers, some were psychological mind games, and in Rich’s case they were all about crawling through the vents to save his favorite mumbling special agent. And it all led to Madeline standing in the middle of SIOC all alone as everything collapsed around her and then the ultimate showdown between the team, Weitz and his Team Rogue Agents, and Ivy’s men. And in between all those huge moments, we got to see Agent Rose make a comeback, and Megan make a comeback as well. And you would be 100% correct if you assumed that I cheered for both of those comebacks. First, Megan, while the way she was dumped wasn’t really great, at least the show respects her enough to show us that she’s not one to hold that kind of grudge or have that residual pettiness in her. And it’s also a testament to who Reade really was that Megan knows those accusations cannot be right and that the way to honor his memory is to do what’s right here. And at the same time, a testament to Megan, her professionalism and her pedigree as a journalist. I honestly really loved that scene and the conversation with she had with Tasha and Blindspot once again not falling into the horrible cliché of vengeful exes.

And then there’s Agent Rose. Oh, Agent Rose. For five seasons now, I have singlehandedly held on to the hope that she will someday make a return. That sassy agent in that random scene with Fischer all the way back in season one made like one or two random background appearances, and I’ve stood here alone in my crusade to want her back. I am not going to lie. I never in a million years thought they would bring her back. I mean, even I—the founder and only member of the Agent Rose Fan Club—didn’t expect them to bring her back. But they did! And okay, my excitement doesn’t only stem from this weird niche obsession with her but like L said, her return and the role she played was bigger than just her, and it answered so many questions we’ve had all season, and it validated the faith we have in the team. Except for Weitz, Afreen and for a brief moment Briana, we never really got to see the rest of the agents at the NYO react to the news that the team are all traitors. Most of these people have been working with our team for years and a part of us knew they couldn’t have all just fallen for Madeline’s lies. But of course, we never really had a chance to peek into their private conversations so this episode provided the perfect opportunity to show us just how much they’ve been waiting for a chance to stand up for the team—whether it’s Agent Rose or Agent Woods or Agent Shayla or any of the other agents who proudly and confidently joined Team Rogue Agents. So it was great to see the NYO still full of these good people we’ve come to know and that their loyalty to the team is still strong.

And if I may take another moment here to just flail at how completely epic that moment was! Hands down one of the most badass moments on the show for a single character—Weitz—and one of the most badass group entrances by the Rogue Agents.

And speaking of rogue agents, I love that the little underdog resistance that Afreen and Weitz had going, never knowing if they were doing more good than evil, managed to have such a tremendous payoff. If only they knew they had so many others willing to help… And I also hope we get to see Afreen one last time in the finale because this episode and review don’t really do her enough justice for me to flail about how much I love her. I need the finale to give me some Afreen so I can justifiably spend ten hours talking about her. Or else I will have to have an independent Afreen is Awesome post. You’ve been warned.

But for now, let’s talk about Madeline. Watching her stand all alone in the middle of SIOC as everything she built collapsed around her was the first moment this season we felt the team actually win something. After everything they’ve been through, destroying all that Madeline has built felt good. But the disappointing thing about it is that in Madeline’s eyes, in some ways, it didn’t matter. She had set out to destroy the FBI and even though now she stands there defeated, in so many ways, she has already achieved what she had set out to do. The damage she has caused at the moment looks almost insurmountable. The team has put at an end to her reign of terror but the damage she has done is already catastrophic. And while this part of her story is a plot line I do enjoy, I don’t enjoy the next part of it. Setting up the finale and the next chapter in the universe with the task of rebuilding the FBI and rooting out the corruption once and for all is actually a very hopeful note to end on and maybe Madeline inadvertently did the FBI a favor. And like L, I do wonder if this opens the door to getting rid of all corruption and allows us to finally go back to what started everything and come full circle to the mysteries from season one.

I think it’s poetic that Madeline ultimately died by the same poison she used on most of her enemies, but it is frustrating that she gets to go out on her own terms, that she does not pay for her crimes and that the team don’t get the revenge they deserve. Tasha should have seen it coming. I think we all did when she sat there with a glass in from of her. But dammit, I wanted her to suffer for what she did to the team and not dictate her own fate. But I suppose that is quite a true reflection on how most monsters in this world get to go?

One person who didn’t really have things go his way was Shirley. After cutting ties with Madeline, claiming he wants to do what’s best for his family, Shirley proved he’s nothing more than a bottom feeding leech and went to Ivy seeing as she’s the boat that hasn’t sunk yet. But Ivy was lucky to be the person to do the one thing we’ve all wanted to do for almost a year now. She put a bullet between his eyes. And I know that’s cruel, but he was just unbearable. Some characters you hate to love and others you love to hate, but Shirley was just… ugh. I mean, amazing performances by Raoul Bhaneja every single time, but still. It’s interesting that this episode saw the end of two characters who for most of what we’ve seen from them have always been self-serving and good at attaching themselves to “winning projects”—Shirley and Weitz—but ultimately they went down on opposite extremes of the spectrum.

And finally, there is one more thing I want to touch upon in this section, and that is the way this season set up its villain—or villains. Essentially, it looked like the season’s ultimate villain would be Madeline and that Ivy was just the muscle she hired to get her dirty work done. But as the season progressed, we watched as Ivy and Madeline became more on equal footing in terms of who was in charge, even if Madeline thought she was the one in charge, Ivy clearly didn’t see the agreement between them as such. The power struggle was a really fun one to watch—especially with Shirley in the middle, serving Madeline for the most part but ultimately showing his true colors as only serving himself. The more things got complicated between the two women, the more the cracks showed between them and the disparity in their endgames widened the gap between them and made their agreement less amiable.

Blindspot’s never really done that before—had more than one villain at the same time—and I think in this shorter season, it gave it a little something extra and definitely made things harder on our team, especially going into the finale. It’s going to be an intense finale, but I have to admit I loved the way the antagonist was set up this season as a two-headed monster that in the end had to be split up.

L: I both agree and disagree. I liked that Madeline wasn’t the only bad guy that needed to be taken down, but I also want the final case to be more than just stopping a bomb-toting terrorist (in other words, just another Thursday for this team). I really hope there is a much bigger resolution and payoff coming—not just a case of the day, but a sewing up of the thread that somehow ties all of their cases over the past five seasons together.

Our team won the day—or at least, they finally brought Madeline down—but it was not without cost. I am not going to lie: Weitz’s death made me cry. We had a feeling that he wouldn’t make it through the season, and we were right. He finally discovered his convictions, only to die for them. But there’s no question that he died a hero. As Rich says, “When we needed you the most, you were here for us.” His resolve might have wavered like a flag in the breeze, but when it really counted, he made the right call. When we first met him, he was self-absorbed and snarky, and for the most part, he remained true to that image. But somewhere, deep down inside, he discovered a conviction and courage that no one, least of all him, suspected he had.

And it’s important to note that if he and Afreen hadn’t been able to get rid of the blackmail files on Shirley’s laptop, the team wouldn’t have been able to take her down. The editor of “The New York Star” would have killed the story before it ever saw the light of day. Not only did they destroy Madeline’s hold over him, but Weitz must also have contacted him to tell him that Madeline no longer had any leverage over him, or else the editor would have simply assumed that the blackmail was still in place. And we can’t forget his phone call to warn the team about the drone strike. Rich is right; Weitz may have driven the team crazy over the seasons, but in the moments when it mattered the most, he had their backs.

Rest in peace, Matthew. I never would have thought I’d say this, but I am really gonna miss you.

Y: Oh Matthew Weitz… what can I say to do your character and your journey justice? This was the final chapter in Weitz’s story, and like everything else in his story so far, it was an uphill battle. His instincts were screaming at him to go full ostrich, to pack up and head to Canada, but in the end he remained true to the path he’s been put on for a while, a path that Afreen—out of nowhere—helped him stay on when things got really really tough this season, and he saw it all through. It did cost him his life, but he went out completely redeemed and a true hero.

And his last words were appropriately about his hair.

It was heartbreaking to learn that the only reason Madeline kept him around for so long was to pin everything on him, but that came back to bite her because in his time staying alive, he played a huge part in destroying her blackmail material and in taking her down. I think Madeline hugely underestimated him, and I’m glad he was there to see her defeated.

That scene in SIOC when the rogue agents walked in, armed and ready to fight for him—well, for the team but also for him—brought tears to my eyes. It was an epic scene, and as Matthew’s last stand, it was as heroic as it can get.

Would I have preferred him go full ostrich? He would’ve survived which would have made me happy but very disappointed so ultimately not so happy. This is how it was meant to be. I am heartbroken but so damn proud.

Rest In Peace, Matthew. You did good. You did good.

In the second hour, our team has to face the fact that stopping Madeline doesn’t stop the threat she posed, and it doesn’t guarantee that they will ever get their old lives back. What does that mean for their present and their future?

L: Madeline’s gone, but Ivy is still out there and so are the ZIP bombs. As much as the team would like to focus on clearing their names and getting their lives back (or in Rich’s case, making a clean getaway with a new identity), or even on getting a shower and a change of clothes, first they need to stop a terror attack. You know, business as usual at the NYO? Not quite. The team doesn’t work there anymore. They have no authority to call any shots (and probably don’t even have the clearance to walk through SIOC). So Kurt, showing us exactly why he’s always been the true leader of this team, leaves it up to the people who still work there: “We are not here to take over. We’re here to help. If you’ll have us.” And the agents at the NYO, of course, take them up on his offer, because the FBI doesn’t hire dummies. (Or at least, they didn’t when Mayfair, Weller, or Reade was in charge of the NYO. I’m guessing Madeline vastly preferred dummies she controlled as opposed to the rebels who helped take her down.)

Finding Ivy isn’t going to be easy. The only clue that they have is that Madeline had a good hacker on her team. Someone who could doctor all the documents to point to Weitz and build a puzzle that would trick Patterson and lead Madeline to the bunker. Someone very quirky, kooky even. Someone like their old pal Kathy “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” Gustafson, the third blind mouse, who disappeared after she set loose all manner of chaos in Iceland. The team is moving out to track her down when she walks into the NYO and turns herself in. Patterson and Rich try to “good cop/bad cop” her but are entertainingly blindsided by her offer to help them in exchange for the “good” deal. “The one where you ignore all the bad stuff I did and put me on the team full-time. I want the Rich Dotcom deal.” And frankly, you gotta love a show that can laugh at itself like that. Because, yes, it really is kind of ridiculous that Rich is in the position that he’s in. He should be in jail, or at the very least, not on the FBI payroll. But he is, and of course we wouldn’t have it any other way.

For all of Kathy’s craziness, she’s actually pretty straightforward about this. Ivy wants her to hack Madeline’s Darkcloud server, so she can find out where Madeline stored the ZIP bombs. But Kathy doesn’t want to be on Ivy’s team. “I’m not an evil person. Ivy is and so is her plan. I don’t want people to lose their memories. They’re all we have.” So she’s come to the FBI instead to tell them what she didn’t tell Ivy: She doesn’t need to hack Madeline’s Darkcloud key, because she built it and left herself a backdoor. Of course. If this show has taught us nothing at all, it is that programmers always, always leave themselves a backdoor, whether it’s a videogame, a secure messaging service, or a cloud server solution.

Rich and Patterson squabble for a bit about whether they can trust Kathy, until Patterson finally tells the whole team off: “You are all being hypocrites. We are asking... for a second chance, and we can’t even give Kathy one?” Which is a valid point, no matter how little we trust Kathy. Rich attempts to bluff Kathy, but Patterson delivers her second truth bomb of the day, “We can’t give you a deal because we don’t even have a deal. Stopping Ivy is our best chance at getting one. And if we can get a deal, I will do everything I can to make sure that you get one, too.” It’s not the offer Kathy was hoping for, but it’s the best she’s gonna get—especially once she realizes that the alternative is being arrested for taking down the power grid for Madeline—so she accepts.

Unfortunately, by the time Kathy gets to work, she discovers that she’s too late. Another hacker has beaten her to the punch. Another hacker with a very familiar coding style. Another hacker named Boston Arliss Crab. They need to find him, and fast, because Ivy is going to kill him as soon as she gets what she wants. Or she’ll kill him if he doesn’t get her what she wants. Either way, the outcome for Boston is very very not good. And just to make sure that he grasps the gravity of the situation, Ivy cuts off one of his fingers. And eeek, as much as I should have expected Ivy to do something horrible, I did not see that one coming. Boston puts his remaining nine digits to work doing Ivy’s bidding, and his first order of business is locking Kathy, Patterson, and Rich out of the darkcloud server.

As it turns out, our Three Blind Mice do not, in fact, appreciate being blind. Since they can’t get the information Ivy is after, they figure out how to remotely enable the webcam on Boston’s machine and try to locate him that way. They can only narrow his location to a neighborhood, so they have to resort to old school sound triangulation to find him, which means that Weller, Jane, and Tasha are in one SUV, and poor Patterson gets to drive with Rich and Kathy bickering in the backseat. I think Patterson might reconsider the whole adoption thing, after her “driving mom” experience. It’s really not for the faint of heart, and I can attest that being good at math is really no help at all.

By the time the team arrives, Ivy and her team are long gone, leaving poor Boston standing on a pressure-plate bomb, a distraction to keep the team busy while Ivy goes to get the ZIP. Weller, Jane, and Tasha head out after Ivy while Rich and Kathy and Boston bicker incessantly and Patterson works on defusing the bomb. (And I am not gonna lie, listening to them all throw shade at each other’s coding skills totally cracks me up.) Unfortunately, instead of disabling the bomb, they engage a timer which gives them five minutes to figure a way out. Boston tries to send them all away, but Rich recognizes what he’s doing (in much the same way that Patterson realized that Rich was plagiarizing Harry Potter when he told them that Boston was dead). “I always thought we’d all end up together. All of us. Like some really good looking modern family,” Boston says, and he is not at all alone there. Trust us, Boston, that is what this entire fandom wants!

Kathy insists the only way she can defuse the bomb is by switching places with Boston, so they pile some weights on her as Boston attempts to be honest about his weight (a struggle that everyone who has been eating their way through quarantine and mainlining chocolate during this final season can relate to). The two of them trade places, and then Kathy tells them that there really isn’t any way to stop the timer. “Look, I created this mess. The attack on the power grid. Framing you guys and your friends. Helping Madeline find you... I just need to make it right.” She shoos them away, and they run and take cover, only to discover that the bomb has been disarmed and Kathy is gone.

And at the end of the day, Patterson and Rich were both right. Kathy did help them, and yes, she also played them. But can you really blame her for escaping at the end? She’s already been to prison, and she doesn’t want to go back. Yeah, her obsession with Rich and Patterson is a little weird, but it’s not all that different from Rich’s fascination with Jane and Weller, and he turned out okay. For all Kathy’s kookiness, she was honest about what she wanted. And in the end, Boston does pretty much exactly the same thing as Kathy does; he takes off instead of waiting around to see what the new director decides to do with them. Rich is our only convicted felon who is brave enough to stick around and hope for clemency.

Arla Grigoryan, the new Interim Director of the FBI has arrived in the NYO and her first order of business is to recall Weller et al from the field, where they are closing in on Ivy and the ZIP bombs. But the backup is too far out to get there in time, and so our heroes make the call to go after Ivy instead of following orders. I really want to believe that this decision won’t doom them at the FBI, but honestly, this season has been a lot more grim and loss-filled than we’re used to on this show, and my optimism is really running low.

Weller takes out Ivy’s thugs as Jane finds Ivy, loading the ZIP into the bombs. Ivy escapes through a door which locks behind her, trapping Jane in the room just as the ZIP bomb goes off. Knowing she has already been exposed, she does the only thing she can to protect Kurt and seals the airlock door. And for the second time in two weeks, the music swells as we watch someone mouth “I’m sorry” through a door before being obscured, and frankly, that is two times too damn many for my poor, broken heart.

So if those were the only bombs that Ivy had, the team just won, but nothing has ever felt less like a win. We know that Patterson has the antidote for ZIP, so it’s a good bet that she’s gonna be able to serve up a cure for Jane, but damn.

Everything hurts and I need more chocolate.

Y: I’m going to say this here and no one take it the wrong way. Nothing ever good has happened that has involved Kathy Gustafson! I was completely team Rich on this throughout the episode and was screaming at Patterson to not trust her and yes, I know she ultimately saved Boston’s life, but was it all worth it?!

Yes, Boston’s life is worth it, but I am sure the team would’ve saved him some other way, and they would’ve found the ZIP some other way too. Oh, and speaking of finding the ZIP, we all know how that ended so maybe not finding it would’ve been better? I’m sorry, but I am just very very upset and even with all the chocolate I’ve consumed, it has not helped, and I just want to team up with Rich and rant about Kathy for the next fifteen years.

I think I am mostly upset, also, that this being the penultimate episode, Tasha, Kurt and Jane got so little time because we were focused on the A Plot of the episode, and I was hoping we’d see more of them. There I said it. It’s all Kathy’s fault and I hate Kathy. In fact, everybody should hate Kathy. Maybe this could have been called Everybody Hates Kathy Part Two?

Okay, now that I have gotten this off my chest, I can relax—not really—and talk about something else. All the bantering and bickering and the shouting and the nerding aside, this episode provided an interesting character juxtaposition by including both Boston and Kathy along with Rich. These three in many ways fit in the same category, and Kathy really was trying to fit into the Rich Dotcom mold—if we’re going to believe her claim that she wanted to work with the FBI and get a similar deal. In many ways those three represent that category in its different phases, and they’ve been allowed evolve within it surrounded by different circumstances.

For Kathy, I think, she put it perfectly when she mentioned how lonely she is. We know that one of the main reasons Rich has been allowed to grow and develop is the fact that he was welcomed into this family and was surrounded by these people. Kathy has a lot of issues, not necessarily the same issues as Rich, but issues nonetheless. And maybe had she had the same nurturing environment that was allowed for Rich she could find a way to change and become better. The question is, does she want to? It seems that the concept of it is something that appeals to her, but then again, when she talks to Patterson after escaping, she tells them that they’re delusional.

Who knows what could be next for Kathy Gustafson, whether her love for chaos would overpower her inkling for good, if she’ll find the right environment to allow one to outgrow the other, or if she will continue to sway in the middle—one minute lending a hand to the good guys and the other minute dancing over the ashes of the city with the Madelines and Dominics of the world.

Our team has been through so much, and they still haven’t gotten their lives back. But they just never, ever give up, especially not on each other. How are they staying strong, both individually and together, through this journey?

Y: All you need to know is that Patterson is not dead and she saves the world. Again.

Okay, maybe that’s not all you need to know, but it is at the core of what you need to know because William Patterson is alive! And if you think we’re happy about it, you should’ve seen how happy the team were! And if there was ever any doubt of how loyal this team are to each other, how supportive they are of each other, how far they’re willing to go to save each other, and how much stronger they are as a team, this episode denounces all those doubts.

First of all, the first of the double bill episodes gave us what will go down as two of the best reunions ever on Blindspot.

Maybe even three, because Afreen and Weitz’s discovery that Patterson is alive was just absolutely precious. Okay, maybe precious on Afreen’s end and absolutely adorably panicked on Weitz’s.

And then there are the reactions of both Tasha and Rich to Patterson being alive and nothing in the world could ever be so pure and also so heartbreaking. Tasha’s reaction made me smile and cry all the happy tears. But it was Rich’s quiet somber reaction that absolutely destroyed me. This man has come such a long way, and this relationship has grown to become one of the most honest and loving and genuine relationships on the show, and I am an emotional wreck.

Watching Patterson take full control to save her friends and to clear their names was a thing of magic. We know just how good she is. She has spent the last years proving day in and day out that she is the best. Simply the best. But it never ceases to amaze me when I watch her do her thing on screen. Seriously, my love for Patterson in this episode was almost all consuming that I cannot even bring myself to talk about things, you know, intellectually.

Patterson was her beautiful Patterson self. In the first episode she was everything we know she is. She survived the bunker explosion, found her way back to the US, saved Boston and then spent the day as the true leader that she is to get her friends out of lockdown and bring Madeline down. In the second episode, she again showed the true leader in her, and while I personally was on team Rich with regards to Kathy, I know Patterson did the right thing and that her decisions led to saving Boston and locating the ZIP. She displayed true leadership qualities, unparalleled empathy, and genuine belief in other people, in the concept that people can change and deserve second chances.

And at that she’s a much bigger person than I am.

L: Patterson isn’t our LeBron for nothing. She figured out how to survive the bunker explosion, rescue Boston, sneak into the FBI, save the team, and get the evidence they needed to stop Madeline. I’d appreciate her feats even more if I could stop crying for joy that she’s alive.

I am not going to lie; the reunions of the team members—especially when they realize Patterson is alive and well—are my favorite moments in these two episodes. And I honestly can’t decide which I loved more: Tasha’s “You are the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen” or Rich’s heartfelt “Promise me you won’t ever do that again.” This team is a family, and there is nothing more painful than believing you’ve lost a member of your family. This team has been through so much and lost so much, and this week I am crying tears of joy right along with them that they didn’t lose Patterson, too. For the first (and only) time, I’m glad that this season is so short, because if it was longer, there probably would have been a Patterson-free episode in the middle of this arc, and honestly, I don’t know if my heart could have taken that.

I think the thing that struck me most about Patterson in these two episodes is how all-around smart she is. She’s computer smart, we all know that. And she’s pretty damn good at disguises. But she’s also people smart, as we see in her decision to trust Kathy. She refuses to lie to her, she yells at Rich when she realizes he is deliberately slowing Kathy down. Okay, maybe she should have known that Kathy was lying about the bomb at the end, but also... maybe she did know, and went with it anyway.

I think Patterson understands Kathy better than anyone else. As we saw in the conversation between Rich and Patterson in last week’s episode, it’s not always easy to be the smartest person in the room. It might make people respect you, but it doesn’t always win you a lot of friends. Being part of the FBI team gave both Patterson and Rich (and Boston) a circle of close friends who look out for them and love them for their eccentricities, not in spite of them. Kathy has never had that, and it has been clear in all of their interactions that she’s been desperately trying to find that same kind of family of her own. And Patterson knows that Madeline and Dominic played on Kathy’s loneliness to reel her into their nefarious plans. Patterson was manipulated by Borden in the same way that Kathy was manipulated by Dominic, so of all of them, she is the one most likely to understand Kathy’s perspective.

So in summary... Patterson is smart, but she’s also got a really big heart. And that’s one of the reasons why we love her so damn much.

Y: These guys have been through hell this season. It’s true that no season has been easy, but this year has just felt like it’s been so much harder. With the loss of Reade, the endless string of losses to Madeline, and all the bad luck they’ve faced, it’s a true testament to who they are that they’re still hanging in there, still fighting, refusing to give up and determined to do the right thing.

And no one has had a rougher season than Tasha. She’s really had to dig very deep to continue to find strength and purpose to push forward. She hasn’t found it easy to open up to her teammates, but still she’s leaned on them when she’s needed them, and not once did they abandon her or let her down.

But Tasha has really shined in the moments where she’s been on her own and in a head to head confrontation with someone else. And she has done especially good when she’s come up against Madeline. In the brief scenes of the interrogation that we did see, Tasha once again was just fantastic, resilient, strong, fearless and the perfect antithesis to Madeline, as much as Madeline would want to believe that she and Tasha are the same.

And as much as that last scene on the plane with Madeline frustrated me for how it ended with Madeline, it was great for Tasha in that she finally got to finish the case that has taken so much from her over the past two seasons and to finally stand victorious in front of the woman who has literally destroyed her life in so many ways.

I don’t know how much Madeline taking her own life will feel like a victory for Tasha or if she too will take it as a cop out—like everything she had gone through has gone to waste. But I also hope that Tasha can find some peace after all of this and feel like she’s been on the right side of this whole thing all this time and that her sacrifices have not gone to waste.

L: Oh, Tasha. There’s no surprise that Tasha was the first one on the scene to capture Madeline. Facing down Madeline might be Tasha’s most powerful moment in this entire series. Madeline took literally everything from Tasha. Her professional reputation, her career at the CIA, her friend and mentor in Keaton, even her best friend and the man she loved. And Madeline knew that and gloated about it. I am sure there is nothing more Tasha wanted than to slap the cuffs around Madeline’s wrists, and I’m angry again at Madeline that she did not get that moment.

And I’m not going to lie, I’m worried about where Tasha goes from here. I think she’s been able to avoid really thinking about Reade’s death or the fact that she’s carrying his baby by focusing on taking Madeline down. Now that she has... what’s ahead of her now? She’s lost Keaton, too, and any chance of returning to the CIA. Is there a place for her at the FBI? And if so, can she still fit in there, if she even wants to be in a place where everything reminds her of Reade?

When they were on the run, the team was just focused on stopping Madeline and magically getting their lives back. But now they are finally admitting that it might not be that simple. As Kurt says, “We didn’t do what Madeline framed us for, but we did do a lot of other things. And... Grigoryan, she doesn’t know us. And on paper, we don’t look so good.” Tasha isn’t the only one to worry about their future, but she’s the one I’m most worried about, because her place is the least clear of all of them. Patterson is back in the lab, where she belongs, and if Grigoryan isn’t smart enough to do everything in her power to keep her there, then she’s not smart enough to run the FBI. Kurt and Jane will be with Bethany and Allie and Conor, either in NYC or in Colorado. Whatever is ahead of them, they’ll face together. And I think Rich and Boston will be much the same, even if they do it from the flirty distance they usually do. But Tasha? Stay with your family, Tasha. You know they will be there for you. And really... kids are a lot of work, and it’s hard to find babysitters you can trust.

Y: If season five should be remembered for one thing, it should be how we got to see Rich Dotcom finally become the best version of himself. He’s found his purpose, found his heart, found his family, found his strengths, found his light, learned how to balance it with his dark and embrace all the parts of himself.

I’ve talked about this before, and I am going to do it again, and it’s how season five has more than once brought back people from Rich’s past and put them side by side with Rich to compare the two. These people have presented who Rich was and who he would have been now had he not found this team, and it’s been really great seeing that comparison and appreciating Rich’s journey more and more.

The second episode in the double episode did that with two people—Boston and Kathy. In some ways, Kathy represents the other extreme to what Rich has become. The taste for chaos and anarchy that is left unchecked and giving in to every impulse that Kathy displays versus how Rich has evolved until—much to his annoyance—he often finds himself the voice of reason.

And with Boston, the phone call between them in the beginning of the episode provides insight as to how Boston, while trying to find that path that led Rich to where he is, isn’t there yet. If Kathy is on one end of the spectrum, Boston still finds himself in the middle, struggling to give up some of his older habits as he tells Rich “we have to take care of ourselves.” To which Rich replies, “Yeah, but that’s all we’ve ever done,” indicating that for Rich, these older habits are things they have to learn to move on from.

Boston is still stuck in that mindset, while Rich has moved on and is in a place where he would never abandon his team even if he knows it will lead to something horrible.

Finally, one last thing… I think what made me the proudest I have ever been of Rich is how he’d forgiven Matthew. I cried, people, I totally cried.

L: Yeah, that scene got me right in the feels. And I think it’s significant, because, like Weitz, Rich certainly vacillated between being out for himself and being a team player. It makes sense that he is the hardest on Weitz, not just because he got sent to a blacksite, but also because he is measuring Weitz by the yardstick he uses to measure himself. We are always the least tolerant of the flaws in others that we struggle with in ourselves. It’s safe to say that no matter what happens in the finale, Rich Dotcom has officially completed his amazing character arc. He’s successfully transitioned from self-serving criminal to full-on FBI team player. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy being Rich DotTwo, with all this new self-awareness and a highly developed conscience.

I loved Rich’s speech to the team at the start of 5.10. “Sorry, just before anyone else says anything heroic, may I remind you that we’re still wanted criminals.” One part of Rich’s evolution is this new, adult way of looking at things. “Best case scenario, we get fired. Worst case? I’ve been there before, and I don’t exactly plan to go back.” He understands what’s at stake, and he knows that—of all of them—he’s the least likely to get a deal at the end of all of this. So honestly, I couldn’t blame him if he wanted to run. But the thing is, he doesn’t, because the second part of Rich’s evolution is his newly-discovered skill of self-sacrifice (which, yes, he totally picked this up from the team as Madeline describes, “These people have made falling on their swords into an art form.”). He can’t leave the team to see this through on their own, knowing that he could help, even when it means giving up on the idea of a future with Boston. When Boston tells him that they need to look out for themselves, Rich tells him, “Yeah, but that’s all we’ve ever done.” Being a part of this team is the first time he’s been part of something bigger than himself, and it’s the first time he’s gone out of his way to do the right thing just because it’s the right thing—and it’s even more poignant because of what he is giving up—the chance to run away and build a new life with Boston. And even if you’re not Rich, it’s a tough call—save the world or save your future with the person you love? But in this context, knowing how far Rich has come and how hard he’s worked to get to this point... It’s an impossible call, and I’m all the more proud of him for making it.

Y: One last, probably completely unnecessary note, but I cannot be the only one who freaked out when Ivy grabbed Boston’s hand to cut off his finger, right? Forget hacking, the man is an artist, and he needs those fingers!! Fortunately, she left him with nine so his art career isn’t ruined.

And I know I was a bit tough on Boston in my review, but I do love me some Boston Arliss Crab. Since his days of bantering with Patterson are over, I am glad we got to see some with Kathy. Josh Dean is really good at that. And he’s also good at many other things. His humor is fantastic, he has amazing chemistry with Ennis and with Ashley, and in these two episodes he really got to shine. It’s hard to believe that Boston is only a recurring character. It feels like he’s been part of the show for so long and such an integral part of it.

I just love them all so much and I am very emotional—and yes, I am writing this on the day of the finale, just hours before it airs, so I am extra emotional. If that is even possible.

Like the rest of their team, Kurt and Jane go through a lot in these two hours of television, only to finish on a terrifying note. How do they tackle these challenges, both together and alone, and what do we think this means for their future?

Y: Was it just me or was Kurt extra barky in the second hour of this double episode? He just seemed a bit more growly than usual. And yes, I am talking about this to avoid talking about the… other thing.

There are other things I’m willing to talk about as well. Mainly all the awesome Kurt things that happened this week. Like the rest of the team, Kurt during the interrogation was as badass as we’ve known Kurt Weller to be. He was absolute fire, stubborn as hell, defiant, and so confident in his team. Honestly, that sequence was close to the most badass we have ever seen the team—all of them.

But I think the most badass Kurt scene is—not just in this episode but maybe in the history of badass Kurt moments—is him taking out six armed mercenaries on his way to rescue Jane. Excuse me, but what was that? I don’t know about you, but I cannot stop watching this scene, watching this man do literally the impossible to save his wife and become an entire army himself to get to her.

The Jeller reunion was quintessentially Jeller. It involved some badass fighting, trademark Jeller softness, and of course the adorable flirting during a life and death situation. This is our ship. This is the ship we’ve loved for five years.

And then there was Kurt’s reunion with Bethany. Sigh… that was just the purest thing ever and Little Bee is the most precious little girl ever. That scene melted my heart and soul and Bethany telling her dad to hurry back to her absolutely destroyed me. So I can only imagine what it did to poor Kurt.

L: One of my favorite Kurt Weller scenes in these two episodes is at the start of 5.10, when he stands in the middle of SIOC and basically announces that he doesn’t have any authority there anymore. He tells the gathered agents that the team is not there to take over. They are there to help... if they’re wanted. And he leaves the choice up to them. We’ve talked a lot about how different members of the team have shown leadership this season, and those examples have frequently contrasted with Madeline’s dictatorial style. And this moment showed us so much about what kind of a leader Kurt is. He doesn’t tell them what they should do. He lets them make that call. As we’ve mentioned before: Kurt Weller never asks anyone to take a risk that he wouldn’t take. And he respects the people who look to him for leadership. He asks for their input, he respects their opinions (even when they disagree with his own), and he gives them the choice of doing what their consciences dictate. In short, he is the exact opposite of Madeline and is the best leader that any of them could ask for.

And yeah, he’s also a devoted husband and father. We just really love Kurt Weller, okay??

Y: Oh! How could I forget to mention that scene in the opening of 5.10. That was… just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Everything we love about Kurt Weller and then some. Seeing him standing in the middle of SIOC, in his natural born leader pose… it just makes me happy… and it’s such a perfect parallel to the scene in the Pilot as well. Yes, I know we have had several of those scenes, but that one from the Pilot really jumped at me.

Now… onto Jane… Jane, Jane, Jane...

Not to be outdone by her husband, who is willing to fight six fully armed men while he himself is not armed, Jane does the thing we all expected her to do—sacrifice herself for her team. I had a feeling Jane would do this. We know Jane. We’ve known her long enough to know that she would be the first to fall on her sword to protect everyone else. That’s what makes her Jane. That’s what we love about her. And I know that Madeline would not have honored the deal, but Jane really didn’t have much of choice and it’s so true to who she is that she would do that.

But sometimes Jane’s willingness to sacrifice herself to save those she loves can become a little too much and cause us a little too much pain. And I am still not ready to discuss this.

L: Jane’s self-sacrificing nature is simultaneously one of the things I love most about her and one of the things that makes me yell at my television screen like a crazy person.

We already know that Jane blames herself for, well, everything. And to some degree, she’s not entirely wrong. Her arrival in Times Square did put this story in motion. But that doesn’t mean it’s all her fault. The cases the team followed, the corruption they were fighting... all of that was already there, whether Jane showed up or not. If her tattoos hadn’t led the team there, something or someone else might have. There’s no guarantee that Shepherd—or even someone else—wouldn’t have put some other plan into action if Remi hadn’t returned from Afghanistan willing to join Sandstorm. And it’s not fair to blame her for the actions of others—for Oscar or Crawford or Madeline. And even if Jane can’t admit it, an awful lot of good came from her joining the team. All the criminals they put behind bars, all the evil plans they stopped, and all the innocent lives they saved. As Tasha put it, “Do you realize how many times this team has saved the world?”

But we know all of this has been weighing on Jane’s mind all season. And then we add in the weight of Patterson’s “death”; Patterson, who was the first person to welcome Jane to the team and who saved Jane’s life from her lab so many times out in the field. And finally, add the knowledge that Kurt will never get to be there to watch Bethany grow up, when Jane has already sacrificed her own happiness once before to ensure that Kurt would have this future. So it’s really no surprise at all that Jane is willing to accept all the blame for the team’s “crimes” in exchange for Madeline’s promise that the team will be treated fairly and sent to federal prison instead of an anonymous blacksite.

And similarly, it was no surprise at all that, when faced with the prospect of exposing Kurt to ZIP or taking all the risk herself, Jane would choose again to sacrifice herself. It’s who she is. It’s who she was as Remi—willing to sacrifice herself to stop the corruption they saw in the government—and it’s who she is as Jane. Like Kurt, she won’t ask anyone to take a risk that she won’t take, and if she has to sacrifice herself to save her husband or the rest of her family? Well, then there really isn’t a choice to be made.

Look, I am not worried about Jane. We know that Patterson has the stem cells and the cure for ZIP. Jane’s gonna be fine. Honestly, I’m a lot more worried about how Kurt is going to deal with Jane having her memory wiped.

Y: Okay, enough days have passed that I think I am ready to talk about that last scene in 5.10. If the elevator kiss in 5.08 was peak Power Couple Jeller, then the final scene of 5.10, with Jane in the world’s worst Escape The Room situation, is peak Epic Tragic Jeller. First from Jane’s perspective, this is such a Jane thing to do—sacrificing herself for the ones she loves. And that moment right there reminded me so much of 1.15, when Jane goes on the run to protect the team from Cade, and in the end when Kurt confronts her about it, and she asks him what he would have done in her place. And to that, Kurt replied that he would have done the same.

And he would have. In both situations, Kurt would have done exactly what Jane did.

And that is why these two will always be the most epic of ships—tragic, legendary, heartbreaking, a love story for the ages. As heartbreaking as that scene was, and what it sets up, and as nervous as it makes us going into the finale, it just seems right that Jeller get to go through something this huge in the finale. Every season finale has put Jeller through the impossible, so it is in typical Jeller tradition that the series finale puts them through even a harder final ordeal than ever before.

I don’t know what is going to happen. I am braced for the worst and hoping for the best. But what I do know is that this ship has for five seasons been perfect—well, almost perfect. They’ve made us laugh and cry and flail and swoon and cry some more and flail some more. They’ve been through everything—and put us through everything—and it’s only appropriate that at the end of the day they go through one final challenge that really tests who they are and who they’ve become and that beautiful bond between them.

I’m terrified and excited and scared and worried and at the edge of my seat.

And I have faith.

I have faith.

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Which brings us almost to the end of the fifth and final season of Blindspot. How has this season met your expectations? Is there anything that you need to see in the last episode? Come talk to our Ask Box. Or just come and wail about how much you love this show and don’t want it to end.

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: jane doe #character: kurt weller #character: patterson #character: tasha zapata #character: rich dotcom #character: boston arliss crab #character: matthew weitz #character: madeline burke #character: ivy sands #ship: Jane/Kurt

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Episode Review: "Just have a little faith, people." [S05E08]

So… can you dry your eyes long enough to work on this review?

Y: Excuse me, but how dare you?

L: I’m still dehydrated. This might be the first time ever that I really did not want to rewatch an episode. Or even think about it. In terms of fictional demises... Patterson’s is up there with Han Solo’s death on my list of “things I will never recover from.”

The case this week is two cases, actually, until… well, until it’s not a case at all. What exactly happened in those painful and intense 42 minutes?

L: Jane’s Cerberus tattoo shows up in a newspaper ad in three different cities: New York, Denver, and Cape Town; three towns where Jane has lived. The company in the ad doesn’t exist, but the tattoo decodes (sadly, we are not told how) to a secure FTP site, which contains a very complex, very processor-heavy digital puzzle that Patterson and Rich immediately start trying to crack.

But the tattoo is far from the only thing the team has to worry about. The tracker the Wellers placed on the cannisters of ZIP is moving, and Patterson and Rich locate it on a container ship heading across the Atlantic to the US. Even more worrying are the messages Ivy is sending to Madeline, “On the move. Ready to strike.” It looks like whatever Madeline is planning is going to happen soon. Trying to get ahead of the game, Rich hooks Kurt and Jane up with a ride on a cargo plane heading to the east coast with an unnamed friend of Rich’s in the “import/export business.”

Weller is still puzzling over the signal Allie gave in her interview. “Mission is a go.” He had assumed it was meant for him, but what mission? It would make more sense if she was signaling someone else, if she was working with someone to help the team and send them the tattoos. Tasha agrees that the timing would work out; the ads were placed after Allie’s press conference. Now that the team has received a third “message” from their mysterious friend, Patterson is able to figure out (again, sadly without a technical explanation) where the messages originated: Malta. The only person they know in Malta is Jake Keaton, who got exiled there by the CIA at the end of season four. He is a likely candidate to be helping the team, so Tasha sets out to pay him a visit.

Keaton confirms to Tasha that he sent the team the messages, helped by Allie and Boston. Boston went off the grid when the team rescued Rich, but he left the Cerberus puzzle with Keaton to release if one of them got caught. And Tasha tells Keaton that the team is tracking ZIP that Madeline is moving across the Atlantic to the US, where she plans to weaponize it. Before Tasha can tell him more, she realizes that his laptop camera is uncovered and pointed right at them. I love their last exchange: Tasha asks him how his family is—guessing correctly that Madeline is using them to control Keaton—and he confirms, “They’ve been better,” as they draw their weapons on each other. Tasha tries to help him, but they’re both trapped. Madeline bursts in, and Keaton tells Tasha, “Good luck,” before he tries take out Madeline and is shot himself in the process. Tasha doesn’t go down without a fight, but she ends the day in Madeline’s custody.

Patterson is still grinding away, trying to solve the Cerberus tattoo, without success. “Every time I solve one quadrant of this thing, the whole thing shifts and then it gives me another part to solve. It’s like it’s a... This puzzle is... toying with us.” She realizes with horror that longer they interact with the puzzle, the more hints at their location they are providing. And those hints have led Madeline and Ivy right to their door. Weller and Jane never make it out of the elevator; Ivy uses the local police to force them to surrender their weapons, knowing that they won’t kill cops to escape. Below them in the bunker, Patterson and Rich pack up to leave, setting bombs the server room to destroy any electronic evidence they leave behind. Unfortunately, there is no earth-shattering kaboom when Patterson flips the switch, so she has to go back to the server room to improvise a detonator timer out of her watch to trigger the explosives. Rich tries to divert Ivy’s team, but her goons get him, and under their gunfire, Patterson isn’t able to escape the server room before the detonator hits zero. And goddamn it, I will never be able to watch that scene without crying, but the whole sequence: flashing to the timer, to Rich, to Patterson mouthing “I’m sorry,” to the flames raining down behind the door, while the music drowns out everything but the sounds of my sobs... It’s horrible and awful and everything hurts, but it was so freaking well done. I’d say, “Bravo!” if I could get anything out besides sad dolphin noises.

This week delivers, by far, the biggest, most painful loss the team has ever suffered. Being captured by Madeline is bad. Losing Keaton as an ally and knowing that he betrayed the team rubs salt in the wound. But losing Patterson? There just aren’t words for this. This is a defeat that feels impossible to recover from. Madeline has won. And the thing that really gets me here is that this kind of all-hope-is-lost moment usually happens at the end of the penultimate episode of the season. But we still have three more episodes ahead of us. I’m happy we’re not quite at the end—because I will never be ready to say goodbye to our Tattoo Squad—but I’m also terrified because that means whatever is coming will be even worse before it (maybe) gets better.

But any way you look at it, this was a hell of an episode. It was masterfully cut from scene to scene, building intensity, and well, it also ripped my heart out, shredded it up, threw it on the floor, and stomped on the pieces. Well done, writers. You brilliant, unfeeling bastards.

Y: What is there to say here? I mean, Madeline found Keaton. Tortured enough intel out of him to be able to find the team. And then we cried. As far as how things have been going for our team, this week is the worst they’ve had since... forever? Four of them are in custody, one is dead, and their friends with means are locked up, in hiding, and dead. The only thing going for them is a lab tech and her not very trustworthy sidekick. Very very not good. Seriously, and I know it’s bad luck to say this, but can it even get any worse at this point? What are they gonna do? Shave Weller’s beard? Put him in another bad wig? I cannot handle any of this anymore!

It’s a good thing we watch the episode a few times before we properly start reviewing. The only thing I got from watching it live is the emotional impact, to be honest. It was such an intense and emotionally exhausting episode that it was really hard to pay attention to everything. But watching it a second time made me realize just how thematically heavy this episode was. And you know how I love a good thematically-rich episode.

Obviously most plot lines in this episode intersect, except maybe for what The Resistance was up to, but we try our best to break it up in a way that makes our lives easier and also makes it easier for you guys to keep track of our ramblings.

Anyway, everywhere you look in this episode you find one or two of these themes being tackled: the choices one makes and protecting one’s family. They’re not themes that are foreign to Blindspot, but this week they kind of take center stage.

These themes were ones almost every character had to deal with this week, and for the sake of this section, I just wanted to talk about Madeline Burke for a moment. It’s funny how we’re just coming off of Madeline making a very clear and controversial choice of zipping her own son, of choosing her mission over her child—over doing what should be the most instinctual thing for a mother to do. And this choice carries with her into this episode. It is a dark cloud that hovers her throughout the episode and it’s interesting how we see her try to project that guilt onto other people, mainly Tasha. What’s also interesting is comparing the choices that Madeline and Ivy for that matter make compared to the decisions that the team and their friends make, and for once on this show, the line between good and evil isn’t blurred.

I think the most important decision Madeline makes this week is to take the team in alive. We know she has no problem killing them—she did, after all, drone them in Iceland. I understand why she’d want the glory of being the one who captured them. But you know what, Maddie? This is one decision that’s going to come back to haunt you. You just arrested the four most dangerous people and you also killed their most precious Patty. I do not feel sorry for what they’re going to do to you.

L: We’ve been rooting for Madeline to get her comeuppance pretty much since the moment she arrived on our screens. But after this week... You know, I finally think I understand her hatred of the FBI after her father’s death. After watching what happened to Patterson—and then Madeline’s smug gloating about it—I think my hatred of her might be even stronger than her hatred of the FBI. And that’s good, because in a weird and twisted way, it’s helping me to relate to her.

Bad guys who are bad for the sake of being bad are boring. It’s the ones who are striving for a compelling goal, driven by some uncompromising motivation, that really get you invested in the battle to stop them. And similarly, a bad guy who is just bad is less interesting than one with a rigid, if somewhat inverted, moral code that they can’t compromise. That’s what made Shepherd such a great villain; she had horrible plans, yes, but she had this deep belief that she was actually helping to make the world a better place, and it meant she had to make hard sacrifices to reach that goal. All of which made her fascinating to watch on our screen.

For a long time, we struggled to understand what made Madeline tick. And because we didn’t really understand, it was hard to see her as the same kind of threat as Shepherd or even Crawford. Even after we learned about her father and how she blamed the FBI for his death, it was hard to translate that into something more than just distaste. But in the past few episodes, wow, she’s really turned the knob up to eleven.

Last week we saw an unprecedented degree of emotion from Madeline when she zipped Greg. And this week, we see even more. We see her dwelling on the trail of destruction she’s left in her wake. We see genuine fear when Tasha attacks her. And we see her replaying Tasha’s words in her head. “You zipped your own child. Was it worth it?” It’s not much by normal human standards, true, but it’s more than we’ve seen so far. Just as we root a little harder for a good guy who thinks about giving up before pressing on, a bad guy who falters for just a moment becomes that much more interesting to us.

Because it’s not just enough to bring Madeline down anymore. No, we need to see her know that she’s been beat. We need to see her recognize what it’s cost her. And we need to see her regrets, her recognition that it wasn’t worth the cost. It needs to be a defeat on absolutely every level, and it needs to be complete, without the slightest glimmer of hope left to her.

And honestly, after the crushing losses this week, focusing on that goal is what’s going to keep me (and the team, judging by their faces in the NYO at the end) going.

Y: One more thing I wanted to touch upon in this section is the choice of tattoo used in this episode. I think it’s safe to assume that this is the last tattoo the team is going to work on, and I love the choice of it being the Cerberus tattoo. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go too deep into Greek mythology and symbolism here, but it’s fun to consider these things, especially considering how important mythology has been to the show and how important visuals and graphics have been in the Blindspot universe.

Cerberus’s three heads are said to represent the past, the present, and the future—all of which are themes and topics that are essential to Blindspot’s narrative tools and mythology. And this tattoo, being the last one the team works on and ultimately being the key to their “demise,” is a powerful parallel to Cerberus being the final threshold and the last creature one encounters before crossing from one world to the other.

I’m sure there’s someone out there more equipped than I am to properly analyze all this, but in my humble understanding, I thought this was an interesting thing to bring up.

The Resistance is still resisting, even if they don’t exactly agree on how they should be going about it. How strong do we think their resolve is?

Y: You just gotta love The Resistance. For the most part they haven’t really been that successful, or at least they haven’t really been able to see the effect of their efforts, but they still try and try and try.

You also gotta love that this little resistance is made up of such an unlikely duo. Weitz, who for the most part has been a recurring character and generally an annoyance the team could never really get rid of. And then you have Afreen who up until last season was just a background character, and then just a bit part supporting character with a few lines every bunch of episodes. We didn’t really know much about her except that Patterson trusted her in the lab. Who knew she was such a total badass with an incorruptible moral compass and zero bullshit meter?

This week the Resistance gets access to Shirley’s computer and his database of bribery and blackmail. Because everyone has one of those on their desktop, right? After some back and forth, some banter, and some of Afreen’s trademark owning of Weitz, they decide that Afreen should corrupt the files to remove the leverage Madeline has on these people.

One of the best things about these two working together is that they cannot be more different in every aspect that matters, and Afreen has come out of nowhere to be the one person who can finally stand toe-to-toe with Weitz and really make him shake in his boots. Also, the chemistry between Aaron Abrams and Ami Sheth is just so good. Those two work so well off of each other, it’s almost magical. And they might be the C plot in the episodes where they appear, but they absolutely steal the show every single time.

Afreen is so morally incorruptible while Weitz is morally questionable. Afreen is driven by serving the greater good and doing the right thing, while Weitz flirts endlessly with what’s right and what’s right for him. Afreen has no tolerance for bullshit while Weitz… well I might be mistaken, but isn’t bullshit his middle name? Having these two work together is a stroke of genius by the writers.

Afreen is initially reluctant to work with Weitz. And then again reluctant to corrupt the files because it means she gives him an easy way out after finding out exactly what Madeline has on him. She’s so adamantly a champion of what’s right, and it’s a beautiful thing to watch, especially since she’s not a pushover. She puts her foot down and even though Weitz has the more senior job title, in this relationship, Afreen is the boss. And somehow, working with her has put Weitz’s redemption arc in high gear.

But the thing with Matthew is that… it’s always one step forward, ten steps back. He’s so infuriating. And after what just happened with Keaton, I really hope we don’t see Weitz relapse again. The good thing for Weitz is that he has Afreen there to kick his ass every time he screws up, something Keaton didn’t have. And Matthew Weitz just keeps getting all these second chances… but some day those second chances will stop coming and he will have to live with the last choice he made. So, Matthew… are you going to start making the right choices? Because we’re all really running out of time, and we need you to choose a side once and for all.

L: We are definitely seeing Afreen taking charge of Weitz in this episode, and words cannot express how much I love this. (At least one thing we didn’t see coming—this quirky partnership—is awesome, right?!) I love how she refuses to help him until he confesses all of his sins, all of the leverage Madeline has on him. She refuses to give him copies of Madeline’s blackmail files, telling him point blank that she thinks he’s just going to use them himself. And then she tells him to go get her a cup of coffee (and a blueberry scone!) while she works on corrupting Shirley’s files. And the best part of all of this is that Weitz—who is smarmy and self-serving but not stupid—realizes that he’s lost control of this situation and follows her lead. Weitz is many things, but he’s not a leader. He’s smart and able to figure out the right angle to make a situation work out to his benefit—whether he’s building a case against Mayfair or working his way in the directorship of the FBI—but he’s always struggled with assuming responsibility and giving direction to others.

Afreen is both lab-smart and people-smart, and she really understands what makes Weitz tick. “I know you want to be the kind of person that does the right thing. I just still don’t know if you will.” Because she understands him so well, she’s able to anticipate what he might do and cut him off at the pass—whether that is preventing him from using Madeline’s blackmail files for his own benefit or stopping him when he’s about to run away. In times of stress, we tend to revert to what is easiest and most familiar, and for Weitz, that is definitely covering his own ass. But Afreen won’t stop pushing him to be the better person that she knows he could be. Maybe it’s not quite as effortless as the team inspiring Rich to mend his crooked ways, but so far, it’s still been pretty effective. And I loved the way this played out in our second slow-motion, music-swelling scene of this episode, when Madeline and Ivy bring the team back into the NYO. Even though the team is mostly expressionless, you can see the panic and helplessness on Weitz’s face as they are paraded past. He truly believed that they were eventually going to succeed and return triumphant to take down Madeline, which would take the pressure off him to step up and save the day. But now that he knows they won’t, that he (and Afreen) are the only ones who are still able to stop Madeline. Your move, Matthew.

As much as I love the way Afreen seems so much braver than Weitz, I do want to note that she doesn’t have quite the same perspective he has. She’s aware that Madeline killed both Briana and Susan Shah, but she wasn’t there when Madeline cold-bloodedly gunned Briana down. There is a difference between being aware that something happened and experiencing it firsthand the way Weitz did. She is able to react to the threat Madeline poses intellectually. Weitz, on the other hand, has a far more visceral response. He’s reacting from his gut, his human instinct for self-preservation urging him to flee the impending danger. As much as I want to smack him and tell him to toughen up, I can’t entirely blame him for his all-too-human failings here.

But I am also even more worried now for Afreen. Everything she’s done up until now has been kind of behind-the-scenes, with no digital trail. Madeline might have her suspicions about Afreen, but nothing that she can prove. But breaking into Shirley’s computer from inside the NYO... where we know Madeline has every inch under surveillance... Afreen just stuck her neck out, and we know Madeline won’t hesitate to chop it off the second she figures out what Afreen was up to. Honestly, I kind of wish Weitz had turned the tables and convinced Afreen to leave town with him!

I also want to point out the tiny arc we see in Afreen in this episode. We see her begin to take charge of the lab, to assume control of it rather than just hold it until Patterson returns. She is rearranging the furniture—and clearing out the lab at lunchtime to work on special projects with Weitz. Which makes the moment at the end, when Madeline almost gleefully announces Patterson’s death to the lab team, even more poignant. No matter how much Afreen might have wanted to be in charge of the lab, we know that these are not the conditions under which she would have wanted it to happen. Turning the screens dark is such a quiet but powerful way to pay tribute to the person whose lab this truly was... That moment of data silence in Patterson’s honor once again makes me cry all the tears.

Y: Oh! The team’s return to the NYO! I cannot believe I almost forgot to talk about this! I realize I’ve said this about practically half the scenes I’ve talked about but this one is the absolute best. Seriously, probably one of my favorite sequences in Blindspot—the way it was shot and edited, the music, the close ups, the acting—everything was so good. Not a single word was spoken but so much emotion just burst through the screen. It was so chilling and menacing and heart breaking. Everyone involved did an absolutely spectacular job translating this momentous scene from paper to screen. From the smug look on Madeline’s face, to the terrifying death glare that never leaves Ivy’s face, to the shock on Weitz’s, the heartbreak on Afreeen’s, and then the pure rage on every single member of the team. And it’s impossible to forget that not only have they been arrested after fighting so hard against these false accusations, but they’re only a few hours into learning about Patterson’s death.

I hate this show.

In the last episode, two members of the mysterious group that has been secretly helping the team were unveiled. This week, we learn more about what they’ve been up to. How much help can the team hope for now?

L: Weller was right when he guessed that Allie was signaling someone else to continue the mission. And we were pretty excited when we learned that it was Keaton. But I’m even more excited now that we’ve gotten their “origin story.”

It’s no secret that we adore Allie, and finding out that she is essentially the ringleader of our band of renegades, recruiting both Keaton and Boston to her team, wasn’t really all that surprising. Allie has always been as strong as they come. She’s smart and she’s determined. And this is her family that’s at stake. Kurt may be a “mama bear” when it comes to protecting his “cubs,” but Allie is a literal mama bear. Her daughter’s happiness and safety are at risk, and Allie isn’t about to let Madeline destroy her family.

And this team just makes so much sense: Keaton has access to CIA intel but can’t move around. Boston has the tech skills to plant puzzles that will catch the team’s notice but can’t be easily cracked by their enemies. And Allie knows all about how to stay off the grid and escape the attention of law enforcement. (I especially loved the revelation that Allie was the one to trigger the screens in Times Square!) They really are an espionage dream team.

Y: One of my absolute favorite parts of the episode was the flashback we got to how the little group of vigilantes was formed. It’s no secret that the three people involved in it are among my favorite on the show, and I was still reeling from the reveal from last week. Although it didn’t end the way I would’ve wanted it to end, it was still a satisfying storyline in the episode because it was so well done.

Of course, I’m going to start with Allison Knight because Allison Knight is the absolute best. That’s a scientifically proven fact. I had no doubts that she’s the one who started all this and seeing her go straight into action just seconds into watching the news report on tv makes me love her even more. Allie is so fiercely protective of her family, and her loyalty to them and her faith in them is unwavering. It’s a joy to watch. I also sighed in relief to know she made sure Bethany (and I’m assuming Conor) is safe during all this.

Allie goes straight to Keaton which is a decision that does make a lot of sense. He’s worked with the team and knows that all these accusations are a lie. She knows he is good at his job and will be able to get access to information they need. And Allie being Allie, she doesn’t need to long to convince him.

Next is Boston, who in these few months has apparently become quite the successful artist and enjoying that life. But Boston is still Boston and we know he loves a good adventure. He also loves Rich and cares about this team a little bit, even if he won’t admit it. And given the chance to do some hacking and designing a theatrical event in Times Square? You know Boston will jump right on that!

L: The tattoos—and the complicated puzzles they represent—are the backbone of this show. They are artistic, challenging, and chock full of secrets. And let’s be real, they aren’t something that the average person, or even an above-average person like Allie or Keaton, can duplicate. Boston is one of the few characters on this show who can go to toe-toe with Patterson and Rich, and he might be the only one who can design tattoo references that only they can decode. So it makes complete sense that he would be the one to design these hidden messages.

I’ll admit I am still puzzling over the last tattoo, though. Keaton tells Tasha that Boston gave it to him and told him to release it if one of them got caught. But the tattoo is a trap that leads Madeline to the team. So either Keaton was lying about Boston designing it, or he was lying when he said that he didn’t know what it meant. If it was a trap that Madeline set, then someone on her team must have designed it. But who on her team has the technical savvy (and sheer geekiness) to set a trap to catch Patterson? Up until now, Ivy’s team has mostly seemed like just hired muscle. A trap like this would be far more sophisticated than anything we’ve seen them do thus far. So it’s more likely that Boston designed it and Keaton was Keaton lying to Tasha when he said that he didn’t know what it did. He knew it would allow someone to pinpoint the team’s location, and he told Madeline about it so she could use that information to capture the team. But in that case, what did Boston plan to use it for? And will its use draw him out of the woodwork (pretty please!) in the next episode?

Because, let’s face it, we need a superhero—or at least a skilled hacker—to sweep in here right now.

Y: That’s a pretty interesting question you ask… honestly I hadn’t thought about it much watching the episode—I was too busy stuffing chocolate into my face hole—but now that I do it’s worth contemplating. I don’t think the show is going to give us much of an answer but if I may venture a theory, I think that Boston did design it and he designed it to do just that. And they all knew what it does. Keaton said it was designed to be released when one of them gets captured.

I think in such a case, the other two would be compromised or in danger of being caught themselves. They knew that was a possibility and if it happened then they too would need to go on the run. But they would also still want to help the team. So maybe Boston designed it so that they could track down the team’s location so that the remaining members of this little group could join them. I don’t know… it seems a bit of a shaky theory, but I cannot see Boston purposely designing it to sabotage the team.

Speaking of sabotaging the team… let’s talk about Keaton now.

What sets Allie and Keaton apart in this group is that they both work for the government and the stakes are that much higher for them but so is the motive, the desire to set things straight because they’re entangled in this mess of corruption. Their entire careers and lives have been part of this, and moving forward they will be defined by how this unravels and their role in it.

Allie’s choices are clear and straightforward. She will protect her family—all of her family—no matter what. This includes Bethany and Conor, and it also includes Kurt and Jane and the others. We saw her last week, just how badass she is, and saw how she managed to do both. This is a woman whose moral compass is as straight as can be. Also, she’s totally the most awesome character in like... ever.

Is my Allie bias showing? Good. Because Allie deserves all the unabashed admiration that she can get.

As for Keaton, his situation, his journey and his character, while they bear some similarities to Allie’s, are also different. And the juxtaposition of Keaton’s choices with Allie’s from last week—and also for that matter Kurt’s for the past few episodes—explains why things ended the way they did for Jake. And I’m not going to lie, the Keaton stuff in this episode absolutely destroyed me. I’m a huge fan of Keaton and the journey the writers put him on and how they’ve taken a character we first met as Jane’s torturer and turned him into someone the team consider an ally and at least one team member considers a friend and see him go as far as betray his country to help them.

Which is why it was so hard watching this episode. A part of me just knew in that opening scene of someone being tortured that it would be Keaton. I don’t know why but I just did. And the poetic justice in all this has not gone over my head. The first episode we see him, Keaton is torturing Jane. And in the last episode we see him, Keaton is being tortured because of… well… Jane and the rest of her team. Can we count this as Keaton having paid for what he did to Jane? That it’s all come full circle?

I really feel horrible for Keaton. When we find out that he’s filming his meeting with Tasha and streaming the video to Madeline and essentially betraying the team, I felt a dagger go through my chest because this one really hurt. Keaton has come a long way and for the most part even though he and team never really saw eye to eye on most things and liked to be thorns in each other’s sides, he was always more or less on the same side as them. And that dynamic always worked. They didn’t especially enjoy working with him and he felt the same way but still, they always did for the greater good and it was always a good thing.

So that’s why when we found out he’s betraying the team I wanted to absolutely cry. But then we found out why he was doing that—what Ivy and Madeline had done to him and then Madeline having his family—and I wanted to cry some more. From the moment we truly started get to know Keaton, we’ve known that his daughter and his wife are his pressure point. And here’s where the parallel to both Allie and Kurt comes in. Keaton had a choice to make and he picked the one that he thought would protect his family. And for him, that was not really a choice because Madeline didn’t give him much of that. I mean, who wouldn’t make the choice that Keaton made in his situation?

Well, Kurt and Allie wouldn’t… but that doesn’t make me judge Jake honestly because he doesn’t have the faith and the support system that those two have. Allie had the advantage of knowing Madeline couldn’t touch her family. I have no idea where she’s hidden Bethany and Conor, but if anyone knows how to hide people, it’s Allie. And what Keaton also doesn’t have in this situation is the support system that Kurt has—essentially Jane. We saw Kurt come close to abandoning the mission and taking the risk of going after Ivy to try and negotiate and exchange for Allie in last’s week’s episode. And he probably would’ve done that if Jane had not been by his side to talk him out of it and promise him that there is another way of doing this. Keaton didn’t have any of that. He just had the “help us or we kill your family” choice and he did what any father put in this situation would do.

I really hate Madeline for doing this to him. To all of them but you know, in this situation… she made Keaton have his last act be one of betrayal to the team. And honestly, Keaton doesn’t have the same experience with her as the team does. And Tasha is right when she says that there was no win for him in this. All Keaton had was Madeline’s word that helping her meant protecting his family. But you know he regretted it. You could read it all over his face in the last scene with Tasha. And it was so heartbreaking for both of them. These two had become close friends and to have things go down like this was hard to watch.

And watching Keaton spend most of this episode with Tasha reminded me of the season 2 finale, the first time those two really spent time together, and made me think of just how far they’ve come from then, and how far Keaton has come… We’ve said goodbye to a lot of characters this season—some main characters and some supporting—and as far as the latter category goes, this was absolutely the hardest to deal with, because it was not just the fact that Keaton died but how it all went down and how in the end he still tried to do the right thing despite everything.

Jake Keaton has had one of the most interesting arcs on this show. It may have been turbulent and unconventional and controversial and divisive, but dammit it was good. And now he is gone. And I am sad.

L: I am too.

Like you, somehow I knew that was Keaton when we saw Ivy torturing someone at the start of the episode. Maybe it’s because of the irony: In the first scene in the first episode where we see Keaton, he is the torturer, and in the first scene in this episode, he is being tortured. I can’t decide what applies better here: “What goes around comes around” or “Live by sword, die by the sword.” I’m gonna go with the second, because if there is one thing that we’ve learned about Keaton over the years, it’s that he’s a company man. He didn’t torture Jane because he took pleasure in it; he was trying to do his job, protecting the security of the US from someone who posed a threat to it. He worked hard at his job for his country and for his family. Even though we didn’t like some of his actions, we couldn’t argue with his motives.

And I agree, to see his arc come to such an abrupt end in this fashion really hurt. He was a good ally when he worked with the team, and he tried to help the team while they were on the run. We can clearly see that he didn’t want to betray Tasha and the team, but with his family’s safety on the line, he made the only choice he could. And in the end, he chose to try to help Tasha, to kill Madeline, knowing that he was signing his own death warrant. And I suppose that’s our only consolation. In his last moments, he chose to go out a hero, trying one last time to help the team. And that’s how we’ll have to remember him, I think.

I’m angry at Madeline for what she did to him, but I’m also weirdly angry that we weren’t able to really process and mourn his loss before it was overshadowed by another. I can’t handle so many traumas so close together!

The team collectively and individually faced what was probably the worst day of their lives. I mean… it was pretty tough… there is no other way of putting it without bursting into tears. Where does this leave them, both individually and as a group?

L: I’m just gonna rip the bandaid off and start with Patterson. Oh, William. I can’t even think “Patterson” without tearing up. And I will say, again, that the scenes leading up to her death were just amazing. The writing, the cinematography, the music, and of course, Ashley Johnson’s performance. It was so incredible. And I sincerely hope I never ever sit through another scene like that again, because my poor little heart just couldn’t take it. I completely broke down and sobbed. And I’ve cried every time I’ve rewatched the episode. And once we’re done this review, I might never be able to watch this episode again, unless I need to donate tears for some unknown cause.

And it’s not just that scene. Everything that leads up to that point hints at what is to come, even though we don’t want to go there. It starts with the unveiling of this week’s tattoo. The team is... not enthusiastic enough to suit Patterson. “Come on, people. I get it. You have a lot on your minds, but... these are the tattoos. We used to love these.” In all likelihood, this is the last tattoo the team will solve together, and it feels like the writers are using Patterson to draw attention to this moment, so we can say goodbye to the tattoo squad as group, too.

And the goodbyes continue as Patterson sees each team member off on their respective journeys. She hands each of them a little Tamagotchi-like digital pet to take care of. She tells Tasha to tap its nose to show it affection, and Tasha taps Patterson’s nose in response. She gives Weller his and tells him that he’s “like a mama bear, anyone who gets between you and your cubs will get torn to shreds” (and because he’s scruffy). We know how fierce Weller has gotten when something’s happened to Patterson or his other “cubs” in the past (and we see him break down when Rich tells him that Patterson didn’t make it out). Jane tells Patterson, “I was just thinking about how you push buttons to look after us. We’re kinda like your virtual pets.” Weller agrees and thanks Patterson for all the times she’s kept them alive out in the field. And then Patterson tells Rich—with all sincerity—“You are the best hacker I know. And you’re a pretty awesome person, too.” If she were to have a deathbed scene, it seems like these are all the things that Patterson would say to the team, and they would say to her.

I’m trying to find some comfort in the idea that they did get to say their goodbyes, even if they didn’t realize that’s what they were doing at the time.

But the internet loves nothing more than a good conspiracy theory, and the second this episode ended, it lit up with people insisting that Patterson must have survived. In the interest of full disclosure, I am reluctant to get on this train because I just can’t bear to get my hopes up only to have them dashed to pieces, but even I must admit that there are a few clues we could cling to.

Patterson is the team’s tech goddess, and a lot of my hopes rest on tech. The first gadget of hope is the Beaconer device they got from Ice Cream that they’ve been using to follow Madeline and Ivy’s communication. When Patterson and Rich are clearing out the bunker, she puts it in her bag, and it’s with her in the server room at the end. “We need to protect this device at all costs. Intercepting her private messages will be the only thing we have to take her down.” If Patterson is alive, then the device is still operational and in her possession, and the team still has an edge over Madeline. (More importantly: Tasha didn’t tell Keaton about the device, so Madeline doesn’t know that Patterson is spying on her.)

And then there are the little digital pets that Patterson gave every member of the team. They’re not just adorable; they are her way of contacting the team. Sure, Ivy’s goon squad probably patted the team down and took all of their weapons and personal effects when they brought them in. But then again, they aren’t real, trained FBI employees, so it’s possible that they just collected the obvious weapons and left their 1990’s keychain toys alone. Imagine one of those little gadgets chirping at the team and giving them all equal shots of shock and hope. “This is gonna tell you what your next move is,” Patterson said to Tasha. And man, I’m not gonna lie, I very much want that to be true.

And then there is Patterson herself. “This is not over,” she says to Rich as she stuffs the Beaconer into her bag, followed shortly by “I always have a plan B.” She tells Rich tunnels are full of “refuge spots” in the event of a cave-in. Some of them were filled in, but others remain. It is possible that there was one in the server room; even if it didn’t go all the way to the surface, if it had a solid door between her and the explosion, it could have provided enough shelter to shield her from the blast. “There is nobody I have more confidence in in the entire world than you, including me,” Rich tells her. If there was a way out of that room, Patterson would be the one to find it.

“Just have a little faith, people,” Patterson tells the team while she’s working on the puzzle. And “having faith” and “taking a leap of faith” have been ongoing themes this season. And if Patterson wants us to have a little faith in her....

Well. Who are we to argue?

Y: Did you really have to start with Patterson? I was hoping we would keep her until the end and then I could distract you with chocolate and Jeller gifs until you forgot about it.

You know what’s funny? That whole entire scene felt like such an out-of-body experience for me. I still remember watching it, remember what I thought while watching it, and remember what I felt what watching it. And I never knew the true meaning of denial until then. I have to admit I didn’t cry, because I didn’t believe it was happening. I just couldn’t understand what was happening on the screen. Because how can any of it make any sense? This is Patterson. Patterson. Our Patterson! Our MVP. Our LeBron. This cannot happen. This isn’t happening.

And the denial continues to be strong.

I’ve read all the analysis and theories and the intellectual breakdown of hints and clues of how Patterson could’ve survived, and I hope they’re right, that somehow she did. But all I feel is numb. I don’t know… I’m clinging to the fact that Patterson always has a plan B and that we didn’t see a body. On Blindspot, we’ve learned that if we don’t see the body post explosion then there is a chance the exploded person could have survived.

And here’s the thing. Remember the last time this happened? Yeah, it was Borden. We all assumed he died in that explosion, and then he showed up again very much alive. It would be quite the parallel if the same thing happens with Patterson, given the connection between the two characters. We already saw the same thing with Keaton—torturing Jane in his introduction to the show and then being tortured himself in his exit from the show. It would be a nice touch if Patterson pulls a Borden on us and returns to save her family.

Because let’s face it, at this point, the only way the team can get out of this is if they have someone on the outside with Patterson’s IQ helping them out. Jane and Kurt’s comments about Patterson protecting them from behind her computers and keeping them alive has to be some sort of foreshadowing… actually all those moments with the virtual pets, with Tasha and Kurt and Jane, with Rich later in the bunker… those were not goodbyes. They couldn’t be.

And this is why Patterson cannot be dead. But also because it’s Patterson and I am still rowing down The Nile and refusing to accept it.

And also, they wouldn’t do that to Bill Nye, would they?

Can we stop talking about Patterson now and talk about someone else? Can we talk about Rich for example? Rich and his beautiful journey of redemption and becoming the heart and soul of the team?

This week, Rich was once again all of this. He brought his usual brand of humor to lighten things around the bunker. He also pulled his weight in solving this week’s case by getting in touch with one of his friends and securing a covert flight back to the States for Jane and Kurt, and when things got really bad, he was, again, incredible. Both conversations between Rich and Patterson are probably my favorites in this episode. I guess the emotional impact was bigger because shit was hitting the fan when they happened, unlike with Tasha or Jane and Kurt, when it was a routine tech briefing before heading out.

The best part of Rich’s speech was the amount of self-realization in there. We saw a bit of it last season when Jane came back from her Remi phase and she had that moment with Rich in the van. And we saw more of it here. A huge part of Rich’s redemption has relied on him owning up to his past and identifying his mistakes and learning from them and realizing what parts to hold on to and what parts to change.

And that has given us one of the best characters ever, which remains true to his essence but allowed him to grow and learn and evolve and become so self-aware that he has the freedom and intelligence to really make himself who he knows he deserves to be.

And finally, we have to give Ennis credit to how he played those scenes when the thermite went off and he watched Patterson disappear in the flames and when he’s thrown into the military vehicle with Jane and Kurt. He absolutely destroyed me. I don’t think we’ve ever seen Rich so broken, so absolutely destroyed that he cannot even speak. Dammit, he was just so good, and his pain and heartache just exploded through the screen.

L: My god, yes. Ennis destroyed me in those scenes. I was in shock and denial about what was happening on my screen, but his reaction was so visceral that it just forced you to accept what you didn’t want to.

And I agree; those two definitely-not-goodbye scenes between him and Patterson, when they admitted how much respect they have for each other, while also saying without words how much their friendship means to each of them? Man. Those choked me up almost as much as that scene-I-want-to-forget.

So let’s move on to Tasha, who is having the second-worst day on the team. We talked a lot about Keaton and his arc, but we can’t ignore Tasha’s role in that journey. Just as we saw the team inspire Rich and even Weitz, Keaton went from viewing them as competition to being a fan of theirs, too. So much so that he recruited Tasha to work with him, his own way to try to produce the kind of results that the team made seem so effortless.

Tasha worked so closely with Keaton, and she trusted him implicitly. When she wanted to abort the undercover mission with Madeline, he urged her to stay the course. He had faith in her, and she worked hard to live up to that. While she was with the CIA, he was her whole team. And so finding out that he’d betrayed her and then losing him like that? It’s not quite as painful as losing Reade, but it’s damned close.

And then she has to listen to Madeline gloat about it. “Everywhere you went, you left bodies behind... Your NYPD partner, and then your FBI partner, and now your CIA partner.” Of all of Madeline’s lines, this is the lowest blow, and the most painful, because it’s not false. We learned in 1.19 that Tasha’s partner at the NYPD was shot and killed while they were responding to a domestic disturbance. She’s lost her FBI partner (and Madeline is again right, Reade was much more than that), and now Keaton. We know Tasha already blames herself for Reade’s death and for her NYPD partner’s death. There is little doubt that she will hold herself responsible for Keaton’s death as well. If she hadn’t accepted his offer to move to the CIA, if she hadn’t come to Malta to see him today... Logically, we know that the responsibility for Reade’s and Keaton’s deaths lies solely with Madeline, but we know it’s not so clear in Tasha’s heart. “I don’t know what’s worse, the grief or the survivor’s guilt,” as she says to Keaton. Tasha was as much a victim of Madeline’s plans as they were, but it’s not something she would be able to admit, knowing that she is walking around when they no longer are.

And it’s the contrast between these two extremes, between Tasha and Madeline, that plays out over Keaton’s dead body. Tasha has no defense against Madeline blaming her for these deaths, because she accepts all blame, even for things that were outside of her control. But when she confronts Madeline about zipping her own child, Madeline responds, “You left me no choice.” Madeline blames her own actions on others, while Tasha blames herself for the actions of others. One shows great heart and character... and the other is a psychopath.

We haven’t seen Tasha take any real action with regard to her pregnancy, either embracing it or deciding not to go through with it. In some ways, her inaction is a decision of its own; after a certain point, there is only one outcome left. To be fair, she’s also on the run for her life, so it’s certainly not as easy as scheduling a prenatal appointment at the local health clinic. But as tough as nails as Tasha is, we know how fiercely protective she is of her family, and there’s no question that she would be even more so for a child of her own. And we see that in her abject horror when she discovers that Madeline zipped her own son. Look Tasha, motherhood is hard, yes, but this is a pretty low bar to beat. Without even trying, you’ll be better at parenting than Madeline!

Y: Tasha’s line about the virtual pet being for baby practice and then saying that she knows they have to be fed is one of the best lines of dialogue on this show ever. And Audrey’s delivery was just so perfect.

It worth mentioning that the way the team breaks up in this episode puts Tasha on her own. I know as an odd numbered group, this could always be the case, but it was relevant this week because her outing puts her in two head-to-head confrontations with two people who have had such an important role in her life. And both Tasha and Audrey are so good in both those confrontations.

With Keaton, even though he eventually became an ally to the team, he wasn’t so at first. And one of the first things he did was recruit Tasha to the CIA and cause that rift between Tasha and the FBI team. Her relationship with Reade was strained for a long time after that, and her relationship with Patterson was never the same again. Don’t get me wrong, Tasha is as much a member of this family as anyone else, but for a while Keaton’s presence in her life strained her other relationships.

And then her undercover op with Madeline really pulled her away from the team for a while and even upon returning she had a hard time finding her place again. So it seems right that she went on this mission alone and faced these two people on her own. Her realization that Keaton was betraying them was so sad to watch. For a minute, she allowed herself to hope that maybe this group of people helping them can really make a difference. And what made it harder was that she was opening up to him on personal stuff. We know how hard this is for Tasha. She never talks about her feelings, and to let her guard down like this only to get burned is heartbreaking.

L is spot on in her analysis that Tasha blames herself for everything. And the guilt she’s carrying around has to be crushing her. And this made the confrontation between Tasha and Madeline that much better. Of all the team, Tasha is the most ruined by Madeline—the months she spent with her were brutal, emotionally and psychologically and socially and professionally. Tasha was forced to do things and witness things that were unbearable and then after all that, after believing she finally got her, Madeline turned all the tables on them and sent the team running for their lives and costing Reade his.

The conversation about the track of destruction was so poignant. It drew a parallel between both women, but also placed them on the extreme ends of the spectrum. And that parallel was further highlighted by how both women perceive their path of destruction. Tasha carries all the responsibility and the guilt even though none of it is hers. And Madeline is so devoid of any feeling of guilt or responsibility and somehow manages to project responsibility onto others.

In many ways, everything that happened this week with the team played the role of emphasizing that they’re the good guys. Every choice they made served as a reminder that they’re the good guys.

But in the end—at least the end of this episode—they lose. A bleak representation of the real world, I’m afraid, but since this is tv and shows provide a good platform to provide hope in a miserable world, let’s just cross our fingers that the last chapter of this story is one that gives us an alternate view.

Oh, and don’t get me started on the fact that we didn’t see Tasha react to the news that Patterson’s dead or that she has lost her two best friends in a span of three months.

Jeez, this turned pretty dark from me. I’m sorry.

Here, think of Tasha boop-ing Patterson’s nose instead.

Boop.

Just like their team, Jane and Kurt were faced with a couple of impossible decisions this week, but those two will go on fighting until the bitter end, right? Right?

Y: In a fangirl’s lifetime, they would be lucky to get one or two ships—maybe three if their stars align properly—that will bring them endless joy and manage to fulfill all their shipping heart’s desires. Jeller is one of those ships for me. It hasn’t been without its hiccups, but dammit going into the finale chapter, it’s everything I could have ever wished for or imagined.

As intense as this episode was, somehow Jeller managed to give us a handful of their trademark sweet little moments that they always know how to steal in the madness. They also gave us one of their typical epic moments—the kind that goes down as a ship-defining moment. And at the end of the day they threw in the ultimate power couple “you just messed with the wrong people” look.

It was once again one of those episodes where we cannot separate Jeller in the review because they were glued together the whole time. I mean other than their entrance to the interrogation room, there was only one scene where they weren’t together, when Kurt was talking to Tasha.

Jeller once again give us a standard to aspire to in their relationship in the way they support each other and the way they find a balance and open dialogue all the times. They both have different opinions as to how to move forward and when Kurt decides that Jane’s course of action—heading to the east coast to stop the ZIP—is the right one, Jane starts to question the decision herself. But then all it takes is for Kurt to tell her to go with her gut—because he trusts her gut more than his own. That element of trust and honestly and codependency is what makes those two such an amazing couple.

I absolutely loved the moments they shared with Rich and Patterson. The comedy with Rich is always a treasure and we’ve gotten to a point in their relationship with Rich that his idiosyncrasies are no longer a thing of annoyance. Rich asks a question that should stop any sane person in their tracks. “Are you allergic to any endangered animals?” And to that, Kurt just shrugs and carries on. It’s a nice little nod to the fact that they’ve accepted Rich for who he is and just embrace him and love him for it.

And then the scene with Patterson. Jeller pretty much calls her their guardian angel. She urges them not to die. And before all that she gives us the best possible description of Kurt that could ever exist. Kurt’s the mama bear who’ll protect his cubs no matter what.

And Jane is the flamingo. The elegant and striking creature that is surprisingly fierce and resilient.

The moment Jeller shares in the military vehicle where Jane seeks comfort and reassurance and Kurt offers it via reminding her of who their team is—assuming in that moment that Tasha, Rich and Patterson are still out there. The trust and faith they have in their family is a beautiful thing.

Obviously, my favorite moments in the episode with these two occur when they’re stuck in the elevator. First, Jane stating that they won’t kill cops is a testament to who these guys are. It’s such a simple line, but it is right at the core of who they are. And it once again emphasizes a major running theme. There’s a good side and a bad side. The choices you make define where you stand. It was evident with Keaton and still ongoing with Weitz. So pick carefully because the lane you end up in defines your legacy.

And speaking of legacy, it seems Jeller are going for being the ultimate power couple and battle couple. And I mean, I don’t see that many couples even coming close. That kiss in the elevator with their hands on their weapons, poised for battle, ready to go down fighting for what’s right, declaring their undying love for each other and heading into battle with all the trust in each other and devotion to each other.

Excuse me but they’re the worst.

And if they don’t get their happily ever after... I guess I’ll be resigned to the fact that there isn’t justice in the world.

L: Speak for yourself. I will be angry on a level that will make Game of Thrones fans seem “mildly perturbed.”

I have expectations for this couple. They have fought so hard and so long, and throughout it all, they have never given up on each other. No petty squabbling (and in that they are doing better than pretty much every single couple stuck in quarantine together), no poor communication leading to big misunderstandings. Just... quiet faith in each other and way of working in sync that feels almost telepathic in nature. They have sacrificed almost everything they hold dear to do the right thing... And if they don’t deserve a happily ever after, then no one does.

But yes, that scene in the van. The last time they were handcuffed in a police van was in Iceland. And Tasha and Rich and Patterson got them out. Ivy captured Kurt, but the team found him, and Tasha brought him home (after she and Patterson and Rich saved Jane’s life). So it’s easy to understand why Kurt seems so optimistic this time. “With Patterson, Rich, and Tasha still out there? Yeah, I like our chances.” And knowing what we know at that moment, about Keaton and Tasha and Rich and Patterson, that lighthearted moment felt like being smacked in the face with a lead pipe. It is yet another example of how the cross-cutting from scene to scene in this episode was so incredibly effective.

So let’s just focus on the message that Kurt is giving us there. That this team is made up of individuals, who can be individually arrested and restrained, but they know that they are so much more than that. This team is a force. It’s strong enough to reform a dark web hacker. It makes a CIA company man go rogue and help a band of outlaws. It makes a self-serving smarmy lawyer start a resistance. It pairs up a couple of jaded federal agents with a convicted criminal/artist/hacker. This team is good, and they push the people around them to be better than they were before.

For that, if nothing else, we have to have faith.

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Well that was one of the most traumatizing and emotional episodes in the history of Blindspot. I guess that’s what they meant when they said we’re in the endgame now. Have you stashed enough chocolate? Is such a thing possible?

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: jane doe #character: kurt weller #character: tasha zapata #character: patterson #character: rich dotcom #character: matthew weitz #character: afreen #character: madeline burke #character: jake keaton #character: ivy sands #character: allison knight #character: boston arliss crab #ship: Jane/Kurt

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more--than--anything · 4 years

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Episode Review: "We're in the end game now." [S05E07]

This season is getting harder and harder to watch. How traumatized are we feeling right now??

Y: I’m not going to lie. Some parts of the episode were terrifying and absolutely traumatizing, but this episode also left me reeling with delight and shaking with excitement as it brought back two of my favorite recurring characters, and they provided some of the best that this season has offered so far.

L: I am feeling very, very, very, very traumatized. I thought I was ready for this season. I knew it would be tough; things have never been easy for our team, but they’ve never been this hard. But I seriously underestimated how freaked out I would be!

This week our team focused on trying to stop whatever Madeline is planning to do with ZIP. How much success did they have?

L: When we last saw our team, Patterson found an academic article whose author’s name was an anagram for “Madeline Burke.” The article referenced the dispersal device and decoded to the chemical formula for ZIP. Digging further, Patterson discovers that the citations are actually federal ID numbers for a shell company that has been paying a single salary to a scientist in a private lab in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Fortunately, Rich has been playing with the virus that Dominic deployed to take down the power grid, and they are able to use it to overload the facility’s climate control and destroy the ZIP. Unfortunately, Madeline has backups to her backups, and sends Ivy to retrieve the stashes in Hungary and Libya.

The team realizes they can’t just keep chasing after Madeline’s stashes. They need to fit the canisters with a tracker so they know where she is planning to use the ZIP, and while they’re at it, they need to denature the ZIP to render it inert. Which is, yes, every bit as dangerous as it sounds. The original form of ZIP had to be injected, but if this version can be dispersed in the air via a bomb, simply touching it could be enough to receive a dose. Everyone but Jane is on board with the plan; she thinks they should destroy the ZIP to prevent Madeline from having the chance to use it. But the rest of the team argues that Madeline will just keep making more. The only way to stop her is to track the movement of the ZIP to figure out when and where Madeline plans to use it.

Tasha and Rich head to Tripoli (with the help of another of Rich’s dark web contacts with the sadly pedestrian name of Dan) while Jane and Weller head to Budapest. Unfortunately, by the time Tasha and Rich locate the ZIP, Ivy’s henchmen are already loading it onto a plane. Tasha isn’t the type to give up easily, as we well know, so she puts on a white jacket and boards the plane. She introduces herself to Madeline’s son, Greg Burke, and pretends to be another doctor in the Global Doctor Co-op. And honestly, this is Tasha at her most adorable, so I don’t blame him for letting his guard down for a minute; clearly he didn’t inherit his mom’s killer instincts. Although when he claims that he went to med school because he “I just wanted to pick up where she left off, to help people,” I was suddenly a lot less sorry when Tasha decided to set him straight about Mommy Dearest.

Jane and Weller, meanwhile, are having a bit more success in Budapest. (Well, except for Kurt’s hair, which is worse than any of Jane’s nightmares.) They locate the canisters of ZIP and are able to denature it and set the tracker, just in time for Ivy and her goons to arrive to pick it up. Ivy is no dummy, so she scans the crates for bugs. Jane and Kurt have Patterson turn the tracker off, but that means they have to scramble to reactivate it before Ivy takes off with it.

As usual, it’s hard to know whether to categorize this week’s case as win or a loss. They managed to denature and track one shipment of ZIP, but the other is out in the world, where it could be used at any moment. They convert Madeline’s son to their cause, but Madeline wipes his memory. Allie signals to them to hold their course, but she is now trapped in Madeline’s “protective” custody. Even the team is split on this one... Tasha insists they failed, but Patterson tells her it’s a win. And I hate to say it, but I’m with Tasha on this one. Things do not look that rosy right now. And with so few episodes remaining in this season, I think it’s going to keep getting worse before it gets better.

One thing is clear: We’re gonna need a lot more chocolate.

Y: We used to joke about this, but now I am pretty confident there is not enough chocolate in the universe to get us through this.

Regarding this week’s case, I have to say, I really enjoyed it. It was one of those that kept you on the edge of your seat for 42 minutes straight, and at the end of it you can barely catch your breath. And I don’t know if you guys noticed, but this is probably the only episode—or maybe we’ve had one or two other ones—where not a single bullet was fired and not a single fight broke out. The stunt department had a nice break this week. And still, even without typical Blindspot style action, the episode was still intense, fast-paced, and amazing.

The decision to not destroy the ZIP and instead render it inert and track it may not have been totally unanimous, and while I do understand Jane’s point of view, I do think it was the right decision. The team so far has been only playing defense with Madeline. This was the first time that we see the team take the fight to Madeline and try something that doesn’t stop her latest attack but sabotages a potential future attack.

In that regard, the episode goes down as a win for our team—even if only one batch got denatured and tagged. Compared to every other case, this is definitely a win. But if we look at the whole episode and all the events that went down, then Tasha is right. They failed. Madeline still has one batch of ZIP, she has Allie, she ZIP-ed her son and she probably has access to the number Tasha gave him to contact her. And yes, this number cannot be tracked, but it is still not good news. Anything that falls into Madeline’s hands is a recipe for shit hitting the fan.

So I guess, all in all, the episode isn’t a win… but that doesn’t mean we didn’t end the hour cheering.

L: Which brings us to the last few seconds of this episode. And really, if you’d told me at the beginning of season two that I would ever shriek with joy to see Keaton show up on screen, I would have told you to lay off the hallucinogenic mushrooms. But that’s Blindspot for you... they can take a dark web criminal and make him the glue that holds our team together, they can take a smarmy lawyer and make you worry about him like he’s your own kid, and they can take a CIA agent who tortures your main character and make him a hero you cheer for. You gotta respect writers who can do that.

Seeing Keaton in this role makes so much sense. Of course, he would know all about the intricacies of Jane’s tattoos. And of course, he’d know exactly how to get Patterson’s attention. He knows that Nash is Madeline’s lap dog. As Deputy Director, he would be able to identify agents he could trust to recruit to this cause. And he would know Allie and know that he could trust her. Now I just want to know... who is he talking to? Who else is on our team’s side? Because our resistance just got a whole lot of backup.

But I’m still stocking up on chocolate.

Y: The mysterious group helping the team has been one of the most interesting plot lines this season and one that has kept me speculating every time they do something, and even when they don’t. And let me tell you, I had to clap a hand over my mouth to silence my shriek when we saw Keaton on our screen because it was 5am and everyone else was asleep.

I love that Keaton and Allie are two of the people helping the team. It makes so much sense, and I may have a few theories about who else is on board, but let’s just focus on these two for now. These two are two recurring characters we absolutely love. And it’s funny because if you think about it, Allie was introduced as Kurt’s ex and played her role in everyone’s most hated trope—the love triangle. And Keaton, on the other hand, well, his introduction to the Blindspot universe needs no introduction. Kurt literally tried to strangle him with his bare hands.

We will talk about Allie in the next section but for now—Keaton. What an incredible arc he’s had. And these writers once again prove they really know how to write amazing character arcs, especially for recurring and supporting characters—which is not always an easy thing to do. But Keaton has grown on us, and whether they like it or not, he’s also grown on the team. But more importantly—and a testament to the team—they’ve gown on him. One of my favorite Keaton moments was from last season when he takes a bullet protecting Jane. It was a huge moment in his redemption arc, but the best part of the scene was that Keaton grumbles at being shot like it is just an annoying inconvenience and not something that would ultimately put him in a coma.

Keaton obviously think highly enough of the team to risk so much to help them. Obviously, this is not only about helping the team. It includes first and foremost stopping a mad woman and protecting the country from her and putting an end to this cycle of corruption. But the fact that Keaton and company decide to do it in such a cool and badass way, to use the tattoos and to create such theatrics around it, prove that this group is not in any way less awesome than the core team.

Keaton and Allie have access to enough information and know the tattoos enough to be able to do this. But now the mystery grows as we try to figure out who else is involved.

Have I mentioned I absolutely love this storyline? And I love it more now knowing that two of my favorite characters are a part of it?

Meanwhile, back at the NYO, Madeline is still ruling things with an iron fist. This week she entertains a couple of unexpected visitors. Do we learn any more about her plans or the lengths she’s willing to go to achieve her goals?

Y: I don’t know if we do learn anything, but I do know one thing. Season 5 has given us scenes that have been the hardest to watch in all of Blindspot’s history. Reade’s death, Kurt’s torture, Jane’s surgery—all those rank at the top of “scenes that are unbearable to watch” list. But this episode? I think this episode served us with the ultimate unbearable to stomach scene, and I am still shaking with fear.

We’ll get into that more later. Because Madeline had a very busy day at the NYO this week.

L: Madeline is getting closer to her goal; she’s made it to the top of the shortlist of VP candidates. But all is not well in paradise. Madeline appears to be under the impression that Ivy works for her, while Ivy seems to view their arrangement more as associates who can help each other achieve their vastly different goals. It’s a significant difference. Everyone else that we have seen working for Madeline has been there because she has something on them or because they think that they will be rewarded by working for her. Most of them are probably some combination thereof. And by helping her with her plans, they are thus implicated in them and therefore become less able to break away from her if they wanted to. But Ivy is a force in and of herself, and giving her what she wants and letting her loose on the world doesn’t guarantee that she will be loyal to Madeline. I think that Madeline finds Ivy useful right now, but I would be surprised if Madeline’s long-term goals didn’t include getting rid of Ivy in the not-too-distant future.

This week we find out that Madeline promised Ivy chemical weapons in exchange for Ivy bringing in the team. Which might explain why it’s been hard to nail down Madeline’s plans, if the weaponized ZIP is actually part of Ivy’s plan and Madeline’s involvement with that is just to barter for Ivy’s help with her plans to take over the White House. I am having mixed feelings about the whole ZIP-as-a-weapon idea. I mean, on the one hand, it might be more devastating than a bomb; imagine a city full of people who suddenly can’t remember where they live or what jobs they were supposed to be doing? But on the other... I mean, why? For the Dabbur Zann, it makes sense; it’s a weapon of terror, and would certainly be demoralizing for an enemy. But for Madeline? The benefits seem a lot murkier. If an attack occurs on American soil, it would be seen as a failure in the intelligence community to discover and prevent such a plan. As the “Director of Federal Law Enforcement,” she would be one of the people held accountable for that failure. Unless she’s already ascended to the Vice Presidency and then the White House by the time that occurs; then she can pin the blame on the heads of the individual agencies. Matthew Weitz might be useful to her again then.

Y: I agree. It makes more sense now that the ZIP part of the situation is for the Dabbur Zann’s end of the deal. Whatever the deal is between Madeline and the Dabbur Zann, it can only be one that both ends are benefitting from, and it makes more sense that Ivy and her people would want something more than money in return for doing Madeline’s dirty work. So far we’ve seen them look at that lovely piece of furniture—the death chair, try to get their hands on the device they had tried to get Jane and Kurt steal last season, try to get the Death Gas 2000, and now the ZIP. And of course, they had Madeline help some of their members escape custody.

The Dabbur Zann having weaponized ZIP is absolutely terrifying. I just cannot and do not want to imagine what they can possibly do with it. Whether it’s using it as a weapon against whole populations or for targeted attacks, it is not going to be a recipe for anything good.

What’s more interesting for me in this episode was watching the interaction and relationship between Ivy and Madeline. Like L said, most people working “for” Madeline are there because she has something on them. This doesn’t seem to be the case with Ivy. This one is more of an evilly symbiotic relationship where in a sick terrifying way they consider themselves on the same playing field and are constantly trying to prove their superiority to one another. Every chance they get, they try to remind the other person that they need them, that they cannot be doing what they’re trying to do without the other person. And while their partnership is a scary one for everyone else, there is a hopeful part of me that also sees it as their potential downfall.

For starters, these are two players stuck in a head-to-head who have no loyalty to anyone but themselves and who are only allies of convenience. At any point they can turn on one another, and each one has many options in which to take the other down. And while in many ways, their current agendas align, that is not necessarily so in the long run. They could easily clash, and if they do, it will be devastating for everyone.

In this episode, we saw glimpses of how things between them are already rocky and that these two women trust each other less than they trust anyone else. We learned that Ivy has not told Madeline about her little bondage sesh with Kurt and that is a positive thing for Team Good Guys, because it means that whatever alliance these two evil women have between them is already cracking.

Every scene between them this week was very confrontational. Well, they always are, but this week felt that they’re less on the same page than before and keeping things from each other could be the first step towards this alliance imploding from within.

Another reason things might implode from within is the self-sabotaging that Madeline just possibly inflicted on herself by deciding her son is a sacrifice worth making for her endgame.

L: I am not going to lie: Madeline zipping her own son was, without a doubt, the most heartless thing we’ve seen her do yet. All the people she’s killed until now were people she viewed as opponents (including her husband). But she’s always claimed to love her sons. She’s gone to great lengths to get her youngest out of trouble, and earlier in the episode she brags to Allie about her eldest, the doctor. She claims to be trying to complete her father’s legacy (and it’s a weird parallel to hear Greg say that he was picking up where his mother left off by becoming a doctor), so clearly family legacy is important to her. Who is she creating a legacy for now? A son who can’t remember her?

The scene where Madeline zips Greg is just chilling. It is simultaneously the most emotion we’ve ever seen from her as well as the most unfeeling that we have ever seen her be. It reminded me of what she said to Tasha about her husband when she poisoned him: “My husband showed me more feeling in his last moments than he had in the last 20 years.” And somehow the aftermath of that scene is even worse. She tells one of Ivy’s henchmen, “You put him someplace safe where no one can find him. You make it nice. I don’t want to know where.” She is anguished and also completely callous. She wants him well taken care of, but she doesn’t want to know where he is. When Jane zipped Roman, she planned to stay with him, to help him through it and reassure him the way she didn’t have anyone to reassure her at the beginning. But here, Madeline just walks away, leaving Greg to struggle through it all on his own.

I think it’s worth noting that Madeline used the injectable form of ZIP on Greg. At first I assumed she used the ZIP that Greg transported from Libya, which Tasha was unable to render inert, but that version apparently did not require injecting. So does she have more ZIP on hand, in the injectable variety? How much? And who else is she planning to use it on? The ZIP reference in 5.03, when Patterson mentioned that she had it and the antidote just in case Jane had a relapse, seemed like a throwaway bit of dialogue at the time, but it’s become a lot more critical now. It is quite possible that Patterson is going to need to produce that antidote, and on a large scale, if they can’t stop Madeline’s plan. Or even if they can stop Madeline but aren’t in time to stop Ivy from doing whatever she has planned.

Y: Oh, I really really really hope Patterson’s antidote comes into play because they need to find poor Greg and fix him. My God, that scene! I am still shaking at how hard it was to watch. Blindspot really does love to hurt the precious and pure and adorable ones, doesn’t it? Greg didn’t deserve any of that. I mean, no one does, but especially Greg who already had to deal with so much in one day and was only trying to do the right thing. It was just so cruel. And if they do not save him, it will be even more cruel.

And he’s just so… precious! I know we only saw him for like fifteen minutes, but I already love him and I need someone to go save him. Please?

This show already has a lot of potential superheroes who can rescue him. So, writers, take your pick…

L: It’s a good thing we have so many superheroes. I think we’re going to need all of them and then some to stop Madeline and Ivy.

Speaking of Ivy, she might not have been able to produce Weller and company yet, but she’s got the next best thing: Allie Knight. And Allie Knight is one of our absolute favorite characters on Blindspot. In the course of writing these reviews, we watch these episodes multiple times, and sometimes they are very eye-opening to watch the second time, with the knowledge of whatever plot twist is delivered at the end. And this episode for me was one of those that really delivered a different viewing experience on the second pass. The first time, I was just so very worried about Allie. I thought there was a little something weird about the way she wiped her eye during the press conference, so I hoped she was signaling to Weller somehow. But on the second pass? Wow. Allie is a hell of an actress. The way she claimed that Kurt ruined her life and abandoned her and Bethany? She was playing Madeline during the entire interrogation room sequence, and Madeline totally bought it. “You have to decide right here, right now, whose side you’re on,” she tells Allie. Oh, Maddie, Allie made up her mind when you crossed the father of her child. Interestingly, only Ivy seems to worry that Allie might not be all that she appears. “I wouldn’t underestimate her.” But Madeline has been on the winning side for too long; she’s starting to believe her own press.

Y: Allie is just amazing here. L’s right. Watching the episode when it aired, I was too busy being worried about Allie and stuffing chocolate in my face to notice it, but the rewatch showed me that Allison Knight was playing Madeline all along. And it was glorious. There is that one moment, in the interrogation room, where Allie makes that face—that trademark Allison Knight face where she basically rolls her eyes at the other person’s entire existence and has to bite her tongue from unleashing all the sass—and in that moment it’s clear that Allie has the upper hand and Madeline is just doing and saying what Allie wants her to do and say.

L: But I am not gonna lie; I still am very worried about whatever Ivy turned up on Allie at the end. We know that Bethany is still out there, presumably with Conor, Allie’s husband/partner. We know Allie’s family is in New York, so Ivy could have found someone else she could use to put pressure on Allie. I think the worst-case scenario here is that Ivy has learned that Allie has been in contact with Jake Keaton. Right now, Madeline still has her full focus on the team, allowing Keaton and company to put their plans into motion. The last thing they need is Madeline figuring out that they’re involved before they spring whatever trap they’re planning.

And out of everything, is it weird that the part of all of this that makes me the happiest is the realization that Allie likely set up the whole Bethany-in-the-hospital scenario to put them back on the radar, so that she could be “found” by Madeline’s henchmen. Which means that Bethany probably wasn’t sick at all. Look, everyone else in this poor child’s family is in mortal danger, so I am going to take comfort in the idea that she is perfectly healthy and hidden away somewhere safe, where she will be collected by Allie and Conor and Kurt and Jane when all of this is over!

Y: Okay, now you’ve got me imagining the reunion between Bethany and her parents and I am having all the fuzzy fluffy feelings. Thank you.

L: At this point, I think we need to cling to whatever happy thoughts we can imagine, beg, borrow, or steal!

As usual, Blindspot is awesome at using contrasts between story lines to emphasize the differences. I love the way this episode cuts back and forth between Kurt and Allie as Bethany’s parents and Madeline and Greg. We see Greg, wrestling with his doubts about a mother who seemed, on the surface at least, to be an excellent mother. And we see Allie, publicly telling Kurt that he’s harming their family by not turning himself in, while secretly signaling to him (and to Keaton) to continue the mission. We see both Kurt and Allie, willing to do everything they can to stop Madeline and make the world a better place, in contrast with Madeline, who zips her own son—a doctor committed to helping people. “Success requires sacrifice,” Madeline keeps saying. And yes, Kurt might be on the run right now, missing Bethany’s birthday parties, but he and Allie are, hands down, the best parents Bethany could ask for, sacrificing the time they could be spending with Bethany right now to be successful in their battle to bring Madeline down, to give their daughter a safer world to grow up in.

Y: Coming into this review, I thought I’d have a lot more to say about Allie but honestly, everything L said is on point, and all I want to add is I love Allison Knight. Like, I really really really love Allison Knight. And my favorite part is that the mold Allie was cast into—like Keaton—is one we should technically come to hate but somehow… by the magic of those writers and by the awesomeness of Allie, she tops of the ranks of our favorite TV characters of all time. And I have no regrets whatsoever.

Some of the Bunker Team gets a little break from bunker life this week with a couple of away missions, but it’s not exactly a vacation for them. How are things both at home and away?

Y: It may not have been a vacation, but let’s be honest here, Patterson and Rich did have an easier day out this time around while the others did most of the heavier lifting. And honestly, they’ve earned it after the exhausting puzzle solving, scavenger hunt, and impromptu trip to Ireland they endured last week. And speaking of taking a break, has Patterson even slept at all this season?!

The star this week is the team’s newest member—Archie’s brand new 3D printer—and even though Patterson starts the episode complaining about it, she ends up making the most of it as it plays a big role in this week’s case. And then it really proves its worth in the end of the episode when Rich and Patterson print little toy animals. Okay, maybe it’s not really the star of the show, but it does come in handy when the team need to learn how to denature the ZIP. And as for Patterson, she does all the work expertly from the lab. She locates the first batch of ZIP and destroys it. Then she locates the second two batches, trains the team to denature them and manages them from the bunker while they’re on their ops. Her issues from the previous episode seem to take a back seat but it I just have to ask again… is Patterson getting any rest this season? It honestly seems like she does nothing but work these days and that really worries me.

Rich, on the other hand, has quite the busy day. After setting up the 3D printer and helping Patterson destroy the first batch of ZIP using his modification of the Bumpkey Virus, he jumps on a plane and heads to Libya with Tasha to denature and track one batch of Madeline’s ZIP supply. Rich’s trip to Libya is cut short when things go sideways, and Tasha leaves him to board the plane, and he’s forced to head back home. But his time isn’t wasted. He prints toy animals while waiting for Tasha to return. And when she does, completely devastated by what she’d had to do to Greg, both Rich and Patterson are completely supportive of her.

Seriously, this family is such a beautiful thing.

L: They may not be the most traditional family group, but they really are the best, aren’t they??

I’ve been thinking a lot about Rich printing little 3D animals for the team. On the surface, it seems kind of cute and funny, along with naming “Archie Bunker.” But the more I thought about it, the more I started to realize something about Rich. All the rest of the team is totally focused on going home, on resuming their lives. None of them particularly want to think of the bunker as “home.” Only Rich is trying to fix it up and make it homey... Posters on the walls, a nice coffee machine, modernizing their 1950s kitchen. Yes, it could be the result of his time in the blacksite, or maybe he’s just making the best of a bad situation, but it makes me wonder if this is one of the first places where Rich has really felt at home. Not because of its luxurious surroundings (especially compared to his house in the Hamptons!), but because he’s with the family he’s adopted. We’ve seen the living spaces of all of the other members of the team, but aside from Rich telling Jane that he was staying in her old safe house in 3.01, we know nothing about where Rich has been living since he joined the team.

And I think this might also explain some of the change that we’ve seen in him this season. “I’m the level-headed one all of a sudden, and now you’re the loose cannon?” he said to Patterson in 5.05. And we see that again in this episode, when Tasha hops on the plane over Rich’s protests. Rich used to be the loose cannon, but now he’s the conservative one. And as we’ve seen that before, that change usually happens when someone has something good that they don’t want to lose. Rich has a family now, and he has a real home, filled with the people he cares about. And he wants the home to be nice, and he wants all of them to come home safe and sound at the end of the day.

We want that too, Rich!

Y: One person, however, who has a pretty rough day is Tasha. And after her performance last week in handling Ice Cream, she once again proves the talent she has with people—a talent that no one else on the team has.

L: We talked about Tasha’s ability to read people in the last episode, when she manipulated Ice Cream. And she was even more effective this week with Greg Burke. Telling him the truth about his mother is a huge risk; most people wouldn’t want to believe that about a parent. When he insists that he trusts his mother, Tasha tells him, “That is the thing. I don’t think you do, Greg. I think there’s a part of you that knows I’m telling the truth.” And she’s not wrong, as we see. Her gamble pays off. But she isn’t insensitive to the pain she causes him. “I just told someone that their mother is a murderer. Then I told him she’s been using him. And now I am doing the exact same thing.” But that’s the difference between you and Madeline, Tasha. You can both make the tough calls, the painful sacrifices. But in the end, you’re the only one losing sleep over those calls.

We saw how hard the last season was on Tasha, how much working for Madeline took out of her. This season, she’s already lost Reade, and we know her heart really wasn’t in this fight at the start. She stayed because of her friends, her family. Then she had the surprise of her pregnancy, which she has yet to really deal with or accept. I’m really worried about how she’ll react when she finds out what happened to Greg. There’s no question that she’s going to blame herself; we already heard her admitting that she blamed herself for helping Madeline and not arresting her for her husband’s murder. (And really, in retrospect, that would have been just fine; she’d be in a cell instead of running the FBI. Hey, they got Al Capone on tax evasion!)

And honestly, that’s my biggest worry about this team. They are all willing to take the blame and willing to sacrifice themselves for the others; but if they all sacrifice themselves, who’s going to be left to keep fighting?

Y: Tasha took a huge risk getting on that plane. And I guess they’re all at that place where they’re willing to take crazy risks because they’re that desperate to end this, to stop Madeline and to get back home. And the greater risk that Tasha took was confronting Greg with the truth about his mother and then trusting him not to give her up. But she was just so good at it. Again, Tasha and her “people” skills is something that no one else has—at least not the way that Tasha does. I loved every single scene between these two. And Tasha was so good. She was assertive and firm but also understanding and sympathetic.

And in the end, her guilt was almost heartbreaking, once again proving that our team are the good guys. Tasha feeling terrible about using Greg and comparing herself to Madeline is a testament to who these guys really are and what sets them apart from Madeline.

I really don’t want to see how Tasha will react once they find out what really happened to Greg, because she will definitely blame herself.

But either way, Tasha was once again amazing this week, in her ability to talk to Greg and to get through to him, but also in the risks she took, and she broke my heart when she talked about her time with Madeline and the guilt she still carries for not stopping her when she wanted to. That is something we don’t often get a chance to see, but it’s definitely always there lingering under the surface for Tasha. And she has to feel some guilt about allowing things to get that far that Madeline is now where she is. And they are in the position that they are in.

And last, but never least, our favorite couple has to face some of their worst fears this week. How do they help each other through?

Y: This was one of those episodes that makes me watch Jeller and sigh and reaffirm my belief that these two are the ultimate relationship goals. Their horrendous disguises aside, this episode gave us a perfect example of one my favorite things about these two—how they will always support each other, guide each other through dark times, and lean on each other in ways that would cause other lesser beings to absolutely crumble.

Both of them are faced by some of their own personal worst nightmares, and they both provide the support and the guidance and the shoulder for the other to lean on.

I want to start with Jane and her reaction to the ZIP. This storyline is probably one of the best written this season. It is so delicate and subtle, yet powerful, and it lets everything come back full circle to where everything started. And above that, Jaimie’s performance in reflecting Jane’s state of mind, her emotional reaction to the ZIP and how it’s affecting her decision making and performance in the field, is award-worthy. It’s so nuanced. Honestly, it’s like a gentle whisper throughout the episode, but it becomes the only thing you can hear at some point.

Jane knows firsthand what ZIP means. She knows its effect on the person who suffers from it and its effect on those around them. She knows exactly how devastating it is and her knowledge is so personal and so intimate. The way she reacts to even the word ZIP is so full of… everything—fear, worry, panic, devastation, paralysis. It’s literally her worst nightmare come to life.

Jane doesn’t deal well with being around the ZIP or working with it as every time she thinks about it—thinks about Madeline weaponizing it—she freezes up. But fortunately for Jane, there is a certain Kurt Weller by her side. He understands that fear. He knows where it is coming from. And the whole time he helps her through it, and he talks her through it every step of the way. He is so gentle and calm, and he hears her out and then eases her worry and carries her through the tough moments.

And Jane returns the favor right away, proving that what these two have is such a beautiful, powerful, unbreakable thing.

Learning that Madeline has Allie and hearing Allie plead with him to give himself up rattles Kurt while they’re in Hungary. For a moment, he almost acts irrationally—emotionally—and Jane pulls him back, talks him out of it, and offers the necessary balance in that situation. She uses the same logic he used on her when she suggested that she should give herself up.

Oh, yeah, at some point Jane offers to sacrifice herself for the team, and I am genuinely surprised it took her seven episodes to suggest that.

Look, what I am trying to say is, Jeller is everything. Absolutely everything. And some episodes hit us with the emotional stuff. They put those two through things that leave us angsty and whimpering. And other episodes are all about the softness and the flintiness and the sweetness. And then there are some episodes that are so real and relatable and all about the strength of the bond between them and a reminder that what these two have is just… relationship goals in every way possible. This was one of those episodes, and I do not have the words to express how much I love it.

L: In a show that absolutely delights in its twists and turns, in throwing the most unexpected things at you, it’s kind of funny that the thing that seems most significant about our leading couple is their simple consistency. They never give up on each other, and they never fail to support each other when one of them is struggling. In this episode, Jane struggles with her fears about ZIP, and Kurt struggles with his fears for Allie and Bethany. And yes, both of them are willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the people they care about the most. But they are also willing to listen to the other when that isn’t the wisest course of action. We talk a lot about Kurt being the moral compass, but I kept thinking in this episode that they are each other’s compass. They keep each other on course when one of them starts to drift. We love to see them in action sequences because they work together so seamlessly, but in reality, they work that way all the time, even in their quietest scenes together. And in a world that is basically 100% turmoil right now, that quiet consistency is reassuring—both to them and to those of us who are shoveling in the chocolate like it’s coal and we’re a steam engine on a tight schedule.

You can’t help but sympathize with Jane’s fear of ZIP, after all that she’s been through. But it’s telling that it is not losing her own memories again that is the scariest to her, but rather Kurt being zipped. And I think that’s because the most scarring thing for her wasn’t her own memory loss. That was a long, strange trip that landed her among this team that has become her family and gave her Kurt who has been by her side almost every step of the way. No, the worst thing that’s happened to her because of ZIP was her decision to ZIP Roman and the ensuing fallout to their relationship as a result. If she hadn’t zipped him—or if she’d immediately admitted that it was her and explained why she did it—maybe they could have repaired their relationship, and maybe he would still be alive today. She lost Roman twice, really, first by zipping him and lying about who did it, and then by his death. And Kurt is the person she is closest to, so it makes sense that her deepest fear would be losing him in the same way she lost Roman, the only other person in this world who really knew her. Losing someone you love to death is hard, but losing someone that completely, having someone alive but looking at you with hatred instead of love? That would be so much harder to bear, as her subconscious shows her in her dream.

So her fears about ZIP are certainly valid and understandable, and I’m awfully glad we have Kurt to keep reassuring us, because thinking about what could be coming is going to give us all nightmares like Jane’s!

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That’s all we have to say (or squeal or cry) about this episode. What did you think? Are you excited by where this season is heading? Come talk to our Ask Box. Or just freak out with us about the promo for next week, because we are definitely not ready for that!

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: jane doe #character: kurt weller #character: patterson #character: tasha zapata #character: rich dotcom #character: madeline burke #character: ivy sands #character: allison knight #character: jake keaton #ship: Jane/Kurt

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Episode Review: "Please use pencil and show your work so I can check it." [S05E06]

Last week’s episode ended in quite the cliffhanger with Ice Cream and his buddies breaking into the team’s previously safe bunker. Did this episode deliver on that intense set up?

Y: This show never gives us a chance to just sit back and catch our breath. Yes, the episodes air a week apart, but it feels like it’s one continuous edge-of-the-seat thriller, and can I just have one minute to use the toilet and just, I dunno, grab a drink??

L: Nope, no breaks. This season is like a thrill ride at an amusement park: You’re terrified the whole way through, and you kinda have to pee but you can’t stop to worry about it.

Some of this show’s most memorable episodes have been treasure hunt episodes or heist episodes or undercover episodes. This week, we got one that managed to merge all three. It was a globetrotting, time-sensitive, puzzle-filled, math-infused, musically-coded case. But how did it really go down?

L: As is so often the case in Blindspot-land, this episode begins exactly where the last one left off. (Remember in the early seasons, when we worried that this team didn’t get weekends off? Haha, those were relaxing times, weren’t they. These days, I am just hoping they got a bathroom break between disasters.) Ice Cream arrived in the bunker (courtesy of Rich’s “blood guy” who got him the blood they needed to save Jane last week—or yesterday, actually, I guess?) demanding the Gardner paintings that Rich promised him in exchange for the passcode to the elevator in Iceland and safe passage for the team. But as the team is quick to point out, his deal included “untraceable” burner phones, which were quickly traced and used to target them for the drone strike—and they lost “one of their best” as a result—so they are not to inclined to feel beholden to Ice Cream.

But Ice Cream really needs those paintings. He’s in debt to Ilya Mikhaylov, a Russian mob enforcer. He threatens to rat them out, but the team calls his bluff. Finally, realizing threats aren’t going to get him anywhere, Ice Cream offers a carrot instead: Intel on Madeline. Ice Cream created an encrypted, highly secure messaging app called “Beaconer” that Madeline uses, and just like Patterson did with Wizardville, Ice Cream left himself a back door. The team is skeptical until Ice Cream tells them that Madeline is in almost daily communication with Ivy Sands—communication that could give them the evidence they need to stop Madeline.

I loved the way team didn’t cave to Ice Cream’s demands. Yes, they do go after the paintings, but only because he offers them something they need, not because he was holding multiple guns on them. (Honestly, if Jane hadn’t been recovering from a bullet wound, she probably would have had him and his henchmen on the floor before Ice Cream finished pronouncing the Russian mob enforcer he was in debt to.) They aren’t thrilled about working with Ice Cream, but the theme of this episode is that they’ll do what they have to do in order to bring Madeline down.

First they have to figure out who actually has the paintings right now. Boston sold them and then stole them back before “giving” them to a casino magnate in exchange for not getting his kneecaps broken. The paintings were then stolen again, and Ice Cream theorizes they were taken by Irving Sutton, who was a hit man for hire before changing careers to become the underworld’s premiere art restorer. Sutton is living in Italy now, so Kurt and Jane fly off in Ice Cream’s jet to talk to him. Unfortunately, Sutton wants to shoot instead of talk, and Kurt returns fire, killing Sutton before he can tell them where the paintings are. Things seem a bit grim for our team (and all before the opening credits, too), but Sutton did not plan to go quietly into that good night. A video is uploaded to his site on the dark web, inviting the world on a treasure hunt to find the paintings. The team will have to hurry if they want to get there first.

It takes Patterson a moment, but then she realizes that the clues aren’t in Sutton’s words but in the music in the background, where certain notes are highlighted by Sutton’s strange body language in the video. Those notes correspond to GPS coordinates that point to a location in Zagreb, Croatia, so Kurt and Jane head there next to check it out. (In Ice Cream’s very luxurious private plane, which is probably a nice change from taking public transportation while concealing a bullet wound/hallucinogenic detox.) Kurt finds a safe hidden behind a picture on the wall, which seems to fit with what Sutton says in the video, “I’ve left the treasure in a safe place.” Jane cracks the safe (with a stethoscope that she conveniently packed for the trip), and they find a geode and a bible, which are immediately claimed by the gun-toting treasure hunters who are next through the door.

While Patterson figures out how to deal with the security system that’s been tripped, Kurt and Jane struggle to free themselves from the chairs they’ve been duct-taped to, and in the ensuing struggle, Kurt looks up and notices writing etched into the inside ceiling of the safe. “A vibrant thread... blue, gold, red. A tapestry. And a viola da gamba.” Rich realizes that it refers to “The Concert” by Vermeer, the most valuable painting in the collection. Putting the name of the painting into the search bar on Sutton’s site sends them to an FTP site with pages of mathematical formulas and a note that says that they’ve earned a thirty-minute head start over the rest of the internet. Patterson prints out copies for everyone in the bunker to solve. (It’s a tie for my favorite line in this episode... it’s either Rich saying, “What happened to ‘in my head, where math is done’?” which is even funnier given that he wasn’t on the team yet during the episode in which Patterson says that, which implies that it’s something Patterson says regularly; or else it’s Ice Cream saying, “Give one to Sven. He has a PhD in physics. This pays better than academia.”)

The bunker squad does their math (I guess it’s good that Kurt and Jane were out in the field, since as much as I love them, I am guessing solving pages of math problems isn’t their strongest suit), but it is Ice Cream who ultimately solves this puzzle, suggesting that their answers be used to create a CAD 3-D model. The rendering reveals Saint Florence Monastery in County Limerick, Ireland, which Rich somehow immediately identifies. Ice Cream coughs up a second plane after some needling by Tasha (who plays him like a viola de gamba), and the wonder twins set off for Ireland, dressed in appropriate attire for the location. (And honestly, it’s worth tuning in for this episode just to see Father Rich and Sister Patty.) Ice Cream points them to a painting that Sutton restored, but the tag underneath the painting has the letters capitalized oddly. Patterson converts those letters to their numerical equivalent, which identifies the Dewey Decimal code of a book in the monastery’s library. (And can I just say that the puzzles in this treasure hunt have used both pages of mathematical equations and the Dewey Decimal system, which just makes me love it that much more.)

The book in question has a bookmark that marks a missing page (which apparently contains criticism of one of Irving’s early restorations; even former hitmen turned art restorers are sensitive about their crafts), so they look around for something else that is missing... like a painting of amputees missing limbs. The bookmark is a piece of wood veneer that fits into the frame of the painting. And when Patterson puts it in place, it opens a hidden door that takes them down a flight of stairs into a room with the paintings. Unfortunately, Ilya shows up right behind them (remember him, the Russian mob enforcer to whom Ice Cream promised the paintings?) and demands at gun point that they package up the paintings for him. Patterson complies immediately, over Rich’s protests, and Ilya and his henchman take off with the bags of paintings. Rich is still freaking out when Patterson points out that Sutton gave each clue a fake clue as a decoy, and the paintings that Ilya made off with were the decoy. The real paintings were concealed in the frames of the decoy paintings.

The wonder twins head back to the bunker with their arms full of paintings, and the team celebrates with a round of Icelandic schnapps. Ice Cream is extra cheerful, having learned that Ilya and his goon were killed in a standoff with the Irish police. He is thinking about who he can sell the paintings to when Tasha chimes in, continuing to play him. Ice Cream wants to be famous for something, and she tells him it could be for returning the Gardner paintings to the museum. He takes to the idea—and agrees that the team doesn’t owe him anything else. He hands over the key to Beaconer’s back door, and the team celebrates with a toast.

As long as we ignore what happened at the FBI this week, this week’s case—for the first time this season—falls unequivocally into the win column. Sure they had to go on a crazy treasure hunt, and there was a bit of bloodshed and regrets, but in the end, they got what they needed: Access to Madeline’s plans. No one got shot, their location is still (more or less) secure. And we got to see Father Rich and Sister Patty, so really, the fans got something out of the deal, too. I’m sad to say goodbye to Ice Cream, who is one of my favorite shady characters, and I’m disappointed that we didn’t get to see Boston, but the case part of this episode was a blast.

Y: The heist part of the episode was so much fun. I love a good heist episode. And I love a good undercover episode. And I love a good treasure hunt puzzle filled episode. And this week we got all this three in one episode, and I for one have nothing to complain about.

And on top of that, we were treated to the presence one of Blindspot’s signature ridiculous guest character in Ice Cream—ridiculous nickname included—and he just made the episode and the case that much better. I honestly enjoyed every part of the case this week. The Think Tank in the bunker solving the artistically inclined puzzles and the Muscle Team out in the field jetting around Europe is a premise for a show I would pay good money to watch. Everyone was involved in the case this week, even one of Ice Cream’s thugs, Sven, who gave up a PHD in physics to pursue a life of crime.

The puzzles of course were great. We don’t often mention David Kwong in these reviews, but honestly it’s time we give him credit for being at the core of the show and making it what it is and giving it that extra bit that has made it so unique. I cannot imagine how his genius brain works to develop all these puzzles and combine math and music and art and trigonometry to build such a fun and intriguing and challenging puzzle around which the entire episode is designed.

We’ll get to discussing the characters separately later, but in this section, it’s worth mentioning how great it was watching everyone put their skills together to solve the case. Everyone really gave it their all, even if the power couple managed to get themselves tied to a chair but you can’t really blame them. They’re not in top shape having just woke up from a really tough day.

One part of the case I did not enjoy was not having Boston involved in this episode somehow. He’s an integral part of the Gardener Paintings storyline, and I felt we were robbed by him not being there.

So, the puzzles were great, the globetrotting was awesome, Rich and Patterson undercover at the monastery was an absolute gift, the banter was great and the music was fabulous. But the best thing to come out of the whole thing was that the team managed to persuade Ice Cream to do the right thing. Will he do it? I don’t know. But what matters here is not what Ice Cream will do but rather what this means about the team.

Man… these are good people. Genuinely, honest to God, good people. With everything that is happening to them and everything that has happened and with this shitty situation they find themselves in, they still strive to do the right thing and to push people to do the right thing, and I mean… how can anyone doubt that they’re the good guys? How?

But here’s the real thing… I’m not worried about what Ice Cream is going to do with the paintings. I am worried about what Ice Cream is going to do with the knowledge of where the team is. He is probably trustworthy for the next ten minutes… but there is no telling what he is going to do with that intel, and I am surprised the team did not do anything more to protect their bunker. They now have three Icelandic criminals walking around with knowledge of where they are. Not to mention Ivy having received a clue from her bondage sesh with Kurt. That is four people more than I am comfortable with, to be honest.

And finally, we have taken to measuring every week on the win/loss scale for the team, and while this episode wasn’t a direct confrontation with Madeline, it still feeds into that war they’re engaged in. L put this down as a win, but I’m not as optimistic as she is. And here’s why. Like I just mentioned, having more people know about the bunker is definitely a huge loss. And wasting a whole day running after a dead man’s cryptic clues is definitely time wasted and taken away from stopping Madeline. But for what it’s worth, they did get access to the super-secret spy app and their secret friend sent them the information on Madeline’s crazy-ass plan B… so the bottom line is… this week was neither a loss nor a win? Which, given their situation, I would chalk down as a loss, honestly.

This episode takes us back to New York, and even though the resistance doesn’t have their faces pasted on the monitors in SIOC yet, they aren’t exactly having a field day either. Do they have a chance of surviving Madeline and her collection of evil assistants?

Y: Where does Madeline keep finding these completely horrible henchmen? We’ve known Robert Shirley since last season and honestly the reason I just might hate him more than I hate Ivy is because of… everything about him. At least Ivy is evil and acts the role. She doesn’t try to pretend to be anything else. She owns it. But Robert Shirley is just… he has a face. You know… one of those faces that… every single time I see him I want to hit that face. Not just punch it with my fist but maybe look for the closest frying pan or something and really go at it.

I’m sorry, I am not usually a violent person, but what I am trying to say is that I really hate Robert Shirley, and I never ever want to know where Madeline finds these people who work for her because they are absolutely despicable.

We may not have seen Madeline in person in this episode, but her presence and her control and manipulation were very much felt, and our poor little resistance just keeps getting knocked down every time we see them. We’ll get back to Madeline in a minute, but let’s check in on the Resistance first because from the looks of it… they’re really really not doing so good.

Matthew Weitz cannot seem to catch a break. The director has really fallen hard and he’s scrambling to survive right now—literally struggling to stay alive. It’s not just about keeping his job and keeping his secret buried anymore, and I cannot believe I am saying this, but I feel so sorry for Matthew Weitz. Matthew is really caught between a rock and a hard place, and once again I have to say that what we’re seeing here is one of the best redemption arc storylines on this show. Maybe it’s because this is happening in a shortened season so we’re getting a condensed arc or maybe it really is this good.

I feel so bad for him because he’s trying so hard to do the right thing, and everything he does backfires, and everyone around him is generally either pissed off or disappointed in him. He just cannot seem to win. But at the same time I am proud of him, because he’s not giving up or giving in and he’s sticking to this path even though he’s constantly losing and he’s not getting anything out of it—and that must be the hardest thing for the Weitz we’ve known over the years.

This week, he tried to do what Madeline asks in order to make sure the Resistance has a chance to survive, and he also tries to protect Afreen because the less she knows the better, and he tries to do the right thing with Susan Shah. But at the end of the day, he fails Madeline, he unintentionally causes Shah’s death, and Afreen is extremely pissed off at him.

And speaking of Afreen, seriously, how awesome is this woman? She trusts Weitz enough to do what he asks her, but she’s also careful enough to find out exactly what it is she’s done and implicated herself in. And when she finds out what it is and what it has led to, she’s isn’t scared of facing off with Weitz and confronting him about it both times. She’s a good team player, but she won’t be lied to or used or manipulated. Her moral compass is clear cut, and she stands up for what she believes and what she knows is right. I absolutely cheered when she confronted Weitz in the end and especially when she called him Matthew. That was such a badass move.

But while I cheered for Afreen, I also felt bad for Weitz. And while he did give her an honest half-explanation, I appreciate him so much for not telling her everything, because he is protecting her just like he’s protecting the team. And Matthew Weitz protecting people not called Matthew Weitz is such a new thing to us and to him and it’s absolutely glorious.

And finally, let’s get back to Madeline Burke. Oh, Maddie... why must you be so perplexingly evil like this? We spent a good chunk of last season being confused as to why Madeline was doing what she was doing and what her endgame was. When the finale rolled around, we were pleasantly surprised by her motives and her long game and while what had driven her had been so different from what had driven previous villains on the show, the fact that everything was so perfectly woven and plotted and tied together was proof that the writers had been one step ahead of us the whole time. Pretty much like Madeline had been with the team.

And it’s happening again this season. Madeline is being her evil evil self, and we are left scratching our heads because it just seems like it’s all over the place.

Madeline is in bed with the Dabbur Zann. She has them running things right in the middle of the NYO for everyone to see.

She also has the creepy death chair being developed by what I’m assuming is a workshop of evil scientists who haven’t seen sunlight in months.

She’s also got her sights set on the VP seat and has gone as far as getting the front runner killed—through an elaborate, over-the-top plan. Seriously, she could’ve just poisoned her water when she came to the NYO for her meeting with Weitz.

And then she’s got her “poison and kill millions of people” plot—first using the chemical the team seized in 5.05 and now apparently with ZIP.

ZIP!!

WHAT IS MADELINE BURKE AFTER?!

She has political goals. She has terrorism-oriented goals. She has mass murder and genocide goals.

And in all this, she’s still wasting time hunting the team and sending people after them in Europe.

I just... I just need Madeline to pick a lane so I can figure out what villain category to file her under.

This woman is as exhausting as she is evil. And I really really want the team to take her down because I cannot handle seeing her win. The world sucks enough as it is.

But honestly... ZIP?!?!

L: The ZIP curveball was so unexpected, I can barely wrap my brain around it. But I guess it would be a good way to get rid of her opponents; just wipe their memories, and they’ll stop being a threat to her. But then again, it’s not like she shies away from just killing people; ZIP seems like a lot of work for a solution that’s less effective. What the hell is she up to?!?

I didn’t expect Richard Shirley to pop up this week, but Madeline is out of the NYO (presumably personally conveying her disappointment to Ivy), so the FBI gets a visit from Richard Shirley, now apparently a member of Madeline’s “review board.” And I totally agree with Yas; while Shirley was kind of funny and snarky on his first few appearances, I want to punch him pretty much the entire time he is on screen in this episode.

Shirley is here to remind Weitz that he was supposed to convince Susan Shah, the National Security Advisor and Vice President hopeful, to step down so that Madeline could continue her charge to the White House unimpeded. “Or maybe you’d like to pay a visit to Briana?” (I really didn’t need to relive that moment, you smug bastard.) Weitz argues that Shah is “spotless,” so Shirley tells him, “Dirty her up then.” And I guess that’s what happens to everyone around Madeline; you either get your own hands dirty or she makes you look dirty (or you get murdered and buried in the dirt), but no one in her orbit escapes untarnished.

But what I really liked here was Weitz’s flabbergasted response, “Just lie?” As Yas mentioned above, Weitz has a pretty amazing character arc going on here. He is one of those characters that we hated, then we reluctantly tolerated and sometimes secretly liked, and now honestly, I feel rather sorry for him. Weitz was pretty self-serving before, but his attacks weren’t usually complete fabrication. I mean, sure, yes, if you lied, he was happy to expose that lie for his own advantage, but he was genuinely trying to put guilty people behind bars (like the bomber case; the footage was doctored, yes, but he didn’t use that to frame anyone, just to get the truly guilty party to confess). And unfortunately, in trying to cover his own ass, he’s gotten in deeper and deeper, and Madeline keeps pushing him to ever more detestable actions.

Weitz concocts a plan to meet Madeline’s demands: He has Afreen make a wire transfer from Shah’s account into an overseas account, so he can accuse Shah of paying blackmail. But Afreen is smart enough to figure out that he’s lying to her, and begs him, “If you have a soul, don’t do this.” And this is where I feel kind of bad for Weitz. He knows it’s wrong, and he doesn’t want to do it (which is basically the same moral quandary that Kurt and Jane are wrestling with this week), but if he doesn’t do it and “if Madeline gets rid of us, then no one can help the team,” he explains to Afreen. Just like Kurt and Jane, he’s doing something he doesn’t want to do, because it’s not about him, it’s about everyone else, it’s about the future. (And I love that he still has such faith in the team, even after all these months. He truly believes that they are going to come through in the end, he just has to hold his position so he’s able to help them when the moment arrives.)

But when it’s time to use the evidence he planted against Shah, he can’t actually go through with it. He’s got the folder with the damning evidence in his hand, and he goes in to see Shah and just... wimps out. Part of it, yes, is that she plays to his ego. (And honestly... Weitz does work for an organization for social progress? That should be really surprising, right? But it doesn’t seem as out of character now as it would have in season one.) But Shah is also a genuinely good person, and he just can’t bring himself to smear her with the evidence that he planted.

All of which makes me even angrier that Madeline and Shirley manipulate that evidence to bring about Shah’s death. I’m angry that our team lost someone who could have been a good ally. I’m angry that Weitz lost someone he might have been able to confide in and work with to help bring Madeline down. And I’m angry about another innocent person who died as a result of Madeline’s machinations.

And I can’t really blame Afreen for being angry and done with Weitz, even though that makes me even more worried about her. She hasn’t been subjected to the full extent of Maddie’s fear tactics the way Weitz has, so I’m not sure she is as aware of the dangers as he is. I have a bad feeling she’s going to go off and work on her own, and when Madeline inevitably finds out, she won’t hesitate to send Afreen off to “visit Briana.”

But I do feel sorry for Weitz, who is trapped like a rat in a cage. Shirley and Madeline keep harping about “consequences,” and I can’t wait for them to meet theirs!

The team has barely recovered from the scare of Kurt being kidnapped and Jane being shot before they are thrust into this case. How do they handle the stress of retrieving the paintings and deal with the problem child they are stuck with at home?

Y: No one can blame any member of the team for whatever emotional or mental breakdown they have, for whatever tensions there are between any two of them, and for any of the irrational feelings or fears or reactions they might have. With everything they’re going through, I’m surprised no one has killed anyone for putting the toilet paper roll in the wrong direction or forgetting to refill the coffee.

And given all that, they’re still managing to perform amazingly, to continue to save the world on a daily basis, even if it now goes unappreciated and sometimes backfires, and to still have hope in their fight against Madeline and in the ultimate fight between good and evil.

This week we see them be their usual incredible selves while battling inner demons and the tensions between them and their own personal battles. And no one seems to be struggling with inner demons this week as much as Patterson. Before we get into Patterson’s emotional situation this week, let’s just say that whatever she might have been going through, it did not slow her down one bit. Patterson is still—and will always be—the absolute best at what she does. I love when we get someone new in the “lab,” someone who has never witnessed Patterson in action before, and watch as they take it all in and realize just how magnificent Patty is. With that said, let’s move on to the other… stuff.

Since their little trip to Finland and getting to see her dad before working with the team forced him into hiding, Patterson has thrown herself into their work—focusing all her energy on getting them out of that bunker and back home. She has managed to push down all the emotions that had come to the surface after Finland. But finding out last week that Tasha is pregnant has sent Patterson back into some sort of unbalanced state of mind. She cannot seem to get herself to focus just on the task at hand, and she is obsessively worrying about Tasha and the baby—which is completely understandable—except that some might argue that Patterson is taking it a little too far.

Personally, I don’t think she is, but still, those around her seem to think so, and as Rich correctly guesses, this is not just about Tasha or the baby. This just serves as a reminder that they are so not in control of the situation. It is also a reminder of all those out in the world whose lives are at risk because of the team—the people they love whom they cannot protect right now. And this was not brought up in the episode, but I will just throw this out there… wasn’t Patterson trying to adopt at some point last season? I am not saying that she’s jealous or envious or any of that. Patterson holds no negative emotions or anything, but this whole thing… the unpredictability, the danger, the uncontrollable circumstances… it’s natural that they make anyone lose their cool, panic and obsess, and more importantly, try to control the one thing they think they can control.

Honestly, I don’t find any of Patterson’s behavior problematic. I know Tasha is annoyed by it, and I know it’s masking something bigger and more heartbreaking, but as long as it helps Patterson focus, helps her feel that not everything is out of her control and it makes sure someone is watching over Tasha and the baby… I’m all for unbearably overprotective Patterson.

I mean, I always assumed Kurt would be the overbearingly protective one during a partner’s pregnancy, but it looks like this title is now going to go to Patterson.

L: It’s always fun to watch people’s reaction to seeing Patterson at work, and Ice Cream’s response is golden. “What is she talking about? Has she been drinking?” Take Rich’s advice, Ice Cream: Just let her run with it. It’s what she does, and she does it better than anyone else.

But I don’t entirely agree with Patterson’s behavior being completely non-problematic.

Patterson spilling the beans in front of Ice Cream is an interesting contrast to how hard Rich tried to keep Tasha’s secret in the last episode, and illustrates a very important difference between the two of them: By keeping Tasha’s secret, Rich was prioritizing Tasha’s well-being ahead of the baby’s, but by so thoughtlessly revealing it in front of Ice Cream, Patterson was prioritizing the baby ahead of Tasha. We saw Patterson’s desire for a child of her own in the last season, when she was talking about adopting, and that is clearly contributing to her obsessive behavior in this episode, along with the worry about her father that Rich pointed out. But unfortunately, her excessive concern over Tasha’s pregnancy is exacerbating the distance between Patterson and Tasha, who hasn’t really shown us that she is committed to this pregnancy yet, and the gulf between them is only going to get larger if Patterson doesn’t heed Rich’s advice to back off.

Y: Fortunately, Patterson has her own therapist/sidekick in the form of Rich Dotcom. And if this is your first time reading these reviews, what’s coming up next is a long-winded essay on how much we love Rich Dotcom. Rich has been the best friend any one of these people can ask for this season. He has pretty much been holding the team together as their emotional glue. He’s been the most attentive to everyone’s mood swings, emotional states, and the tensions between them. And he has dealt with these situations in the best way possible: the Rich Dotcom way.

Rich this episode was just as attentive, caring, and supportive as he has been all season.

But there was another aspect to Rich this week that hasn’t really been given a chance to show up much this season, and it’s one of my favorites. You guys know we love the redemption arc that the writers took Rich on and the person he’s become now—so true to who he really is but the absolute best version of himself and always continuing to grow. One of the most interesting storylines that the writers sometimes utilize to highlight Rich’s growth is when they bring a guest character into an episode who represents Rich’s former life or how Rich used to be and see how Rich is compared to them.

We saw it last season with Sho when he came back and we saw how Rich has evolved from that lifestyle and how he’s grown. And again this season, bringing Ice Cream back and having them both work a case together as it were really helped us see again just how far Rich has come. The juxtaposition between the two was really interesting and even when Ice Cream tried to taunt Rich about who he used to be, Rich didn’t seem triggered by it. Instead, it was Rich who ultimately “won” that battle by being one of the voices who managed to push Ice Cream to do the right thing. Maybe. Still not sure whether Ice Cream will really end up doing the right thing. But that’s beside the point. The point is that seeing Rich go up against former versions of himself is a wonderful reminder of how his growth has been and how incredible his arc has been.

L: So true. And I love that there are actually two foils for Rich’s arc in this episode: Ice Cream and Matthew Weitz. Even though Weitz wasn’t an underworld criminal like our two frenemies, he was in his own way just as self-absorbed as Rich was. I think it’s telling that after interacting with the team, both Rich and Weitz have gotten more in touch with their consciences and started to work toward a brighter future. And both of them share the same unshakable faith in our team and their belief that they will be the ones who are ultimately triumphant in the end. Ice Cream hasn’t been around the team nearly as much, but they’re already rubbing off. Can you imagine what would happen if he spent a few months with them?

And look, even if you hated every other single thing about this episode, it was worth watching just for Rich’s nicknames. He dubs Ice Cream “Cream Boat” and “Fro-Yo” (who in turn calls the team “Cream Team”), Jane and Kurt “Ink and Mumbles,” Patterson “Patty Panic,” and himself and Boston as “a certain Turkish dumpling and his salty little sidekick that he occasionally sleeps with” (which does sound a little better than “mouthy Turkish pervert,” although that’s probably a bit more accurate).

And we get to see Rich dressed up like a Catholic priest. (And he doesn’t struck by lightning. Talk about a miracle...)

Y: And last but not least, we get to Tasha Zapata. There’s a lot to unpack with Tasha this week, as has been the case every week this season. And that is not a complaint. We’ve been waiting five years for Tasha to have her day in the spotlight, and we are enjoying every minute of it. But this week I want to focus a little less on Tasha’s emotional and mental state and the pregnancy storyline and focus on something else—something that has been a part of Tasha’s character and arc since day one but often goes unnoticed or under-appreciated, and it’s high time we take a moment to talk about it.

Tasha is the best all-around multi-talented player this team has and on top of being able to do what everyone else can, she brings skills to the table that no one else has. I was taken back to the pilot episode this week and to the scene where Kurt asks Tasha if she can gain access to Chao’s laptop and she smirks and says she’s insulted he has to ask. We know that Tasha is such a force in the field. I mean… no one can argue this fact. She can do things in the field that no one can. The team wouldn’t be this strong out in the field without her. And she’s also great when she’s undercover. Whether for the FBI or the CIA, Tasha has always done really well undercover.

But this episode reminds us that Tasha isn’t just a really good field agent. Some days, Tasha is a formidable member of the Muscle Team. But other days, Tasha is just as competent being in the Think Tank. Our Tasha can do both. And it’s not as if she’s only average or mediocre in those areas. No, she is absolutely terrific in both. She confidently sat down with the Trig Team this week, and no one questioned her presence once. And not to mention that last week we learned she has field medicine training.

Is there anything this woman cannot do? Seriously. She is perfect. And her playing a role in the brainy part of the case this week was not a fluke. At the end of the episode, it is clear that she was an active part of the team that decrypted the article that was sent to them.

But Tasha isn’t just an integral asset to both sub-teams within our team. No, Tasha brings something to the table that no one else can do. Or at least, no one else can do like she can. Tasha has this talent of reading people. She’s quiet and observant and smart as hell. And while she may not be as emotionally focused as Rich, for example, she does have an unparalleled skill at getting under the surface and finding out what drives people, what makes them tick and how to press the right buttons to get them to move in a certain direction.

Throughout the episode, everyone was working on solving the puzzles and finding the paintings. That was the case. But Tasha was working on something else. She was working on Ice Cream. And she broke him. That’s Tasha. That is what Tasha brings that no one else can do. I mean, sure anyone can crack a safe or engage in hand-to-hand combat, and apparently anyone can do complicated trigonometry. But who other than Tasha can play their “enemy” like a puppet the way she did?

L: Agreed! Tasha gets overshadowed by Jane in the field and by Patterson in the lab, but she’s the rare piece who can fill both roles so well. And her playing of Ice Cream this week was like watching a grandmaster take apart a cocky upstart at the chessboard. It required intelligence, good reading of her opponent, and most importantly, keeping her cool.

As the team pointed out at the start of the episode, Ice Cream is one of the people who played a role in Reade’s death. And now he’s forcing other members of Tasha’s team to risk their lives to save his ass. No one could fault Tasha for holding a serious grudge against him, but she keeps her cool. She only comes close to losing it once, when she snaps at him, “If it wasn’t for you, my best friend would still be alive.” And you can see in the expression on Ice Cream’s face that he realizes that Tasha could kill him at any moment right before he mutters, “Sorry.” But Tasha backs off, and you can see her general distaste at having to deal with him. So deal with him she does, in her own inimitable style, manipulating him first into getting a second plane for Patterson and Rich and then into returning the Gardner paintings to the museum.

Let that be a lesson to all of us: Do not cross Tasha Zapata. You won’t even see her revenge coming.

And finally, Jane and Kurt had some of their most emotionally and physically draining experiences some forty-eight hours ago. Now they find themselves on a private jet traveling around Europe having to do things they’re not exactly comfortable with. How is our favorite couple coping?

L: As much as I loved the heist portion of this episode (and felt chilled to the bone by the FBI scenes), the exchanges between Kurt and Jane struck a slightly sour note with me this week.

I think part of the problem was that we were coming off of such an intense episode last week, in which we saw both of them suffering, both physically and mentally. Kurt was emotionally traumatized by his hallucinations, and we saw Jane being sensitive to that and being so careful and reassuring to him as a result. “Kurt, all those things that you were saying back there... about us, about you... you know that those are just fears, right? And that doesn’t make them true,” Jane tells him. “I know who you are. You’re Kurt Weller. You’re my husband. And you have fear, and darkness, and love, and light inside of you, just like me and everyone else. And you are a good man.”

All of which makes what we got this week feel like a bucket of cold water being dumped over all those warm feelings. “Are you the man you think you are? Maybe I’m not the best person to answer that.” It felt like Jane was telling him, “What do I know, maybe you are all the horrible things you thought you were.” On the heels of what Kurt suffered last week, Jane seems harsh and insensitive at best—and downright cruel at worst. And I think what we are seeing here is the downside of a serialized drama, in which each episode is written by a different writer who doesn’t have the benefit of watching the completed previous episode before writing the next one. By itself, this bit of dialogue isn’t entirely out of character with the sort of things we’ve seen Jane say in the past—she is doubting herself here and her own moral compass and recalling the behavior that she knowingly engaged in as Remi. But when viewed back-to-back with the previous episode, this bit of dialogue just didn’t work. It makes Jane appear callous and almost cruel to Kurt, which we know she would never intentionally be.

What I believe her dialogue in this episode was supposed to illustrate is that Jane, too, is struggling with what they’re doing, and she’s not sure that they are on the right side of the law anymore. They aren’t backed up by any law enforcement agency, and every action they take seems to only make Madeline’s case against them even stronger. Killing a hit man on a mission to steal paintings for Ice Cream is one more step further afield from the very fine grey line they’ve been walking all season.

And I think that this is a valuable point that needed to be made: Of all of them—even Rich, who is a close second on the “questionable morality” scale—Jane (as Remi) engaged in the most morally reprehensible behavior. She helped design and put into action a plan to kill the heads of the US government (along with countless additional victims along the Eastern seaboard). We didn’t really get to see her wrestling with her Remi side after her full memory recovery last season, but surely she would have been in serious need of therapy to reconcile the things she did as Remi (both before her memory wipe and during her ZIP-induced regression) with the moral code she has embraced as Jane. In the first episode of the season, she didn’t even blink before she agreed to Sho Ahktar’s orders to kill a CIA agent. So of all of the team, we most needed to see Jane recommit, not only to this mission, but also to the values that Team Former FBI embraces. We needed to see her reject the idea that killing people is okay if it helps them accomplish their goal, especially in contrast to Madeline’s ability to justify killing anyone in her way—no matter how unimpeachable their character—as we see in Susan Shah’s death in this episode.

I know that Rich was talking to Patterson (and being kind of tongue-in-cheek) when he says, “Forgiveness, especially of one’s self, is a cornerstone of our faith.” But he’s not entirely off-base here. That’s essentially the point that Kurt makes to Jane; they need to forgive themselves for the things that they are doing right now, because they are being done for a greater good. “This isn’t about us anymore. It’s about everyone else.” And they have to take it on faith that that they will achieve their goal of stopping a truly evil person from harming more innocent people. And I loved that it also echoed what Tasha said to Kurt last week, “You need to take a leap of faith.”

This entire season is about our team taking a leap of faith. And as viewers, we need to have faith that they will get there, too!

Y: A part of me just wants to say that I agree with everything that L said and keep it at that. And if we’re being honest here, I agree with all of it. Yes, everything about Jeller’s interaction and conversations felt weird. Everything about how Kurt behaved the day after his bondage sesh Ivy—not being affected by killing Sutton—felt weird. Everything about what Jane said to Kurt in Zagreb felt weird. The coldness of it all after that emotionally taxing previous episode was so off.

And I agree with L on how part of it can be due to how things work in the writers’ room and the fact that maybe when this episode was written, the writer did not have the benefit of knowing just how the previous episode would play out. This is in no way a justification for how things ended up on screen, but it’s worth pointing out.

I had quite a few pages of notes for this section of the review before I started working on it properly. And I think I am cheating here because I am working off of L’s review—sometimes you get lucky and the other person posts their section, and it makes it easier to bounce off their ideas. Don’t tell anyone. But seriously, a lot of it is still very much valid, but I thought I’d scrap it and focus on a few points just so that we end this on a smoother note. So if you want to focus on the heavier hitting notes, go back and stop reading at L’s section. What I’m going to say is the I agree with everything L said, but for the sake of balancing things out, having been the pessimistic one in the case section above, I’ll try to put a little positive twist on the Jeller this week.

I think the scene that needed the most help this episode was not the conversation in Zagreb nor the one on the plane, it was actually the Irving Sutton death scene. That was the scene that in my opinion put everything out of balance. The scene desperately needed a moment of reaction or reflection from both Jane and Kurt. There is no way killing Irving Sutton could have happened and not affected both of them heavily. Jane was shot at only two days after suffering a gunshot to the gut. And Kurt killed a man after going through that torture, a lot of which was about his perception of himself as a murderer. I honestly think that was the weak link in the episode.

Kurt had to have had some reaction to taking that shot.

And as for Jane, obviously that moment triggered something for her. We did not see her initial reaction but we did see the aftermath and that is what left us all puzzled. L correctly breaks down how all this is hard on Jane given her past and how she has to constantly adjust her compass and remind herself of their code.

It’s also worth mentioning that all this has to be very triggering for Jane. Everything they are doing is having her rely heavily on her Remi instincts, and that has to be exhausting. Reaching into her dark past like that in order to survive has to be hard. And that struggle has to bring to the surface Jane’s own insecurities about her own worthiness, about her own goodness. If you think about it, after an event like that, it’s not hard for Jane to start questioning if she herself is a good person, if she is in any position to judge anyone and if she has the right to claim she knows good from evil.

And it may have come out in such a cold way and felt like a slap in the face, but it’s another example of how strong their relationship is that Jane isn’t scared to share this with Kurt, to be so open and honest about this and to challenge him with a possible truth that is weighing on her.

So I guess what I am saying is… it was hard to watch but in retrospect, it is not so bad?

And finally, before I finally stop rambling, I am going to take you one more time to the pilot because we had another callback in this episode to one of the most mysterious lines from the pilot, and I believe this is a huge one. On the plane, Kurt tells Jane, “We do not have a choice.”

In the pilot, we see a flashback of Remi talking to Markos—oh how I have missed you my ruggedly handsome man—just before he ZIPs her and she tells him, regarding this whole mission, “It’s my only choice.” You guys know at this point how obsessed we are with this line, but this time it’s not about it per se but about how Kurt repeating it here is so ominous and so terrifying and so… poetic?

Anyway, just thought I would throw this here because I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and hopefully I get a few of you on the train with me. I brought snacks. Of course.

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Well, that’s all from us for this week! Obviously a lot of thoughts in this episode and beyond that, a lot of emotions from that promo for the next episode! Anyway, let us know what you think and how much chocolate you’re planning to purchase for the next episode just so we make sure we are all appropriately prepared!

—Laura & Yas

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more--than--anything · 4 years

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Once again, Laura and Yaz you're reviews are amazing! Thank you! What do you think about Kathy Gustafson being the/an unknown friend sending them clues, because of her knowledge of wizardville, also knowing maybe more then we expect about Maddy's underlying mission (because of Dominique), and maybe she's more team Tattoo squad ), because Dominique was killed.. due to Maddy's relentless, hell bent mission, and Kathy wishes to avenge his death? Do you think it also could be more than one "freind"?

L: Thank you! We're so glad that you enjoy the reviews. Kathy is an interesting suggestion. I think that if she wanted to avenge Dominic's death, though, she would be more likely to go after Jane and Kurt, the people who actually shot him than Madeline. But who knows? She's crazy as a loon!

Y: Yeah… Kathy is probably one of the most unpredictable wild cards on the show right now. We know she hates Rich and Patterson… well actually… I am not sure if she’s madly in love with them or hates them with every ounce of her soul but it’s a weird mixture of both. Come to think of it… it’s strange that we haven’t heard from her or of her yet this season. Neither Madeline nor the team have brought her up and it’s strange. But honestly, my preference is anyone other than Kathy. She has not earned it to be the team’s mysterious friend. I do not necessarily think that friend is one of the good guys, but it’s at least someone who has earned that cool job and Kathy isn’t it. I’m sorry but I am not a huge fan of Kathy and just want her to be sent back to jail.

#blindspot #replies

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more--than--anything · 4 years

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Episode Review: "These people are all the family I have now." [S05E05]

Instead of asking how you liked the episode this week, we should just ask... Are you okay??

Y: I don’t think I have ever been this not okay. I don’t know when I’ll ever get even close to being okay after this.

L: Same. That hurt on pretty much every level. And we ran out of chocolate halfway through.

Let’s start with the case of the week, which wasn’t so much of a case as it was a massive round of “panic in the bunker.” How does Team Bunker rally to save their captured and wounded teammates?

L: As is often the case, this episode feels like it starts just moments after the last one ended (although there was apparently time for Jane to take the train back to the bunker with a bullet hole in her side; I guess public transportation is full of bizarre sights all around the globe). The team immediately sets to work trying to locate Weller, once again hampered by normal people computers. But Ivy’s people are very good at what they do, and the SUV they speed off in is careful to avoid traffic cameras. The team is forced to deal with the idea that they might not be able to find Kurt before Ivy tortures their location out of him, but before they can seriously consider leaving the bunker, Jane collapses, and the team realizes that her idea of a “graze” is more like a normal person’s “get my affairs in order” wound.

No one in the bunker feels confident about the idea of operating on Jane to remove the bullet, but she refuses to go to a hospital with Kurt still in Ivy’s clutches, so the team preps her for surgery (and by “preps” we mean Patterson gathers medical supplies from their rather impressive stockpile while Rich freaks out). And then we get a totally awkward moment in which, despite Rich’s desperate attempts at deflection, Tasha is cornered into admitting that even though she is the only person in the bunker with the right blood type, she can’t donate blood for Jane because she is pregnant. Talk about a pregnant pause. Tasha insists that it’s okay, she’ll donate in spite of the risk, but Jane flatly refuses to let her. And then, proving that she is every bit the badass we think she is, Jane proceeds to direct Patterson through the surgery to remove the bullet as she watches in a strategically-placed mirror. I’m not particularly squeamish, but I am not going to lie; this whole scene had me curled up in the fetal position. Patterson gets the bullet out, but Jane passes out, and just as Tasha is about to donate blood anyway, Rich shows up clutching an Igloo cooler with a bag of blood for Jane.

Not to be outdone, Patterson proves that she almost as badass as Jane by completing the surgery and immediately continuing the search for Kurt. Ivy’s team ditched the SUV, but there were only four roads out of the location where it was found, and two of those roads are washed out. Tasha’s had enough of being treated like glass, so she grabs a gun and heads out to Germany to be ready to follow up on whatever lead Patterson has by then. Patterson and Rich don’t let her down; they figure out the likely route the Dabbur Zann would have taken and locate an abandoned machine shop along the way. They send the info to Tasha so she can collect their stubbly, drugged up, emotionally destroyed friend. And again, I’m wondering exactly how they got back to Prague on the train, but I suppose people around them not-incorrectly assumed Kurt was just going through detox and gave them a wide berth.

So this week’s case was less a case than it was damage control. And the damage wasn’t too bad, all things considered. Jane is recovering from her bullet wound. Their location is still more or less secure. Ivy and company are still alive and know that the team is squirreled away in a European bunker, but it’s still not going to be easy to find them. Bethany is out of the hospital and has disappeared underground again with Allie. And in the meantime, the team has the footage from Ivy’s camera that Kurt swiped on his way out that gives them a cell phone number that Ivy called before she began torturing Kurt. It’s a small clue, but it’s something, so today seems like another mark in the win column.

But this is Blindspot, and we can’t end on an upbeat note. Just as our team is able to take a deep breath and relax, their old buddy Ice Cream and compatriots burst into the bunker and demand that Rich hand over the Gardner paintings. Which of course he doesn’t have. So you know what that means: We get a heist next week!

And honestly, I’m all for it. That will be much easier on my nerves!

Y: It’s really hard to determine whether this week was a loss or a win for our team. So far this season, their losses have outweighed their wins and even when it was a win, it still managed to carry some feeling of loss with it. Unfortunately, with Madeline things are proving a lot harder than ever before. And that is for many reasons. Madeline plays way more outside the box than anyone else. Her endgame is so unclear. And on top of that, the team is playing with more disadvantages than anyone can be comfortable with—they’re a man down, they’re being hunted by every law enforcement agency in the world, and they don’t have access to their favorite toys or their strongest allies.

Another disadvantage is that the team is still playing defense against Madeline. With such limited access to intel, all they can do now is attempt to block anything she’s trying to do. I don’t know how they can do so, but to cause serious damage against her they need to start playing offense.

But anyway, back to this episode. Stopping the chemicals from getting into Dabbur Zann’s hands was definitely a win. And tracking the phone number they got from the surveillance footage is definitely a win. It finally gives them a window into what Ivy and her team are doing.

The one thing that is questionable as to what column it belongs is Ivy surviving this week. I’m going to try and be the glass half full person here and say it might not end up as bad as we fear. Yes, it keeps Ivy in the game and now she has one piece of information she can work with when it comes to tracking the team. But Ivy surviving this might also be bad news for her. She had Kurt Weller right there and lost him. And we know how Madeline feels about people who fail her.

She’s not a big fan of them. So who knows... maybe Ivy failing at this mission will be too much for Maddie to swallow?

Although as much as I hate her, I think she’s a formidable opponent, and I’d like to see her stick around a little longer. Mostly just to see the team take her down properly.

Even in the face of multiple crises, our team continues to cope with their personal turmoils as best they can. But what does all this mean to their family dynamic?

Y: This team... this team is everything. We know this team is capable of doing things that are beyond amazing. They save the world on a daily basis and do it in style. But whenever the case is saving one of their own, they turn that dial up and become infinitely more amazing than they are on a typical workday. We’ve seen this happening since day one. It’s not a new thing.

So what happens when it’s two of their own who need saving?

Magic. Pure magic.

Seriously, what the team was able to accomplish this week is right up there with stopping Shepherd and Sandstorm from nuking the East Coast. And for the sake of shaking things up, let’s start with Patterson this week. And the reason for that is while once again we saw Patterson be brilliant, we also had a rare glimpse of Patterson portraying some “intellectual” vulnerability.

I loved that moment when Patterson pauses and admits that she’s not confident enough to perform the surgery—that despite usually giving off an air of being good at everything, this just might be the line where Patterson’s expertise stops.

And I have a feeling that put in the same situation under any other circumstances, Patterson wouldn’t have hesitated as much. I think part of what made her take a step back is the fact that she’s having to perform surgery on Jane—one of their own. I honestly believe that Patterson does possess the basic know-how of how to perform this surgery. But I think that was outweighed by the fear of anything happening to Jane on the operating table and the fact that Kurt is out there most definitely being tortured by the Dabbur Zan. We got to see Patterson’s heart overpower her mind for once.

But the minute Jane’s out of danger and Patterson’s back where she’s most comfortable—behind her computer—she’s back to being that confident badass genius we know her to be.

L: It’s not that often that we hear Patterson say something like, “I honestly don’t think we can do this.” She is always certain that they can think of a way out, and she is usually the one who comes up with the solution that saves the day. But operating on Jane sends her way outside of her comfort zone, and frankly, watching Patterson, I think I was as tense as she was. But I also loved the way Jane kept reassuring her, telling her that she could do this and giving her the confidence to go on. There is something about the friendship between these women and how they support each other that is just so awesome.

My read on Patterson this week was that she definitely did not feel confident in operating on Jane, but she knew that Jane wasn’t going to go to the hospital, so if Jane was going to survive then it was up to Patterson to do it. And Patterson being Patterson, she more than rises to the occasion. And I think some of that goes back to that “birth of a leader” moment we talked about in the season 4 finale. It’s not just that Patterson is smart; there are plenty of people out there who are extremely smart but are far more comfortable to fade into the background and let others take the lead. But Patterson isn’t going to ask anyone else to shoulder the responsibility for Jane’s survival. Like any good leader, she steps up to shoulder the risk herself. In some ways, she was protecting Tasha and Rich—if the outcome was bad, she would be the one to carry the blame, not them. And then Jane one-ups her, by taking the decision out of Patterson’s hands to relieve her of that burden. Again, these women!!

But even worse than the surgery, I think that finding out about Tasha’s pregnancy—and that Rich was in on the secret but she was not—was the biggest trauma for Patterson in this episode. We’ve commented before that the friendship between Tasha and Patterson never really recovered from Tasha concealing Borden’s role with the CIA. And while keeping the information about Borden from Patterson was a mistake in retrospect, I do understand Tasha’s position: Tasha Zapata is fiercely loyal to the people she loves. And she expected that Patterson would know that and would understand that if Tasha kept something from her, it was to protect her from being hurt. But Patterson, of course, saw it as an unforgivable betrayal. And although I do think that by now Patterson has more or less gotten past that, in the shocked moment after she found out about Tasha’s pregnancy, I think she finally realized that Tasha hadn’t ever really gotten over Patterson’s lack of trust in her. And frankly, I don’t think she really considered that before. I think she was too overwhelmed by her own pain to see that Tasha might have been hurt by the way Patterson cut her out of her life.

So yes, it made total sense for Patterson to reach out to Tasha with love and concern and support, to try to overcome that breach—but unfortunately, Tasha was really not ready to deal with any of that.

Y: Patterson is also terribly socially awkward because Patterson trying to convey to Tasha that she’s there for her and she supports her through what she’s going through was just so... beautifully awkward. But we really can’t put all the blame on Patterson because Tasha isn’t making it any easy for people to be there for her. Because in her words, Tasha doesn’t do feelings. Also in her words, Tasha likes it better when they all had their secrets.

That line cracked me up, as did the whole scene leading up to Tasha blurting out the news of her pregnancy. We talked last week about how the pregnancy can serve as a motivation for Tasha to keep fighting and as a force that helps ground her and help her focus. But to be fair to Tasha, it’s easy for us to put all that in words. It would have been unrealistic for Tasha to just flip a switch from one episode to another—especially when they’re separated by just a few hours—and be all perfectly fine with it all. I appreciate that they are making Tasha struggle with this information. It’s normal for anyone, especially for someone like Tasha and given... everything, to not be sure where she stands or how she feels or what exactly she’s supposed to do now.

The team is supportive and showing her all the love and encouragement that they can. But it’s understandable that she feels suffocated right now. It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate everything they’re offering but it’s all so... overwhelming and terrifying. And Tasha is the kind of person who handles her things alone, in private, and doesn’t share until it’s absolutely necessary. So let’s just give her the space and time she needs and she’ll be okay. I know she will.

L: You know this season is tough when Jane gets shot, Kurt gets tortured, and Tasha still gets put through the wringer during a single episode.

I have to say, I totally get Patterson’s urge to want to surround Tasha with love and concern. But I also understand why that is the very last thing Tasha is ready for right now. And it might be the most honest Tasha has been since the start of this season when she says, “I appreciate your support. Everybody’s support. But I’m getting a little tired of all of the love and concern. You want to support me? Stop telling me how to feel and give me a second to figure out how I feel.”

Think about the confusing mess swirling around inside Tasha right now. Reade is dead; he is the one she wants here with her. Before Reade, she wasn’t sure she could even manage to maintain a relationship with another adult. Taking care of a kid is a crazy level of commitment way beyond that. In 2.15, she told Jane that her grandmother “tells me my ovaries are dying.” I’m not sure Tasha has ever given much thought to having kids, except maybe to think that it wasn’t for her.

But now she’s got a kid on the way, and she’s got Patterson being so determinedly happy about it, only it’s not happening to Patterson’s body, it’s happening to Tasha’s. Pregnancy is a risk for a normal woman, with regular access to prenatal care. But for a woman on the run, living in hiding, and engaging in almost-daily firefights with evil henchmen who want to kill her, where even the slightest slowing of her reflexes could mean certain death? Make no mistake, deciding to keep this baby would be a huge risk for Tasha, and it’s clear that she hasn’t really decided to take that risk yet and commit to having a child. And even if she does decide to go through with it, and even if they do survive this fight and clear their names... then what? Her line of work isn’t really conducive to single motherhood. How could she juggle a baby and a career like the one she had?

So for now, you can’t really blame Tasha for not wanting to think about any of that. She is, like Jane, a very practical person who deals with the crisis in front of her. And right now, that crisis is Jane. And if she can solve this crisis by donating blood to Jane, then, well, as she tells them, “It is my risk to take, and I say it’s fine.” That’s the kind of friend Tasha Zapata is. This pregnancy might not be quite real to her yet, but Jane is real, and she is one of the tiny group of people that Tasha calls family, and if Jane needs blood, then Tasha is gonna give her blood, no matter what she stands to lose as a result. Jane refuses to let her donate, but when Tasha thinks that they are losing Jane, her immediate response is, “Screw it, we’re out of time. Prep me for a transfusion.” Honestly, Tasha Zapata is the kind of friend we all want but very, very few of us will get.

But there is a little bit of irony here. This is the second time that we’ve seen Jane get shot in the gut, and the first time was at Tasha’s hands. So you have to wonder if Tasha is remembering that now and realizing what Jane went through last time. No, I don’t think that’s why she was willing to offer up her blood, but if Jane had taken her up on the offer, I am sure it would have alleviated the guilt Tasha likely still harbors about shooting Jane in season 2.

And when you think about it.... everyone surrounding Jane at the operating table has been shot. Tasha was shot during the Sandstorm raid on the NYO. Patterson was shot in the gut by Borden. Rich was shot in foot by Weller. But Jane, ever the overachiever, was shot first in the pilot (well, okay, that one really was a graze), then by Tasha, and has now moved on to the bonus round. Can they please hurry up and defeat Madeline before the rest of the team plays catch up?!

But of all of the Tasha scenes in this episode (every one of which Audrey Esparza knocked out of the park), my favorite might be the scene with Kurt at the end, when she meets up with him after Ivy has tortured him. Kurt is drugged out of his mind and still doesn’t know what’s real, and he thinks that she is Ivy in another hallucination. He points his gun at Tasha, and in much the same way as she is willing to risk her baby to donate blood for Jane, she stands there in front of his gun and carefully talks him down from that edge to convince him to go with her. “How do I know the right thing to do?” Kurt asks her. “You can’t,” Tasha tells him, “You need to trust me. You need to take a leap of faith.” And that, more than anything, is what this season is all about. Every member of this team has to trust each other, and they all have to take that leap of faith that they are doing the right thing, because that is the only way they are all going to get through this.

And Tasha might have to take an even bigger leap of faith than the rest of them as she decides what to do about her pregnancy.

Y: And last but certainly not least, we have Rich Dotcom. Another episode, another opportunity for Rich to be the incredible character we’ve watched him become. For starters, he’s the only one to react normally to the plan to perform surgery on Jane in the bunker—and that is to completely freak out and panic because that idea is cuckoo bananas. Seriously, you know things aren’t right when Rich is the one thinking straight and being logical. But I guess this is the season for things to not make sense. Madeline is the savior of the FBI and our team are terrorists. So Rich being the sensible one fits right into that formula I guess.

But what Rich has been especially good at this season is being an amazing friend and protecting his team at all costs. And we saw that, in all the Rich awkwardness and hilarity, when he tries to keep Tasha’s secret while also trying to stop her from making a stupid decision and endangering her unborn child. Rich bends backwards with ridiculous excuses and is willing to make a fool of himself just to protect his friend and keep her safe.

And then he takes it one step further and saves his other friend. Rich manages to protect Tasha and save Jane—and later plays his part in locating Kurt. Rich takes a huge risk, he knows it, but he’s not going to let Tasha endanger her life or Jane lose hers. And of course Rich has been in town a few months but he already has a blood guy!! Unfortunately, a guy who can hook you up with human blood in under thirty minutes has to be a shady guy. And unfortunately, shady guys usually hang around with other shady guys. No one can really blame Rich for what this all leads to—for his blood guy leading Ice Cream to the team. And honestly, the price paid is worth it when the alternative was Tasha or Jane’s lives. The team has dealt with people far more dangerous than Ice Cream, so they can handle him. The only real problem is him leading anyone else to them and the time they’re going to waste getting those paintings—time better spent fighting Madeline.

L: I absolutely adore Rich in his new role as the team’s secret-keeper. You have to love the way he scrambles so hard to find a reason to explain why Tasha can’t donate blood without giving her secret away. As long as we’ve known Rich, he’s been the guy with no filter, blurting out whatever inappropriate thought tumbles into his mind. The discretion he’s shown Tasha—even when Patterson asked him directly in the last episode—is all the more special because we know how hard this must be for him; he is going against all of his natural instincts to try to protect this secret for her.

And then the way he scrambles to find another solution to their problem. For all that he pretended not to know “what’s her name,” he knows there is no question that Tasha will sacrifice herself and/or her child for Jane. So to protect her from having to do that, he puts himself at risk instead by leaving the bunker to contact someone locally who can get him the blood that they need. And, yes, this put him and the team at risk, showing that their location was somewhere near enough that a cooler of blood can be transported in time to be useful, but Rich is willing to stick his neck out to save both Jane and Tasha.

Yeah, our favorite criminal is all grown up.

Jane’s been through a lot over the years. Even getting shot isn’t a new experience for her. But this week pushes her to her physical and emotional limits. How does she take charge, even while laying flat on her back?

Y: Jane Doe took being Jane Doe to a whole new level this week. Sure, she somehow spent most of the episode lying down but it was probably one of the toughest episodes for her. And also we have to give credit to Jaimie here because, again, while she may have spent most of it lying down, she took Jane to places, both emotionally and mentally, that she’d never been before.

Jane Doe is strong. Honestly, that’s the one word that keeps coming back to me. She’s strong. Not just physically strong. And not just strong for herself. Jane has a kind of strength that makes the people around her strong. A strength that can lift others up when needed. A strength that shines through when she’s at her weakest.

And that’s the best part of it. Physically, this episode saw Jane at close to the weakest we’ve seen her. And emotionally, she wasn’t doing so great either. And yet she managed to pull through, she managed to be a great leader, a great friend, and a great wife. It reminded me a lot of when she was buried alive and still managed to help the team locate her and rescue her. Jane Doe is a lot of things, but she’s never a damsel in distress.

Jane arrives at the bunker with a bullet in her gut but insists that the priority is finding Kurt whom she watched get shoved into the trunk of Ivy’s SUV. And she continues to deny her own injury until she can’t anymore because she passes out from blood loss. Her behavior here is a great parallel to season one when Kurt was running around New York with a punctured jugular trying to find Jane who had gone missing. Another parallel to that episode is the faith Jane has that Kurt won’t lead Ivy back to the bunker; instead her fear is that Ivy will kill Kurt when she realizes he won’t break. Similarly, Kurt had faith back in season one that Jane was not running away but was in fact protecting the team.

In this episode, Jane knows how critical her condition is, but like the true leader and the true friend that she is, she flat out refuses to let Tasha give her blood when the truth of Tasha’s pregnancy is revealed. Jane is firm in her decision. She leaves no room for negotiation on the matter and makes it clear that her decision is final. I loved the juxtaposition between Jane’s pale, tired features and her confidence and strength of character and decision—that’s the leader we’ve seen evolving all season.

But then, after that firm leadership moment, Jane and Tasha share a sweeter, gentler moment. After making her stand as a leader, Jane becomes the supportive friend, the one who is happy for her friend but also understands her hesitation and her fears. She also understands that maybe this, what they’re doing, isn’t what Tasha wants to do right now. She understands that the pregnancy can be a trigger that changes Tasha’s goals and motives right now and she offers that point of view that undoubtedly has crossed Tasha’s mind. I loved that moment because it might have seemed like Jane was suggesting the selfish option here but it’s also the safe option. It’s the option that could ensure that this child is born in a safe place and in circumstances not like the crazy ones that they are living through. It may have sounded selfish, but it came from nothing but love for Tasha.

Another incredible moment for Jane—that blended both leadership and friendship—and gave us what I think is my favorite “Blindspot ladies” scene of all time, is when Patterson admits that despite her all around brilliance, performing surgery in a dirty bunker with limited supplies isn’t really one of her strengths. And Tasha chimes in to admit that she too cannot really do this despite having some medical field training. Once again, Jane is clearly in so much pain and terrified, but she digs deep and finds unbelievable strength to lift her friends up. She gives them strength and confidence and faith in their capabilities and then she grits her teeth and talks them through the whole surgery.

And then, as they’re ready to finish up and she knows they don’t need her help anymore, she makes them promise they will find her husband, and then asks for permission to pass out.

L: Holy crap, but is Jane the most badass ninja goddess you ever saw or what?! Sure, let me travel an hour or more with a bullet in my gut so I can get back to my secret underground lair and focus on finding my husband. Just another day in the life, right? Oh, Jane. And I mean, yes, sure, this isn’t her first gunshot to the gut. But still. Undergoing surgery without anesthesia is badass. But directing that surgery via mirror? Give this girl all the badass awards ever.

But that’s the thing about Jane; she’s not just a superhero. She’s also a badass human being. We mentioned above the way she took ultimate responsibility for the surgery, to alleviate the burden of guilt from Patterson’s shoulders if it didn’t go well.

And then there was that amazing scene with Tasha. “I know we’re big on ‘All for one and one for all’ around here,” Jane tells her, “but no one would fault you for just disappearing, having this baby somewhere safe, if that’s if that’s even what you want to do.” Think about what she’s saying to Tasha here: First, that she would understand if Tasha just wanted to run away and focus on keeping herself and her baby safe, even if it meant leaving the team behind—and let’s be honest, this team is tiny and desperately needs every single one of them if they have any hope of survival. So what Jane is saying is that she wouldn’t try to talk Tasha into putting her baby at risk even if meant dooming their cause. Which is exactly in line with what she said earlier, when she refused to allow Tasha to put herself at risk by giving Jane blood, even if meant that she might die. How many friends are you truly willing to die for?

But I think the second part of her statement is just as important. “If that’s even what you want to do.” Unlike Rich and Patterson, who both leapt to the assumption that Tasha was going to have this baby, Jane is telling Tasha that she understands it’s a choice Tasha needs to make and that Tasha might not have made it yet. That’s kind of huge. Yes, these are modern women, but Jane is the only one to voice this. She’s telling Tasha that it’s okay if Tasha decides not to go through with the pregnancy. If the risk is too great, if it’s just not a burden she can carry, literally or figuratively. She’s telling Tasha that she’s here for her either way, that she will respect and support Tasha whatever she decides. Friendship without judgment is what Jane is showing here.

For an episode that spends more than half of its screen time torturing Kurt, the theme of this episode seems to be more about friendships between women. Which probably explains why we love this show So. Freaking. Much.

Kurt Weller has had more than one “not good” week since the start of this season. But I think it’s fair to say this one probably made his top ten list of “worst weeks ever.” What does it take for our favorite special agent to survive Ivy’s special treatment?

Y: It took all of him! It took everything from him!!

And yes, that is a Kurt Weller quote from season one. And I am very proud of myself for using it.

And I’ll hand it over to L for now and come back later when it has stopped raining on my face.

L: I am not sure I have ever hated a fictional character as much as I hated Ivy while I was watching this episode. But I have to give her credit. She’s horrible, but she’s very good at sizing her victims up. She figures out almost immediately that the threat of physical pain isn’t going to get her anywhere with our favorite tough guy, so she immediately shifts gears and goes for emotional pain instead. First she shows Kurt a picture of Jane collapsing from her gunshot and then offers to get her “best medical attention the American prison system can buy.” (Can we just give a shout out to Jane here? Seeing Jane injured can’t possibly be easy on Kurt, but imagine how much worse it would have hurt him if they’d parted still angry at each other.) Then she hints that Bethany is in danger. And then, having planted her evil seeds, she heads out to leave Kurt on his own and see what terrors take root.

So what darkness lurks in the shadows of Kurt Weller’s mind? We saw Shepherd torture Patterson in 2.10, and that was really, really rough. But it turns out there’s something worse than watching a character you love being physically tortured, and that’s watching one be tortured by their own subconscious, by their own deepest and darkest fears. This was as excruciating to watch as it was for Kurt to endure it. I can’t decide if I should give the writers kudos or send them the bill for the therapy I need after watching this.

In Kurt’s drug-induced delirium, we get an angst-ridden version of A Christmas Carol, in which Kurt is visited by the “ghosts” of his past (his father), his present (Oscar), and his future (grown-up Bethany). Oscar shows up first, to warn Kurt that he won’t be able to keep from divulging the team’s location by hiding behind his “bigger fears and anxieties.” So what are those fears? First and most obvious: that the team won’t win. “The bad guys never do, trust me. And like it or not, as far as the world’s concerned, you’re on the other side now,” Oscar tells him. Next: That he will accidentally reveal the team’s location to Ivy and Madeline. Then Oscar reminds him of his role in the events that lead to Reade’s death, as well as Mayfair’s and Pellington’s. Just as we saw in Jane’s nightmares, Kurt carries guilt that his actions contributed to those deaths... and the fear that he will cause the deaths of other members of his team. Digging even deeper, Oscar points out the one point that we know has been bothering Kurt since the team set out on the run: By becoming a shadowy group trying to bring down those in power, Kurt has essentially become the very thing that he hates, the thing he’s spent his whole career (and the past four seasons) fighting. “Have you ever once considered that you may be on the wrong side of history here?”

Kurt’s subconscious masquerading as Oscar keeps pushing, telling him that Kurt was just a mark to Jane, that she set out to destroy him and the team and has succeeded. Now do we think that Kurt really thinks that Jane is just manipulating him? Of course not. What’s really going on here becomes clear when Oscar taunts him, “You really think you’re that special? That someone could love you that much?” Kurt doesn’t doubt Jane’s love, he doubts his own lovability. His father was an alcoholic, his mother walked out on him, every relationship he had before Jane—including with his child’s mother—failed. How could Jane love him, when no one else could? Ouch.

And when that doesn’t break him, Oscar goes in for the kill, putting Bethany, complete with hospital bracelet and gown, in Kurt’s arms. “She’s just a little girl. If you give up the team... They’ll let her go.” (My daughter decided to watch with us this week, and I’m pretty sure that my husband was hugging the crap out of her at this point, while she quietly polished off my chocolate.) And then both Bethany and Oscar are gone and Ivy is back, gloating that Kurt revealed that his team was in a bunker (he also revealed that his daughter was in a hospital in St. Louis, which for some reason doesn’t seem as important to Ivy, although I would think that would give her more leverage on Kurt than just about anything else) and also that she made him cry. Bitch.

Y: Man, Ivy is really good at her job, isn’t she? I really hope Madeline’s paying her fairly for all her efforts. Not that I’m on Team Ivy or anything, but I’d like to think that, as a woman who’s really good at her job, she’s getting her worth on payday.

Blindspot loves to occasionally take us deep into a character’s subconscious, and last season’s venture into Jane’s remains one of my favorite episodes of all time. And this episode and the trip we take through Kurt’s has already found its place near the top of my list as well.

It’s always interesting to see how a person sees themselves and compare it to how everyone else sees them. We always knew Kurt had fears and ghosts and that there are some things about himself that he sees in ways the rest of us don’t see in him. And it’s those fears that are always there driving him and pushing him, and though he might not always be aware of them, they have their roots digging deep into him.

The choice of “ghosts” who visit him in his hallucinations is quite interesting. To be honest, Oscar is the last person I expected to show up but now that I think of it, he kind of makes sense. I would’ve assumed we could have seen Shepherd or Roman as those representing something from Jane’s past—and a lot of what Oscar does say to him could have been easily be relayed by either Shepherd or Oscar. Everything about him being on the wrong side of history could’ve been said by Shepherd or Roman—and to some extent, Shepherd has already said that to him when she tied him to a chair in season. She’d also taunted him about the two of them being the same. She also threw in the seed that Jane had been designed for him when it was his turn to interrogate her.

But I liked that it was Oscar who showed up because it was unexpected and the way I see it, and based on his final showdown with Ivy, Kurt was still somehow in control and I think using Oscar instead of Shepherd or Roman, allowed him to keep some sort of distance between him and the ghost… if that makes any sense. And moreover, Oscar can taunt him about Jane and his relationship with her in ways that neither Shepherd or Roman could. But what is important here are the fears that come to the surface. These are things we always knew Kurt carried with him but I guess we never got to see the extent of how much they weighed him down and how much they haunted him. L broke them down perfectly: his morality and his place on the good/evil spectrum, his role in the deaths of those closest to him, his lovability or just how much he deserves to be loved, and finally his competence as a father.

Those are four heavy blows and they do manage to hit Kurt hard but still he manages to find the strength to push them away, or at least push through them and withstand that first round. And once again we bid farewell to Oscar… only for him to be replaced by the one character whom I hate the most. L, feel free to hate Ivy all you want, I’ve dedicated all my hate to this monster. Bill Weller.

L: As you well know, I am no fan of Bill Weller (obligatory FUBW!). He shows up as the ghost from Kurt’s past. We might have expected to see Taylor here as the ghost who has haunted Kurt throughout his life, but what really haunts Kurt isn’t Taylor as much as it is his own failure to protect her. “I think you wanted me to kill her,” Bill tells Kurt. “I did everything I could to keep her away, and you did everything you could to keep her around. I fought, and I fought, and you wore me down.” As with Mayfair and Pellington, Kurt blames himself for Taylor’s death. If he hadn’t befriended Taylor, she wouldn’t have been in his father’s orbit, and she wouldn’t have died. And I guess this is as close as we will ever get to knowing what really happened the night Taylor died. We don’t really know if young Kurt picked up on his father’s interest in Taylor or if adult Kurt believes that he should have, but the outcome is the same either way; Kurt believes the blame lies with him for failing to keep Taylor safe. And then Bill gets to the crux of the matter: Kurt’s deepest fear is that inside of him, just like his father, lies a killer. And the camera pans back, so we can see all of the people that Kurt killed over the years in the course of his job. (We should point out, especially in light of current events, that if it really was that many people, he would have spent most of his FBI career under investigation and probably would have been fired long before Jane Doe appeared in Times Square. But this is Blindspot, where the body count is always high.)

Y: This part of the hallucination just absolutely destroyed me. I think this was the hardest part to watch. The Oscar part shared some fears and insecurities that we either knew about or that were circumstantial in some ways. Kurt’s on the wrong side of the law right now because he’s been forced there, and it’s based on lies and is something they can undo when they take down Madeline. And Kurt is separated from Bethany also due to their current circumstances when we all know that just a few weeks ago they were planning their move to Colorado to be close to her again. And even what Oscar—Kurt’s subconscious—says about him and Jane, Kurt himself is quick to deny. His faith in their relationship and their love is strong, even if some nagging insecurities will always exist. And the next part with grown up Bethany is all imaginary, a huge What If that doesn’t really have anything concrete to back it up.

But the thing with his dad... that was a little too much for me to watch. On the one hand, Bill Weller’s face alone makes me sick to my stomach. And we have to stop here and give Jay O. Sanders so much credit for just how damn good he is. He terrifies me. Absolutely terrifies with just how good he is. So we had to see Bill. We heard him talk. We heard him taunt Kurt—and not just grown up Kurt but also ten-year-old Kurt—and it was just a little too much. And then we saw him hold Taylor’s hand with her grave dug up behind them. And she was wearing those boots and holding her doll.

And since when was Blindspot a show that gave me nightmares?

Everything about this part of the episode was so perfectly done. The writing was flawless. The acting was spectacular—I mean, Sullivan Stapleton playing ten-year-old Kurt? Phenomenal. And the music and production design and the visual effects… Everything. Was. Perfect.

Linda was not mentioned here, but I am always thinking of the fact that before she left, Kurt’s mother told him he was just like his father. And now we see how Kurt sees his father. This is the monster that Kurt sees. And this is the image he has of himself. And this is heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking. Because we know Kurt Weller is anything but like that. He is everything his father was not. When all those dead people step out and surround Kurt… that was a chilling moment. And again, seeing how Kurt sees himself was so interesting because here we are always referring to him as the show’s moral compass, and then we see what he sees and it’s heartbreaking. No wonder this man rarely smiles. He’s walking around with all these demons, all this weight on his shoulders and this horrible image of himself that he is never going to be worthy of anything good, that whatever good he tries to do will never make up for the evil he brings onto the world, and that in the end none of it matters because he is inherently a horrible monster.

Excuse me, but I now have to go cry again.

L: Have some more chocolate. Kurt has a lot of painful baggage, and it’s almost as painful for us to unpack as it was for him to face it!

Kurt worrying that he is like his father leads us in perfectly to Kurt’s final ghost, in the form of the young female guard keeping watch over Weller. Weller tries to appeal to her, promising to keep her safe (although as we have noted, he has no real way to do that). She tells Weller that her parents told her the same thing, right before they left and never came back. They were killed fighting the American government. “When they died, I had nothing. No one. These people are all the family I have now.” Her message is lost on Kurt at first, but then he realizes that she is a grown-up Bethany. “After you died, I was so angry. I was so lost. I read and watched everything I could find about you. All these horrible things people said you did. I hated you. But then the Dabbur Zann found me. And they told me the truth... that it was America that was rotten, that my father was a hero who died trying to change things.” And there it is. Last week, we saw Kurt agonizing over what Bethany thinks about him and why’s he’s a fugitive now. As much as Kurt fears something happening to Bethany, he fears even more letting her down the same way his father let him down. “All I’ve ever wanted is to be just like you,” she tells him in her Dabbur Zann uniform. Just like Kurt.... and just like Bill Weller and all the very worst things Kurt believes of himself, a horrifying family tradition.

There’s another fear there, hiding behind the big one, that we see when Bethany tells Kurt that her parents were killed, not just her father. Even if she did see Jane as a second mother, Bethany wouldn’t have been truly alone if Kurt and Jane died—unless Allie is killed too, another name to put on the list with Reade and Mayfair, people whose deaths Kurt can blame himself for. Yes, Allie is a US Marshal, and yes, she is smart and strong and capable. But she’s human and could be killed as easily as Kurt or any other member of the team, leaving Bethany utterly alone in the world without a protector.

Unfortunately, unlike Scrooge, Kurt doesn’t come to any happy realizations as a result of his visitors. But he does find the presence of mind to tell Ivy he was playing her as much as she was messing with him to give the team time to abandon the bunker and move to a new location, as well as lying to her about where his daughter was. Ivy can’t tell if that’s the truth any more than Kurt can tell what’s real anymore, but he does still remember how to fight, so when Ivy lashes out, he’s able to use that to his advantage and knock her out. With his father’s words still ringing in his mind, he holds a gun over her but doesn’t shoot. And just as with Scarface in the season premiere, I feel like this might have been a mistake. Yes, Kurt keeps his conscience clear for the moment, but that’s not going to be much comfort if Ivy goes on to kill some member of the team or the FBI Resistance later on.

Or maybe this show is just making me really bloodthirsty. I can’t rule that out.

There is no question that Kurt is shaken by his experiences, even after his hallucinogenic cocktail wears off. And I suppose that’s the thing about deepest fears; it is easy to pretend they aren’t there when they are shoved down in a dark corner. But it’s much harder to escape them when they’ve been dragged out into the light, and you’ve been forced to look at them. If we thought Kurt was struggling with acting outside the law at the start of the season, it’s only going to be harder for him to stomach what they’re doing now. Which is going to put them at a real disadvantage, because Ivy and her team have shown that they have absolutely zero hesitation about doing whatever it takes to get the job done, no matter how illegal or immoral. I think the soul-searching Kurt is doing now is going to continue, not just while the team continues to work to bring Ivy down, but into whatever life he and Jane decide to craft for themselves once they’re done. Which they will be able to do, because if there is one thing that we learned about Kurt Weller in this episode (no matter what he may believe) it is that he won’t bend and he won’t break until they’re all home safe and sound again.

Y: Don’t mind me. I’m still curled up here in the corner crying. Because even after all this, Kurt still manages to protect his team, still protects Bethany, still outsmarts Ivy, even though putting himself through all this shatters him mentally and emotionally, and at the end, he chooses to do what he believes is the right thing to do. He’s strong. So unbelievably strong and that strength has never shined as bright as it did in this episode when he was at his absolute weakest.

And this man is not just a good man. He is absolutely incredible. A beautiful soul and a righteous man and a good man.

Yup, you got it. Gonna go cry some more now.

All marriages have their challenges, but most marriages don’t involve torture and bullet wounds, especially not in the same day. How does our favorite couple fight for each other and their relationship when so many things are working against them?

L: If you are a new watcher to this show or if you had any question about the depth of the level of commitment between Kurt and Jane, this episode should be enough to convince you that these two love each other so much that they will do basically anything to keep the other safe. Jane refuses to go to a hospital or to leave the bunker, even if might mean that she dies from her gunshot wound, knowing that staying in the bunker with the equipment they have presents their best chance of rescuing Kurt. And Kurt? Well, as Jane says, she’s not worried at all about Kurt telling Ivy where they are; she is certain that he won’t. She’s more concerned that Ivy will figure out that Kurt would die before giving them up, and thus no longer have a reason to keep Kurt alive. (And frankly, I think it’s a legitimate concern; sending the team a picture of Kurt’s dead body, a la Sho Ahktar, would be a blow the team might never be able to recover from.) There is absolutely nothing more important to each other than the other’s safety, up to and including their own lives.

I absolutely adore the scene with Jane and Kurt back at the bunker at the end. It was the mirror image of the scene we saw between Kurt and Jane at the end of 2.21, when Jane was worrying that she would turn out like her mother and brother. Kurt reassured her, “We’re not our families. Jane, I know your heart. That is not who you are.” Tonight it is Kurt’s turn to worry that he, like his father, is a ruthless killer. He confesses to Jane that he wanted to kill Ivy, but as she reminds him, he didn’t. “I know who you are,” she tells him, “You’re Kurt Weller. You’re my husband. And you have fear and darkness and love and light inside of you, just like me and everyone else. And you are a good man.”

These two. For all that they are so tough and badass, able to rescue themselves against seemingly impossible odds, they still harbor the same weaknesses that all humans do. And what makes their relationship and their marriage so strong is that they are both able to be weak and vulnerable together in a way that they can’t be with anyone else. They have each other’s backs out in the field, but they also protect the fragile pieces at the heart of each other. And that in turn makes them both that much stronger.

Y: There were so many amazing parallels in this episode, both between it and previous episodes and also between Jane and Kurt. The parallels with previous episodes serve as a wonderful reminder and reinforcement that this relationship is at the heart of the show and at the heart of its mythology. And the parallels between the two of them are a reminder and reinforcement of how perfect they are for each other and of the love and commitment between them.

The parallel between the two of them and how perfectly perfect they are for each other was also incredibly shown not just through the writing and acting but also through the editing. I was blown away by the transitions between the Jane surgery scenes and the Kurt torture scenes. They were separately going through two of the most horrifying experiences they’ve had to endure but they both powered through and showed unbelievable strength and resilience, and a lot of it had to do with surviving to save and protect the other person. They also both risked so much and endured unbelievable pain to protect their team.

Their reunion scene in the bunker… that scene… well let’s just say I haven’t stopped watching it since the episode aired because it is all kinds of perfection. And by all kinds of perfection I mean—yes, there is actually a meaning behind this nonsense—is that it was perfect in its parallels to previous episodes, a perfectly sweet reunion, a perfect portrayal of these two and what their relationship represents, a perfect reflection of how important they are to each other, and a perfect moment for shippers to sob.

Like L pointed out, there was a parallel here to the scene in the cell in 2.21—from the topic of discussion, to the setting, to the dialogue and even the physical gestures they used to comfort each other. But there were also two less clear-cut parallels to earlier episodes. The first was to 1.02, after Jane has the memory of killing a nun and asks Kurt what if she was a bad person before this. He didn’t know her as well back then, but he still knew her enough, and he lists all the things he’s learned about her since she’d come out of the bag and reassures her that she is a good person.

There was a smaller parallel to Kurt’s wedding video message in 3.04, in which he tells Jane he loves the man that she makes him. This here, once again, breaks my heart. We’ve seen now the image of himself that lurks in Kurt’s subconscious. And for five seasons, we have seen in every single episode the man that Kurt strives to be, and it is just so beautiful to know that this man that he strives to be and the man he thinks he is—the one he questions in this episode—is a result of Jane being in his life. And the fact that she confirms to him that he is in fact that wonderful man is absolutely beautiful.

I think L covered pretty perfectly the part about these two being so perfect for each other, being so tough and resilient and yet when they’re together they allow themselves to be vulnerable and they expose their fears and weaknesses to each other knowing they will take care of that for one another and protect each other form the rest of the world. I just wanted to mention just how tender that dynamic is between them when Kurt is telling Jane about that moment when he wanted to kill Ivy. His so scared of what he might be, so ashamed of how he felt and so worried about what this means, that when he says it out loud, his voice is barely even a whisper. It is almost inaudible and yet Jane hears this loud and clear and she just wraps him up, she embraces him and holds him close and protects him from the whole world—even though this world is inside him—and that moment just melts my heart and soul.

That’s it from me. And you guessed it, I’m gonna go back to eating chocolate and crying.

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That’s really all we can take this week. We’re gonna go indulge in a little self-care to try to recover from this before the next episode. Drop by our Ask Box if you’re having trouble coping; we need a little fandom group therapy right now!

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: jane doe #character: kurt weller #character: patterson #character: tasha zapata #character: rich dotcom #ship: Jane/Kurt #character: oscar #character: Bill Weller #character: ivy sands

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more--than--anything · 4 years

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Episode Review: "Do you realize how many times this team has saved the world?" [S05E04]

This week, we see our team trying to make progress in the present, while also taking a painful stroll down memory lane—and that was even before the shocker at the end. How are we doing after that wild ride?

Y: Every week, I say to myself, okay, this was painful so next week has to get better. And every week I discover I am a fool. Such a big dumb fool because it only gets more painful.

L: I cannot keep eating so much chocolate. It just isn’t good for me. And the next episode looks like it’s going to require another truckload!

When we last saw our team, they had discovered Madeline was planning to set off a chemical bomb. But figuring things out in the present requires a trip into the past. How does wrangling their ghosts help our team piece this puzzle together?

L: When we last saw our team, they had discovered plans for a chemical weapon stored on a chip in the arm of a deceased Dabbur Zann member. They seemed stalled until Patterson unlocks a hidden file on the drive with a schematic that Kurt and Jane recognize as the weapon that they were supposed to steal for the Dabbur Zann in 4.07. Kurt blew it up when the terrorists tried to abscond with it, but it looks like they’ve managed to locate another one. To figure out what it is, Patterson tracks down the evidence log for the “mystery bomb,” and they discover it was logged in 2011, on Tasha’s first day at the NYO, which sends Tasha on a long and painful trip down memory lane to the day she first met and befriended Reade.

Yes, this episode had a high chocolate consumption factor. I cope by eating my feelings, don’t judge.

Tasha remembers being stuck sorting through cold case files with Reade on Jonas Fischer’s orders. Fischer is another blast from the past we loved to hate, and I’m kind of delighted to see his officious self back in the NYO. And not just because hating on him keeps us from getting too maudlin about mourning over Reade. Tasha can’t remember much about the case that caught her eye, except that a body was found in the river with traces of two poisons in his system, and only one of them was listed in the autopsy report. So she and Reade headed down to the lab to question a “random lab tech” who turns out to be an adorable baby Patterson with a Princess-Leia hairdo. She immediately hacks into the FBI systems to get the data Tasha and Reade are after. “If they wanted me to stay away from the databases, they wouldn’t make them so easy to access.” Oh, Patterson, you haven’t changed at all. Please never do!

Baby Patterson tells them that when “chemical I can’t remember” is combined with “second chemical I can’t remember” they create “one of the most devastating poison gasses on the face of the earth.” Because of course; we already know Madeline isn’t farting around here. Tasha digs harder into her memories at Weller’s urging and remembers that she and Reade interrogated a scientist whose company had something to do with those chemicals. Fischer interrupts and sends the woman on her way, and knowing what we know about Fischer, I have to wonder whose instructions he was acting on at that moment. He does mention that their interviewee “is a member of a very particular, very influential family.” Tasha recalls enough about their mystery scientist for Patterson to find a name: Kerry Coleman, who apparently vanished right around the time that Reade and Zapata questioned her. Jane recognizes her as one of the terrorists they exchanged shots with in the warehouse.

Tasha struggles to remember more (and honestly, her memory of Weller literally barking at her and Reade is hands-down my favorite moment in this episode). This time it is Jane (the team’s expert in recovering memories) who encourages her, using Earl Grey, Reade’s favorite tea, to provide a sensory trigger. Tasha powers through the painful memories and is able to remember the names of both chemicals, Chlorine12 and Phosgene517, as well as how they found the location where they were being stored, which helps Patterson figure out where Coleman and the Dabbur Zann could be storing them now. The team heads out to Decin, a town on the Czech-German border.

I love the way the camera cuts back and forth between the present and Tasha’s memories of the initial take-down, and how she envisions Reade’s tiny head nod, to tell her that she needs to go and back up her team. Pardon me, there must be something in both of my eyes. (Not to mention his, “Thank you for saving my life yesterday. I owe you one.”) Yeah, this is why we buy chocolate in the institutional-sized bags. But after all this pain and suffering, we finally get to see the Tasha that we know and love. She’s kicking butt without stopping to take names, and they take out the bad guys in a matter of moments. She’s baaaaack!

At that point, the day seems like a win. Coleman and some of her henchman escape, and presumably they still have the device, but the team secured the chemicals, and so Madeline’s plans have been thwarted at least for the moment. If the episode had ended here, there’d have been celebration all around. But Ivy Sands is nothing if not tenacious, and she and her henchmen manage to shoot Jane and take off with Kurt in their trunk, and is it time for the next episode yet? How about now? Now?

I love that once again it took the entire team (even Reade, sniff!) to solve this case, both in the present and in the past. They needed Kurt and Jane’s memories of the device, Tasha’s memories of the original case with Reade, plus Patterson and Rich’s computing power to crack this one. None of them could have done it alone. This team is so much more than the sum of its parts. All the parts are amazing, but when you put them together, you hit superhero level.

And I loved what this one line of dialogue says: “Okay, the authorities should be here soon so let’s split up, take our own path back to the bunker.” These people are on the run from every law-enforcement agency ever right now. But they are stopping the bad guys and then calling the police to let the authorities deal with the criminals through the proper legal channels—even though they know it’s possible that they may be putting themselves at risk. All because this is just the right thing to do. They may be outlaws, but they are still the good guys at heart.

We don’t visit the FBI NYO this week, but it’s probably for the best, given that Weitz is probably still sweating bullets and trying to figure out how to give Madeline what she wants before she kills any more of his coworkers. We do see that the team got the message about Briana. It’s a little less graphic than the message they received about Sho, but the content is the same: You help the team, you end up dead. On second thought, I’m a lot more worried that we didn’t see Weitz and Afreen this week. I hope that doesn’t mean they’re riding around in the trunk of Madeline’s car.

Which makes me think about Kurt again in the trunk of Ivy’s car. What is it with these people and trunks? Also, please pass the chocolate.

Y: I love a flashback case, especially in an episode that is mostly a bottle episode, and when the flashback isn’t just expository but also is part of solving the case. Everything about the structure of the episode was great, and what was absolutely brilliant was the editing and cutting between the present and the past and the way they played the parallels—especially when Tasha was guarding the back and it kept jumping to that same moment in the past but with Reade by her side.

And I have to say that as much as I would have loved to see Mayfair, I guess Jonas Fischer was a guest character worth bringing back in this farewell season, because boy do we hate this character but also John Hodgman is just so incredibly good.

No Madeline this week isn’t something I will complain about, but not checking in with our little Resistance does have me worried. I hope that the team learning about Briana doesn’t deter them from reaching out again in the future to either Weitz or Afreen. I understand that they would be worried about them but come on—Weitz has a redemption arc to complete and Afreen is a superhero just waiting for her moment to shine!

Our team isn’t fighting the way they were the last time we saw them, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all smooth sailing now. What ripples are we seeing beneath the water this week?

Y: There’s actually something very beautiful happening with the team right now. I know that pretty much everything that is happening to them is absolutely horrible and brutal and painful, but through all of it, something amazing has been happening. And isn’t that always the case, really?

One of the things the show is doing best right now is showing how people act, react, and exist in a situation like the one that the team is in. They’re in some sort of lockdown. They’re at war. They’re going through some traumatic shit. And every single day is a battle for survival. And when you’re going through something like that with a group of people, it’s not all drama all the time. You adjust and you adapt and you find ways to survive. And the writers are doing such a good job at portraying a very believable, relatable, and realistic version of this. There’s arguing and bickering. There’s humor and teasing. There’s joking and banter. There’s emotional breakdown. There’s snapping at each other. There’s getting fed up and storming out. There’s sulking alone and seeking out places to hide. There’s keeping secrets and inside jokes and being there for one another and listening to each other’s problems and supporting each other. For example, the way they all rallied to support Tasha this episode and help her remember and be there for her was such a wholesome thing, and yet they also manage to argue over Rich’s shopping habits and Rich hit back at Patterson’s chore wheel which was in its way also very wholesome.

The team is doing all that, and it’s amazing.

But the real winner is how through all this, they’re finding a new normal, not to get used to it and stay in it, but in order to be able to stand on their feet and continue to fight. The most important thing is that they’re finding purpose.

It’s been such a short time for the team since the season started, but they’ve already been through so much and they’ve grown and evolved so much, both collectively and individually. So let’s tackle them individually now, and let’s start with the one who is currently least problematic—Rich Dotcom.

Yup, that’s one sentence I never thought I would write. Rich Dotcom is at the moment the least problematic character on Blindspot. 2020 just keeps getting weirder.

Rich has really stepped up this year. He has become the backbone of the team—its heart and soul—and this is not by accident. Ever since he’s joined the team, Rich has steadily been on a path of redemption. He had found a home—a family—and being part of this family has helped him right his wrongs. He knows just how important this family is and just how irreplaceable it is. He knows where he would be without it and cannot fathom the idea of not being with them. His experience in the black site has really helped him put things in perspective, focus on what really matters, and he has decided to be the glue that holds this family together no matter what.

He has become the main go-to guy for everyone on the team—from seeking emotional support, to asking for advice, to getting information online or grabbing something from the shop. He’s come a long way from who we first met, to how the team saw him when he first joined, to now becoming the guy they share their secrets with and trust with… everything and anything. He’s—shockingly—become a voice of reason and at some points he might be carrying a little too much on his shoulders, but I think I trust Rich to be able to handle it. I really do. Especially since he’s still got his snark and his humor and unmatched talent to make everything lewd and inappropriate. What Rich did for Tasha this week—all of it, from picking up what she needed from the store, to being there for her, to listening to her when she needed someone to listen, and to just letting her rest her tired head on her shoulder—was immeasurable. They may have seemed like small insignificant things, but they literally kept Tasha going and kept the team from breaking.

And similarly being there for Jane when she needed him—doing what she needed him to do and also providing sound advice—even if Jane ignored that advice.

So that’s the purpose that Rich has found—keeping the team together—even if it means he has to take up a role he’s never been comfortable with or accustomed to before, then so be it. Because no one is going to break up Rich Dotcom’s family. Not on his watch.

L: I love this new role for Rich, being everyone’s go-to guy. I think he’s still a little bit surprised to be taken so seriously by everyone, but he’s more than earned it. I love that the team sends him out for snacks (at least I hope it was snacks; if the canned meat indicates it was supposed to be “groceries,” then clearly Bill Nye was right to be so concerned about Patterson’s eating habits while on the run), that Tasha asks him to get her a pregnancy test, and that Jane asks him to find info on Bethany. There is no question that they all trust Rich to keep their secrets and not share them with the rest of the group.

And in a lot of ways, this is more significant than trusting him with a gun. They are all trapped together there in the bunker. They have little in the illusion of privacy, judging by the fact that they all seem to be sharing the same single bunk room. The only thing that they have that isn’t on display for the rest of the team are their secrets. Tasha could easily have volunteered to take the snack run for Rich and picked up her own pregnancy test without anyone knowing. Jane could have taken her request to Patterson instead. But they both trusted Rich.

And I don’t think that’s a coincidence. They all have their own agendas, but right now, Rich is the only one who is 100% Team Bunker. Patterson is worrying about her father, Weller is worrying about Bethany, Jane is worrying about Kurt, and Tasha is mourning Reade and dealing with her new complication. But Rich is the only one who is fully there, in the present, completely focused on the team as a whole. He’s become the heart of this team, keeping it all together right now and worrying about the rest of them. And yeah, it’s a good look on him. He’s never really had this before; we know from the comments he’s made that he’s not that close to his own family, and his relationship with Boston has certainly been filled with ups and downs. But there doesn’t seem to have been anyone who was just there for Rich before, someone he could count on the way he can depend on this team. And he is determined to look after them in return.

And frankly, if that doesn’t warm your heart, you might want to go your ticker checked.

Y: Next on the unproblematic scale is Patterson.

Patterson had a rough start to the season, especially after the Finland op that brought her and her dad together and then they had to part ways again and it sent him into hiding somewhere in Europe. It is perfectly understandable that that op had shaken Patterson up. And if you add to that all the things pertaining to their situation and that she is completely out of her comfort zone, away from all the things she is used to and more importantly used to have under her control, then you cannot blame Patterson for not being okay there for a while. You know, we talk about Kurt being a control freak—which he is—but in many ways Patterson isn’t that different. Just another one of the many things that those two have in common in my books. Looking back, Patterson had always been like that. And as a woman of science and someone who typically is the most capable and smartest in the room, it makes sense that she feels like she needs to be in charge and needs things to be how she wants them. Remember how she was in her lab? Things needed to be the way she had them and no other way worked.

But after a bumpy and emotional start, Patterson has found her rhythm. She’s found her focus and her purpose and her head is back in the game. Unfortunately, she no longer has the best technical facilities that FBI money can buy and is forced to use normal people computers and that is just the absolute worst. But this is Patterson. Patterson is capable of things that normal people cannot even imagine and that above average people can only imagine. Nothing is going to get in the way of her doing her thing.

One of the most exciting parts of the team being cooped up in this bunker is that we’re inevitably getting scenes between everyone and getting interactions between everyone and that has allowed these relationships to develop and for intimate moments to happen between everyone. It’s allowing this team to grow and heal and develop a new dynamic that they would have never had otherwise. Naturally, Patterson and Rich are getting to spend so much time together and that dynamic which we have adored for two seasons is just getting better and better every day. But there was also another little moment with Kurt this episode that fits perfectly into this bunker living situation and highlights how this team is really living a familiar and relatable family situation. Patterson tells Kurt what happened with Tasha—out of concern for their friend—and then he offers to check in on Tasha. And then later, when she picks up that there is something happening with Tasha, she tries to coax the truth out of Rich but again, in a perfect little moment, he manages to find a diplomatic answer. There’s something notable here about Patterson and Tasha’s relationship. These two have never really recovered from the Borden working for the CIA situation. They’ve come a long long way since then, but I don’t think they ever got back to where they were before. Of course, it did not help that Tasha spent most of season undercover with Madeline, so those two never got the chance to properly reconcile. I hope that in what is left of season 5 we get to see them go back to where they once were.

And finally, there’s no way I’m going to go through the Patterson section and not bring up rookie Patterson back in 2011. There is only one word for what we saw on screen. Perfection. Pure and utter perfection. Everything from the quirkiness, to the sass, to the neediness, to the hair and the glasses. Absolutely perfect.

L: Rookie Patterson is adorable. I loved how the flashbacks showed us the seedlings that grew into the team we know and love. Even as a “noob,” Patterson couldn’t resist the lure of hacking into a system that was supposed to be keeping her out. She’s a control freak who follows the rules, yes, but we see here that she’s always been a bit of a hacktivist who is willing to bend the rules for a good cause.

And yeah, I think that someone who alphabetizes her board game collection by the name of the game designer is probably not someone who would ever be comfortable with a life on the run, so the fact that she’s coping this well is probably due in great part to the fact that she simply keeps working, while the rest of the team around her sleeps, goes on junk food runs, or agonizes over personal conflicts. If she stopped working, she’d have to deal with this new reality, but the team needs her to keep working and finding them leads to chase down, so she is just going to keep on going.

Even if that means having to deal with “normal-people computers.” Patterson, we feel ya, especially those of us who are trapped at home with “normal-people internet access.” Really, she’s dealing with it quite admirably.

But yes, I totally agree with you about Patterson and Tasha’s friendship. Patterson seems like the more logical choice for Tasha to have confided in, and the fact that she didn’t shows that there is still some distance between them (despite both being members of the “love of my life got killed trying to help me” club). Which brings us to Tasha.

Y: Ah, Tasha—she who has the most problems right now. And not that we blame her. Ever since she took that undercover op for the CIA, things haven’t been going great with Tasha. Honestly, just with what she went through in season 4, I am in awe of how she still manages to wake up in the morning. And you add to that everything that has happened since? Tasha Zapata deserves a statue in her honor.

There’s a part of her that is missing—and those flashbacks showed us just how important that part is. Not only as the man she loves but as someone who has been her partner from her first day on the job. Her other half when it comes to being an agent. And the is why the flashbacks in this episode were so important. Sure it helped them solve the case. But their true purpose was to bring Tasha back to us—the Tasha we know and love and desperately need right now.

The flashbacks in this episode were such a powerful tool. They weren’t just a great tool to bring Reade back and give us a sneak peek into the past. But they were so powerful because Tasha was really living in those two timelines—emotionally and mentally. I personally love a good flashback episode. But this was so much more. Like I said above, it helped us solve the case, helped bring Tasha back to us and was a great window to her emotional and mental state. But more than that, this felt more like an origin story than just any other flashback. From the first day we met them, we knew Tasha and Reade were the best partnership at the NYO and getting to see how this partnership came to be was fantastic. Looking back at them now, nine years on… they really were such an incredible pairing and a formidable partnership. There was always something special in their dynamic and the way they worked off of each other. The banter, the trust, the way they challenged each other, and the friendship and love that grew between them has always been one of our favorite things on the show and seeing how most of it was there from day one just makes it all so… bittersweet.. Even from day one, their individual strengths shined through, and it was clear just how well they completed each other in the office and in the field. They had each other’s backs from the beginning. She’s relentless in her pursuit, and he’s more logical and structured, but together they could do anything. They shared a powerful bond and understanding—both professionally and on a personal level. I loved seeing how even on the first day, she helps him keep his job, which is something we saw her do repeatedly over the years. And at the same time, we see how he guides her fire, and she constantly challenges and pushes him, and he drives her to do better.

It was really great seeing Reade again and the episode provided a reminder that he was so good at what he did. And the best part was that he was part of this case and helped them solve it even if he wasn’t there—through the flashbacks and by his memory helping Tasha through the day.

That little nod in the end—when Tasha almost froze again—was all she needed to be reminded of who she is, what she is capable of, why she started doing this in the first place, and why she is doing it now. And she’s back in the game and no one is gonna stop her—which is great because the team are really going to need her at the top of her game next episode.

Going back to where it all started helped her remember who she is and what she is capable of and why she does what she does. She found her strength and her drive. Knowing that Reade will always be with her and always be a part of her, and that his memory and their history will always be something she carries with her, will make her stronger and motivate her. Tasha has found her purpose and she’s all in. The pain and heartache are not gone, but they are not crippling her anymore either. Like she tells Jane and Kurt when they as if she’s okay—“No, but I will be”—Tasha knows the road to healing is a long one, but at least she owns it now and has had some sort of closure, at least the kind that provides focus and purpose. And hope. Hope is a powerful thing.

Oh, and Tasha is pregnant by the way. This storyline will give us so much to work with when it comes to Tasha’s character and her arc, and I’ll let L go into that more, but I will just say that just the fact that it gave us that beautiful moment between Rich and Tasha is enough for me.

L: All of this!

That little moment after Tasha tells Rich that she’s pregnant when she puts her head on his shoulder? That got my heart almost as much as the Reade scenes this week. Tasha is so tough and dangerous that it says so much when she’s willing to admit weakness, even for just a brief moment.

And I agree that her grieving was a necessary stop on the road to healing. She’s been kind of drifting since the premiere, stuck between the past she can’t let go of and the present she can’t make herself participate in. The universe (ahem, aka the writers) seems pretty cruel to have thrown this particular case at her at the exact moment she figures out she’s pregnant. That’s almost too much for anyone to bear, even someone as tough as Tasha.

I’m sure there are opinions on both sides about Tasha’s pregnancy. Yes, I know it might feel as though it came from out of left field. (Although it shouldn’t be terribly surprising, since I’m pretty sure Ice Cream’s rustic fishing shack didn’t have a condom dispenser in the bathroom.) And it’s been three months, so yes, she could have figured this out a little sooner. But I’m going to say that she was able to write off all the indicators as the stress of her situation, if she was even paying attention to them at all in her haze of grief. (And also, this is Blindspot, where baby math is apparently non-Euclidean.)

But I have to say, in this situation, I’m in favor of this plot twist. Tasha is, as we have noted before, a wildcard. Over the seasons, we’ve seen her go from gambling with her life’s savings to gambling with her actual life. Reade was the one person who kept her grounded, and losing him would likely have sent her spiraling off into greater and greater risks, especially if she could justify them as necessary for protecting her remaining family. On that trajectory, I could totally see Tasha sacrificing herself at some point later in the season. But a baby changes everything for her. Protecting Reade’s child, and thus, herself, is a game-changer for Tasha, giving her just as much responsibility for keeping herself alive as the rest of the team.

I loved how each member of the team reaches out to her this week, one by one, taking turns, giving her pep talks, helping her focus on her emotions or a particular sense to help jog her memory. Yes, they have to do this to track the case. But they all know how incredibly painful this is for her, so they are also all reaching out to her to help her not only remember but also wade through the painful feelings that trying to remember is digging up. And I think that goes back to what Yas said above: Even in all of this turmoil, the relationships within this team are strengthening. They only have each other, and they are all determined to make sure that they don’t lose anyone else, in any way.

Also, apparently the entire bunker is now stealing clothes from Weller’s closet. In 5.01, it was Rich borrowing one of his signature denim shirts, this week it’s Tasha. Maybe on his next supply run, Rich can pick up some more clothes?

Our power couple hits a bit of a rough patch this week. And just like Rich, we hate it when Mom and Dad fight. How do they get through this, both separately and together?

Y: We haven’t seen Jeller angst like this in quite a while. But before we get to the angst, let’s just take a quick look at what went on with Jane and Kurt separately during the episode. Finding the chemicals, of course, was the top priority this week but in them being so, it meant that everyone on the team was focused on helping Tasha get through the tough emotions and remember. And both Jane and Kurt played a big part in that and were amazing at it.

The weight of leadership and the way she was thrust into the role is really not a thing that Jane is taking lightly. She knows how important her role is and the responsibility she now carries. She is trying her best and doing a good job at it. I just love how she helped with Tasha pulling straight from her own experience, and she was so gentle, patient and understanding.

Another Jane moment I absolutely loved was her going to Rich and trusting him with the favor she needed. I loved it because on the one hand, it showed just how important Rich has become to all of them but also because it’s another sign of Jane being such a great leader. A great leader knows the strengths of those around her, acknowledges what they’re good at and delegates and trusts them. And Jane is doing all of that. Also, I love how in so many small things you can see how she’s picking up on things that Kurt used to do when he was in charge and sort of learning from him.

And speaking of Kurt and his leadership skills, he didn’t just sit back during all this either. At the end of the day, this is Kurt Weller. And the minute Patterson tells him that Tasha is going through something, he jumps up to help. Kurt might not be your go-to guy when it comes to having a heart-to-heart or sharing feelings. But he does so well with Tasha. I loved the moment they shared—both aware and sympathetic to each other’s pain and heartache. These two have so much in common when it comes to building walls and closing up, so seeing them like that is a beautiful reminder of how close these people are and how much they genuinely love each other.

L: Jane and Kurt are both driven individuals. When they are working a case, neither one will rest until they’ve seen it through to the conclusion. And the stakes have never been this high with any other case, so it’s no surprise that they both keep trucking despite what’s going on between them personally. Which is good, because this week they’re hit with a doozy.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Jeller at odds. But every marriage hits its rough patches, and in this one—as is often the case in real life—it’s not really anyone’s fault.

Let’s start with Kurt. Look, I can’t imagine missing one of my kids’ birthdays, so this is another one of those moments that really hurts to watch. And knowing that Bethany is too young to understand where Kurt is and why he’s not with her makes it even worse. When Jane tries to reassure him by telling him that Allie is keeping her safe, Kurt asks, “She gonna explain where I am? Or why I’m a fugitive now?”

And that’s the thing about having kids... They make us want to be better people than we were before. And they make us want to make the world a better place for them. Kurt wants to be a hero to Bethany, and he wants to save the world for her. But in order to be a hero and save the world, he has to let her down, both by his absence and by the possibility that he could fail—he could never clear his name, or he could die in the effort, and all that she would never know of him is that he died a wanted fugitive. That’s a really hard pill to swallow on top of all the hugs and giggles and sticky kisses that he’s missing out on, all the life milestones as she learns to read and ride a bike and toss a frisbee without him. No parent could cope well with that.

So Jane isn’t at all wrong to want to do something for him to try to comfort him in the face of all that hurt. We have such a sweet scene where she frames Bethany’s artwork for him. And she’s not wrong to want to give him something more to go on, so her reaching out to Rich makes sense. And honestly, so does waiting to be sure that the information checks out. Why get Kurt all upset if it turns out to be a false alarm? Really, her only questionable call is holding off from telling Kurt once Rich confirms that the child in the hospital is in fact Bethany.

Which brings us to Kurt. As much as we love the big lug, he can be a little bullheaded about the people he loves. If someone he cares about is in danger, he’s the first out the door to rescue them. It’s his blindspot, if you will. And we don’t have Reade around anymore to talk him down when he’s on a tear like that. So knowing what we know about Kurt? Honestly, if I were Jane, I’d have waited to tell him too. At least until after this op was done, so at the very least he wouldn’t be distracted out in the field and get himself killed. But maybe even afterwards, because I could totally see Kurt donning some horrible disguise and stalking out of the bunker to the airport, yelling at Patterson to get him a good fake id and a plane ticket home, and I’m not even sure that Rich blocking the door and brandishing his hammer would be enough to stop him this time.

But all that said, I also understand how betrayed he feels, knowing that Jane could keep something like this from him. Trust is another one of his hot-button issues, and Jane knows that she’s breaking his trust by keeping this news from him. And as Rich so accurately puts it: “When has keeping things from each other ever backfired for this group, right?” Ouch. The truth hurts. Part of the issue here is the timeline... with all the flashbacks, it’s hard to get a good sense of how much time has elapsed. Has it been a couple of hours since Rich located Bethany or has Jane been sitting on this intel for days? If it’s the latter, Kurt’s response is more understandable.

So as with a lot of marital discord... they’re both wrong and they’re both right. But honestly? This marriage is pretty stable, for all that their lives are in upheaval right now. By the end of the episode, they’ve both cooled off enough to appreciate the other’s position. They know each other, and they trust each other. Kurt knows that Jane wouldn’t have kept something like that from him forever, and maybe he’s willing to admit that she was right to be worried that he’d try to get to Bethany and end up in jail instead. And Jane knows that Kurt values her and her safety, too, so there’s also a good possibility that he would have realized that trying to rush back to the US would put Jane and the team in danger and hurt their chances of clearing their names and bringing Madeline down.

Y: After a couple of episodes of these two switching roles and raking turns supporting each other, this week saw Kurt and Jane getting into their worst fight in a really long time. I’m going to have to take sides here and say that even though I understand what Kurt must have been feeling and I empathize completely with him and my heart shatters for him—and I will get to him in a minute—I also completely understand Jane’s point of view and her reasoning and her logic. But at the end of the day, in a situation like this… reason and logic maybe take a back seat.

Except for that one thing she did wrong, Jane did everything right.

Jane was incredible here. She framed Bethany’s drawing. She went to Rich to get information on Allie and Bethany. Jane is suffering so much, but she is putting her own pain aside to help everyone else heal. She just wants to make things better for her husband on this very hard day. How could you blame her for that? She’s bending backwards to accommodate everyone but still keeps finding herself having to apologize. Even her decision to not tell him is from love. Her only intention was to protect him because like she said he would have lost his head and put himself in unbelievable danger and put Bethany in even more danger. And this is what these two always do. They protect each other. Yes, keeping secrets has always been the one thing to come back and destroy them and you’d think they learned but under the circumstances… I really get Jane here.

But at the same time… I also get Kurt…

Kurt Weller just cannot seem to be able to catch a break this year and it breaks my heart watching have to deal with all his worst nightmares at the same time—being a fugitive, being hunted, working outside the law, clashing with his Jane, being separated from his daughter, not knowing anything about her, being unable to get in touch, and on top of that, learning she’s been hospitalized and not being able to do anything about it. Not being able to protect those he cares about has always been Kurt’s trigger, so you can just imagine what this does to him—and it’s not just anyone. It’s his daughter. And it’s happening on her birthday—the first that he has missed.

Just take my heart and stomp at it, why don’t you?

These two haven’t had a fight this bad in quite some time. And the angst experienced last season was a whole different kind. So it was really hard to watch them like this, to watch them go through this and yet despite it all that bond between them was still as strong as ever. Kurt—as heartbroken as he was from being away and heartbroken that Bee is sick and Jane kept it from him—out in the field still looks to Jane as his partner. When he “called their formation” when they arrived at the warehouse, putting Jane with him, it reminded me of that episode in season two when Jane had told him about Emma and it sent Kurt into a similar spiral. Back then, when it came to being in the field, he told Jane that she was still the only one he trusted out there. And that will never change.

But it all just hurts so much! So so much!

And at this point of the episode—knowing what we know of the next episode—I really thought that the writers were going to leave it at that and have them go their separate ways on bad terms.

I was expecting that angst but not at all ready for it. But luckily for us, Jane had other ideas. God bless your heart, Jane Doe. And bless you for this amazing growth you’ve experienced that has taught you that the best thing to do after a fight is make up and clear the air because nothing is worth risking something happening between you two. They’ve gone through so much and Jane knows that at the end of the day the most important thing is what she has with Kurt, and she will do anything to fix it before separating.

I am so proud of Jane for doing this. It couldn’t have been easy, and I think this is the most emotionally vulnerable we’ve seen Jane this season yet. She’s been hurting as well. And she’s been pushing everything down and ignoring her own hurt but when Kurt is pushing her away, when Kurt is upset with her and when there is a rift between them, that is when Jane can longer ignore her pain and no longer push it down. He’s her rock. He’s her other half. And she needs him now more than ever. She cannot do any of this without him and the thought of this being possibly the last time they see each other then she cannot even bear the thought of them parting ways and still have this between them.

The apology/make up scene was just… it was so so so good. Everything about it was… so good. The dialogue was perfect. Simple. A few words spoken but so much was said. And they were both so broken and vulnerable… I just… I need so much chocolate just to get through the last few sentences of this review. Jane admitted she was wrong, but she also let Kurt know that his pain is hers, that she too is hurting, that her heart is broken too, and that everything about this whole thing is terrifying for her as well. And when she says that, Kurt does that little shake of his head and he realizes that in focusing on his pain, he’d failed to notice that his wife was falling apart as well. And just like that, he doesn’t blame her anymore, he doesn’t direct his anger at her anymore, and he realizes that she genuinely was just trying to protect him. He realizes just how much pain she is in and Jane being in pain is the absolute worst thing for Kurt.

Every time I rewatch the scene, I am overwhelmed with the feels but especially seeing the tears in Jane’s eyes, the absolute and utter desperation in her voice, and how Kurt’s voice is shaking and cracking and breaking… and then Jane does that simple gesture of gently touching his face and he tells her he loves her and I collapse.

L: But honestly... isn’t this how it should be? Marriage doesn’t mean you’re in lock step all the time. (Or if it does, my husband and I have been doing it wrong for a couple of decades now.) You’re not going to get it right all the time. You’re gonna screw up, you’re gonna fight, you’re gonna hurt each other. What matters is how you deal with that. Do you double down and refuse to consider that you might be wrong? Or do you think about your partner and how much you trust them and then consider things from their point of view? Do you get stuck on one issue, or can you focus on the bigger picture? As Jane says, “Our lives are so unpredictable right now. If we go our separate ways and something were to happen...” That is the big picture, that is what matters right now. Staying together, being united, getting through this as a team, stopping Madeline, getting back to their families... that’s what matters. And that’s what they show us that they both realize at the end of the episode.

There is one thing I need to vent about here. We’ve heard about Kurt missing Bethany and Patterson missing Bill Nye. But we haven’t heard one damn word about Avery, the daughter that Jane was trying so hard to build a relationship with back in season 3. I understood shipping her off to college in season 4; it would have seriously complicated everything that Jane was going through when she reverted to Remi. But surely Jane deserves a throw-away “I miss Avery too” line of dialogue? Yes, Jane missed a lot of years with her, and yes, she’s older than Bethany, but that doesn’t mean that she loves her daughter any less than Kurt loves his daughter. Love doesn’t accumulate by credit hour like a college degree. Jane has her full complement of Remi memories now; she remembers all the months she carried her daughter, and she remembers the pain of losing her. And she remembers all the tiny fledgling steps they took toward building a new relationship when they were reunited.

Surely Jane would worry about what Avery thinks about her now, just as much as Kurt worries about what Bethany thinks; does Avery believe that Jane is really a terrorist? They know that Madeline isn’t above using their families as leverage; wouldn’t she lose sleep worrying about Avery’s safety? Especially since Avery has no other parents or guardians to look out for her safety, the way Bethany does. She’s probably still attending classes at Brown, with no protection whatsoever. Instead of “I miss my daughter, too,” we get a generic, “Being cut off from our loved ones is hard on all of us.” Which would be fine if she was talking with Patterson or Tasha. But this is her husband, the one person who knows how much Avery means to her and how she agonized over that relationship. She can be honest with him, and the fact that she doesn’t even mention Avery in this context really bugs me.

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That’s all we’ve got on this episode. If you need us, we’ll be curled up in the fetal position, overdosing on chocolate, and stressing out over 5.05. Come visit our ask box and freak out with us!

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: jane doe #character: kurt weller #character: patterson #character: rich dotcom #character: tasha zapata #character: edgar reade #ship: Jane/Kurt #ship: tasha/reade

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more--than--anything · 4 years

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Episode Review: "The only way out of this is if we all start rowing in the same direction." [S05E03]

While viewers enjoyed the luxury of a one-week break to catch our breaths after 5.02, the characters only had a few hours before 5.03 picked up again, and they wasted no time getting straight back into the action. Those guys can’t seem to be able to catch their breath!

Y: I know this might sound selfish, but I’m glad we got that one-week hiatus, and I wouldn’t mind a few more. Why? Because that means that the day we say “Blindspot ends today” will lie further in the future, and I am not ready to say goodbye. So the more distant that day is the better. Because I love this show so damn much!

L: Why’d you have to say that?? I am nowhere near ready to say goodbye to any of these characters. And I feel like we keep saying goodbye to characters sooner than we ought. My normal state right now is somewhere between “terrified” and “devastated.”

The team’s “mystery friend” delivers another message with clue for Patterson and the team to decode. With questions still up in the air about who this mysterious messenger is, what information did the clue carry with it and how does the team deal with that intel?

L: This week’s message arrives by way of a sculpture in the middle of the desert in Tuscon. Patterson is disgusted that the rest of the team doesn’t immediately recognize “The Staff of the Dragon Wizard” from Wizardville. But this tells us that not only does our mystery friend know all about Jane’s tattoos, but they also know about Jane’s team at the FBI and (at least some of) their extracurricular activities. (Which makes me wonder if this could be some associate of Roman’s from season 3? He knew the tattoos and the team, more so than any of Remi’s Sandstorm associates would have, if there are any left.) The wings on the dragon logo are different from the ones in the app, and Patterson figures out that if she compares them to the wings on Jane’s bird tattoo, they form a nonogram which resolves into the shape of a wasp, which is the symbol for the Dabbur Zann, our favorite multi-national terrorist organization. And after “a little bit of math,” Patterson finds that the grid also gives them coordinates to a warehouse in Dresden, Germany.

Without access to all of her FBI resources, Patterson can’t get them any more information about the warehouse. Kurt wants to go check it out, but Tasha is more cautious. While they head to the site, Patterson keeps digging and discovers that it’s owned by a defunct import-export that appears to be a Dabbur Zann shell company, so the lead is legit. Rich hacks the security camera for the property next door and finds that three men entered a few minutes before the team arrived. Weller and Jane move in, but Tasha panics and yells to them to abort, and then their comms go dead, leaving Patterson and Rich to wonder what the hell to do next.

Weller shows up back at the bunker first, followed by Tasha (and a tense confrontation ensues over whose judgment is more impaired), and then Jane arrives, with a prisoner in tow. He tells them that his name is Loris and that he was recruited by the Dabbur Zann when they threatened his family. He says one of the other men is known as “Hades,” a cruel and merciless leader. Jane and Kurt implore Loris to help them, but he claims to be too afraid for his family. Loris tells them that he’s supposed to meet up with the others in Dusseldorf tonight, and the team debates taking him to the meet to get to Hades. But then Loris lets slip that he knows they’re in Prague, and the team realizes that taking him back out in public is a much larger risk now. He can certainly identify all of them, and he knows enough about their location to lead the Dabbur Zann and/or Madeline’s henchmen back to them. Patterson suggests that they wipe his memory with ZIP, which she apparently procured while on the run a month ago, to do additional research on the stem cell cure that they gave Jane, in case she had a relapse. And that, in and of itself, is a whole new bucket of worms. Until now we haven’t been worried about Jane having a relapse, but clearly Patterson was. And then there’s the whole morality of using ZIP, which Jane flatly refuses to do.

The only solution seems to be to leave the bunker and find a new base of operations, but just as the team is fighting over that, Rich discovers that the man they think is Loris is actually Hades, who has dislocated his thumbs in order to slip his cuffs (a cool trick that Jane should have anticipated, since we saw her do that in 1.11), knocked Jane unconscious, and is now loose somewhere in the bunker. They lock down the doors, engage in a family shouting match (quarantine life isn’t easy on anyone!), and decide to clear the bunker as a team, one room at a time. Tasha has her second “bad feeling” of the night, and Hades grabs her and holds a screwdriver to her throat. In an awesome callback to the pilot, Jane shoots Hades over Tasha’s shoulder, just as she shot Chao when he was holding a knife to Kurt’s throat. Only this time, Jane is fully aware of her skills and her capabilities, and she shoots to kill. Both Hades and Tasha fall, but only Tasha gets up.

Honestly, I can’t be sad that Hades ends up dead. He’s a terrorist doing Madeline’s bidding, and he had intel on our team that could have put them at risk. But I get that it was a lot easier to shoot him to save Tasha than it would have been to cold-bloodedly execute him to protect the team from a potential future threat.

This week’s outing seems like another loss, but Jane and Patterson (who drew straws since apparently “dead body disposal” didn’t make it onto the bunker chore wheel) discover a passive RFID card embedded in Hades’s forearm. Patterson and Rich dig into the data stored on there and discover what appear to be schematics for a chemical weapons system, uploaded around the time of the warehouse raid. So now they know why Madeline broke the Dabbur Zann operatives out of prison... and we can guess that it has something to do with the gas chamber Ivy was building in the NYO.

You know, that’s what I love about Madeline as a bad guy. Last week, we were sure she was batshit insane. But between these plans and what she did to Briana this week, she’s managed to turn it up to 11. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so busy being utterly terrified.

Y: Absolutely nothing is going the team’s way, and it’s heartbreaking and infuriating! The tensions between the team, as painful as they are to watch, are so good and so realistic and adding obstacles to their already-horrible reality. But it’s all making for such better storytelling and drama.

But I think we are allowed to add another to the win column this week with the team uncovering those files that have the blueprints to Madeline’s biological weapon.

Bringing the Dabbur Zann guy back to their bunker may not have been Jane’s smartest idea. I understand her reasoning, but the risks definitely outweighed the benefits. By like... a lot! And it got really close to backfiring badly. I think the effects it had on the team again this week were paramount in shaping how this team are evolving and working together. It’s pretty bad at the moment. They’re arguing and disagreeing and fighting and getting under each other’s skin. It’s understandable but hard to watch, and a part of me is hoping that this is all the struggle that is necessary for the healing. Because I cannot lie... the thought of this team not ending the show as the amazing tightly knit family we want them to be breaks my heart.

The intel they managed to get from the drive Hades had hidden under his skin may be valuable, but I don’t know if the team should believe a word he told them about Düsseldorf. And if I were them I wouldn’t risk checking it out. But they really don’t have any other leads to work on so I think they might follow up on it. They really have nothing else at the moment... except maybe to wait on more messages from their mysterious friend.

Speaking of which… this time around, this mysterious friend’s stunt was less theatrical than the Times Square event. It was more discreet and designed so only Patterson could notice it—which is a good thing, because it meant Madeline wasn’t aware of what was happening and kept busy playing cat and mouse with Weitz—but still it was a public event. It was showy and dangerous. I still don’t know what to make of this mysterious friend. I am pretty confident they have their own personal agenda and aren’t just out there to help the team. Because if that were the case then they would contact the team privately and carefully and in a way that wouldn’t endanger them. But one new thing we learned about this secret friend this week is not only do they have access to government information—which helped locate and rescue Rich—but also insider information on Madeline’s evil workings and the Dabbur Zann.

The plot thickens.

Back in New York, our closing image in the last episode was Ivy Sands and her thugs cornering Weitz in the elevator after dragging Briana away from the laptop while she was trying to help the team. Things weren’t looking too great for the Resistance then… but how about now?

Y: Things aren’t going so great for our good guys in New York. And by not going so great, I mean, they are really really terribly horribly bad. And while Ivy Sands may be a menacing and dangerous presence at the NYO, the true danger is clearly still one Madeline Burke. I breathed in relief when we saw Weitz in the interrogation room because the way the previous episode ended left me very worried for him—and for good reason.

Matthew is in real deep shit, and he knows it. And his one-on-one with Madeline this week showed him that he can no longer use his snark and sass to get away with things. Madeline is ruthless. Madeline doesn’t miss anything and has eyes and ears everywhere. And Weitz knows now that he can no longer continue to be his typical Matthew Weitz self and get away with it, like he has his entire career. Especially now when his decisions not only affect him and his career, but also affects those around him, those helping him, and especially the team on the run.

We’ve seen Madeline being terrifying in quite a few scenes now, but I think in this episode, she took it to a whole different level. She’s definitely her scariest when she is calm and collected and utterly menacing. I was worried about Weitz in every single moment he spent with her and I still am. It’s interesting watching Weitz this season—learning more and more about himself and about how the world works around him. And it is going to be quite the journey seeing how he is going to grow and evolve and learn and see where this all takes him.

He’s obviously scared and absolutely shaken by everything—from Madeline’s level of evil, to the hold she has on him, to just how far her influence extends, to what her potential endgame might be, and to what she is willing to do to get what she wants and stop those who try to get in her way.

L: Man oh man, I am loving Aaron Abrams this season. He is absolutely phenomenal as Weitz. The range of emotions we see in him in this episode was huge. He goes from being his snarky self, to worried about his future, to smug, to fearing for his life, and finally to utterly helpless and devastated, all in the matter of a few brief scenes. Bravo, sir! He’s definitely elevated Weitz from a character we loved to hate to a character we hate to love, if only because it makes us so incredibly stressed out!

Part of me keeps wondering why Maddie hasn’t already killed Weitz. She knows he’s in league with the team, but I guess she needs to know what he (and by extension, they) know. And he pretty helpfully led them to Rich last season, so I suppose if she’s patient, he could lead her to the team. Not that patience seems like her strong suit, but you never know. And I suppose it’s possible that she doesn’t have any good dirt on his potential replacement, so Weitz might be easier to control. Better the devil you know, as they say.

And apparently he is still a “useful idiot,” because she tasks him with getting rid of Susan Shah, whom we find out in this episode is the National Security Advisor and at the top of the list to be the next Vice President. (And again, I’m still a little fuzzy on what happened to the current VP. Or the Speaker of the House, for that matter.) Weitz is so smug when he figures out that Madeline wants Shah out of the way so that she can be the next VP. And I loved Madeline’s reply, “I have never been so impressed with someone I find so generally disappointing.” Au contraire, Maddie; this is the least disappointing we have ever found Weitz! But her follow-up is chilling: “Now let me ask you something. Do you think knowing what I want makes you safe or puts you in more danger?” Gulp.

And just when I was thinking this might be okay, that Maddie isn’t going to kill Weitz today, they pull up to some deserted location along the water, and Weitz really starts to sweat. And then they drag Briana out of the trunk in a twist I really did not see coming and frankly am still far from over. Briana was weak, and she made mistakes, but she didn’t deserve to be executed like that. And that is the true madness of Madeline. The body trail is enormous, and none of them deserved the fate that Madeline served them.... her husband, Blake Crawford, the HCI Global board members, Kira Evans, Claudia Murphy, Reade, and now Briana. And honestly, I am terrified that Weitz and Afreen are next. Certainly, Maddie wants Weitz to know that he’s next on her list if he doesn’t do her bidding. I’m not sure who’s more terrified here: Weitz or me.

And for the record, I think that Weitz hasn’t quite deduced Maddie’s final destination yet. If she puts herself in the VP seat, that puts her exactly one heartbeat away from the position she believed her father was denied. There is no doubt in my mind that Maddie is determined to put herself in the White House, and she’s willing to kill anyone who stands in her way, up to and including the President of the United States.

Y: Oh Briana... did you really have to die in one of the coldest death scenes on this show? There’s something... tragic in the fact that Madeline kills Briana the same way Shepherd killed Pellington back in season 2—a scene in which Briana featured prominently and was probably the first time we really met Briana (it wasn’t her first appearance on the show, but it was her first important participation in a big moment).

I don’t know if Briana was necessarily anyone’s absolute favorite or if she was blindly hated by anyone—in the fandom I mean—but either way, no one deserved to die that way. It was just so… cruel and cold and hard to watch. Briana may have made a few mistakes in the past. And yes, her mistakes did cost the team, well, basically everything, but still… damn… that was painful.

I, personally, have been quite vocal about wanting to see Briana try to make up for what she did to the team last season, or at least see her be one of the characters used to clear the team’s names. But that would have been too easy, wouldn’t it? I guess it makes sense for the writers to get rid of one of the characters who can with just one confession solve the problem.

And as for her making up for what she had done to the team, well, I guess her covering up for Afreen and trying to upload the content the phone and then getting killed for it is redemption enough? Of course it is! Briana was coerced and pressured and blackmailed and threatened and ultimately was just protecting her family, and she did not deserve to die like that.

And so, in conclusion, what we are trying to say here is that the Resistance is in deep shit. Madeline definitely knows what’s up. She spent the whole planting the fear of god in Matthew Weitz, and boy did it work. And I don’t blame him. Actually, I am kind of proud of the fact that he is in a way not only trying to protect himself—which is how Weitz has functioned his whole life—but also trying to protect Afreen because he knows what Madeline will do to anyone who tries to help him, or technically help the team, at this point.

This is huge of Weitz, if we’re talking about his character growth, but also terrible for the team because they really need someone on the inside. I’d like to think, however, that our girl Afreen won’t just so easily give up and she’ll somehow manage to convince Weitz to overcome his fear and keep the resistance alive—no matter what it will cost them.

L: I am not gonna lie: I am utterly terrified for Afreen, too.

It’s clear that Madeline has broken something inside of Weitz. Up until now, he’s been basically operating under the premise that the team is going to ultimately triumph, and he just has to hang on, keep his cool, maybe make a few calls go Madeline’s way to keep her off his back, and at the end of the day, everything will be fine. But last week, Madeline tried to kill him, and this week, she did kill Briana, and I think Weitz has finally realized just how close to death he—and anyone who crosses Madeline—is.

And so I think he’s completely committed to stopping Afreen from suffering the same fate as Briana: “Briana is gone... We need to stop. No more resistance. No more helping the team. This is over.” But the problem with this approach is that Afreen isn’t likely to stop just because Weitz told her to. And if she’s realized that Madeline killed Briana, she will likely be even more determined to stop her. So what happens if she continues to resist on her own? As smart as she is, I can’t see her lasting too long against Maddie and Ivy.

This show is stressing me out!!

Back in the bunker, things are going from not so good to pretty bad pretty quickly as tensions rise and emotions heat up. Is our team about ready to implode?

L: It sure seems that way. They are all battered and broken in many ways, and the cracks are starting to show this week. Losing Reade and leaving the NYO (and its standard operating procedures) was really a one-two punch for the team. Reade was their voice of reason, the deciding factor that settled their squabbles. He was the leader, and as their superior, he was the one who made the final call. And not only have they lost that, they’ve also lost the framework that working for the FBI gave them. Not only did it give them access to intel (and Patterson’s mega computing power), but it also gave them clear rules to follow. Now, they are the ones making the rules, and there is no superior to make the final call (or sweep up the mess) when they break them. Weller has deemed Jane their leader, but Tasha isn’t so willing to take orders from Jane or from him. And Jane is obviously a lot more willing to think outside the FBI box than either Weller or Patterson is comfortable with.

And to add to this all, I think the thing that makes me the most nervous about our team right now is that they are starting to feel desperate. Desperate for a win, desperate for some sign that their cause isn’t hopeless and that they won’t spend the rest of their lives marking time in a hidden bunker. And as we’ve seen time and time from the bad guys on this show... desperate people tend to make mistakes. Our team made a few today, but they still came out okay. But what about next time?

Y: Can I be honest here? This may be an unpopular opinion, but I am really enjoying watching the team deal with the tensions amongst them that are threatening to destroy them in ways that Madeline could never even imagine.

I’m not saying I’d enjoy the team falling apart. Hell no! This family is the most precious thing ever, and I want them to be this perfect loving family that would do anything for each other. But I think what is happening now is really important and much needed and will ultimately serve to bring them closer to each other than ever before.

As Patterson and Rich both mention during the episode, this is a group of people who are used to operating under the best of circumstances—most of the time at least. In the lab, Patterson and Rich had the world at their fingertips and access to all the best computing power in the world. In the field, they had access to the best weapons, best equipment, best gear…. Anything they ever wanted was just there for them. An impromptu flight to Iceland? There’s a plane waiting for them ready to take off. Access to any piece of information anywhere in the world? It’s just a few keystrokes away.

They have none of that now. What they do have is their own strengths, their talents, their instincts, and their training. And that alone does set them apart from anyone out there and is enough for them to defeat anyone even if the rest is not available. But they are going to have to learn and adapt and understand that operating under these new circumstances will require them to change their habits a bit.

But this change, like any change, is terrifying. And throw in everything else they are going through, it makes sense that they are going at each other like that. The tensions are very very… tense. But underneath all of this fighting and arguing and throwing blame is one thing that Tasha put very well—the thought of losing any one is incapacitating. And I honestly believe this fear is the underlying one for all of them. Yes, there are other things eating at them and crippling them but at the end of the day, the threat of losing each other is the scariest of all.

Oh, Tasha… you’re absolutely killing me. Audrey Esparza is doing such an incredible job with Tasha this season in portraying her heartbreak and her PTSD and in being so subtle in portraying just how this is affecting Tasha in every aspect of her character. She’s quieter but also more irritable. She’s subdued but also more on edge. She’s determined but also so hopeless. She’s terrified and angry and lacking her usual self-confidence and while she may still be driven she’s also so… off her game.

Tasha still has all the skills that made her a great FBI agent. She still has all the talents that made Keaton poach her from the FBI. She just needs to be able to lean on her team.

L: We can’t forget that Tasha was on her own for a lot of season 4. She rejoined the team at the end, but she chafed under Reade’s leadership after the freedom she’d had with the CIA. And now Reade is gone and Jane’s in charge, although Kurt is making the calls when they’re out in the field. And frankly, Tasha isn’t totally on board with either one of them. So she locks horns with the team about going to Dresden, then she fights with Kurt over what happens in the field, and she lets into Jane for bringing back a prisoner. Tasha was a wildcard even before all of this—she left the NYPD and the FBI because she was tired of playing by a narrow set of rules and being told what to do. But Kurt is still playing by the same rulebook, and Tasha has no reason nor any inclination to follow it anymore—and frankly, she has little desire to play the game at all. As we saw in the season premiere, Tasha doesn’t want to be fighting this fight anymore. She’s lost Reade, and of all of them, she has the least to go home to. She just wants to keep her family safe with her in the bunker.

Of all of them, Tasha is having the greatest crisis of confidence this week. She seemed okay during Rich’s rescue, but she’s still struggling with Reade’s loss, and it became clear how badly it’s affecting her this week when she freezes both out in the field and again in the bunker. Jane tells her that they have no choice to fight back, but Tasha still worries, “What if I can’t?” But the thing is, if she can’t, then she’s more likely to lose someone else that she cares about. If there’s one thing that we know about Tasha, it’s how fiercely she’s willing to fight for the people she loves. She just needs to remember that.

But Tasha isn’t alone in her doubts. This week it’s Patterson who seems to have realized that even if they stop Madeline, they might not go back to the lives they left. “And when... If this is ever gonna be over, is it too late for things to go back to normal?” (She does mention that her dad went off the grid without a trace, so here’s hoping that Bill Nye is safe from Madeline and Ivy.) Not only has Patterson lost her FBI lab, her company has been taken over by someone else, and even if she does clear her name, it’s going to be hard to show she can provide a stable household for an adoptive child. Like Tasha and the Wellers, Patterson is realizing that not only has her present been hijacked, her future has, too.

I have to admit that I am very curious about Jingle Jangle Games LLC, the company that has taken over the running of the Wizardville app now that Patterson is on the run from the law. Maybe I’m just missing Boston, but wouldn’t it be fun if he was one of the people behind Jingle Jangle Games? He was one of Patterson’s original coders, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility. And while, yes, the team has Patterson and Rich, they don’t have the computing power they had before, so it might make sense for them to pull in another master hacker... especially if he has access to the equipment they need.

Y: Patterson got to see her dad and while that may have helped her a bit, it has also made things harder. She now has to worry about Bill hiding out in Europe and being on Madeline’s radar. Naturally, she’s on edge, her mind preoccupied with her father’s safety. And we all know that on a good day, Patterson is at least a thousand times better at what she does than anyone else. So, preoccupied Patterson, without access to her lab, is compromised but is ultimately still very much capable of doing what needs to be done to take down Madeline. She just needs to be able to lean on her team.

But how do they lean on each other when they’re all breaking down and struggling and not sure how to deal with all this?

Well, here’s where former-comic-relief-turned-team-backbone Rich Dotcom comes in.

I do not think there are enough words to express just how much I am loving Rich right now and how proud I am of him. The best part of all this is we know he is hurting as well. We know he is suffering from his fair share of PTSD. We know that he is barely hanging in there himself. But still somehow he is the one seeing things the clearest. I think there’s something about him being the newest member of this team, and also the fact that he credits this team and being a part of this team for his reform, for finding his purpose and for getting his life together that makes him the one who can right now see the clearest.

Rich was the real hero of this episode. He literally kept the team together. He kept them from imploding and also protected them from falling to Hades’s plan. If they kept going the way they were going, Hades could have easily taken them down one by one. First of all he stood up to Kurt—literally stood in his face and blocked his path. And we know just how dangerous that is. Very few people have done that and survived. Especially not when Kurt is on a mission to save his Jane. But Rich faced him down and won.

And then in that scene when they’re all going at each other, Rich really shined. He deserved a standing ovation in that scene. He saved the day and saved the team from themselves, and it was a beautiful thing to see. He reminded them of the most important thing, what truly matters, and he showed signs of true leadership.

Seeing how they’re all struggling and how every episode sees one of them flirting with the edge of their sanity and how the stress and tensions and the emotions is getting to all of them, I think we are going to need one each episode to really stand out and be a leader. I don’t think there is a de facto leader of the group anymore. Jane may be calling the tactical shots, but the more important leadership role this season is not in the field, it is keeping this team together and strong and alive and holding on to the hope that they will defeat Madeline.

And I think that role will have to alternate between them. But I do love that Rich was the first to take it upon him because it shows how much he has grown and how much this team means to him.

L: While I loved Rich’s “shut the hell up” to the team, I think his “stand down” to Kurt wins for me as one of the most powerful moments in this episode. Neither Tasha nor Patterson is able to get through to Kurt in his frantic worry for Jane, but Rich puts himself physically between Kurt and the door. “It’s for your own good. And mine. And theirs.” And this is how far he’s come: Not only is Rich willing to do anything to protect his team from outside forces, he’s willing to stand up to them for their own good. (That Dumbledore quote from last week might be even more applicable here: “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”)

We can’t say that it totally works, since Jane’s timely arrival interrupts this very tense stand-off, but it does at least make Kurt pause for a moment. And that’s kind of a big deal, because Rich is usually content to let Kurt run things. He was kind of starstruck the first time he met Kurt and Jane, and really, not much has changed since then. He’s generally pretty happy to be the damsel-in-distress being rescued by Kurt. So to stand up to Kurt is actually a pretty big deal for Rich. If there’s a hierarchy there in the bunker, Rich is at the very bottom, and he knows it, so he generally defers to the “agents” when it come to field work.

And speaking of when he and the Wellers first met... While I absolutely loved the image of Rich gingerly brandishing his hammer, I can’t help remembering the Rich we met in 1.09, who casually (and coldly) shot a suspected government agent. He was no stranger to sidearms then, and he’s more than proven that the team can trust him, so I don’t quite understand why he hasn’t had a gun of his own before now, especially when the team seems to have a small stockpile. I did love his awed reaction, “Are you finally trusting me with a gun?” when Kurt hands him a handgun.

But I guess the gun serves as a symbol... We’ve seen time and again that Rich views himself an equal member of this team, but this small action was a visual cue that echoed what the team argument showed us: The team sees Rich as an equal member, too. It’s Rich who finally says what we’ve all been thinking: “You have spent so much time blaming each other that you don’t realize we are the reason that we are still alive.” This team is alive because they are a team. And if they’re going to succeed, it has to be as a team, because they don’t stand nearly as good a chance on their own.

Rich gets it. And he got the team a rad coffee maker.

This episode really puts Jane’s leadership to the test, and her decisions put the team and their future at risk—not to mention the fact that she’s having some interesting dreams to further weigh her down. How’s our leading lady handling all this added pressure?

Y: I just have so much to say about Jane this week… I kinda don’t know where to start or if I can even do it justice.

We’re used to seeing Jane kicking ass, beating up bad guys, and being just an all-around badass power lady. That’s the heroine we’ve been used to for four seasons. But with the show still writing and filming around Jaimie’s injury, we’re seeing Jane in a new light here. However, this doesn’t mean our show’s lead has had to take a backseat or that the story arc she’s been given isn’t just as good as ever before. In fact, I might even argue, in some ways, this might be Jane’s best arc yet. It’s a more intellectual and emotional arc. It’s an arc leaning heavily on her adapting and changing and growing and learning, and Jaimie is doing a great job at it.

And the best thing is that it is being done in such a balanced and subtle way. With everyone else getting so much to deal with and work with, I think this might be the first season where almost everyone is getting the same amount of “story” to work with. The show has always had more plot lines for Jane and Kurt, but this time around, it’s all balanced out nicely between everyone.

And might I add, everyone’s doing such an amazing job at it. It’s been such a joy to watch them sink their teeth into these storylines.

But back to Jane. Our heroine, our show’s protagonist deserves all this great stuff they’ve been giving her to work with, and she’s been doing a great job at it.

In this episode alone, Jane had to deal with her own fears and nightmares, decisions at HQ, decisions out in the field, tensions among her team, an interrogation, a moral ZIP-related dilemma, one of her team being held at “gun point,” and the emotional and psychological breakdown of one of her team.

The weight of leadership is not an easy one to bear and Jane is doing her absolute best—or at least trying—but I love that they are showing us just how hard it is. Jane didn’t just take on the role and fit into it perfectly. This season is all about these characters struggling with their new realities, with their new roles, with these unfavorable circumstances, and with being hunted. It’s all about things being harder than they’ve ever been, about them being so far out of their comfort zone, and about them taking on roles and tasks they hadn’t been previously used to or trained for. And watching Jane struggle and learn and grow in her role as a leader, falling and failing and making the wrong calls along the way, has been a treat. You guys know we’re here for good character arcs and storylines that challenge the characters and break them out of their comfort zones and force them to learn and grow and evolve. And we’re watching Jane going through an awesome arc right now.

One of the tangible effects that burden on Jane is the nightmares she has been having. We have always known that Jane feels the weight of responsibility and guilt over the ones they have lost over the years. And now, above that, she has the fate of her team in her hands and that’s weighing her down even more. So, it’s perfectly understandable that she is having these nightmares and that while Madeline is appearing as the one who is killing everyone, ultimately Jane is blaming herself. This is the last chapter in Jane’s story, and digging up all the past ghosts and past guilts and fears for the future is a natural part of it, and it is being done in such an exciting way.

Another burden, or ghost, from her past is the ZIP drug—whether in the context of it being done to her, even if it was her choice, and the consequences of it, or within the context of giving it to Roman. I have to admit that I genuinely shocked when Patterson suggested the idea of zipping their prisoner. I know her plan included the cure and not basically giving him a death verdict, but still, it’s a level of drastic I never thought I would see from Patterson.

On a side note, I love Patterson for having the cure on hand just in case Jane had a setback.

But either way, Jane’s reaction to the idea of zipping someone was perfect. There has been so much talk of how a lot of Remi will have to come to the surface if they’re going to survive this season. And in some ways it has. But it beings me so much joy and pride to see that those parts of Remi that would have agreed to the plan have been overpowered and dominated by the Jane we know and love.

Jane lived through being zipped. And she lived through zipping someone. And the horror and disgust and guilt and fear in her reaction to the idea were just so raw and real and strong.

And finally, there is that wonderful gift of the Tasha/Jane scene. Tasha isn’t the best at sharing her feelings—even when her feelings are threatening to explode and drown everyone. But when do get a scene where Tasha shares her feels, those scenes are magical. And then you’ve got the emotional scenes between Tasha and Jane. If we’re lucky we get one or two a season and when they do happen, they are the absolute best. And the scene they shared in this episode is right up there with every single beautiful scene those two shared—even though it was absolutely heartbreaking. But those are always the best ones, aren’t they?

L: Tasha and Jane are similar in so many ways. They are both smart and determined and loyal. They both are more comfortable taking action than they are talking about feelings. And they are both generally very confident. So it’s a rare moment for us to see them both faltering like this and doubting themselves. And for two normally stoic people, this conversation also gives us a glimpse into the depths of their friendship and how much they care about each other.

This is a team filled with doubts right now. Knowing that our team doesn’t always win gives this show a great story tension, and in the same way, knowing that our characters falter in their confidence gives them more depth. They may seem like superheroes out in the field, but they are very human, with all the doubts and weakness that go along with that. And I absolutely agree; the way these challenges are forcing these characters to grow and change is exactly the kind of writing that we do if we were in charge of them.

It’s fun to see Jane (and Jaimie) back in action this week. And we got to see a bit of Remi peeking through, too. One of the things that Jaimie Alexander has always done so well is give Jane moments of powerful strength right alongside moments of fragile vulnerability. At the start of this episode, we see Jane, shaken by her dream. And then we see her hauling a terrorist prisoner into the bunker without so much as a blink. And in that moment—as well as in the moment when she takes the shot that kills Hades—we see what she was like as Remi. Remi lived in a colder world than Jane does. There was less room for sentiment. Hard calls had to be made, and Remi couldn’t afford to let them bother her. And I think that in order to succeed in this role as team leader, Jane is going to have to tap into her Remi side a bit more. She can’t afford to let her fears win.

The discussion about the possibility of using ZIP on their prisoner is fascinating. “Starting over with a clean slate might not be the worst thing in the world for him,” Kurt argues. And that was the same argument that Jane used when she injected Roman: “When you injected me with that drug, when I lost all of my memories, I got the chance to start over again... and now, you will too.” But she’s older now, and wiser, as she tells Kurt, “I’ve done a lot of horrible things in my life, but one of the worst was ZIPing Roman. I can’t do that to anyone else. We’d be taking his family from him. The only thing he cares about would be gone.” When Remi got ZIPed, she forgot Roman, she forgot all of their shared history together, and the relationship that she built with him as Jane paled in comparison to all the years and shared experiences as Remi. Remi didn’t really know what was ahead of her, but now Jane has the benefit of both her memories and Remi’s, so her perspective is much broader and her understanding of the concept of self is much deeper. So even though this was just a tiny bit of dialogue, the acknowledgement here that erasing even a pain-filled past takes away things that can never be replaced shows us that Jane realizes that ZIP was a mistake—both for her and for Roman. We didn’t really get to see Jane mourning Roman (just as we didn’t get to see much of her probable PTSD from the blacksite), and I really missed seeing Remi deal with his loss and all of those years of memories with the one person who had been a constant in a life filled with loss and trauma. But we see here an acknowledgement from her that we need both our good memories and our bad ones, as both of them have an equal role in what makes us individuals.

And even though she is struggling with self-doubt right now, Jane still has a huge depth of experience—both as Jane and as Remi—to draw upon. All of those experiences combined give her unique strengths to cope with the challenges of their current reality. She just needs to trust that she is ready for this task.

Kurt continues to struggle with their new reality and his forced separation from Bethany. But are his emotions getting the better of him to the extent that they’re affecting his judgement when it comes to doing what is best for the team?

L: Jane may be the one having nightmares, but this week’s case reads like one of Kurt’s: The team goes on an opp, something goes wrong, he comes back and Jane doesn’t. He’s already teetering on the edge, so if there was anything that was going to send him right over it, this is it.

And it’s a scary place for Kurt to be. Yes, he’s been fighting to get back to Bethany, but the saving grace to this whole situation is that he’s with Jane. He’s lived through 18 months without her, and he knows how awful it was to worry all the time that something had happened to her, that he’d never see her again. So it’s not much surprise to anyone that he kind of snaps at the idea that she’s out there alone, possibly injured or dead.

And snap he does, at Tasha and Patterson and Rich. Some of it is the stress, but I think it’s also his frustration at the situation they find themselves in—all alone, without the structure of the government he’s spent his career supporting. The scene where they are interrogating “Loris” is particularly interesting. Their prisoner claims to be terrified for his family, and Kurt immediately reassures him that they can protect his family. But of course, he can’t. He has no agency behind him anymore. It’s just the five of them hiding out in this bunker. There’s no backup, no superiors to move things up the chain, no inter-agency agreements. They can barely help themselves, let alone anyone else. And Loris calls him on it. “How? You barely got out alive today.” You can see on Weller’s face that this barb hits home. Just like Patterson and her lab computing power, Kurt is used to working with backup, both with additional agents and with the full might of the US government behind him. His quick (and empty) response to Loris shows that he hasn’t quite made that mental shift yet, as do his demands to Patterson to produce results at the same rate as she did in the lab.

Kurt is a powerful force out in the field, but he’s operating under new parameters now. And the faster he wraps his brain around that, the faster he can meet his goal of getting home to Bethany.

Y: When it comes to Kurt, there are two things from this episode that I want to talk about.

First of all, like everyone else on the team, there’s Kurt’s emotional state. Pretty much in the same boat as Patterson, Kurt’s emotional collapse is being created by worrying about and missing his family back home—basically Bethany. Kurt has already missed a part of her life, and the guilt from that was heavy enough. And he was already struggling with being a distant parent with his daughter living in Colorado and only seeing him every couple of weeks. We’d already seen him struggle with that. But whereas it was a minor issue for him before, right now it’s become everything.

The weight of his guilt and his worry, mixed in with everything else, is really tearing at Kurt and terribly affecting his judgment and obviously his relationship with everyone else. Kurt is a control freak and having so much out of his control—practically everything about his current situation—is a little too much for him. The only thing maintaining his sanity—or what is left of it right now—is having Jane with him. And so in this episode when Jane doesn’t come back to the bunker, he just absolutely loses it and all rational thinking goes out the window for Kurt Weller.

One of the things we’ve known since day one is that he is a man who builds a lot of walls, who tries to keep people at a distance, and who isn’t one to really show his feelings that easily. But we’ve also known that what drives him has always been his heart, his infinite capacity to love, and the things close to his heart. This has been a beautiful thing to watch and just as beautiful has been watching him learn to break down those walls and become more comfortable with sharing his heart with others. And right now, this is exactly what is tearing him apart.

The other thing with regards to Kurt that I wanted to talk about is that amazing moment when he apologizes to Jane about how he reacted to Patterson’s ZIP idea. I just… I loved that moment so much. It was so great in every way possible. His support for her, his admission of wrongdoing, his listening to her and hearing her out, his respecting that she knows about this more than anyone, his support of her, and his validating her experience as the one that should matter here… everything about that moment was so good.

Oh, the Jeller… it’s really good when it’s angsty, isn’t it?

Y: How can you not just love when those two are both so emotionally raw and vulnerable and hurting but still find the strength and love to support each other and hold each other up and the trust to know they can lean on each other and depend on each other? No matter what is happening, they will always have each other’s back. They will always have that unbreakable bond between them that is at the core of who they are. Whatever they are going through, their love is always there to give them strength and faith and hope.

Those two quiet intimate moments between those two—discussing Jane’s nightmare and then Kurt apologizing for the ZIP idea—were peak Jeller. And of course everything in between was also brilliant. We’re not getting to see those two in the adorable domestic setting we’ve come to love in the past two seasons, but somehow they’ve managed to translate it into a “we’re on the run and living in a bunker with all our friends but we’re still equal parts badass, epic, and adorable” situation, and I’m living for it.

And on a final note, you gotta love how the balance is shifting between these two from one episode to another. When one of them is feeling down, the other is there to hold them up and be stronger one and that is just a testament to how perfect these two are.

L: Yep. You know how we said last week that when one of them falters, the other stands strong, and vice versa? I’m just gonna say “ditto” here. In 5.02, we saw Kurt losing hope and faith and Jane keeping him going. And this week, it’s the reverse. After Jane’s dream, she admits to Kurt, “I wanna believe we’ll take her down, but it just feels so hopeless sometimes.” And this time, it’s Kurt who reassures her, “That just means that we’re due for a win... Before you know it, we’re gonna be in our home, tucking Bethany into bed, and hopefully just falling asleep in front of the TV like normal people.” (Although clearly they don’t watch shows like Blindspot, because I have no idea how you’d fall asleep during the tensest hour on television.)

I think what’s great about the two of them right now is actually the lack of angst between them. There is angst everywhere around them, in their situation, between the members of the team. But when these two are alone together, all of that fades away, and it’s just this quiet, reassuring strength that ebbs and flows between the two of them in turn, as each of them needs. Yes, this is television, but it’s also the way the very best of relationships should work, and it’s so refreshing to see this shown on the screen, rather than the two of turning on each other and their relationship imploding from the stress of their situation.

These two have each other, and they have their eye on the prize. It’s not gonna be easy, of course, but if anyone can make it, these two can.

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Well, that’s all from us! We’re still struggling to deal with the tragic loss from this week and trying to brace ourselves for another one next week because MG promised us pain. So if you’re feeling it too, or if you have any other feels you wanna share with us, we love to hear from you guys!

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: kurt weller #character: jane doe #character: patterson #character: tasha zapata #character: rich dotcom #character: matthew weitz #character: madeline burke #character: afreen #character: briana #ship: Jane/Kurt

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more--than--anything · 4 years

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Hello! I just wanted to drop you an ask to say: thank you so very much for putting so much effort into these reviews every week. You get so little in the way of feedback, yet you still devote so much time and love to these reviews, and I just wanted to say that I really appreciate you guys. *hugs*

L: Awwww! Thank you so much! *hugs you back*

We appreciate YOU reading our rambles. Honestly, this is mostly what we would be texting each other back and forth (well, with more emojis), so it's probably therapeutic for us. And if it sparks discussion within the fandom, even better!

Y: LOL! Yeah, the reviews are basically transcriptions of our WhatsApp flailing, only with better grammar and more proofreading. But, like L said, we appreciate YOU guys for sticking with us and reading these reviews as wordy and ramble-y and flail-y as they often get. We love that you guys still love to read them as much as we love writing them and we are so excited that we get the chance to do it one last time!

#blindspot #blindspot: replies

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more--than--anything · 4 years

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Episode Review: "Madeline is running the FBI like it's Orwell Night at Comic-Con." [S05E02]

This week’s episode featured Archie-the-Bunker and fan-favorite Bill “The world’s on freakin’ fire” Nye. And we finally find out Patterson’s first name! Could we have asked for more?

Y: I would say no but if I am being honest, I would ask that they stop making my favorite characters suffer? But this is Blindspot and so I guess that would never stop so I guess Archie the bunker, Bill frikkin’ Nye and so much more of Afreen being awesome is more than I dare ask for.

L: Okay, pain and suffering aside, there was a lot to love about this episode. I have a feeling this final, shorter season is going to keep up this frenetic pace the whole way, and I am simultaneously excited and having a panic attack.

Our team decides to poke their heads out of their bunker to find out whether or not they can trust Weitz, a mission that requires good disguises, untraceable comms, and Bill Nye, the science and espionage guy. Did their gamble pay off?

L: The team is still hunkered down in “Archie Bunker” (because Rich Dotcom is clearly up on his 1970’s sitcoms), but Weller has no intention of getting comfortable there. He wants the team to retrieve Dominic’s phone, which Rich stashed in an air duct at the FBI before being captured by the CIA. There is no way that the team can get it themselves (which frankly disappoints me, as I was really looking forward to an NYO heist job this season), so they have to find someone who can do it for them. Weitz seems a likely candidate, but our team is not in agreement about whether or not he can be trusted. (I have to admit that the first mental image I had when Rich referred to Weitz as a “piece of human garbage” was Rich wearing his “literal garbage” shirt in 1.18. I might have snickered a bit.) Weitz was responsible for Rich being captured (although honestly, that seemed more like incompetence rather than malice), but he also warned the team about the drone strike. So to settle the debate, Jane decides (in her first tough call of the episode) that they should talk to him directly, so they can evaluate for themselves whether he’s trustworthy or not.

Getting face-to-face with Weitz turns out to be easier than expected when they find out that he’s giving a speech at the “World Collaboration Forum” (a name which in and of itself seems ironic, since our team is trying to decide whether they can “collaborate” with Weitz or not). Unfortunately, they can’t get on the guest list themselves, but someone they know gets an invitation every year. Patterson is understandably reluctant to involve her father in their schemes (and after seeing what happened to Sho Ahktar, I really really really really really hope the team doesn’t get bad news about Bill Nye in the next episode!). To get in touch with him, Patterson hacks into the videogame he’s playing online. She only has 30 seconds to talk to him before they have to cut the connection, and honestly, the moment where she has to hang up on him as he’s saying “I love you” was the first (but not the last) moment these two made me tear up this week.

I know that the writers had no way of knowing what was going to be happening in the world by the time this episode aired, but the theme in this week’s episode about being cut off from family really hit home for me. I mean, sure, we’re not having to hack into video game systems and use untraceable comms to talk to our families, but even unlimited Zoom conference calls are a far cry from being able to hug your loved ones. And, like the team, we have no idea when it will be safe to visit with our extended families again. (And also like the team, even though most of us aren’t living in a bunker, we are still trapped in a confined space with the same group of people day in and day out. Frankly, it’s kind of surprising to me that the team isn’t getting on each others’ nerves as much as my kids are. But then again, the team has only been there a week, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see how they’re doing in two months.)

Now, we are pretty open about the fact that we are serious Bill Nye fangirls on this blog, and he’s pretty awesome in this episode. I love his proud little smile as Patterson explains all the steps they went through to hack into the security system for the conference. His expression can best be described as “That’s my girl!” He might not be an actor by trade, but he’s doing a pretty convincing job of portraying Patterson Sr. on this show. His eyebrows alone deserve billing in the credits. And his attention-grabbing rant while Weitz sidles off to meet with Patterson and Weller (including a reference to his awesome “The world’s on f*cking fire” talk) was hands down one of my favorite moments in this episode. Second to that would be his timely wielding of a fire extinguisher to take out Madeline’s henchman so that he and Patterson can disable the bomb together. (They’re my new favorite podcast, too, Rich!)

Jane tells Kurt and Patterson to go with their guts, and they make the call to trust Weitz. He points the team to Afreen, although honestly, I don’t understand why they didn’t approach Afreen earlier. Patterson worked closely with her; surely she would have gambled on trusting Afreen before Weitz? But I loved the callback to David in season 1 to get Afreen’s attention on her coffee cup. (Thank goodness she is more alert in the morning than I am, because I probably wouldn’t have been able to pick up on the hidden message until after I’d already finished the cup and thrown it away.)

In a surprise to no one except Weitz himself, he isn’t there on the basis of his resume. He’s there to get Madeline’s henchman (his “security guards”) into the building so they can set a bomb to take out the real target, Susah Shah. Shah is described as “one of the president’s top advisers and has been a very vocal, very public critic of Madeline’s.” As we have mentioned, the team is going to need contacts high up inside the government but outside of Madeline’s influence, so it sounds like Shah might fit that bill. And fortunately, thanks to Bill Nye’s timely assistance, Patterson’s smarts, Rich’s hacking abilities, and Weller’s ability to take down paid mercenaries (it takes a village to save the world), Shah survives the conference, which means there’s a good chance we might see her again.

So in the end... they stick their heads out of hiding, they involve Patterson’s father, but they still walk away with a loss. Maybe worse than a loss, since Madeline not only gets her hands on the phone but also manages to pin her nefarious deeds on the team once again. (Okay, the team did save Weitz’s life, but I am not sure that all of them would count that as a win.) But it’s always the darkest before the dawn, right? I’m just gonna cling to that.

Y: We’re just so not used to this team losing so much, and it’s almost unbearable to watch them do everything right and yet still come out on the losing side. Sure, they’ve had their fair share of defeats in the past and some of them have been terrible defeats. But in the past, they’d enjoy a couple of victories sandwiching those defeats. But it seems ever since Madeline walked into their lives, they’ve suffered one defeat after the other.

And if we as viewers are feeling the pain of these losses then you can just imagine what these characters must feel like. In Helsinki, they literally did everything right. And then even went above and beyond and saved the lives of hundreds of innocent people when they could’ve easily just walked away and no one would’ve even known they were there. My heart breaks for them.

But like you said, it is always darkest before the dawn and maybe something good can eventually come out of this and that is knowing there is someone in the White House who could be a potential ally. Also, finding out that Madeline is now working with the Dabbur Zahn, while terrifying, at least helps them put a face and name to this new enemy. The Dabbur Zahn is probably the longest serving terrorist organization on the show. It has been showing up repeatedly since season 1, and while it may shift nationality and agenda, at least we know them—or rather the team know them—and that could go down in the positives column.

And we will get to Weitz personally in a minute, but I just want to comment on how his being a part of this op affected the op itself and the team. I think Weitz here serves as the first example of how aspects of a case will affect or influence how the team works and does things during the season. In this case, it was Weitz creating tension and splitting the team’s decision. In the future, it’s going to be other things, and it’s going to be interesting watching how these different circumstances will affect how the team operates and how it affects its efficiency and performance.

And speaking of performance, how awesome was Bill Nye in the field? It’s like he’s a natural and should’ve been given the chance to be a field agent a long time ago!

Okay, no, I am kidding. This one outing was enough because Bill Nye must be protected at all costs!

Like L said, there was no way the writers could’ve known the circumstances in which these episodes would be airing, but the emotional impact of this episode was multiplied exponentially with what we’re all living through. Not taking any credit away from the writers or the actors here. The writing was amazing and every single one of those actors nailed the emotional state of their characters, but damn, some of it was so hard to watch.

Martin Gero did say that we’ll be getting all our favorite guest stars back to give them a proper goodbye. But they’re also writing them back with such amazing plots and giving them the chance not only to have one final bow but also some really juicy stuff to work with. Bill Nye got to come back, got to be Bill Nye, gave an amazing speech, helped save the day, had some epic lines of dialogue, shared such powerful scenes with Patterson, and finally revealed the biggest mystery of all. William Patterson!

So I guess this is the last we see of Bill Nye on the show—unless there’s a surprise return in the finale—but all I can say is that we were so lucky that he was a part of the show and that his last appearance might be his absolute best. I hope he stays safe out there and his little adventure with the team doesn’t cost him anything because once the team make it back home, William Jr. needs to go have dinner with mom and dad (and the brother we seem to have forgotten about? Or was that a lie she made up to get Reade to open up?).

L: I do want to talk about Patterson’s non-existent brother, for anyone else who might be wondering. If you remember, back in 2.15, Patterson confronted Reade about his drug use, telling him: “I have a brother. I don’t really talk about him. But he almost died because of his addiction, and he’s still not well. And whenever the phone rings in the middle of the night, I think it’s finally the call.” But we never heard anything about the brother again. And then in season 3, they cast Bill Nye as Patterson’s father and talked about Patterson’s mother, but there was no mention of a brother. And it’s been the same each time we’ve seen Bill Nye since. I think that once the writers decided to make Bill Nye Patterson’s father, they didn’t want him to have a drug-addicted son, so they dropped that plot thread completely. When Patterson saw her father this time, she asked about her mother but didn’t ask about her brother, which she certainly would have. Sorry bro, I think you’ve been erased from history. (Which is probably a good thing, because given the Patterson-Nye family naming conventions, he probably would have been named Elizabeth Nye or some such.)

Meanwhile, Madeline’s grip on the FBI is turning into more of a stranglehold. How is The Resistance faring?

Y: Look, the show was giving me enough anxiety having to worry about the Bunker Family. And now they throw in the little band of rebels, and I am an absolute mess here… The Resistance? You’re asking about the Resistance? Well...

L: The Resistance is dropping like flies, and I am totally freaking out!

Weitz is his usual slightly smarmy, self-absorbed self in this episode, full of how he’s such a big deal at this conference. He even apparently thinks that Bill Nye is hitting on him. Oh, Matthew. The world is just not as hot for you as you think they are. (And probably even less so now, after your rambling, nonsensical verbal diarrhea on stage.) I love that Patterson’s first question to him is, “How did you get a speech here anyway?” and that Tasha follows up the discovery of the bomb with, “That explains how he got the speaking slot.” Weitz, I’m sorry, but the team is not as big a fan of yours as you are of them. I guess we know why Madeline said he was “valuable” last week, but now that he didn’t die as a tragic casualty in a bomb explosion, is there still a good reason for Madeline to keep him around the NYO? Is her “useful idiot” still useful?

I never thought I would spend so much time worrying about Matthew Weitz.

But for all of his flaws, Weitz does seem truly remorseful about what happened to Rich. And his reply—“I didn’t know they were gonna send him there. Really, I just thought they were gonna put him in a holding cell for a couple of hours until we, you know, did the usual thing, when we save the day at the last minute.”—does show the great amount of faith that he has in this team. They got off to a rough start, but he learned to trust them and to know that they’d deliver at the end of the day. He really did think that they’d get to Iceland and prove the whole case against Madeline. (I do wish he’d expressed a bit of grief about Reade, though, since of all of the team, he must have worked the most closely with Reade.)

Y: I have to say, I am really enjoying Weitz so far this season. And I know it’s only been two episodes, but he’s really had quite the two episodes. You guys know we love a good redemption arc, and we’ve always loved to hate Weitz, so I’m excited to see how the writers draw up this journey for him. Clearly that’s where they have him headed. We’ve already had one incredible redemption arc on this show with Rich, and now that good old Rich is nice and reformed, it’s fun watching another character embark on this journey.

Weitz has never been categorically evil. He’s walked the tight rope dangerously, but he’s always technically been on the side of good. He’s done some bad things. He’s flirted with the wrong people. But for all his dumb ass and wrong decisions, his self-serving and selfish motives, he’s always ultimately been one of the good guys.

Weitz was great in this episode. From his usual self-absorbed self, to showing some true colors of how much he has faith in the team, to his regret and guilt about what happened to Rich, to firmly cementing his stance as a member of the resistance. This was a huge episode for Weitz. And Aaron Abrams was absolutely brilliant. I’m glad this season is allowing other people to really have their moment and giving them some really good material to work with. And speaking of good material, that rambling speech he gave on stage? One of the best Blindspot scenes in the history of Blindspot scenes.

But as fun as the scene was, it was only a brief moment of levity compared to what is really going on...

L: Yes, things are steadily going downhill at the FBI. Weitz sums it up perfectly when he says, “Madeline is running the FBI like it’s Orwell Night at Comic-Con.” She has her team of mercenaries doing full body searches of all agents and support staff. She’s installing “tracking software” on everyone’s phones (and if tracking is all that app is doing, then my first name is William, too! Although now I kinda want to see Madeline’s Big Brother app facing off against Wizardville, don’t you?!). I’m not sure any of these privacy invasions would hold up in court, but since she controls the whole chain of command, I guess the employee complaint department is closed. And yes, Weitz, your speech on “American law enforcement’s role as champion for freedom across the globe” is not only ironic, but kind of comical at this point.

And now Mad Maddie has Briana spying on her coworkers. I had high hopes for Briana to see the same kind of evolution in her character that we are seeing in Weitz, but instead I think I am revising my opinion that she had anything to do with the bird tattoo message in Times Square. She seems pretty weak in this episode. And actually, not all that bright, too, since she seems surprised when Madeline threatens her family. She knew Dominic was working for Madeline. Did she think that Madeline was less ruthless than Dominic? Did someone ZIP and make her forget the drone strike that Madeline ordered on the team? Come on, Briana, this isn’t your first day at the FBI. Understanding how criminals work is pretty much your job description!

I will let Yas be our head Afreen cheerleader, here, but I just loved the scene between her and Briana and the backstory they gave Afreen. (And as much as I miss Reade, his absence does leave us a little more room for the development of secondary characters, which is both enjoyable and helps to remind us that more than just the fate of our team is at stake.) I do think that Afreen was able to get through to Briana, but it might have been too little too late. As Weitz puts it: Either she’s in trouble or he and Afreen are. I want to believe that Briana found a little internal strength to resist ratting them out, but frankly, she hasn’t shown anywhere near that level of gumption yet, so I feel like it might be too much to hope for.

Y: I was really glad to see Briana in this episode. She was mysteriously missing from the first episode and after the damage she did in the last few episodes of last season, I didn’t want her to just disappear into the background and not have to either pay for what she’s done, and make up for it or at least show us that she’s still somehow under Madeline’s control. Clearly, Madeline wasn’t just going to ignore her or let her go or not keep an eye on her. If there is anyone who can expose Madeline from within the FBI, it’s Briana. Lucky for Madeline, Briana’s not the bravest of the lot.

I want to be pissed off at Briana—for what she did last season, for not standing up to Madeline, for being so weak—but on the other hand, she is absolutely heartbreaking. She’s scared and she has every right to be. She’s trying to protect her family and no one can blame her for that. And at the end of the day, she does do the right thing. So while I want to be mad at her, I feel so bad for her that I can’t.

And now, she’s been added to the list of people I am worried about. Nothing good comes to those who cross paths with Ivy… I just hope that this is not the last we’ve seen of Briana. Just like the team, she tried to do the right thing but ended up… really screwed.

Now on to Afreen... Is it that obvious that I have a soft spot for Afreen? Okay, yeah, I guess it is. Look, I’m shameless here. I was an Afreen fan before Afreen was even Afreen. I mean, we used to just see a hijab-wearing extra in the lab scenes behind Patterson, and I was already a huge fan. Honestly, yes, I am glad they’re giving her more backstory, but I would still be ecstatic about her character even if they didn’t give her that tragic backstory. Not that I am complaining.

I love that Afreen isn’t just a token minority character used as a prop for presentation. She’s not just a hijab-wearing Muslim character being used for that. She’s now a fully-fledged character who is part of the story, and her story is not defined by her religion or ethnicity.

And I know Weitz thinks he’s running the Resistance, but let’s be honest, Afreen is clearly the brains of the operation. I loved that she was rightfully wary of approaching Briana. And I loved that she picked up on the message the team sent her. And I loved her crawling in the vents to get the phone and then her appealing passionately to Briana and getting to her.

Ami Sheth, the actress who plays Afreen, was given a small bit role a few seasons ago. She started off with practically no lines and evolved to popping up occasionally with a line or two, and in that she managed to make Afreen have such a noticeable presence. And now she’s gotten the chance to really shine, for her character to have an important role in the story and to become more than just a face in the background. And she is doing a great job at it! I know, I know… I love Afreen maybe slightly more than anyone else out there so you’ll have to bear with me and my gushing.

I hope we get to see more and more of Afreen as the season goes on, that she continues to lead the resistance and manages to help our favorite team take down Madeline and come back home.

L: Which isn’t going to be easy. This week we learned that Madeline hired mercenaries with ties to the Dabbur Zahn. If you weren’t entirely convinced that she’s a bad guy, aligning her with the same multinational terrorist group that our team of good guys have been battling off and on since season one ought to do it. I agree with Rich: She’s even more terrifying now. And more so with every minute that passes.

And even more terrifying than Madeline now is Ivy Sands. I mean, Madeline is batshit insane, but Ivy will kill you, chop up your body, and then ask for more money to chop the pieces up smaller. The fact that she figured out so quickly that Sho Ahktar was the one who gave the team the plans and executed him so ruthlessly to send the team a message.... Look, Madeline might be the big bad this season, but I would be much more afraid of being alone in a room with Ivy than Madeline. And I am not going to lie... I am kind of sad about Sho. I mean, he was also crazy as a loon, but he was pretty entertaining when he was high and sometimes even helpful!

I have to give full props to the writers for the way that the FBI resistance is confronted one by one by Madeline’s henchwoman, Ivy Sands, and then not heard from again for the rest of the episode. I desperately hope they are all okay, but between Madeline and Ivy, I also wouldn’t be surprised if the team gets pictures of each one posed like Sho in the next episode. Either way, it’s a powerful note to leave hanging for two weeks.

But whether they’re out on a mission or running things from deep within the bunker, the strain on our team is significant. Are we seeing any cracks in their resolve?

Y: In the review of the premiere, I mentioned how I think there’s going to be a lot of similarities between Kurt and Patterson this season in how they deal with the reality of working in the black—of not having the rules and regulations and structure of the FBI to fall back on—and it seems that the similarities between the two are actually going to be this and more. Of all the team members, they are the two whose families have been present in the show. Okay, yes, there’s Jane as well, but Jane and her family are a whole different story.

Kurt’s family may have had more presence, but Patterson’s family has always felt the closest and the more… normal. If such a concept exists on the show. Before we even met her dad, we knew that she had a tight relationship with her mom. So, Patterson has to be struggling with the separation and the distance the way she is. I’m sure they’re all hurting through all this, but it’s interesting how they are using each character as a vessel for different aspects of this struggle. Kurt and Patterson are the ones being used for the struggle with the legality of it and with the separation from their loved ones. And it was perfect that it was those two who went on this very emotional mission.

L: There’s been so much focus on Kurt missing Bethany that it’s easy to forget that there are other people on the team who are missing family members just as much. (How is poor Tasha’s Abuela doing?) As we talked about above, maybe it’s because of what we’re all going through right now, or maybe it’s just because Ashley Johnson and Bill Nye did such a great job with all the small details that sell us on their father-daughter relationship, but either way, it’s not hard to relate to the pain of absence—the liget that Bill Nye identified—that they are both feeling. And I think that it also makes us really appreciate how happy they both are when they get to work together to solve a problem—even if that problem happens to be a bomb that’s in imminent danger of going off. It’s quite clear that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree in the Patterson-Nye household, as we see when they both have voice recordings for the other. “Great minds, Dad,” says Patterson. And they both truly are.

And until they are reunited again, it’s good that Patterson has her foster family around her. There are her foster parents, Jane and Kurt, whom she appeals to when her foster brother Rich is getting on her nerves. “That’s what he keeps calling the bunker. Please make him stop.” And they aren’t above teasing her, too, as we see when Kurt asks her, “What’s your space camp name?” This family may be a wee bit dysfunctional, but they’ve got each other’s backs, and right now, that’s what they all need.

Well, they also need to floss and eat right, so I hope they take Bill’s advice.

Y: I love that the show is still managing to give us these lighter moments between the team members. Because if the world’s current situation has taught us anything, it’s that through the toughest times, people still find humor and banter—in fact, it becomes more present in these times to help people survive the tougher the times get.

And the tougher times get, the closer you get to those around you, the more you lean on them, and the more you open up to them. Even if they occasionally get on your nerves and make you want to strangle them. Okay, I might be projecting here.

And for the second week in a row, we are destroyed with the feels because of a Tasha/Rich scene. Seriously, this is a friendship we never saw coming and never expected would develop to be so sweet. It’s terribly awkward because neither of those two is especially good at this—I’m looking at you, Tasha—but somehow they’ve found this new thing comforting and an unexpected balm in the midst of all this.

L: Oh man, I really loved the conversation between Tasha and Rich. It would be easy to shrug off the difficulties we see Rich experiencing in this episode; everyone has an off day, now and then, and Rich is so flippant most of the time, it’s harder to tell when something is seriously bothering him. But not only does Tasha pick up on his struggles, she understands the cause, and tries to help him as best she can. Tasha (like Jane) is someone who is more comfortable doing something rather than sitting around talking about feelings. So just giving Rich the poster would have been a way to show him he’s not alone anymore, that she heard him earlier, but she doesn’t stop there. She offers to be someone he can talk to, which is, for Tasha “I hate feelings” Zapata, kind of huge.

But it’s not entirely out of character. If there’s one thing we know about Tasha, it’s that she pays her debts (literally and figuratively). And she knows that Rich reached out to her when she was broken and lost and helped her to get back on course. So even though it’s not comfortable for her, she can’t do any less for him in return—although with the disclaimer, “I’m just as messed up as anyone.” And the awkward little hug she gives him, which surprised both of them? Oh man, my heart.

I just love this team. They’ve been through so much, and they are all broken and messed up in so many ways, but they help make each other whole again.

I’m glad that we’re talking about the PTSD that Rich would most certainly have had after his time in the blacksite, but I will admit that it still bugs me that we didn’t see more of it in Jane after she rejoined the team. And as much as I absolutely love the friendship we are seeing between Tasha and Rich, I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t Jane who brought this issue up with Rich, after she clearly recognized that he wasn’t all right. She is the one who would understand best what he’s going through, so she would be the logical person to reach out to him. But I guess she’s a little busy helping her husband through his issues this week to reach out to Rich, too.

Too bad Borden turned out to be a mole; this team could really use an in-house shrink right now.

Y: I agree. Tackling the black site PTSD was a lost opportunity with Jane, but I am glad the writers aren’t glossing over it again with Rich. They could easily have Rich fall back on his humor and sarcasm and portrayed it as some sort of defense mechanism, but they’re not doing that. What happened in that black site really broke him, and we’re seeing that clearly on screen. Ennis is doing a great job showing this broken and fragile side of Rich, and while I hope Rich manages to overcome this, I cannot deny that I am enjoying his performance.

And while I do agree that it would make sense for Jane to be the one to support him, I understand that she may have a little too much on her plate. She does pick up on Rich not doing too well, but by the end of the episode she also has to deal with her husband’s breakdown, so I understand why Tasha was the one to reach out to him in this episode. On the one hand, it’s a sweet moment that paralleled him being there for her in the premiere. But on the other hand, it also has me worried about Tasha.

Yes, Tasha isn’t the best at feelings, but I think this goes much deeper than that. I have a bad feeling that Tasha is focusing on Rich’s struggles and Rich’s pain to ignore and avoid dealing with her own feelings. Tasha is far from having properly dealt with her heartbreak—with mourning Reade—and maybe helping Rich would be a good thing for her to work through her problems, but I also hope that she isn’t just burying her own feelings deep inside. I’ve heard rumors that isn’t healthy.

Jane makes a couple of tough calls this week. How is she settling into the role of team leader?

L: They are still filming around Jaimie’s limited mobility (and if I recall correctly, Ami Sheth, the actress who plays Afreen, was nearing the end of her pregnancy while they were filming this season, which makes me really impressed by how well they are able to film around these issues), so I totally understood why they wrote Jane sending Patterson to Helsinki in her place. But really, it would have made more sense for Jane and Patterson to go, especially since Jane is supposed to be leading this charge right now. It feels weird watching Jane hold down the fort while others are out in the field, and I hope we get to see her back in action soon.

Which doesn’t mean that Jane doesn’t have to make any hard calls during this episode. The scene at the end, when Kurt doesn’t want to give up on the phone data, even though it might expose their location? That was hard to watch, for both Jane and Kurt. Because, yes, Kurt is kind of losing it—working outside the law is getting to him—but Jane is the one who has to make the call. It reminds of the Dumbledore quote from Harry Potter: “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” Yes, Jane is a total badass in the field and will face down a billion bad guys armed to the teeth without blinking an eye. But you could see on her face that it was a million times harder for her to argue with Kurt and give up on retrieving the data from the phone. It was the right call, yes, but doing the right thing isn’t always easy, and in this case, she had to disappoint the man she loves in the process.

And Kurt does acknowledge that it was the right call, which brings us to another powerful conversation. So far this season, the team’s message has been that they’re going to clear their names, get back home, and get their lives back. But Jane is the first one to actually say that they might never be FBI again. And I think that’s a big deal. Yes, they might be able to prove themselves innocent of the crimes that Madeline pinned on them, but there will likely still be some suspicion surrounding their methods. It’s not as though they reported to their superior’s office to escalate matters up the proper chain of command, and the FBI is all about following rules and regulations. Not to mention the fact that Madeline has made public the crimes they did commit. Even if Rich doesn’t go back to jail for his hacking with Patterson, it’s unlikely that either of them would be allowed to run an FBI lab again. Jane did break Shepherd out of a blacksite, and Kurt did cover that up, so it’s unlikely they would be able to get the clearance required to be FBI agents again. And Tasha? Well, who knows. Madeline pinned a lot of deaths on her with no witnesses or proof to exonerate her, so in the end it’s her word against Madeline’s. And since her face has been plastered all over the news, it’s unlikely the CIA could use her for undercover work again, so where does that leave her?

I think in some ways Jane is a step ahead of Kurt right now. She’s already accepted that they aren’t going to return to the lives that they left, which leaves her free to imagine a new life and work toward that goal, rather than being stuck dwelling on the things that she’s lost. And maybe that’s just part of her personality: Every bit of security she’s had has been ripped away from her, over and over, throughout her life; her childhood in South Africa, her relationship with her brother, her daughter, her SEAL team. Every time she’s had connections, they’ve been ripped away, and she’s been forced to find a new way forward. It’s a double-edged sword: On the one hand, it makes her very determined to hold on to this family, to keep them safe and bring them home. But it also means she’s a very practical person, and perhaps that has given her the gift of being able to focus on finding a way out of whatever adverse conditions she’s found herself in. She isn’t someone who spends a lot of time feeling sorry for herself; she looks for a way out and moves in that direction. And as we began to see in this episode, I think that going forward, not only is she going to have to take the lead of the team, she’s going to have to show Kurt the way, too.

Y: I definitely do not envy Jane and the position she is in right now. It sucks to be her on so many levels. I love that Dumbledore quote. It perfectly applies to Jane right now. We’ve never seen Jane in such a position before, and I am not at all doubting her abilities to lead the team, but she is realizing just how hard it is for so many reasons. I love that this is the last chapter in Jane’s journey. After four seasons of self-discovery, of finding out who she is as an individual, where she belongs within the team and her relationship with Kurt, she is now figuring out what it means to not just be a part of a team but to be a leader of a team—and a leader as Jane and not as Remi.

It is natural for her to be struggling with this role. Making the tough decisions, making calls that determine everyone’s fate and having to take a stand one way or another knowing that others around her might disagree or disapprove. And it’s especially harder in the situation that they are in and the fact that the team have become more a family than just people who work with each other—a broken family but a family nonetheless. Jane is now realizing just how hard it is to be that person, to be the one who has to make the final call and be responsible for the outcome of these decisions even if it splits your team.

Jane is also realizing a few more things. For starters, even though she has technically done this before—being on the run, I mean—she is quickly realizing that doing it on your own is not the same as doing it with others. She doesn’t only have to worry about keeping herself safe, but she also has to make sure everyone else is safe as well—especially as the newly voted leader of the team—and that is much much harder. And if you add to that the fact that every member of her team is hurting on a personal level, then the job is that much harder. They’re still the most capable and most badass team, but emotionally every one of them is on the verge of collapse and struggling to remain in the right mental state for the task at hand.

And what is making it harder is that her rock, the one person she can truly lean on during all this and the person who she would usually trust to carry her through anything that proves to be too much for her to handle on her own, isn’t dealing with things any better than the others. In fact, Kurt is the one who is most visibly struggling with their current situation.

It’s heartbreaking watching Jane have to put aside her own pain—because you know that she too is feeling what everyone else is feeling, from missing those she had to leave behind, to the feeling of hopelessness, to the betrayal of being framed and not to mention that whatever Rich is going through must be triggering for her—and ignoring her own feelings in order to remain strong for everyone else. That scene with Kurt at the end was powerful, like L said, and it forced Jane to voice the one thing they are all thinking but are too scared to say out loud. And it hurts Jane just as much, but she sees that her role as leader means she also has to be the one to say those things. She’s really stepping up to be the leader she thinks the team needs right now even if it’s at the expense of her own emotional state.

One last thing about Jane is how interesting it is to watch her this season in this new role. It’s not necessarily that unfamiliar but it’s still new and different. She is going to have to tap into her Remi memories and Remi training to deal with certain things that may come up. But what I am excited to see is how Jane fares in a leadership position compared to Remi. We didn’t really get to see much of Remi as a leader, but we did get some glimpses of her as a second in command to Shepherd in some of the flashbacks and then when Jane reverted back to her in season 4.

Remi was always driven and motivated by the cause and she cared more about the end result and about the task than anything else. Remi cared more about getting the job done than the people who were doing the job. We saw how she was with the likes of Cade, for example. She cared about results. She cared about the missions. Remi was less concerned about the people, about the team she was leading, and I don’t think she would’ve ever taken moment to consider how they were dealing with things emotionally and mentally.

But that is not our Jane. In that sense, Jane cannot be the same kind of leader that Remi would have been. So it is going to be extremely exciting to watch Jane balance those two parts of her—the tactical and strategic and result-seeking Remi part that is most definitely capable of taking down Madeline and bringing the team back home, and the compassionate Jane part that loves her team and cares about them and values their lives and their well-being more than anything else.

You know Kurt is going through a rough patch when even getting to spend time with his hero, Bill Nye, doesn’t cheer him up. How is our favorite former Special Agent holding up?

Y: He’s not doing so great, is he? After the happiness of reuniting with his wife last week and trying to find some way to accept their current situation has worn off, (former) Special Agent Weller is starting to come to terms with what it really means, and he is not handling so great.

L: You know that things are not going well for Kurt when spending time with Bill Nye doesn’t reduce Kurt to a flailing fangirl. Or when he turns down the opportunity to defuse a bomb. Where did our Kurt Weller go, and can we please get him back??

Kurt decides early on in this episode, “That phone is the key to getting our lives back.” And in retrospect, placing that much weight on retrieving it might have been setting himself up for failure. Because the key to getting their lives back is sitting there in the bunker with him: It’s the team, working together and doing what they do best. Yes, the phone was evidence that could have helped, but it was also evidence that likely wouldn’t have held up in court, so at most it was a stepping stone to point their investigation in the right direction. But Kurt is struggling to keep himself in the here and now; he is so busy thinking about the life he left behind and the things he’s missing out on that he’s in danger of not being there in the present. And he’s going to have to find a way to focus, if he wants to get home in the end.

Y: This show isn’t called Blindspot for no reason. Each season has seen our favorite grumpy agent dealing with one blindspot or another. Sometimes, he manages to come through it more or less unscathed but at other times it gets the best of him. In the first season, Kurt refused to accept any theory that said that Jane wasn’t Taylor Shaw. He refuted all the evidence, refused to entertain any other possibility, and was blinded by his belief that his long-lost childhood friend was brought back to him. It clouded his professional judgement, and it also clouded his personal judgement.

Last season, he refused to accept that Jane was gone, that Remi was back for good, or that Jane wouldn’t be able to overcome the ZIP poisoning even when everything—science included—was saying her chances were slim to none. His stubbornness in that case paid off. So sometimes Kurt’s obsession with something pays off and other times it sort of screws him over.

This time around, Kurt is refusing to accept their situation. He is clinging to their previous life, to a dream of a future he was building with Jane and Bethany, and I think what could be hurting more is not the reality that they left behind but the dream of the future he knows they have to let go of. Of course we cannot blame Kurt for what he is growing through, but I really hope he doesn’t let this take over. Jane may be the one in charge right now but Kurt’s judgment and his instincts, especially in the field, will still be the go-to for the team. If his mind gets too clouded and if his emotions get the best of him, then he will definitely falter in the field and that isn’t great when the whole team depends on him.

I hope he finds a way to understand that as heartbreaking as it is, this new reality of theirs is not so bad—he has this team, his other family, and they are all going to give their all to find their way back home.

Kurt put too much weight on the phone being their ticket back home, and while it was hard to watch him snap at Jane at the end, it was great seeing him at the beginning of the episode be supportive of her as the decision maker. He knows more than anyone how difficult it is to be in this position, to be the one making the tough decisions and to have to carry that responsibility. I hope as the seasons continues and as the weight of being a leader starts to get heavier that Kurt continues to be someone Jane can go to and lean on and take advice from because she is going to need him now in ways she didn’t before.

And last but never least... When Mr. and Mrs. Weller were making plans for the future, hiding away in an underground bunker probably wasn’t on their list. How are they staying strong for each other?

L: One of the things that I have always loved about this couple is the way that they complement each other. Out in the field, that makes them an unbeatable team. But even wrestling with internal demons, they are able to work together; when one is weak, the other is strong, and vice versa. And we see this so clearly in this episode. Kurt is usually a fearless leader, but in this episode, he is struggling, and Jane is the one who comforts him and helps give him courage.

I’m just so glad that they are together now, that they have each other to lean on when they’re pushed to their individual limits. I can’t imagine them going through this if their relationship was in flux. This quest is going to throw some tough roadblocks at them, as we see in this episode, but their relationship is the bedrock upon which they both stand, and it’s going to keep them both standing strong, no matter how fierce the blows come. (And I have a bad feeling that they’re going to get much worse as this season goes on.)

Y: Can’t these two catch a break, please? For like one episode. Just let them… just catch a break! Every time they allow themselves to dream of a future, to make plans, or think that the worst is behind them, they are dealt another blow, and it just feels this won’t ever end.

I am sad.

But yes, one of the things that makes them so… sigh… you know… is that how perfectly they complete each other—how when one of them starts to fall the other is there to pick them up. Jane is being so strong for Kurt right now, but I just hope that she doesn’t start cracking too, and they’re both too weak to stay up.

On a positive note, how awesome was it that with just one look they both agreed without saying a single word that Patterson should be the one to go to Finland? I loved that moment, and sometimes it’s those tiny moments that remind me of why I love those two so much.

So... what would you have named Patterson? Come talk to our Ask Box! Or just flail about Bill Nye. We nerdy gals are always here for that!

—Laura & Yas

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more--than--anything · 4 years

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Episode Review: "You've got me. Always." [S05E01]

It was a long, painful hiatus, but our team is finally back on our screens. The premiere came to “sleigh.” How slayed are we feeling?

Y: Hello? 911? I’d like to report a murder.

L: I am not all right. I mean, the episode was amazing, and I can’t wait to see where this season is going. But I’m gonna have to stop crying in order to see, and frankly, that’s gonna be a problem.

Let’s deal with the painful stuff right off the bat. We were given hints that someone wouldn’t survive the drone attack, but were we really ready for what happened?

L: Even though there were copious hints that someone was going to die and it seemed likely to be Reade.... I wasn’t ready. And the way that it all went down was more emotionally devastating than I was prepared for, especially right after he and Tasha finally admitted their feelings for each other and were, for the first time, totally on the same page, both of them happy together. The first thing that hit me, when we saw Tasha pinned under Reade after the drone attack, was that he’d clearly thrown himself over her to protect her from the blast and the debris fall. The last two actions of his life were protecting her and then rescuing her at the expense of his own life. Excuse me while I stop for a minute and cry all the tears. Again.

(Also, my husband and I totally had a “Jack could have fit on the door too” conversation about it the next day: “They could have propped up the debris so that they could pull Reade out, too!”)

It was as heroic of a send-off as any character could hope for. And in some ways, that made it the most painful. We’ve been through some painful losses on this show before, but as tragic as they were, they also seemed appropriate. In some ways, it felt like Mayfair and Roman brought about their own demises. But Reade’s death feels more unfair to me. Reade’s conflict with the team at the end of the last season was because he wanted them to be better, to be approve reproach. Losing him this way feels not only heartbreaking, but also like a slap in the face. And perhaps that is the lesson that will linger with the rest of them—that Reade believed they could do better. Certainly this will be hardest for Tasha, who will want her revenge. But she also won’t want to let Reade down, which could be the one thing that keeps her away from the edge.

Reade’s death also makes this real, both for the characters and for the audience. Our team are the good guys. They’re supposed to win. But this isn’t a comic book, where the superheroes always win the day with scarcely a scratch. The stakes are high, and there’s a good chance that none of them will survive, let alone clear their names and bring Madeline to justice. If I wasn’t already terrified for the rest of the season, I would be now!

Y: I don’t care how prepared we thought we were, we were not prepared. Figuring out which team member wouldn’t survive the drone attack in the weeks leading up to the episode was one thing, but watching it on screen was a whole different story. I thought it would hurt as much as Mayfair’s or Roman’s—both of I’m still not over and especially Roman’s—but I cannot watch the scene without crying.

But where those were heartbreaking and emotional, this was both traumatic and traumatizing. We went from him and Tasha being so in love and happy to the panic right before the attack and the aftermath leading to his death—all in one long scene, without any breaks in between, and that was too much to handle. We literally watched him sacrifice himself and die. We watched his team watch him die. We watched Tasha watch him die.

I think that added to how hard Reade’s death was to watch. The fact that his whole team was there and unable to do anything was just too much. This team that has saved hundreds and thousands of lives over the years all sat there completely helpless as they watched their friend die—and die a horrible and painful death at that, too.

We’ve never had anything like that before on this show. It was just… the whole thing was so unbearable—and not just the death scene, but also the scene in the bunker when Rich asks about Reade and it leads to the flashback—I was already crying then.

Everyone did such an amazing job, and Rob Brown was absolutely phenomenal. They carried that scene with so much respect and love and somberness that it elevated it to something spectacular—traumatizing but spectacular.

It’s clear that Reade’s death will have a huge impact on the season moving forward—on the individual characters and on the team as a whole. But it won’t just be an emotional one. Reade dying leaves a gap in the team. Like Patterson once said, they were once a shape and had to adapt to fit Jane in. Well, they’d reached a point where they’d found their shape with both Jane and Rich and became this well-oiled machine—everyone had a role to play and they all completed each other with what they can do and what their job is within the team. Reade’s loss will create a huge gap that they are going to struggle to fill. He’d always been the team’s voice of reason, the rational and the logical, he was always the least impulsive and the most careful.

His loss will be felt heavily, and the team will definitely be limping without him.

Reade’s death sends shockwaves through our team, but it definitely hits Tasha the hardest. Where do we see her going from here?

Y: To a very dark place? No, but honestly, I do not want to be any adversary coming face to face with Tasha in season 5. We saw what she did to the agents on The Boat. And she’s just getting started.

I feel so bad for Tasha, and I’m equally worried for her—for her emotional and psychological well-being. Season 4 wasn’t an easy one on her, and by the end of it she was teetering on the edge. So she was already coming into season 5 in a fragile state. She has always been one to close down when things got tough, with Reade being probably her one go-to person. But she isn’t really one to share her feelings with others, not even those closest to her, as she even told Jane in season 3. Her stint away from the team with the CIA pushed her even further inwards and then her undercover mission with Madeline shut down any small portal left for Tasha.

I cannot imagine what Reade’s death will do to her and what she will do to cope. She’s certainly not going to deal with any of this well, and it will affect her in the field just as much as it will drive her. I am not sure Tasha cares much at this point about clearing her own name as she is focused on getting revenge, and we know that this recipe can lead to both good and horrible things.

Tasha is going to be driven, focused, closed up, merciless, and deadly, but she can also find herself putting herself in more danger than is necessary and driving herself to extremes and reaching into that dark place within her and falling prey to her own demons and blaming herself a lot. But one consolation is that she has her team, her friends and her family, who won’t abandon her and who won’t let her lose herself to her own demons and be the support she needs even if she tries to push them away.

Madeline beware. You just created something very very dangerous and very angry in Tasha Zapata and she won’t show you any mercy.

L: I don’t think anyone was surprised that Reade’s death sent Tasha into a spiral. She’s always had a certain amount of darkness inside of her, and her time with Madeline certainly dragged her down. I think the only thing that kept her going through all of that was the thought that eventually it would end, they’d take Madeline down, and she could go home to Reade. Without a future with him at the finish line, what reason does she have to keep fighting? Her plaintive “I just want to be done” breaks my heart. She’s been through so much hurt, she can’t afford to lose anyone else in this fight. But she also recognizes that this isn’t really a fight they can walk away from, no matter how much she wants to. “I’m saying we can stop... but we won’t. Even when we want to. And that is the worst part. I just keep wondering what else it’s gonna cost us.” So even having been burned so badly, Tasha is going to have reach right back into the fire. How much more can she take?

The part that did surprise me was the way that Rich was the one to get through her anger and her grief. And I love that conversation, so so so much. As painful as it is, it might be one of my favorite moments on this show ever. Our team plays hard and fast, and none of them harder than Tasha. And Rich was still referring to Tasha as “what’s her name” last season, so of all the people on the team, these are the last two you would expect to see sit down and have a heart-to-heart chat. (Remember Tasha in season 3? “I promise I won’t make you talk about your feelings. I hate feelings, we can just drink.”) But maybe because it’s Rich, because it comes from such an unexpected source, Tasha is able to actually hear what he’s saying, rather than blocking him out as she’s been doing to the rest of the team. And so she is finally able to say goodbye, to allow herself to mourn Reade and let him go, and to start her healing process.

And I really loved that it was tea instead of alcohol in their glasses when they toasted Reade. Instead of drinking, Tasha laid bare her feelings. And the tribute she offers to Reade honestly made me cry harder than his death scene: “I won’t run. I won’t quit. I’ll keep fighting. We all will. This won’t be the last time we think about you. Or talk about you. Or say your name. I love you. I got you. Always.”

Of all of them, Tasha now has the biggest reason to take down Madeline. Sure, Madeline wants revenge for her father, but Tasha wants revenge for Reade and for the future that Maddie stole from her with the drone strike. I agree with Yas: Maddie had better beware!

Reade isn’t the only face missing at the table. Our team is short one “mouthy Turkish pervert.” How do they get him back, and what does it mean to all of them to be reunited?

L: The last time our team heard from Rich, he was telling them exactly how much trouble they were in. Things have gone steadily downhill for him since then. Thanks to Weitz, he was caught by Nash and sent to a CIA blacksite for interrogation, or rather, two months of torture, since he has no useful information to share about the team’s whereabouts. But someone is keeping tabs on him and sends the team a message by exploding a few screens in Times Square (whoever our mystery associate is, they definitely aren’t subtle). Patterson picks up the clue and sends the team coordinates to meet up in a hidden bunker in Prague, so she can crack the code with the help of Jane’s neck. In short order, she finds that the message points them to a CIA memo that refers to a “mouthy Turkish pervert” being held in a blacksite who is about to traded to North Korea. (And once again, I love that it takes Patterson’s math skills, Jane’s ability to read Korean, and Tasha’s knowledge of CIA blacksites to solve this puzzle, which subtly points out that in two minutes back together, our team accomplishes more than they had in two months on their own.)

The team figures out that “the boat” had another famous prisoner, the younger brother of Sho Ahktar. Sho has the blueprints for the ship, but his brother was killed before he could rescue him, and he wants revenge on the CIA. He’s willing to give them the blueprints, but he wants them to kill “Agent Burn Scars,” the agent who killed his brother. And just so he’s clear: Jane has to stay with Sho, and either Kurt kills Scarface or Sho kills Jane.

I think we all agree with Sho: It’s just so fun and weird that we’re on the same side now! Well, kind of. (It is fun to see Sho again.) Jane doesn’t hesitate to agree to kill Pierce, but Kurt and Patterson aren’t so on board with that part of the plan. Tasha sums it up neatly when Weller summarizes that the CIA has 15 or more agents, with live rounds, shooting to kill, “While the three of us have rubber bullets and Tasers.” They are trying to prove themselves innocent, and in order to do that, they need to stay innocent. Which means that even though they may be operating in the black, they can’t actually operate like criminals—which is going to put them at a severe disadvantage, both on this op and throughout their efforts to bring down Madeline.

Rich’s rescue goes off more or less as planned. They don’t quite achieve the stealth approach they were aiming for, and Rich resists rescue until Weller disables the tracker in his neck by tasing him (with a fun callback to taking down Shepherd in the halcyon days at the end of season 2), but they get Rich out, Tasha gets to take out her frustrations on a few CIA agents, and Weller cuts off Scarface’s hand to give to Sho as proof of death (as well as a nice polaroid for his scrapbook).

So the team is back together again. Yay! I love how this episode really sets up the moral quandary our team finds themselves in. Kurt’s “no body count” comment makes me think about Jane saying to Weitz, “What if we promise you zero body count this time?” and him replying (with great exasperation), “That’s expected all the time!” Part of me wants to laugh, but it does also point to what we talked about in the season 4 finale, that our team had gotten a bit complacent. They didn’t have to be super careful about not killing the bad guys on ops, because they knew it would be forgiven, swept under the carpet by higher ups who were just grateful that they’d neutralized the threat. And morally-speaking, maybe they’d gotten a little numbed to the casualties. And now that they’re on the run, out from under the law enforcement umbrella? Well, as Sho puts it: “This life catches up to you sooner or later.”

So the question that they have to answer here is: Who do they want to be? Do they want to win and get their lives back, at all costs? Or do they want to be the good guys, the people Reade believed they should be? What if that means that they don’t win? Is a lifetime on the run okay if it means they can face themselves in the mirror? I have to admit, I am kind of excited by this added internal conflict and the soul-searching that it implies for the team. This season is going to push them to their limits in every way—physically, mentally, emotionally, even spiritually—and make them decide not only how far they are willing to go, but what kind of people do they want to be in the end. And I think that’s going to make for some very, very good writing and some very exciting television viewing.

Y: Oh, Rich! My heart breaks for what he went through but then he still manages to be his usual “mouthy Turkish pervert” self and proves just how unexpectedly resilient he is—or has become. But there was so much more than Rich being the “damsel in distress” storyline for Rich in this episode, and more than the writers reminding us that he will always be the smart mouthed asshole we love. Picking up right where we left off with him in season 4, Rich once again proves that when it comes to character development and growth, he’s leading the pack.

We talked a lot in the review of the finale about how far he’s come and how much we’re looking forward to where he can potentially go. And the premiere did not disappoint. And the best part with how they’re allowing Rich to grow is that they’re doing it so intricately and subtly. He’s still Rich, he’s still made up of the same things that make him Rich, but at the same time, he is becoming a better version of himself in each and every one of those aspects.

So, in a nutshell, he’s the mouthy Turkish pervert with a heart of gold, who now cares about others more than he cares about himself, who has embraced being part of a team and, even if he won’t admit it, he would sacrifice everything for each and every one of them. I think we have reached a point where we don’t need to constantly point out that Rich is on a road to redemption. I think it’s time we embrace that this is who Rich is now and we just take it from there. Are you guys with me?

There are two things I want to focus on with regards to Rich here: the first is his mourning of Reade and the second is the moment he shared with Tasha—that beautiful unexpected moment.

I am pretty sure that after the drone strike, the rest of the team didn’t have time to properly mourn Reade. I guess each one of them dealt with it in their own way while in hiding, but back in the bunker when Rich joins them and asks about Reade—I swear as painful as it was to watch everyone relive that, it was just as painful watching Rich learn it for the first time. He was the only one in that scene and in the tribute after who was taking it all in for the first time and coming to terms with it while everyone else was bleeding from a preexisting wound and you could see just how heartbroken Rich was.

If you think about it, of all the other team members, Rich worked with Reade the longest. He has different relationships with different people, and in some ways he may be closest to Patterson, but for a long time, Rich worked only with Reade, and we sort of saw the relationship that developed between them. It was clear that Rich had so much respect for Reade but also so much gratitude for getting him into the team and into this life. And I think as viewers, we lived that flashback with Rich more than anyone else because we were seeing it for the first time, and we were feeling the same pain he as feeling.

Ennis did an incredible job—as did all of them, I mean Audrey was phenomenal—but kudos once again to Ennis Esmer for so beautifully playing Rich and so carefully portraying all those layers that make up this incredible character.

Speaking of Ennis and Audrey, how incredible and unexpected was that scene between those two? It had everything. It was so full of emotion and so true to both their characters and so honest and vulnerable. Rich and Tasha—those two have never had much of a relationship—not like the ones they share with other team members. Tasha has spent most of the time annoyed by him, and he for the most part just teased her or messed with her, and they sort of acknowledge that in the scene. But somehow through it all they manage to share one of the sweetest moments and put in place the cornerstone of a relationship that can be very special.

And finally, I just have to say—the team risking everything to rescue him is one of the best “I love you’s” this show has done yet.

Meanwhile, back in New York, our team may be gone, but they are certainly not forgotten—not by Madeline, not by their former co-workers, and not by mysterious people in Times Square. What does all this mean to the FBI?

Y: Times Square continues to be an iconic location for our show and this season starts off with that awesome mysterious event in Times Square that sets off everything.

A mysterious hooded figure—presumably female—walks around watching the countdown on their phone carefully until it reaches zero and Jane’s iconic bird tattoo “explodes” on all the screen in Times Square in an obvious message to the team.

And while this message leads to them rescuing Rich, it raises way way way more questions than it provides answers—much like we’ve gotten used to with this show.

This is pretty much all we know. The copy of the bird tattoo was a message to the team encoded with information leading to Rich’s whereabouts.

Madeline is under the impression whoever is behind it is helping the team.

The team don’t really seem to know who is behind it.

And as fans, we are more confused as ever. I know we don’t usually go into speculation in these reviews, so I won’t do that, but I’ll just throw out the thoughts that crossed my mind while watching it.

The person in Times Square could be anyone. It can be the person behind it all or just someone working for whoever is behind it. I think one assumption we can make is whoever is masterminding this is someone with intimate knowledge of the tattoos. And throughout the series, those people have been very very few. And a lot of them are either dead or in prison.

As excited as I am about his particular mystery, I am also very wary of this person or this group. Until we know who they are and what they want, I am mostly worried about the risk to the team from them. We cannot be sure if they’re friend or foe. We cannot be sure if they have the team’s best interests at heart or if they have ulterior motives, if they truly want to help our team or are using them for their own agenda.

The team has enough on their plate without another danger to look out for. But this is Blindspot, so I’m going to assume that we’re supposed to treat this new mysterious player with a lot of caution and for the most part assume they’re not on the team’s side until proven otherwise.

Because I trust no one except for the five people currently hiding out in a bunker in Prague.

L: I absolutely loved the callback to the pilot, and I love the mystery surrounding who sent the message.

I’ve seen some wild suggestions online (my personal favorite was that it was Avery, who has already lost two parents and isn’t going to lose her birth mom, too). Briana seems the most logical candidate to me. She has access to the tattoo database, so would know what the real bird tattoo looks like (without having Jane’s neck handy), and she’s certainly been around the team long enough to know how to construct a puzzle that wouldn’t be obvious to most people but would be easily decipherable by Patterson. Being in the intelligence community (or just listening into corners around Madeline’s office), she might have picked up on enough clues to figure out where Rich was taken. But most of all, she owes this team one, in a huge way, and I am really hoping that her guilt is eating away at her in a way that makes her willing to do whatever it takes to help the team. Her absence seemed rather conspicuous to me in this episode, even in the callbacks to the NYO during the drone strike, when we know she was present.

But regardless of who sent the message, there are two people working in the NYO who are looking out for the team. And one of them owes the team in a big way, too, although I guess Weitz does redeem himself a tiny bit by warning them about the drone strike. We guessed that it was him, but I was still happy to see that moment and utterly delighted to see that it was with Afreen’s help. (I do wonder why she decided she could trust him, but I guess it’s not like she had a lot of options.)

Y: We’ve had our fair share of commentary on Weitz’s character over the seasons and I think it’s fair to say that while he’s often dipped his toes in the pool evil, Weitz has never really taken the plunge. But that doesn’t make him any less hate-able.

The thing about Weitz is that he’s always been driven by his selfishness, by his desire to serve only himself, and on top of that he is quite the coward. In our review of the finale, we talked about how we were excited to see where Weitz goes in season 5—how he will deal with having his job controlled by Madeline, how he’ll deal with the situation, knowing any moment she can blackmail him not only out of a job but straight to prison, and knowing that his team are being hunted for crimes they did not commit. Weitz may never have really become part of the team’s inner circle but for a few moments in season 4, he did bond with them.

Before he went and threatened Kurt and Jane, that is.

But we saw glimpses of hope in the finale, and I am so happy to say that in the premiere, our Matty did not disappoint. I am glad that we saw him begin his road to redemption straight away and turn out to be the one who warned the team about the drone strike.

Already with that he’s earned himself a good amount of brownie points.

But by far one of the best things in the premiere was realizing that a small yet mighty resistance has formed within the walls of the NYO and that Weitz is so far 50% of the resistance. I don’t think Afreen and Weitz had said a word to each other prior to this episode but somehow the combination is magic.

And you have no idea how much effort I am putting here not to turn this into an Afreen appreciation essay because you guys know I love my girl Afreen for so so so many reasons, a lot of them have to do with the stuff she does on the show from a secondary role but also a lot of the are personal. But I digress.

The chemistry between the two is just great. Afreen as the level-headed, focused, stealthy operative in this resistance and Weitz as the… headless chicken running around in a panic.

I don’t know about you, but I am already in love with this underground resistance and I wish I could join them. I’ll make the t-shirts.

L: I’ll take two, because I agree: the combination of Weitz and Afreen is awesome.

I absolutely loved Weitz telling her, “We are the resistance.” Because it is going to take a resistance to bring Madeline down, with as much power as she’s accumulated. Shepherd knew that in order to flush out the corruption, she had to clean house from the inside. So having people inside the FBI that our team can trust is going to be vital. They have no credibility anymore, so they’re going to need people at the top who are willing to help them bring Madeline’s schemes to light or Madeline is just going to be able to write them off as criminals and keep going about her mad business.

But on the other hand, I also want to tell Weitz to tone it down a bit. Subtlety has never really been his strong suit, and he’s just a little too over the top, vowing to stop the team to Madeline while also broadly hinting to Afreen that she might need more time solve the puzzle. And even beyond him outing himself, we have to worry about why Maddie is keeping him around at all. Yes, she has dirt on him. But if he’s actively working against her, why keep him around? Her line to him that “You’re more valuable than you give yourself credit for” has me pretty freaked out. Tasha was valuable to her, too, as a scapegoat. What else is she setting up that she can blame on the Director of the FBI? Is she just hoping that he’ll lead her to the team, the way that he led Nash to Rich, or—knowing her—is it something far more sinister?

Y: Madeline Burke. Madeline Burke was crazy in season 4. Madeline Burke in season 5 is making season 4 Madeline Burke look like a pile of cotton candy under a rainbow.

I mean, to put this more eloquently… what the fuck?!?!

L: Mad Maddie has gone way past “mad” at this point. She’s hit full batshit crazy, which makes her incredibly, terrifyingly dangerous. And this new title—“Director of Federal Law Enforcement”—does what? It certainly seems to have put her in charge of the FBI, over and above Weitz as Director, since she apparently has the power to fire him now. Does this mean she’s also essentially running the CIA and NSA and Homeland Security? Yikes. (Not gonna lie, I would love to see Nas going toe to toe with Maddie. Or least helping the team behind her back. They need all the friends on the inside they can get.) And now she’s got a team of mercenaries breathing down everyone’s necks at the NYO, and what the hell is she building there—a gas chamber?! This is a new level of WTF, even for her.

I thought the comment about Maddie being in charge of “vetting the open VP slot” was very interesting. First of all, I’m not sure how there could be an “open VP slot.” If the Vice President dies, the Speaker of the House would normally ascend to that role. Or perhaps the current VP is not seeking re-election, so the President needs to select a new running mate? Now, I know the occupant of the White House has changed since this show began running, but remember it was the White House Chief of Staff who first introduced Daylight to Mayfair and Carter. (He is referred to as “Mr. Davenport,” and we never really found out if that was the same person as Congressman Davenport who was Weitz’s mentor who turned out to be crooked. But it would fit, and this show does love to dig things out of the woodwork like that!) So I think it’s clear that whatever corruption Maddie is part of goes all the way up to the White House. And once again, Shepherd’s plan to nuke it and replace everyone at the top starts to seem reasonable in comparison to whatever Madeline has going on.

There have been conspiracy theories before, but this is taking it to a whole new level.

Patterson may be laying low, but she’s not taking any vacation time. What feats of technological genius does she pull off this week?

Y: Well, for starters, Patterson apparently also has amazing skills in the real estate market. That is one sweet bunker she managed to secure for the team!

We know that Patterson is in a level of her own in what she does. She’s the brains of the team. Uncontested. I’m not denying what Rich can do and that if he has to fill in for Patterson for whatever reason he would perform superbly. But, seriously, no one can do what Patterson does. And for four seasons now, she’s enjoyed the perks that come with commanding the FBI lab with its high tech equipment, all the access to information and intelligence, and all its resources. It has helped her prove just what she can do.

Although we all know she does her math in her head. Where math is done.

But at the moment, Patterson does not have the luxury of working out of her beloved FBI lab. But does that inconvenience her? Nope, not one single bit. She still manages to blow everyone’s mind by solving the tattoo with what very very basic and minimal resources she has.

And in record time, much to Weller’s annoyance.

I don’t know about you, but I never doubted Patterson or what she can do or that being pulled out of her lab would slow her down at all. The tools she had in the lab were nice to have, but they were not what made Patterson the MVP of the team. What she can do, no one else can—even if they are working out of the most sophisticated labs and she’s working out of an unmarked underground war time bunker in Prague.

What’s going to be interesting with Patterson, however, isn’t the lack of proper resources but actually the new reality they are working in. Very much like what Weller will go through, Patterson will struggle with the grey areas that come with being rogue. While Rich, Tasha and Jane will have less trouble in that domain, Weller and Patterson have always been less inclined to accept that side road, if you will. It’s true that Patterson was part of the Three Blind Mice Hacktivist group but I still think that if we’re going to draw a line now on who will be at ease working in the black and who will struggle with it morally, Weller and Patterson will be of the latter.

We saw how the two of them struggled with the idea of killing the CIA agent, and I think they will continue to be that voice throughout the season.

L: Yes, I do think that Patterson is, like Kurt, going to struggle with coloring outside of the lines this season. Yes, we know she’s done her share of hacktivism, but she was able to morally justify it by the good that she accomplished as a result. And I doubt that it physically hurt anyone; there’s a pretty significant difference between “reallocating” someone’s ill-gotten gains and actually killing someone in cold blood. So this season is going to present challenges to Patterson far beyond not having access to her lab.

One of the things that struck me, watching Patterson in this episode, was how reminiscent Reade’s death must feel to the way she lost David. Both Reade and David were trying to do the right thing, to help stop dangerous criminals, and both of them were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tasha was right; Reade didn’t have to die. Just like David didn’t. And Patterson, more than anyone, knows the loss that Tasha feels. Not just the loss of a soulmate, but also the loss of the future that person represented. And both of them have such a mountain of regrets for the time that they wasted, pushing that soulmate away, not realizing the time that they had would be so very short.

As painful as all of this is, I’m so glad these two friends have each other right now.

This isn’t the first time that Jane has been on the run, living life outside the law. How is this both similar and different from what she’s gone through before?

Y: How lucky have we been with Jane Doe and her journey? Sure, it hasn’t been without its hiccups but as an overall arc and journey for a protagonist, it has had everything you can ask for. The last chapter of her story saw her reconcile all the conflicting parts of herself, become whole, confront her worst fear and overcome it, and find the inner peace she’s always lacked. She found her place in the world and became confident in her purpose and clear as to what she wants in the world.

And now we get to see her take her final test. She’s ready for this. She has prepped thoroughly. She is in the right place mentally and emotionally and physically (well, minus the fact that Jaimie can’t really do much for some of the episodes). But she also has the rest of the necessary ingredients as well. She is driven by the right motive now. She may have the same endgame as she did when she was Remi, but the circumstances and the people around Remi, and her mental and emotional state, were not right.

Now Jane has it all. She is on the right side. She has all the right motives. She has the emotional and the rational drive. She has people she cares about and trusts who have her back and whom she will do anything to protect. She has a team that is really good at what they do, whose strengths complete her weaknesses and who have the same motives and objectives as she does.

Jane has been on the run before. Jane—or Remi—has been on a mission to take down a corrupt FBI before. And Jane has been on a mission to clear her name before. But none of these versions had been this Jane. This powerful, unstoppable, capable, confident Jane. This season will have Jane in her element and this time she can be better and do better.

But, am I scared for her? Yes, first because Sho’s warning was ominous, and Blindspot doesn’t just throw lines like that for fun. It’s foreshadowing for something sinister.

But mostly I am just scared for her because this is the last leg of her journey and as the heroine of the show bad things can happen… and Jane has always been a little self sacrificial when it comes to protecting those she loves.

So I just hope that stupid husband of hers keeps a close eye on her and doesn’t let her do anything stupid.

L: The scene between Jane and Kurt in the bunker was one of my favorites in this episode. It illustrated both of their characters so well in a relatively quick exchange. Kurt tells Jane, “So, I guess your early Sandstorm days are about to pay off. I think you might just be able to take down a corrupt FBI after all.” And I think this hints at what I’ve been hoping for—that Madeline and her organization are part and parcel of the same corruption that Sandstorm was trying to bring down. Shepherd wanted to nuke the White House, with the president and the heads of all government agencies inside. Mad Maddie has the president and the heads of the intelligence community dancing to her tune, and clearly her plan has been in the works for years. It would feel so poetic for Jane and her team to bring down the same organization that Remi and Sandstorm were trying to topple. And it would unite the two halves of Jane and Remi, rather than leaving Remi as a part of her that Jane feels she has to atone for.

And I love that Kurt recognizes the strengths that Jane has as Remi. He doesn’t love her in spite of Remi, he loves and values all of her, even the parts that he can’t relate to. “As much as I like calling the shots, this one... it’s all you. You’re gonna get us through this. You will get us all home.” His confidence in her just makes my heart explode. And I do think that this illustrates a bit of what we talked about after the season 4 finale; this battle is being fought on Jane’s home turf, outside the law. Reade was their leader in the office, in following protocol and staying inside the lines. Kurt was their leader in the field, taking down the bad guys, but still within the limits of the law. Jane... Jane is the one with experience in living life on the run, far outside the confines of the law. With Reade’s death, the role of leader would normally fall to Weller, but he’s passing the baton to Jane.

This is Jane’s time to take the lead, and it is an interesting change, for her, for the team, and for the whole show, really. The first four seasons were Jane becoming part of the FBI community. Sometimes accepting, sometimes questioning, and sometimes chafing at the restrictions of that structure. Certainly her Remi half had no use for that life. But Jane wanted it, so Jane made herself fit in, even if it wasn’t always a natural fit for her. But now, those restrictions are all gone. It’s just Jane, with all of the skills she’s accumulated as both Jane and Remi at her disposal. This is Jane becoming everything she was ever meant to be. If Patterson had her “birth of a leader” moment in the finale, this one is Jane’s. This is her show now, and I can’t wait to see where she leads us.

On the other end of the spectrum, this is Kurt Weller’s first experience as a wanted fugitive. How is he adapting to life on the run?

L: If Jane has come into her own in her natural habitat, Kurt is about as comfortable as a tattoo amnesiac who just tumbled out of a bag in Times Square. None of this is natural for him. He’s a guy who was meant to carry a badge, to right the wrongs of the world from the right side of the law. He’s not meant to hide in the shadows and do whatever it takes to achieve the goal.

And we see very quickly how out of his comfort zone he is. Jane didn’t hesitate to agree to kill Scarface for Sho, even though Kurt is clearly unwilling to do it. And Jane probably wouldn’t have hesitated to actually do it, justifying that rescuing Rich was worth the cost. (And I’m sure it wouldn’t have pained her to take out a CIA torturer or twenty in a blacksite, after all she went through at their hands.) Kurt is forced to scramble to come up with an alternative, one that will satisfy Sho but won’t dirty their hands too much, even as Tasha points out what a horrible disadvantage that puts them in.

And honestly, I kind of disagree with Kurt on leaving Scarface alive. Sure, it keeps his conscience clear, but now there is a one-handed guy with a serious grudge against Kurt. There is absolutely no way that we’ve seen the last of Scarface. Madeline is driven by revenge, and we see the lengths she’s gone to. Tasha is motivated by revenge right now, and I fear for anyone in her path. Keeping Scarface alive and giving him a good reason for revenge seems like a bad idea, especially when the odds are stacked so much against our team.

All of this makes it even more interesting to me to see the choice that Kurt makes so clearly later in the episode. One of the hallmarks of a good leader is knowing when others are more qualified for the task than you are, and in passing the leadership baton to Jane, Kurt is showing us exactly what a great leader he is. He needs to get his team home, and he recognizes that Jane is their best chance to get there. (And you’ve got to love a guy who is so proud of his wife and so confident in her abilities.) Of course, the caveat there is that he has to live with the calls that Jane makes. And I’m not going to lie... I’m a little bit worried about that part.

Y: I cannot lie. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Kurt be so uncomfortable and yet still manage to get the job done. There’s so much to unpack with Kurt in this episode and most of it has to do with just how incredible of a leader he really is and how a lot of it and a lot of how he’s developed as a leader has to do with his relationship with Jane.

Kurt Weller as an incredible leader is no secret. In fact, it’s been there in his bio since day one. But what has been amazing has been watching him evolve as a leader and become a better one at that, especially at times when the circumstances really challenged what he believed in or what he was used to or what he was comfortable with.

We saw how he adapted to coming back to work with Reade as AD and how that dynamic was charged at first. But then Kurt realized that there are certain things that Reade is more adept at performing, and he gladly adjusted his own expectations. And even though they still butted heads at times, they found that right chemistry and managed to play the roles of leaders to the team in different ways.

And that’s what’s amazing in how Kurt has grown. He is a good leader because while he knows his own strengths, he is also aware of his weaknesses and shortcomings. And on top of that, he is good at recognizing the strengths of others around him and recognizing those skills that he lacks that they possess. And he knows how to bring all those individual strengths and skills and build and lead a team that becomes strong in every aspect. He doesn’t shun those that possess something he doesn’t have. He doesn’t begrudge them that or see it a challenge to his leadership. On the contrary, he helps them step up and shine.

That requires a lot of trust in those around him and that is one thing that has evolved a lot with Kurt’s character. We talked in the previous review about how that works with Jane and how evident it was during the museum hostage situation. Jane took that decision without consulting him and even though it went against his own instincts, he trusted her—because he trusts her no matter what and also because he knows she is better equipped to deal with such a situation than he is.

It’s not easy for a control freak like Kurt to accept this, especially when it’s so outside his comfort zone. Other times when he’d let others lead with the strengths they had that he lacked, it was always still within what he was comfortable with, still within the confines of what he determined as ethically and morally sound. But they are now thrust into circumstances that are miles and miles away from Kurt’s comfort zone. And he acknowledges that. And at the same time he acknowledges just how hard it is to step aside and let others take the lead.

And yet he does.

We saw how throughout the episode he struggled with how things are now that they are rogue, and struggle as he realizes that this is their new normal. But he goes along with it, adjusting certain things to still be comfortable with how they do them, to still remain true to his moral compass. But at the end of the day he realizes he does not have the right skill set to be the leader in this situation. He realizes that he is not the right person for the job.

We saw how uncomfortable Kurt got when Jane didn’t hesitate to agree to kill Agent Scarface. But then we saw how he was able to adapt and finish the mission without compromising his own morals. And he realized that certain decisions that need to be made now require someone who can say yes to something like that on the spot and then be able to adapt that to who they are and not force them to go to lengths they won’t be able to come back from.

Kurt knows he cannot be the person who makes that call but as long as they don’t compromise who they are in how they eventually do things then he can most definitely follow that person’s lead.

Especially when that person is someone he knows so well, knows so intimately and trusts with every fiber of his being.

And winning this war, protecting their family, and going back home is the priority here—not his ego and not his pride—and so he gracefully takes a step to the side and substitutes himself for the person who does possess the right skill set, who will be able to lead them through this and make the right decisions that need to be made.

One episode in and already both Kurt and Rich have set the bar so high on character growth and breakthrough.

And last but never least, the Power Couple of the FBI has moved to the top of the Most Wanted list. How is their relationship faring under all this strain?

Y: You know what? This is a good ship. I think I’m gonna like this ship. I think it is going to cause me a lot of pain but can also make me very happy. So yes, I will ship it.

L: I don’t see how you could not ship it. A couple where they both have complete trust and confidence in each other? Where they recognize each other’s strengths and weaknesses, without judgment? Where they just make each other so much better and stronger and more capable, just by being together? I mean, what’s not to love?

Y: Blindspot has a habit of closing storylines or tying loose ends off screen and then throwing at us a single line of dialogue to let us know it has happened. A recent example of that was what happened to Avery. All we got is a line from Kurt in 401 that Avery’s gone to Brown and that was that. Sometimes it’s almost insignificant we can brush it off. Other times it’s infuriating (see: Roman’s mystery phone calls in season 3). But at other times it is almost just enough to give you so much and enrich something a lot.

And this, in my opinion, happened in this episode. While planning the rescue mission, Patterson asks how many guards they expect and Kurt mentions that Jane’s blacksite had three guards. It was literally a handful of words, but this is huge. We’ve never seen on-screen Jane talk about her time in the blacksite with Kurt. We’ve never seen or heard them discuss that very dark part of their relationship or see them work through it and through its complications.

And while it would have been great to actually see it happen in canon, I think for me this line is the second best thing. Kurt knowing this confirms that these two have talked about this. And I am sure it wasn’t a happy or pleasant conversation. It must have been full of pain and anger and heartache but what matters is that Jane hasn’t kept this all bottled up. She’s opened up about it to Kurt, and they’ve worked through it.

And in the storyline of Jane becoming fully herself, at peace with all her parts, and reconciled with all her demons, this experience in the blacksite was a large piece that had to be dealt with, and faced head on, and overcome. And from the looks of it, she has done that. So while we haven’t seen it on screen, we now know that Jane and Kurt have confronted this part of their relationship and nothing makes me happier or more proud.

L: I keep thinking about these two being separated for two months, after all that they’ve been through. They’d barely gotten past Jane’s reversion to Remi and her near-death experience from ZIP before they had to split up indefinitely. And I have to wonder what that was like for them.

This wasn’t the first time Jane’s been on the run (either as Jane or as Remi), but the last time she ran, she did it so Kurt could be there to watch his daughter grow up. She knew that he was safe and that their friends were looking out for him in her absence. This time, she knows that he’s alone, that he’s missing her, that he’s missing Bethany, that he is missing everything about his life in New York—his job, his stability, even the comfort of knowing that he was on the right side of the law. That has to make her feel even worse than just being alone. And on Kurt’s side, he’s lost everything he cares about—his job, his daughter, even regular contact with his wife. And even though they separated to stay safe, they had no way of knowing if the other one had remained safe after they parted. Really, it’s amazing that they don’t look every bit as haggard as Tasha does when they reunite.

But even after all of that, they pick up instantly where they left off. There’s no hesitation, no awkward re-acclimating themselves to working as a pair. They just click back together, which makes me feel like the awkward part for both of them was learning how to work solo again after knowing how well they work as a team. Jane says it best, “We may not have everything that we used to have, but we do have everything we need.” As long as they have each other, these two are invincible. And that, more than anything else, gives me confidence that this team will triumph in the end.

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That is all from us! We’re glad our show is back, and we’re so glad that you’re back here with us! What did you think of the premiere? Come flail in our ask box!

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: kurt weller #character: jane doe #character: patterson #character: tasha zapata #character: edgar reade #character: rich dotcom #character: matthew weitz #character: afreen #character: madeline burke #ship: Jane/Kurt #ship: tasha/reade #character: sho akhtar

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more--than--anything · 4 years

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Episode Review: "Hey, we should all get matching tattoos after this." [S04E21/22]

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but here, at long last, is our review of the season 4 finale. Just in time for season 5! Better late than never?

The season 4 finale can only be described as “explosive,” both literally and figuratively. What did we think of the end of the penultimate season of Blindspot?

Y: Hands down my favorite Blindspot finale ever—and definitely up there in my top three episodes of all time. It’s been almost a year since it aired, but still, every time I watch it I am left with the same feeling of… MIND. BLOWN. HEART. RACING. PROTECT THE TEAM!

L: It was a masterpiece. There were a lot of moments in season 4 where I wondered where the overall plot was headed, but now that I see the whole picture.... Wow. And this team... I am simultaneously giddy and heartbroken and terrified and elated. Verklempt, that’s what I am. Utterly verklempt. Bravo, Blindspot.

The team is still racing to stop Madeline’s plans, even though they don’t know exactly what they entail. But they quickly find themselves changing from hunter to hunted. How do they fare in this final battle?

L: Our team starts this episode right where we left them, still fumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out what Helios is all about. The only leads they have are Madeline’s henchmen, Dominic Masters and Barry Wallace. (I’m not sure how they discovered Barry, but let’s just assume that Tasha encountered him in her travels with Mad Maddie’s inner circle.) Dominic has vanished, but Barry shows up in Queens, so the team sets out to bring him in for questioning. They find Barry, but he isn’t alone; Jake Keaton is there. He tells them that Barry used to be CIA before he went rogue. And then Weitz shows up, followed by Lucas Nash, a CIA bigwig (more on him in a bit) who says that he was the one who trained Barry. Inter-agency posturing ensues as they fight over who gets to interrogate “the most popular girl in school.” They settle on transporting Barry to a neutral location, but Barry gets blown up on the way in our first, but by no means last, explosion of the evening.

The only clue the team has to go on is a message on his phone, “Retrieving virus at 1200. Will be ready for today,” which is even more alarming in the context of Barry’s area of expertise at the CIA: chemical, biological, and viral attacks. The team seems terrifyingly stuck until Dominic helpfully turns up on camera at Bellmore University, which we remember from 3.15, when yet another pissed off CIA operative tried to take out her former boss and coworkers. (I’m thinking maybe the CIA needs a better benefit plan to keep their agents from turning on them. Or, you know, maybe they should stop screwing over their employees?) The team figures out that 1200 doesn’t mean noon, it means Building 1200, the bio-science building and the logical place to look for a biological weapon. The teams heads out to look for the woman seen meeting with Dominic, minus Keaton, who gets pulled to have a little chat with Nash and discovers that—surprise!—he’s being reassigned to Malta.

Which brings us to Nash. He apparently outranks Keaton, who replaced Carter as the Deputy Director of the CIA. The only person who would outrank the Deputy Director would be the Director. Which would make sense, since Nash is up for the promotion to Director of National Intelligence alongside Weitz, the Director of the FBI. And it would explain Sabrina Larren’s witch hunt on the Director’s behalf (as well as calling it off once Tasha was embedded with the team again). But no one refers to Nash as the Director, which seems odd. The FBI is pretty big on titles and respect and formality. Reade would certainly have recognized Nash and referred to him as “Director,” and Weller would have been “sir”-ing him all over the place. So it’s strange to me that Nash is never directly identified as the Director. It also seemed a little odd to me that the Deputy Director could just be reassigned to Malta (which would definitely not be a “promotion” of any sort, since the only logical promotion from Deputy Director would be Director). But Madeline clearly wouldn’t want someone she doesn’t control taking over the CIA when Nash gets promoted to DNI. So they’d have to get Keaton out of the way before they promote someone else to Director, thereby preserving Madeline’s control over the FBI, CIA, and the Director of National Intelligence. (Shepherd’s plan to nuke the White House and replace all of these folks with Weller and Keaton is looking better by the minute!)

Meanwhile, our diligent FBI team locates the woman seen meeting with Dominic and brings her in for questioning. Her name is Erin Sandler, and she insists that she’s working for the CIA, making a computer virus instead of a biological virus. If her story sounds familiar, it’s because this isn’t the first person we’ve met who has been exploited this way. Ana Montes, the teenage hacker we encountered in 1.06, believed she’d been recruited by the NSA to develop an app that was instead being used by criminals. These computer geniuses aren’t quite as smart as they think they are. (Sadly, both Rich and Patterson were otherwise engaged at this moment and missed this cautionary tale.)

Unfortunately, knowing what weapon Dominic plans to use doesn’t help them figure out where he’s going to unleash it. The team drags Madeline into the FBI to interrogate her, but she’s her usual helpful self. (Honestly, I think the team should get bonus points for resisting the urge to punch her. And while I have some issues with the way Madeline’s character was written this season, I cannot give enough credit to Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio for the phenomenal job she’s done portraying this season’s archvillain.) Weller puts pressure on Madeline, and she finally coughs up Dominic’s phone number. Of course, the phone is turned off. They turn it on remotely, but as soon as they do, the signal disappears, and when they check out that location, they find a dead body that Rich identifies as part of a team that monitors the power grid. Ruh-roh!

Dominic, of course, has already headed over to the facility, used a badge stolen from his victim to get inside, executed the rest of the employees, and cut off access to the outside world. Our team heads to intercept him, and Dominic goes out in a blaze of glory, after texting a touching goodbye to Kathy for reasons that escape me. (Kathy’s struggles with autocorrect tie with Erin’s breakdown as the most relatable moments in this episode. I find it oddly comforting that even computer geniuses have their texts helpfully mangled by autocorrect.) I’m left still puzzling over Dominic’s participation in Madeline’s scheme. As we learn in this episode, Madeline clearly had an axe to grind with the FBI, but as far as we know, Dominic didn’t. I’m sure she promised him a lot of money to carry out her plans, but he seems pretty willing to sacrifice his own life at the end to carry out Madeline’s scheme, and we’re not given any reason to explain this level of commitment. And why text goodbye to Kathy? I thought he was just manipulating her to carry out the grand Helios plan. Dominic, you will forever remain a mystery.

Patterson struggles to undo the virus that Dominic uploaded, but for the first time, we see our tech-genius-in-charge fail. The power grid goes down, and the Eastern Seaboard goes dark. (Which is a refreshing change from someone trying to nuke it, although no one else seems to appreciate this variety.) Rich’s hushed, “We failed,” sums up that moment perfectly. (Fortunately, he’s not subdued for long. His post-apocalyptic humor was on point in this episode. And also really necessary, since we are steadily approaching maximum freak out.)

Patterson and Rich find Dominic’s texts to Kathy on his phone and use Rich’s “Deep Fake” app (which he really ought to patent, because he could earn more than an enough to pay Patterson back, and then they could bicker over whose app is making them more money) to pretend to be Dominic. They are able to get a lock on Kathy’s location... in the Perlan Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland. Which seems a really odd place to hang out until Rich explains that there’s a rumor on the dark web that the Perlan is sitting on a secret cryptocurrency mining operation. (And while that particular rumor might not be true, apparently Iceland is actually big for cryptocurrency mining, because it has both cheap electricity from the geothermal heat generated by its volcanoes needed to power supercomputers as well as arctic air to cool the processors. Not for the first time, I admire how the show’s writers draw from the weird-but-true science featured in the likes of Wired magazine.)

The team persuades Weitz to let them go after Kathy (and the long flight to Iceland gives them plenty of time to air all their personal grievances), while Madeline’s lawyer, Richard Shirley makes his long-anticipated return to the NYO. (His line, “I’ve been up since, well, I don’t really sleep anymore. Do you have kids?” is right up there with Kathy’s autocorrect for relatability.) In a bit of brilliant cross-cutting, we finally see Madeline’s plan to bring down the team spelled out for us, as the team themselves is forced to face each of their own personal failings from each other’s perspective. We could easily spend an entire review on that scene alone, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Because first we have to acknowledge: Madeline’s plan is absolutely brilliant.

Every step of the way, all season long, the team thought they were getting closer to Madeline. But in reality, they were stepping neatly into the traps she was setting for them. Tasha believed that she was gathering evidence on Madeline, while instead Madeline was setting her up for the murders of Blake Crawford, Kira Evans, and Claudia Murphy. Patterson and Rich believed they were paying off Kathy to silence her, but instead they appear to be financing her attack on the power grid. Everything they’ve done to try to bring Madeline down has been twisted to make it look as though the team were guilty of Madeline’s crimes. And the narrative that she spins, revealing the team’s darkest secrets, ascribing “their” crimes to her own motive (“they crave power, and they sought to gain control of one of the most powerful companies in the world” so they “mastermind[ed] a plot to infiltrate the FBI and hide behind its integrity and wield its power for their personal gain” because they “only care about themselves, and anybody that gets in their way, that person is eliminated”) makes her whole case utterly, chillingly, brilliantly plausible.

It is clear that this is a trap that our team will not be able to magically talk their way out of, nor is there any way that Weitz, as their boss, or anyone else at the FBI can exonerate them. And the beauty of it from a story perspective is that everything our team ever thought they “got away with,” every infraction that their higher-ups forgave or covered up, comes out. And I love that, because it takes away a lot of the “magical resolution” aspect of these supposedly neatly wrapped-up storylines. There is a comeuppance for all the times our team has skirted the law, and it’s huge. And it’s a bitter pill to swallow, but maybe it’s true that our team has gotten a bit too cocky, a bit too willing to bend the rules to achieve the ends they desired, and yes, a bit too assured of their ability to talk their way out of things. (In other words, Reade isn’t entirely wrong.)

In some ways, Madeline’s plan is like looking at the photonegative of Shepherd’s plan. Shepherd set out to bring down all the corrupt individuals and replace them with people who would uphold their offices honorably. Madeline set out to do the exact opposite: To control everyone she could and eliminate the ones she couldn’t, until the entire national security system was under her control. It’s brilliant, and in some ways, it’s even more terrifying than a nuclear blast. Because there is no one left who can stop her.

Certainly no one sitting at the table with Madeline is willing or able to stop her. Nash orders Weitz to call the Icelandic Minister and have the team arrested when they land. Fortunately, our favorite criminal-turned-FBI-consultant Rich is listening in and gives the team a heads up. With no other options available to them, the team parachutes out of the plane (giving us many drool-worthy shots of Iceland and making me deeply grateful for this on-location shoot) and meet up with one of Rich’s dark web contacts, a guy known as “Ice Cream.” (Yet another colorful secondary character I hope we will see again.) Ice Cream helped to design the system that secures the crypto floor beneath the Perlan. And he’s willing to give them the elevator password to access it... if Rich gives him the Gardner paintings. And I absolutely love how we come back to this earlier heist. It would have been easy to ask Rich for money or bitcoin, but this is something unique to our team (and the fact that Boston is the key to retrieving them gives me hope that we haven’t seen the last of him either).

Patterson, Kurt, and Jane head to the Perlan, posing as tourists to get into the building, while Tasha and Reade meet up with Ice Cream to facetime Rich and get the password. Everything seems to go according to plan, but Kathy is gone by the time they get to the crypto floor. Patterson dives in and tries to restore the power grid, but Kathy rigged the system so that instead of fixing the problem, Patterson knocks out the power in London and Paris, all while being recorded by security cameras. She manages to restore the grid, but it’s too little, too late, especially once Rich discovers that the money he put into Kathy’s ransom account (despite being ordered not to) is being moved into accounts in their names, the final nail in the coffin that frames the team for all of Madeline’s crimes. The cops are on their way to the museum, so Jane and Kurt pretend to take the museum visitors and employees hostage to buy Patterson time to escape out the back exit. (And I am not going to lie, I loved the way Jane improvised and Kurt went along with it, getting into the role enough to shoot up the ceiling and include pizza with vegan cheese in his list of demands.)

Things look pretty grim when the Icelandic SWAT officers bust onto the scene, setting off gas canisters (in much the same way that the FBI captured Barry less than two hours ago, in what feels like pretty much another lifetime at this point) and taking Kurt and Jane into custody. But the officers turn out to be owned by Ice Cream. (Not that this show is making me horribly cynical, but is anyone in law enforcement really operating under free will, for the good of the general populace?)

Back at the NYO, things are going... less well. Weitz finally realizes the deep doo-doo he’s in, and when he tries to warn Rich, he instead leads Nash right to him. Nash takes Rich, draped in a black hood, to “the boat” as Weitz looks on. And Madeline neatly manipulates Weitz into issuing her a public apology, which she follows by announcing that she is heading up a new “Civilian Oversight Committee.” And then she kicks him out of Reade’s office, which she has apparently claimed as her own. (There is a strange irony watching Madeline call the shots in the NYO. As a civilian, she has no place there, but yet, technically, neither does Jane, and we’ve been feeling like she does belong there for four seasons now.)

We finally have to admit how horribly badly things are going... and then we find out that Nash has gotten a drone strike on the team greenlit by the DOD, the CIA (who the hell is in charge there now?!), and the White House. And I’m not gonna lie, there is a part of me that really loved watching the light dawn on both Weitz’s and Briana’s faces, as they realize their part in the team’s imminent assassinations. And then we get a really impressive explosion (as much as we have joked about efforts to blow up Kurt over the seasons, this is taking things a bit too far), followed by a lovely close up on Jane’s face as she watches her family go up in smoke and a distinctly less lovely long hiatus before we find out who survives. As often and as many times as we rewatch these episodes.... that will never be easy to watch.

One of the things that I love so much about the finale is the way it plays so much on our expectations and deliberately avoids following the formula we anticipate. In season 1, we were presented with two central mysteries: Who did this to Jane? And what happened to Taylor Shaw? Both of these were resolved—or at least answered—by the end of the season. Seasons 2 and 3 followed similar formats, introducing a main villain who matched wits with our team but was ultimately defeated in the season finale. We had every expectation that this season would take the same path, which makes the finale unexpectedly shocking. But the best part of it is that it wasn’t just shock value for the sake of shock value (cough, Game of Thrones, cough). This was actually impeccable storytelling that told us what was happening all along, we just chose to believe it wasn’t true (or hoped that our team would escape) because of our expectations—a technique that Blindspot has been using on us since the pilot, to brilliant effect.

My favorite thing about this show has always been that it’s a smart show created by smart people for a smart audience. And this finale (and the season as a whole, viewed in retrospect) really highlights that. There was an interview a few years ago with David Kwong, the puzzle consultant on the show, who said something along the lines that mysteries where the audience isn’t given all the clues and can’t solve it themselves aren’t as satisfying to the viewers as those where the audience can put the clues together themselves. And that’s kind of stuck with me over the seasons. Blindspot does that so very well—they show us everything, but they misdirect our attention, so we ignore clues. (This is what happens when you have a consulting magician on the payroll. I mean, they showed us in the pilot that it was Remi’s choice to have her memory wiped. But we didn’t believe it even when we saw her say it, some ten episodes later!) This season, the writers were misdirecting us in every episode, and really, right into the second half of the finale, we didn’t even realize it. I think that it gives us a sense of empathy for these characters, too. We got played just as much as they did. And I have to respect that!

And on that note (pun totally intended), you have to love the way they used the Rolling Stones at the end of the last team scene. “You can’t always get what you want... but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.” This finale might not have been what we wanted, but it was what we needed to re-ignite our passion for this team and this story.

We’ve talked before about the fact that one of things that sets this show apart from other police procedurals is the fact that our team doesn’t always win, which makes their struggles seem more real. They’ve had some tough losses over the seasons, but never one to this degree. They lose in every way it’s possible to lose: The bad guy not only gets away, she ends up running the FBI and CIA. They don’t just lose a case, their entire professional reputation is destroyed. And they don’t just lose their reputation; some of them might have even lost their lives. These are a lot of hits to a team that’s gotten pretty good at taking down villains. And maybe they’ve gotten a little smug about it (or maybe that’s just Rich rubbing off on them). But this definitely knocks the wind out of their sails and forces them to do a bit of soul-searching about who they really are inside, so I loved what this does for the characters on an individual level. I can’t wait to see how they emerge from this (both literal and figurative) wreckage, how they cope with what’s happened, and how they chose to move forward in season 5.

And I love the questions that this finale opened up for the overall mythology of the show. When did all of Madeline’s planning begin? Clearly it was in motion even before Madeline assumed control of HCI. Tasha went undercover before that. On Nash’s orders? All of this keeps bringing me back to something Madeline said, talking about her father, “Did you know at one point, he was being groomed for the presidency? Until the powers that be had a change of heart. And they ruined him instead.” By the “powers that be,” she seems to be referring to some sort of shadow organization, operating within the U.S. government. An organization like maybe Orion? No, there aren’t any clues that point directly to that. But think of how perfect it would be if Remi had her memory wiped as part of a plan to wipe out corruption within the U.S. government... and Jane ended up working to wipe out the same source of corruption within the U.S. government. It would bring her story full-circle, and would remove the last barrier to her fully accepting the parts of her that are Remi, proving to herself that she was always heading toward the right goal (even if her methods were a bit questionable). And I am not going to lie: A large part of me is really hoping that this will be the case!

But whatever happens in season 5, season 4 was definitely a tour de force. And this finale was absolutely brilliant. Blindspot has always had amazing season finales, but this one really knocked them all out of the water. Bravo, everyone!

Y: I know that on more than one occasion during this season, I grumbled about how little we know about Madeline’s motives or where it was all going. But I am not too proud to admit when I’ve been wrong. So consider this me bowing down to the geniuses in that writing room who managed to craft one of the most perfectly structured and executed stories told over twenty-two episodes. Not only did they blow my mind with that finale and the long game that both they and Madeline played, but they made all the confusion and annoyance along the way worth it. This finale not only tied up almost every loose end from this season, but it also tied in loose ends that date all the way back to season 1. They managed to bring it all together—all those tiny moments, little almost insignificant plots and events that happened—in the most devastating way possible.

And one of the best things about it all is that our team was dealt such a huge blow. It’s not every day that your protagonists lose—and lose in such a big way—but our heroes just did, and this has breathed new life into the show and set forth the final chapter in the most exciting way possible. We’re so used to brushing the dust off after every episode, tallying the scores, and finding that the team somehow snatched a win despite everything. There have been very few incidents before when the team came out on the losing end—off the top of my head, I can think of 2.09 when Shepherd blew up half the NYO agents and again in 2.21 when she raided their offices—but this time, I believe, the loss is far more devastating especially because it hit so close to home. Not only did Madeline beat the team in their head-to-head, but she’s now sitting pretty in Reade’s office and has the director on a leash.

Having your heroes end the season with a huge loss—not to mention blowing them up in a drone attack—and putting them through all that they went through during the finale, from external forces coming at them to having them implode from within as a team—was a very bold move and a very brave decision from the writers. And I think making that move as a final one before the last season was the right way to go. I think we all knew that there would come a day when they could no longer work from within the FBI, and that fighting the corruption while still being a part of the system cannot last so long. We all expected them to not be a part of the FBI as they completed the last of their tasks. And the fact that they finally got to this point shows how true the writers have remained to the premise and to the original core mythology. But did anyone see it happening like this? I’m just so blown away by the beautiful craftsmanship of this storytelling. I am in awe. Absolutely in awe.

I am also quite in awe of how well these two episodes flowed together. Remember, they were initially meant to run separately but the rescheduling forced the two-hour finale to run as such. Credit goes first to the writers because the story moved seamlessly from one to the other. And also credit to the editors who managed to make it look like one continuous episode. The rhythm never faltered, the pacing never felt off, and it just worked so well as one cohesive episode.

But enough of that for now. Let’s go ahead and dissect Madeline’s devilishly elaborate Helios scheme and see just how she managed to absolutely destroy this team because there is just so much for us to look at and take apart.

We finally find out what Madeline’s motivation is and why she’s been doing what she’s been doing, and it turns out her motives and her drive are far more personal than anyone else’s. It’s true, she never had Shepherd’s or Crawford’s ideological platform or any ambition to change the world and install a new world order. Madeline’s drive was purely a personal vendetta, instigated and fueled by emotion rather than logic. And this is probably why we often felt disconnected from her evil plan but also why she went to such extremes. And honestly, what is more interesting to me than the motive—now that we know it—is looking back at everything she’s done and realizing just how long she’s been planning this and how meticulously and carefully and patiently she’s been orchestrating this. And what is terrifying is realizing that all along Madeline has been the ultimate puppet master. Certain things may have come to her by luck, but she knew exactly how to exploit every chance and opportunity and mastermind this vendetta. And looking back at everything that has happened this season and all the things she reached for from seasons before, it just blows me away to see how every single small piece of this puzzle came together.

I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly when or how Madeline began her scheme, but it’s clear now that Madeline has been focused on taking down the FBI since she was very young—or if not exactly taking the FBI down, at least avenging her father. This is not something you whip up on a slow Sunday afternoon. It’s a plan that takes years of scheming, of placing all the right pieces in place, and of waiting patiently until it’s the right time to move these people and the right time to strike. I think it’s safe to assume that she was not always after this team specifically but when certain things fell into place, she did not waste any time jumping to the opportunity to target them to complete her revenge.

Placing herself on the board of HCI was probably always part of the plan. It’s the perfect seat to be in to have access to all this information, and access to all of these people to control, and in many ways remain protected. Taking out Hank Crawford was probably always on her to do list, but I guess we can say she got lucky when the team got to him first. That gave her the perfect opportunity to pounce and take his seat and also gave her the perfect target within the FBI—our beloved team. And once she got her target, Madeline wasted no time building Helios around taking them down, and honestly you have to give credit to her research team, who managed to dig up so much on them. And you also have to give her credit for managing to build such an airtight case against them—designing Helios in such a way that it is so convincing even if she had to pin a few things on the likes of Tasha and Kurt to paint the full picture.

Speaking of Tasha, looking back now, I cannot help but wonder if the orders to Keaton to send Tasha undercover were orchestrated by Nash who we now know is on Madeline’s payroll. I think what is more likely is the other option—that Nash had nothing to do with Tasha going undercover with Blake but everything to do with Madeline knowing all along that she was CIA. And what better than keeping Tasha by her side long enough to build a decent rap sheet against her? I think Madeline knew from the beginning who Tasha was and what she was doing there and that had been—along with the team taking down Crawford—the first perfect piece to the Helios puzzle: make sure Tasha is part of and witness to enough crimes that Madeline can pin on her because at the end of the day it is going to be Tasha’s word versus Madeline’s, and if everything goes according to plan, Madeline’s is the word that is going to win.

And after that, all Madeline needed to do is make sure the team stays on her trail, gather dirt on them, and ultimately get them arrested. Yes, I honestly believe getting arrested had always been part of the plan—making Madeline the perfect victim of this vicious vindictive FBI team and garnering all the sympathy towards her as well as hatred for the team—nothing like spreading some fake news to gather the mobs. Just before she gets arrested in 4.17, Madeline tells Tasha, “And while I always suspected you might be working for the government, I also suspected there was a chance I could turn you.” And to this Tasha replies, “Sorry to disappoint,” but it’s Madeline’s reply that—in hindsight—gives me all the chills. She says, “Oh, no, you haven’t. I wouldn’t change a thing.” And this just again convinces that every single thing that happened, every move that the team made, had all fallen just in the right places that Madeline needed them to fall in to fit perfectly into her master plan.

Gathering dirt on the rest of the team could not have been that hard. Rich has a colorful history that is known to everyone. Having access to Crawford’s hard drive, which she got from Kira, meant she had access to intel Crawford got from Hirst, which it’s safe to assume included Reade’s drug problems and probably his involvement with Coach Jones’s murder and the disappearance of the lone suspect, and I’m sure Hirst knew all about Megan. And then there’s Jane, and while her file is classified, Madeline has Nash and all the CIA black site intel that he has access to, so knowing the truth about her identity and her past must have been a breeze. And as for Weitz, well there’s a guy walking with not a closet but an entire wardrobe department full of skeletons. Getting dirt on Weitz was probably also rather accessible, especially again with Hirst’s intel. Finding out about Patterson’s involvement with The Three Blind Mice was probably a little bit harder but also I think not so impossible. With Madeline’s connections and Kathy being Kathy I can see the former eventually finding out the truth and recruiting Kathy. It’s a bit trickier than the others which would explain why Kathy came much later in the game. And finally, there’s Kurt Weller. And while he has made a few decisions along the way that Madeline could have used against him, whether it’s his covering the truth about what happened to Taylor or more recently with Remi’s return and what she had done, I love the fact that Madeline could not find these things out and had to resort to framing him for things that he did not do. She had Briana steal his personal gun and then have Dominic use it to kill innocent people to incriminate him for this crimes. And she also resorted to some elaborate conspiracy theory about him and Jane setting up this whole thing to infiltrate the FBI and whatnot—which I love because it’s the same crazy theory that Weitz had tried to pin on them all the way back in season 2.

It’s interesting that what she has on Kurt is so flaky and can easily be exposed if only Briana would come forward with the truth. Against everyone else, she has more concrete evidence—and what she has against Tasha is also a frame job but less easily exposed. So it should be interesting seeing how long those accusations against Kurt last. But we’ll get to Briana and what she might and might not do in a bit. But before I close this on Madeline and Helios, I have a few questions about Dominic—which might now never get answered but still—why was he so loyal to Madeline and Helios? What was his personal motivation to be part of it? Was burying Jane a part of the plan all along or did he act out on his own? And what about his relationship with Kathy? It seemed staged at first but his sending her the message before he basically kills himself felt like maybe he wasn’t faking it?

There is no denying that our team has been put through the wringer this season. But the finale tests them in ways they could never have imagined. How do they hold up... and what do we think the future holds for them?

Y: Wow. Just wow. Everything surrounding the team—what they went through as a group, and what they went through individually, what happened to them, and what they did to themselves—was absolutely brilliant. Watching them fall apart and fight after seeing how close they’ve become as friends and as a family was absolutely heartbreaking. But then watching them make up and stand there together, having lost everything, realizing that they still have each other and that is enough to take on the world and promising to stick together until the bitter end? That healed my broken heart and filled me with so much joy. It was incredible to watch them go through this.

And then they got blown up. No big deal. And honestly, the emotional implosion was more powerful than that drone strike.

The actors carried the plot and the characters’ emotional response to everything so wonderfully, and honestly that is one of the main reasons that the finale was almost flawless. And the writers somehow managed to make these two episodes huge for every single one of these characters, and I am not only talking about our regulars. So this week’s team section includes all our favorites and almost as many of the familiar recurring characters. That’s how good the writing was for the two-hour finale. Everyone got so much to work with and every single character who appeared in these episodes got so much story. We have so much to discuss when it comes to both our core team as well as Briana, Weitz, and Keaton.

Let’s start with Briana, shall we? Our once mild-mannered and often forgotten assistant has suddenly become a major player whose involvement with Dominic proved catastrophic for a certain Kurt Weller. And her involvement has put her in the middle of everything, not just for this isolated incident, but also for the story moving forward. I mentioned in last episode’s review that the way they got Briana into the mix bugged me a little bit. I think if they’d shown her flat out refuse Dominic’s offer and then only give in when they threatened her family that would have made us sympathize more with her and not just feel anger and betrayal towards her. But in the opening scene of the finale, we do see just how guilty she feels about her actions and her own disappointment in her actions. It does make me feel bad for her, enough that I am rooting for her to do the right thing moving forward.

We don’t see much of Briana for the rest of the episode. She’s in the background for most of the day, but she does not get called upon by either the team or Madeline’s people. And we don’t really see her react to the accusations until the very end. We know for a fact that Briana is in perfect position to clear the team, or at least clear Kurt’s name. It’s true that doing so will put her in a very bad place and potentially get her in a lot of trouble. I don’t know how helpful to her case it would be that Dominic threatened her family, but she owes it to the team to come clean. She really screwed them over. Madeline could not have taken Kurt down without Briana’s involvement.

Briana can have a huge role to play as we move into the last episodes. For starters, she’s one of the very few left at the FBI, and she holds valuable information. She is going to be in a precarious position and definitely on Madeline’s radar. But more than that, the team do not know about her betrayal and if they are going to ever try to reach out to anyone back at the NYO, Briana remains one of the options. (As is Afreen. I am dying for my girl to be the hero of the day and help the team, but that’s another conversation.) I don’t think Briana will necessarily become a regular but something has to be said about the fact that during that last scene, as Madeline green lights the drone attack, they made sure to focus on Briana. She got three very specific close ups during that scene—the guilt and terror evident on her face—and that has to mean something moving forward, right?

The team are going to need people in their corner, especially people who can help them out in any way possible, and as much as I am disappointed in Briana, I am also rooting for her to do the right thing.

L: Absolutely. You can do it, Briana! This is your chance to save the day and be a hero!

I have to admit I was a little bit worried at the start of the episode, when Dominic met Briana with no effort to conceal his identity. Obviously, he wasn’t worried about her being able to identify him. And even more worrisome to me was that Briana didn’t seem at all surprised to see him. Dominic’s picture would have been all over the NYO as the investigation progressed, especially while Jane was missing, so Briana would have been able to identify him instantly. Did she always know she was communicating with him? He disguised his voice when he threatened her parents and presumably whenever he made contact with her before, so at what point did she realize who she was dealing with? And at that moment, wouldn’t she have realized she was in way over her head, consorting with the very criminals she was sworn to stop?

I agree that her motivation was kind of a weak link for me in this storyline. I would have liked to see more of what led her to talk with Dominic in the first place. I know the earlier storyline with the crime novelist was meant to show us that she wasn’t satisfied with her job, but there’s a pretty big leap between “I feel unappreciated at work” and “I want to betray my sworn duties and my country.” I would have liked to see some steps in the middle there.

But that said, I do think that Briana’s heart is more or less in the right place. She did tell Dominic that she wouldn’t work for him and only gave in once he threatened her parents. But she knows that he’s dead now, and she does know a few people who might be able to keep her parents safe from any threats. So I hope that she’ll go to Weitz and start their own little rebellion to take back the NYO in season 5.

Which brings us to the guy running—or mismanaging, as the case may be—the FBI.

Y: Speaking of rooting for people to do the right thing, Matthew Weitz sits firmly at the top of that list. It’s been quite an interesting season for Weitz, and this last episode was huge for him. The writers managed to give him an entire arc, to dive deep into his character and set him up nicely to be more involved in the next season. Ever since he first appeared on the show, Weitz has been the character we love to hate. He’s obnoxious and smarmy and self-serving and the polar opposite of our team on the moral compass. Every time he’s around it spells bad news for the team, even when he’s technically on their side, he somehow finds a way to make things worse for them. He’s always managed to walk the very fine line between the sides of the law, making sure he leans just enough towards safety that he keeps his hands clean of any real mess and knows just how to hide anything that might tip him to the other side. He knows how to take care of number one, to make sure his needs are met and to hell with everyone else. And so it seems quite perfect that the episode starts with him trying to get himself into a better job than the one he’s in—how many jobs has this man had?—and hoping to get out of his current position with nothing but a stellar report card.

And what makes Weitz interesting is that he knows all that about himself. He doesn’t pretend to be something that he is not. He is ambitious and vicious and doesn’t care about who he hurts or what he has to do along the way to reach where he wants to reach. He says just that in the episode while arguing with Kurt in the car. It’s the way he’s been since we first met him. But by seeing more of him this season, we did witness a few moments where we thought that maybe Weitz could change, that maybe being around the team might be the trigger he needs to better himself, and that maybe it’s his turn to shine under the spotlight of character development. Coming into the finale, and with his feud with Kurt, the odds were against him. But then the events of the day unraveled, and I like to think that maybe this was the gut punch that Matty needed to take a step back and have a close look at his life and the choices he’s made. He’s not used to ending up on the losing side. Even when he couldn’t take the team down in season 2, he still managed to come out of it with a win and a nice new job. But this loss is like nothing he’s ever seen in this episode, and I really think the learning curve for him was pretty intense.

I’m not saying Weitz has been reformed. No, far from it—he still has a long long way to go. But this episode was really a wake-up call and I think by the end of it, Weitz was on the verge of turning a page—of making a choice that would alter the course on which he had thought his life belonged. Rich’s line to him about them not being similar really stung—you could see it clearly on his face—and from the minute Madeline took apart the team in the conference room, Weitz’s demeanor completely changed. By the way, I really appreciate him trying to stand up to Kurt. They might have never seen eye to eye, but I think Weitz has so much respect for him and it showed in that moment. But I really think it was that slap in the face from Rich and the way the day ended that are going to be what pushes Weitz into hopefully doing the right thing next season and seeking his redemption.

And yes, I am on the team that believes that Weitz was the one to warn the team about the drone attack when he left the SIOC with his phone in the moments before the green light.

L: Honestly, until season 5 definitively tells me otherwise, I remain firmly convinced that Weitz was the one who warned the team.

Since we first met Weitz, as an Assistant US Attorney, we’ve known that he was smarmy and self-serving, yes. But he’s not evil like our bad guys have been. He went after Mayfair because he thought it would help his career, but also because he believed she was guilty. Same with the team and Weller. And he’s been a pain in the ass, certainly, as a boss, but he’s also grown to trust and respect this team, who, for the most part, have made him look like he’s doing a pretty good job. He’s like a cat; he generally lands on his feet. And so it’s interesting to watch that moment when he realizes that instead of being a player, he’s the one who has been played. Nash used his own ambition against him, to set him up. And just like with Patterson and Rich, Weitz falls right into the trap. That’s gotta sting for a guy who prides himself on his ability to come out of trouble smelling like the proverbial rose.

Weitz may not be smart the way Patterson is, but he’s not dumb either. He’s very clever at figuring out how to spin a situation to his own advantage. We’ve always seen him land on his feet. And so, just as it is unexpected to see Patterson and Rich being outsmarted by criminals rather than the other way around, it’s refreshing to see Weitz set back on his heels, at a clear disadvantage. Unfortunately, we’re too worried about the team to really revel his discomfort during the press conference the first time around, but it was really a moment to savor during my rewatch. As pissed off as I am at him, I think he’s just fallen down the slippery slope he was skirting. He ordered an illegal drone strike against an innocent man to cover up evidence of wrongdoing, and by the end of the episode, he sees the same tactic used against the team, a group of people who had been nothing but loyal to the FBI—and to him. Despite all of his blustering, Kurt didn’t expose his secrets to the world. And even when the team finds out, none of them do either. And for their silence, they are punished.

And so it’s going to be interesting to see what Weitz does in season 5. He’s going to want to hang onto his job, of course, but to do that, he has to be willing to allow Madeline and Nash call all the shots. How far is he willing to go? Would he be willing to sacrifice his career in order to bring down Madeline? And even if he is, will the team be willing to trust him again? Because the only way they are going to be able to fully exonerate themselves is by someone with some power and clout making sure the truth they reveal is heard and exposed to the world, and they will need someone on the inside who is willing and able to do that for them.

I have to say, this is the most interested I have ever been in seeing what Matty Weitz does next!

Y: And if Weitz needs a good role model to emulate on his journey from “a character we love to hate” to simply “a character we love” then all he has to do is look to Jake Keaton. We’ve never been subtle about how much we have grown to love Keaton and how impressed we are with how the writers have managed to develop his character and turn him from Jane’s torturer whom we vowed to hate forever to a character we care about and root for and who has become one of the team’s most dependable allies—in his own CIA way.

I know that there are other characters whose fates at the end of the episode are far worse than being relocated by your boss to Malta—I mean being escorted to a black site and getting blown up do kind of suck more than a having to move to a picturesque Mediterranean island—but still I do feel kind of bad for Keaton. All the guy ever wanted to do was serve his country and do the right thing. He definitely did not deserve to be the fall guy for this mess, but I guess that’s what it’s like to work for the Company, and the way he talked about it, it seems like Keaton always knew that. Also, Nash is an asshole. One last thing, Keaton’s “new assignment” while it fit the narrative of the episode itself also gives the writer something to play with next season and places yet another character in a position that might be useful to the team.

Just like Briana and Weitz will both still be at the FBI, or so I assume, having Keaton in Europe could fit in well with our team being on the run. We know Keaton has CIA contacts, and he can definitely help the team travel around undetected; get them safe houses, money, and weapons; and could also be a source of intel for them. And just like Briana can be the one to clear Kurt’s name, Keaton is in position to do the same for Tasha, but the question remains if they will let him or not. Keaton can prove to be a very useful ally to the team some way or another. I just hope they don’t kill him or send him into another coma. But either way, I am pretty sure that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of him and now he too has a score to settle, at least with Nash, and it should be fun if he once again teams up with our group of plane-jumping fugitives.

L: Yes, I think that Keaton is definitely a player who can help aid our team from the right side of the law, so I am certain that we will see more of him in season 5. And I do think that he and Tasha kind of bonded during her time with the CIA. There is genuine respect between them. And so he is someone the team can trust (no matter what misgivings Reade and Jane might have about him).

And the more I think about Keaton, the more I come back to Shepherd. We know two things about her grand plan: One, she believed that Keaton, like Weller, was incorruptible and could be trusted with leading the CIA, just as Kurt could be trusted to lead the FBI. And two, she believed that she couldn’t fix the corruption from outside the machine, which is why she had to send Jane into the FBI, so they could clean their own house. And I do feel that in many ways, the team’s mission in season 5 is following through with the goal of removing corruption within the government. And to do that, they have to have people inside who are willing to expose it, otherwise Madeline and her cronies will circle the wagons, bury the evidence, and continue to spin the narrative they want the world to follow.

So I expect both Keaton and Weitz (and Briana as well) to step up next season.

And I agree, Nash is an asshole, and I want to see him get his comeuppance almost as much as I want to see Madeline get hers!

Y: And moving from one adversary-turned-friend to another, I think it’s time we talk about Rich, because if anyone has had a beautiful and fulfilling arc on this show it has to be Rich Dotcom. We’ve talked a lot this season about Rich’s transformation, and about how finding this team and this family has given him purpose and allowed him to grow and develop and find redemption. And then this episode comes and throws at him the ultimate test to everything his character has gone through—a test of his goodness, of his loyalty, his friendship, his commitment to his job, his commitment to doing what’s right, his faith in the team and in himself—and I don’t know about you, but at the end, all I can say is that my heart is so full. It’s full of love for this character and his arc and his journey, full of happiness and pride at how far he’s come and who he has become, and of course because this is Blindspot, full of worry and trepidation regarding what’s in store for him.

Every time I rewatch the episode, especially those last couple of scenes with Rich, I’m just blown away to see how far his character has come and yet how true he still remains to who he is—proving that true character growth can be exciting and interesting and take one character and make them the best possible version of themselves without sacrificing integrity and originality of the character. Many times this season, we have seen just how far Rich has come and how being part of this team has helped him grow, and helped learn to think of others and not just himself. He’s grown to become a part of this family. On more than one occasion, he has had to risk his life for them and watch them risk their lives for him and understand the true meaning of being part of a family. And he has even admitted it a few times as well—seeing these changes in himself and appreciating them and also appreciating the team for welcoming him and helping him grow into this better version of himself.

And this finale was a test to all that character growth and a test to see just how committed he is to this new version of himself, to the team, and to being a good person. He had many chances during the finale to stumble, and we would have forgiven him if he had because there is nothing wrong with self-preservation, especially when faced with a force determined to take you down and ruin your life. But even though Rich knew what was at stake and knew that he could have easily saved himself, his loyalty to the team and his determination to help save them remained his priority. And honestly, if you think about it, Rich could have taken that phone and gone somewhere safe and still tried to hack that Helios file from a place he wouldn’t have been caught. I’m sure The Boston would have welcomed him and helped him hack it—because we all know now that he’s free, Boston has all the good toys to help him do all the hacking. But Rich knew that the best resources were at the FBI, and he was not going to opt for a lesser setup to try and help the team. Would anyone have blamed him if he’d left the building and tried to hack the phone from somewhere else? I know I wouldn’t have, and every time I watch the episode, I find myself yelling at Rich to get out of that air duct and go to Starbucks and work from there.

But no, not this Rich.

This Rich never leaves his post, won’t let a silly little arrest warrant and an office swarming with trained agents hunting for him stop him from helping and trying to protect his family. And this is what I loved about Rich in the finale. Yes, he was fantastic while doing all the stuff he typically does as one half of the Wonder Twins, but he really got a chance to shine when he was left alone and especially when we got to see him juxtaposed with Weitz in the final part of the episode. Hiding out in that vent, still doing his damnedest to help the team, to do his part, and do the right thing and consequently getting arrested was all we needed as proof that the growth he’s done hasn’t been for show and that it will stick. It wasn’t just growth when it seemed convenient and with a reset button when things got real.

And that final scene when he is in the interrogation room is just the most perfect Rich Dotcom scene that ever was, and, in my opinion, Ennis Esmer’s most remarkably acted scene. Even with all the growth that we’ve seen in Rich over the past two years, there has always been a certain Richness to his more emotional moments—a certain smart-ass attitude and cockiness that are uniquely him. And even in moments of weakness or vulnerability, that edge to him was always present and always loud. But in that moment, when he confronts both Weitz and Nash, he is just so vulnerable and exposed, and there is that level of honesty and rawness to him, and it’s the most real we’ve ever seen him. His emotions and his vulnerability are there at the surface for us to witness, and if you don’t fall in love with Rich in that moment and if your heart doesn’t simultaneously shatter for him and fill with pride and love, then I’m sorry but we can’t be friends anymore.

All the credit goes to Ennis Esmer for such an incredible performance in that scene and for carrying Rich’s pain and fear and at the same time his strength and his conviction in such a perfect and touching way. And I cannot wait to see where his story goes next season. Rich in a black site is something I am terrified about, because I am scared for him and what they are going to do. But I firmly believe that it will only make him stronger and give him that much more motivation to come back and be a better person and never look back.

L: All of the cast members definitely brought their A games to this episode, but I agree; Ennis was phenomenal in that scene!

There hasn’t been any question of where Rich’s loyalties lie this season, not since he turned down Hirst’s offer last season to turn on the team in exchange for his freedom and Boston’s location. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t warm my heart a bit every time he puts the team ahead of his own well-being. And the way that he does that in this episode was just awesome. He doesn’t run—despite being told repeatedly to save himself—and he continues to help the team right up until he’s caught by Nash. And even then, he refuses to tell them anything about the team. (He also refuses to give Weitz Dominic’s phone with the Helios intel, so I have high hopes for a retrieve-the-phone-from-the-NYO-air-duct heist next season.)

Now I do have to admit that I have my concerns about how well Rich is going to hold up in a black site, but frankly, the team is going to need his dark web contacts (like Mr. Ice Cream) and also probably the bitcoin he’s got stashed away, so rescuing him should be pretty high up on their priority list.

After Jeller, Patterson and Rich might be my favorite pairing. Not in a romantic sense, but in a Wayne-and-Garth, Han-Solo-and-Chewbacca, iconic duo fashion. I love these two nerds. I love watching them be the smartest people in the room, waiting for the mere mortals to catch up. I love watching them fist bump when they pull off something huge. But as I mentioned in the case section, I think maybe they were due for a wake-up call. They were so sure they were outwitting Kathy and Madeline that they never considered that they might be the ones being outwitted. The team has been playing right into Madeline’s hands all season, but in this episode especially we see Rich and Patterson being so convinced that they are right that they tune out any dissenting voices or evidence to the contrary. We see Patterson going ahead with her plans to fix the grid, even as Rich yells at her that she’s making it worse. And then we see Rich going against Weitz to put bitcoin into Kathy’s ransom account, only to discover that the money was immediately re-directed to accounts in the team’s names. Yes, Madeline’s plan was fiendishly clever, but these two are pretty smart. Giving Kathy money, not checking to see what else she did while she was tapped into the New England National Bank—these are the kinds of things that they most certainly would have caught (especially new accounts in their own names!), if they’d been looking around for them. But they had kind of tunnel vision, believing they were the cat and not the mouse. Like all of our team, Patterson and Rich will be sadly wiser for this lesson in season 5.

Which brings us to Rich’s partner in crime...

Y: Agent Patterson, whose first name remains a mystery despite the endless inside jokes and endless teasing from the writers.

Patterson has been an absolute MVP from the first moment she popped upon on our screens. She is, after all, the LeBron of the FBI as voted unanimously by everyone. Week in and week out, our Patty saves the day, saves the millions of people living on the east coast, and saves her team’s butts out in the field from her awesome lab. She also has a whole lot of money, an awesome relationship with her parents, and has plans to adopt. Yes, she’s a little unlucky in the dating department, but that has never stopped her from being an absolute superstar.

She knows it, and the team knows it. Jane says as they’re trying to escape the museum in Iceland that as long as Patterson is out there, as long as she’s not captured, the rest of them stand a chance. And that’s true.

And that’s also kind of a little scary because making her the most valuable also makes her the most likely to “die” in that drone strike—which I think is what they will lead us to believe for some time before we find her alive and well.

But back to this episode. So, we’ve known for a long time just how badass and invaluable Patterson is. But in this finale, Patterson had her most iconic moment to date—her “birth of a leader” moment—and it was epic. I’ve always thought that a day will come when Patterson will be running the show. I just never expected it to be out of a cabin in the middle of nowhere in Iceland and as a wanted fugitive accused of terrorism and treason. Patterson had a few incredible moments in the finale but for me that one absolutely stood out and I believe defines her as we move towards the final stretch and will probably go down as one of Patterson’s most iconic moments.

Every so often, you have a character who finally grows into their own, embraces all their potential and has that “birth of a leader” moment. And our Patterson got her “birth of a leader” in this episode as the team gathered around her and she gave a speech that got them to drop their differences and united them as they basically pledged their allegiance to her.

Reade did a great job when they needed someone with diplomacy and a suit, and Kurt’s always been the one to go to when it’s about gut instinct and split-second decisions, but now, it’s Patterson’s turn to take charge, and boy is she ready to do so!

And yes, I am ignoring how the accusations Madeline made against her are ones that she’s actually guilty of and would totally stick if it comes to it, because right now all I care about is that incredible scene where Patterson took her rightful place at the throne.

L: I completely agree about Patterson’s “birth of a leader” moment. While there is no question that Patterson frequently saves the day for our team, it’s usually been from a more subordinate role; she provides the information they need at just the right moment (like how to land a jet with no working engines), but she’s not the one on the ground leading the team and calling the shots. But if there is anyone who can take this team of alpha dogs and make them work like a pack, it’s Patterson.

Patterson’s arc has been an interesting one over the course of these four seasons. In the early episodes, she seems quite young—brilliant in the lab, but still trying to establish her career at the FBI. Over the years, we see her grow in confidence, even as—or perhaps because—the universe deals her one blow after another. The girl who breaks up with David after criticism from Assistant Director Mayfair becomes the woman who stands up to Director Weitz—and wins! This season we see her running her lab like a boss and, at times, the whole NYO. This transformation is not without cost to her, though. Although she began the series more on the straight and narrow—not unlike Weller—by the end of season 2 we saw her burned out enough to leave the FBI, start a new career, and engage in a bit of cyber-activism on the side.

These hacking adventures provide some great foreshadowing for her role in season 5. Because there is no question that she’s going to be absolutely critical in the fight to take Madeline down. They’re going to need all of Patterson’s (and Rich’s) tech skills to get the information they need to bring down Madeline. (Man, I need to know what’s on that phone like yesterday!) And you know at some point Patterson is going to have to hack into the FBI. She’ll know every backdoor into that system (which she can conveniently blame on the now-dead designer of the new system). Wouldn’t it be awesome to see Patterson and Afreen going head-to-head electronically? Although I’m hoping Afreen will join the team of rebels working inside the FBI to help clear our team.

I really can’t wait to see what brilliant feats Patterson pulls off in season 5.

Y: Then of course we have, the ever elegantly dressed Assistant Director Edgar Reade. There’s no denying that Reade has been doing a great job as AD of the NYO especially given that he has already had to clean up after Hirst turned out to be dirty and then deal with having Weitz as his boss. He also cannot be envied about having this team working for him. Don’t take this the wrong way, I love the team and I think they are the most badass team there ever was, but they are not the easiest to have under your command—there’s the former dark web criminal, the former Navy Seal turned terrorist with memory problems, the little genius with the side white hacking hobby, his best friend slash soulmate who went on a little “assistant to the devil” sabbatical, and finally his former boss, a ridiculously alpha control freak male. So yes, given all that, I’m surprised Reade hasn’t quit his job and opened a hot dog cart. I know I would have. So given how far he’s gone to cover for all these people and protect them from the suits upstairs, I don’t really blame Reade for snapping when he realized that people were still keeping things from him and going behind his back.

Yes, there is a level of hypocrisy there, and we’ll get to that in a minute, but I do feel bad for him. One minute he thinks everything is under control and the next minute, he finds out about Kurt and Weitz, and then he finds out about Patterson, Rich, and Kathy. And I understand him getting so mad because I believe that had he known, he would have still had their backs. But it still hurt hearing him say those things, and not just to Jane, but also to Kurt and Patterson and of course Tasha—the one person he owes almost everything to. But I especially liked how real it all felt, when the team finally let it all out, in that they dug deep, and they went all the way back and brought up things that have been hidden and buried under the surface since season. It especially worked with Reade, who in season 1 had been the most vocally opposed to Jane’s joining the team and her effect on Kurt. Listening to him attack Jane—and Kurt—on the plane and before that in the locker took me straight back to early season 1 when Reade would warn Kurt against Jane’s participation in the team and when he would be straight with Jane about his discomfort with her presence especially around Kurt, when he said, “When he’s around you, the guy I lean on, the guy I know... isn’t there. And that scares the hell out of me.” And he’s said to Kurt about Jane, “Look, we have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into. You sure you want to bring her today? […] All right, honestly, the idea of having her armed and out in the field makes me nervous.”

It just goes to show that these things never went away, and it felt so real because who hasn’t done the same? When you find yourself getting in a fight with someone, you always somehow revert to that one thing that happened so long ago that you had thought you were over or thought that you’d forgiven, but it’s still there, waiting to get out into the open to be properly addressed.

So to a certain extent I do find that moment with Jane somewhat understandable. And the same goes for what he said to Patterson, especially from a purely “I’m the boss and you kept this from me after I specifically asked you about it” point of view. But what I think is completely unforgivable is him going after Tasha especially now that he knows why she was doing what she was doing and how ever since she’s been back she’s been unwaveringly loyal—and mostly because dammit, Edgar, she has kept your secrets for so long and she’s protected you and had your back more than anyone else in your entire life and she’s been the best friend you could have never imagined. What he said to Tasha pissed me off more than what he said to either Jane or Patterson or Kurt or about Rich.

But as much as he had the right to be angry at being lied to and the secrets that others were keeping from him, we do have to point out that he wasn’t all that innocent himself. And what’s interesting is that—for all his being pissed off at the others—the rap sheet he’s got is pretty bad. And with Reade, he is pretty much guilty of the things that Madeline has accused him of—and what Tasha threw back at him with regards to Coach Jones. It’s all coming full circle here. All these plot lines from earlier seasons, they have not been forgotten—not by the writers and not by the other characters on the show. And it is going to be interesting to see where we go on from here, especially for Reade, because clearing their names would require proving what Madeline has on them is fake but in his case, it’s not. And for someone who’s tried to maintain that facade of being by the book this whole time, how he gets himself out of it is going to be a true test for Reade.

L: I think the thing to remember about Reade is that he knows he was promoted to AD not because of his abilities, but because Hirst believed he would do what she wanted. That knowledge colors everything he does; he knows he has already fallen short of the yardstick by which he would measure himself against Mayfair and all of the previous AD’s (including Weller). So he’s already a little bit insecure when he discovers that his boss and his predecessor are up to something and deliberately keeping him out of the loop. When we take this into account, his actions and attitude in this episode make more sense.

And the thing is: He isn’t wrong. The team has lied. They have broken the law, and they have covered up those crimes. Their attacks on each other are so painful to watch because they’re true. They are disappointed in each other, and they are disappointed in themselves. They are supposed to be the good guys, the ones who stop the bad guys, and instead, they have done bad things and are losing to the bad guys. Maybe they aren’t really better just because they are the ones with badges. And for all of the career law enforcement types, especially Reade, that has to hurt. Because—unlike Kurt—Reade doesn’t have anything else. He doesn’t have a wife or a child to keep him going. He poured everything into his career, and that’s slipping away.

So, yes, he lashes out at everyone, up to and including Tasha. Because of all of them, Tasha hurt him the most. He’d been in love with her for years, but she pushed him away. And then she told him she loved him, and he let things end with Megan on the promise that Tasha’s words meant something. And she sleeps with him and then ghosts him, and when he sees her again, she lies and lies and lies to him. (And ties him to a chair and cold cocks him, but I think that’s probably the easiest thing to get past.) So I think that what Yas said about things from the past bubbling up is true across the board. This wound is just more recent and runs a whole lot deeper.

But we can’t really discuss Reade without also talking about Tasha.

Y: Look, I think we need to get one thing out in the open: I love Tasha Zapata. Like, in case this is the first time you are reading our reviews or “meeting” me and don’t already know, I really really love Tasha. I will defend Tasha until my dying breath. Tasha Zapata is everything. Everything! So this is going to be more me gushing over Tasha than saying anything remotely intellectual or useful. You’ve been warned.

It’s no secret how amazing this season has been for Tasha. After spending three seasons as an incredible supporting character, Tasha—and Audrey—finally got the chance to be in the spotlight and get her own long arc and carry half the plot for quite a while. Going undercover with Madeline gave Tasha the chance to leave her sidekick role and come into her own. It gave her a chance to explore who she is, ask questions about what she wants, what she believes, what she’s capable of, and where she wants to be in the world. After years of feeling out of place and looking for her true purpose, she finally found it, but of course not without the battle scars and cracks in her armor to prove it.

Tasha’s journey this season really highlighted the most integral parts of her character and focused on the same core characteristics and intentions that drove her plots in earlier seasons—helping her friends, following orders, bringing down the bad people. All such noble and commendable goals and intentions. And the things that Tasha eventually gets framed for are all a result of these things that backfire on her so horribly. But also, much like Kurt, she is quite innocent of all these things—at least the things that Madeline framed her for. Luckily for her, the things Madeline does not know about—covering for Reade and her involvement with the Coach Jones case—are actually the things she could get in trouble for.

But all Tasha has tried to do since we met her has been for the side that is responsible for stopping bad guys and ending corruption and doing the right thing. And because she never truly found her place at either the NYPD or the FBI, this led her to the CIA and eventually undercover with Madeline—just because she was following orders and trying to do the right thing. And it really sucks for her that not only was her reputation at the CIA ruined and she had Sabrina Larren after her, she ended being completely screwed over and found guilty of all the crimes Madeline had committed when she was with her. Because Madeline is a freaking evil genius. And what’s worse for Tasha is that she had at least two people who can vouch for her and get her out of this—Claudia and Keaton. But of course, Madeline had Claudia killed—and pinned that too on Tasha—and Nash made sure Keaton has been exiled and his reputation too not so great at the CIA, so even if he does come back to try to clear her name, I’m not so sure how many people would listen.

As usual, the best part of Tasha’s story comes down to her being the best friend a person can possibly have, not just to one but to every single member of her team. Even though she was separated from them for half a season and even though they almost gave up on her for a second, she still remained so fiercely loyal and protective of them. And even after Reade was unnecessarily snippy with her as well, she still had his back. In this episode alone, Tasha had incredible moments with each and every one of them. She defended Kurt’s choices and what he had to do to keep Weitz off Jane’s back to Reade, she supported Patterson when the latter was nervous about stopping the virus, she immediately jumped up to save Jane and Kurt by asking Ice Cream for SWAT uniforms, and her smile and hug with Jane at the cabin was the sweetest and the most genuine thing I have ever seen. But I think the most important moment of all is on the plane when the team were going at it and she let it slip about her covering for Reade. The reaction from everyone else makes it clear that Tasha had never spoken a word to anyone about what had happened with Coach Jones and that she had kept Reade’s secret safe for at least four years now.

And in my heart, I have a special place for Tasha and Keaton’s relationship and how it’s developed and evolved over the years. We saw how theirs was not only a working relationship anymore when she chose not to let him take the fall for the Madeline situation earlier this season and in the finale, that hug between them made me so happy—it was so pure and genuine and sweet. It really showed what kind of person Tasha is—rough on the outside, with walls that seem impenetrable, but in reality she’s the kindest, softest soul who just loves so much and cares so much but is terrified to let it show.

Honestly, I don’t think the universe deserves such a beautiful precious human being. She is too good for us.

L: How can anyone not love Tasha? She’s fierce and snarky and loyal and will totally fight you if you cross someone she loves.

I think her last scene with Keaton might be my favorite Tasha scene in this episode. When he says goodbye, he holds out his hand to shake hers, and she ignores that to fling herself at him for a hug. Honestly, that is Tasha in a nutshell right there. She is cautious and suspicious and slow to warm up to people, but once you worm your way into her heart, you’re there for good. She’s 110% loyal to the people she trusts, and that group isn’t a large one. It took her a while to embrace Jane, but once she did, that was it. Remember the scene in season 3 when she asked Jane if she was going to run again? “[Weller’s] not the only one who would miss you. Don’t go back to that hotel room. Stay at my place. I promise I won’t make you talk about your feelings. I hate feelings, we can just drink.” Once Keaton made it onto Tasha’s list, he became part of her family too. And no, Reade doesn’t get that, because Reade is different. He views everyone, even the people he loves, with a dose of skepticism and reserve. And maybe that’s a result of his childhood; after all, he once trusted Coach Jones, too. And that’s why he’s had such a hard time forgiving Tasha and trusting her again. And that’s why he immediately questions Tasha about both her loyalty and Keaton’s. And it’s why Tasha doesn’t understand why Reade can’t forgive her. She’s always had his back, even when she had to pretend otherwise, and she thinks he should know that and trust her and the rest of the team.

I have to admit, I was a little bit surprised that we’re didn’t get more resolution between Tasha and Reade in this episode. But I guess they were a little busy for a romantic heart-to-heart. But we did get Tasha telling Reade, “You’re not alone, Reade. I’ve got you. Always.” And let’s be real: from Tasha Zapata, that’s even more binding than a declaration of love.

One of the most painful, but also most brilliant things about this episode is the way it tears the team apart, but also makes them really think about what is most important—and what they know in their guts to be true. Who do they know they can trust, who will have their backs in the worst of situations?

Honestly, the team interaction in this episode is really what makes it one of my all-time favorites. In a lot of ways, it echoes the themes this show has shown us so thoroughly in Jane Doe’s character. Jane’s journey over these four seasons could be summarized as going from being alone to being part of a community. In this episode, our team goes from trying to handle things on their own (and, like Jane, sometimes only succeeding in making things worse) to truly embracing their need to work as a team.

And now that the team is operating outside of the protection of the FBI, it makes sense that they might call upon characters that have helped them in the past. Allie and Boston, certainly. Keaton, especially when he finds out that the whole FBI team has been “killed” and branded as traitors. I think Weitz has finally figured out that he’s in bed with a nest of snakes, so he might be willing to help the team—if they are willing to trust him. Briana was manipulated by Dominic, so I am sure she would like some revenge. What about Nas, back at the NSA? And then there are the ones who are a little further outside the law: Rossi? Clem? What about Ana Montes? (I never thought I’d say that I am sorry that Shepherd is dead!) I can’t wait to see who else turns up to help our team in season 5!

When we first met Jane Doe, she was frightened and alone, with no idea who she was. And over four seasons, we’ve seen her grow stronger and braver, find love and a family, and become certain of who she is and where she belongs. What is she willing to do in order to keep all that she holds dear?

Y: Anything and everything. Absolutely anything and everything. From the first day we’d met her, we’ve known that Jane is a person who will go the unthinkable extremes for the ones she loves and to stop what she believes is wrong and evil and unjust. And this year has seen Jane go through a transformation that no other character has ever see. She’s become the best version possible of herself—she’s stronger, more confident, more driven and whole—and if Pilot Jane was a force to be reckoned with, then you can just imagine what this Jane is capable of. Don’t you just love when the writing respects the characters and does them justice? I know I do.

L: We couldn’t ask for more! From the beginning of the pilot, the central thread of this show has been Jane’s journey to find her identity. In season 1, she set out on a quest to discover how she got to Times Square and who she’d been before her memory wipe. Season 2 gave her a name and a family, and ultimately forced her to choose between that family and the life she’d made for herself at the FBI. Season 3 tested her commitment to that choice and asked her how far she would go to hang on to that life. Season 4 finally gave her back all of her memories, both of her lives, and we saw her reconcile them, find her balance, and recommit to her life with Kurt and the FBI. And so it seems terribly, horribly appropriate that the season finale yanks that rug right out from under her. Her new life and everything she built there is stolen from her, and the stage is set for a season 5 that will hopefully allow her to reclaim the future she’s been reaching for since she crawled out of the bag in the pilot.

It’s been a beautiful journey, and what I loved the most about the end of this episode is the way it brings Jane full circle. We have that phenomenal parallel between pre-series Remi, watching her whole team being blown up by an illegal drone strike ordered by the government they served, and season 4 Jane, watching her whole team being blown up by an illegal drone strike ordered by the government they served. In both cases, it was to prevent these teams from exposing the corruption that had been manipulating them. And in both cases, Jane is the one who survives with new motivation to bring justice to the people who ordered the strikes. Jane began this series as someone who had felt betrayed by the people in charge of her country. So betrayed that she was willing to sacrifice everything she had and everything she was to fight that corruption: her memories, her sense of self, even her very skin. She was willing to give up all of it in order to bring an end to gross abuses of power. And now, here she is again, with even more reasons to finish the job she started so long ago.

So we see Jane returning to herself, in many ways. Both of her Remi and Jane selves are finally in agreement, united in the goal of ending this corruption hiding inside of the law. She has her full complement of memories from both of her lives, and her full breadth of skills to call upon. I keep thinking about what Reade says to Jane on the plane. “So, you don’t think people can change?” she asks him, and he says, “No. They don’t change. People just become more like themselves.” And as harsh as that sounds, he’s not wrong. Jane hasn’t changed, she’s finally become fully herself. As Borden told her, “when you joined Orion and then Sandstorm, you were on a search for justice, correct? ... You wanted to right what you saw as a world of wrongs, which isn’t all that different from your role now at the FBI, is it?” This is who Jane is, it’s who she’s always been. It’s why she joined the military, it’s likely how she was recruited into Orion, and it’s how Shepherd was able to draw her into Sandstorm and Phase Two. And it’s why she gets up and goes into the FBI every day, agent or not, and risks her life to “save the world.” Because she knows she can make a difference this way and fix some of the wrongs of the world.

And this is where I really hope that somehow Madeline ties into Orion. It would poetic justice indeed if Madeline’s empire were tied to the organization that Remi first set out to destroy, and if by bringing Madeline down, she could complete the quest she’d set out on four seasons ago. It would bring her journey full circle, and it would be the final step necessary to unite Remi and Jane in her mind, to allow her to view Remi’s actions not as something that she must atone for, but as part of the same battle she is fighting as Jane. It would be both poetic and deeply satisfying for viewers.

I am incredibly excited for season 5, for so many reasons. But near the top of the list is because it finally puts Jane in the driver’s seat. The past four seasons have been all about her finding her way on FBI turf. But now she’s outside of the confines of that institution. This is her home turf; life outside the law, out from under the government’s rules and regulations. We know that she’s no stranger to life on the run. What is even more interesting is how this will affect the team dynamic. For the most part, Jane has followed Reade and Weller’s orders, letting them call the shots. But that was on the FBI’s turf, where they clearly outranked her. But on the run and outside of the law, she’s the one with the most experience and the most contacts. Will she take on a more dominant, leadership role? If they do kill off or seriously injure any of the team members, I think we can expect to see Jane take charge. After all, planning a major government take-down is pretty much what she spent her life training for. She’s got the most seniority in this game.

But it’s also going to be a different game than Remi played. Unlike Remi, Jane has something to lose. She has her whole family: Kurt and the team. Remi didn’t really have a family. Yes, she had Roman, but Shepherd did her best to come between them, to set them up as rivals rather than teammates, so that lone relationship hardly constituted the close bonds of a true family. (Even Avery, the child that Remi bore and Shepherd stole away, falls now on the Jane side, a relationship in the life she built for herself that she needs to fight her way back to.) Everyone else in Remi’s life, even Oscar, fell into the context of Shepherd’s plans. Remi’s value to others lay in what she could do, in her abilities and talents. But Jane has everything that Remi did not: She has love, unconditional love, just for who she is, with no strings attached. She has family, teammates who will guard her back as closely as she would. She trusts her team, in a way that Remi never could, because she knows the lengths they will go to in order to protect the people they love. So Jane is both stronger and more powerful, but also more cautious. Remi had nothing to lose, so there were no limits to what she was willing to risk. She was willing to sacrifice her very skin and all of her memories, because she didn’t have the connections to her life that Jane has. Jane needs to be smarter and more careful about the risks that she takes, because there is too much to be lost if things go wrong. And I think we will see both of these sides warring inside of her in the next season.

Y: In season 1, when Pellington fires Jane, she voices her concern that she does not know what to do now. Coming out of that bag and ending up at the FBI gave her some purpose in a situation that was terrifying and crippling. In trying to uncover the truth, she found a place and purpose within the FBI, waking up every day, coming to work and saving the day. After escaping the CIA black site in season 2, she found another purpose which included stopping Sandstorm and undoing Remi’s terrorist past. Then season 3 came along and she was conflicted between the happy married idyllic life of Colorado and the meaning she found in her K&R work and tried to find that place in between where she belonged. And finally we got to season 4, the most amazing incredible season 4, in which Jane finally got to face off with Remi and her entire past, in which Jane regained all her memories, and in which Jane finally became this whole person she has always meant to be. The list of adjectives to describe this Jane is endless and full of all the best kind of adjectives and all these amazing parts of her came into play in this finale. She’s become stronger than ever, physically and mentally and emotionally—well not so much physically these last few episodes because Jaimie’s injury meant Jane leaned against quite a few walls and cars. She’s also become more sure of herself and more confident. She finally understands and knows who she is and who she wants to be and what her purpose is. She has embraced all that and has found comfort in it. She is fierce as hell in protecting her family, her loved ones, and doing what’s right.

Jane’s relationship with every member of the team has been a journey on its own. And yes this episode did have at its core the team going at each other, but at the end of the day, that implosion had to happen for them to be able to come back closer and more committed. And while the show doesn’t always have time to explore these individual relationships as much as we would love them to, we do always get the rare moments that highlight these connections and emphasize them. And while in many ways Jane has always been a soldier in an army with people around her and part of her team, I don’t think she’s ever allowed herself to let them get so close as with this team, to care for them so much they become a family. As Remi, she only ever had Roman in that same unconditional sense, and even then Shepherd laid such unhealthy and messed up ties to it.

Jane’s relationship with Rich has always been special. Sure, it started with him being slightly obsessed with her and Kurt—can you blame him?—but soon after his joining the team and her return, it developed into something real. Rich early on confided in her that his move to the straight path was very much inspired by her and constantly reminds her that his redemption was very much thanks to her. He was also one of her strongest supporters in her return from being Remi to embracing who she is truly meant to be and despite all his inappropriate behavior, the two have developed a strong and honest friendship.

And honesty in her friendships is something that Jane values a lot and what allows her to be so supportive of these people, to lean on them when she needs to but to also not bend too far backwards that she loses her place. And that was clear in what happened with Reade this episode. They have never necessarily had a warm fuzzy friendship but after the first awkward weeks, I think Reade learned to trust Jane’s abilities in the field and respect her at least for that in the beginning before this family slowly morphed into the beautiful thing we see it now. They had one solid moment earlier this season when Jane was buried and she made him promise not to compromise the case for her—proving that Jane knows exactly what kind of person and what kind of agent Reade is and that she respects him for it. But I also just loved how she stands up for herself when he calls her out on the plane for not being a real agent. She doesn’t say anything when he calls her a terrorist in the locker room because technically she was. But not this. She puts her life on the line every single day, she is out in the field taking bullets and punches more than anyone else, she’s in the lab solving cases and in SIOC writing reports, and she does everything everyone else does and then some. Just because she did not get there like everyone else does not mean she is not very much the agent that they are. After everything she’s been through, she won’t let Reade use that line on her to make her feel unworthy or take away all she has worked and suffered for. And I absolutely loved that from her.

And while friendships in general may or may not have been missing from Remi’s life, I think that one thing we can say with certainty is that Remi never had any girlfriends. You know which kind I’m talking about; the girlfriends who are like your sisters with whom you share a bond that goes beyond just friendship. And I think that this is one of the most important things that Jane has gained in this second chance of hers. Her relationships with Patterson and Tasha—and heck, I’ll throw in Allie here as well—have been one of the most important pillars of who she is now and this incredible person she has become. It’s just so satisfying and beautiful to see Jane specifically have these connections and these friendships. And as a general observation, it’s so satisfying and refreshing to see such genuine and honest and real friendships between women, especially between a woman and her partner’s ex. But for now let’s just take a moment to bask in the perfection that is the friendship among the women of this show and especially Jane’s with Patterson and Tasha.

Of course Jane’s relationship with Kurt is the cornerstone of—well of everything on this show and for these two people—but before I go into how important it is in this episode and how far it’s come, I just want to focus on another relationship that’s a byproduct of this one.

Due to Jaimie’s injury, we couldn’t get all the Jane and Little Bee moments that our hearts desired, but we did get through expository dialogue the confirmation we needed about that precious relationship. Bethany may not be her biological daughter, but we know that Jane adores this little girl as though she were. Her love for her is an amazing thing and adds another admirable layer to Jane and gives her that much to fight for. From her saying “who needs money when we have all this” to saying how lucky they are to have this; from loving having Bethany in bed all night long with them to being heartbroken about the weekend passing by too quickly; and everything about her belief that the reason they do what they do is to provide a safe future for Bethany and being excited about moving to Colorado and watching her grow. In their world where everything can be dark and gloomy and depressing, Bethany brings in an air of innocence and simplicity and adds a ray of hope into their world—and especially into Jane’s.

And finally there’s Jane’s relationship with Kurt. That bond between them and that connection has been at the core of what has allowed Jane to go from the woman who walked out of the bag with no name and no story to the incredible woman she is now. He has been her starting point in every sense of the word. Their partnership—as a married couple and as a battlefield duo—has helped Jane grow and evolve and become whole, and it has been at the heart of that purpose she has constantly searched for. She wants them to grow old together, and in the meantime she wants to spend her days saving the world with him.

And through that relationship and with it as a strength and a motive, Jane has changed and evolved so much. I cannot be the only one who was dreading the possibility of Jane sacrificing herself when the whole Weitz versus Kurt situation started. Jane has a track record of throwing herself in her sword to protect the ones she loves. We’ve seen that many times. And ever since that episode, that worry has been nagging at me—that the writers might try to pull that narrative out to resolve this situation. But all respect to them for showing Jane and her journey and her arc the respects they deserve and not making her do that.

The old Jane would’ve ran away, in one form or another, but this Jane stood her ground, and first of all trusted Kurt, and second she trusted herself and believed that what she has is worth fighting for. She is stronger with this team, and they are stronger with her. And she is stronger with Kurt, and he is stronger with her. And she now has a purpose and a future she wants to fight for. And there’s nothing that will make her abandon it now.

But that was not only the major highlight for Jane in this episode—not the only part of her plot that shined a light on her journey and how far she’s come and this new and improved version of her. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say we all loved when Jane ran back into the museum, pulled out her gun, and turned their unenviable situation into a hostage situation. That was smart and intuitive and the kind of thinking that we know Remi would have resorted to. A major part of Jane’s story from the beginning and especially this season has been about her confronting her past and especially the Remi part of her past, to come to terms to who she was then and to accept and embrace that part of her—as an actual part of her and not an “other.” It was a long and exhausting and painful journey for her, but Jane is finally in this place where she has accepted and come to learn to love all these parts of herself. But what is more important is that she can also now rely on the skills and talents that Remi had but use them in the right ways. Okay, maybe taking a museum full of innocent people hostage isn’t a “right way,” but I know Jane would have never let anything happen to them. I think it was such a great way to show how Jane is now in control to have her do something like that and not be afraid of that idea.

And now with the team on the run, it’s a good thing that Jane has tapped into her Remi archive of skillsets because they are going to need it more than ever.

And finally we just have to talk about that last scene don’t we? The anguish on Jane’s face as she watches that cabin go up in flames is almost too much to witness. I do not think it is lost on anyone, and certainly not Jane, that this is the US government—the same one they’ve spent the last number of years of their lives fighting for and defending and putting their lives on the line for—bombing them, just as it did to her ORION team in Afghanistan and then to the Thorntons’ village after they rescued her. Jane Doe is going to be a very very very pissed off and very dangerous person in season 5. Even if her whole team survives this attack, her rage will be unparalleled.

And another thing that doesn’t go unnoticed is the parallel between Kurt blowing up in her cerebral war against Remi in 4.09 and him blowing up here. This is her worst nightmare. And what will make it worse is the guilt. Kurt was the one who was going out to take first watch but she took his place. That feeling of “it should have been me” will definitely be one to linger there, right next to the rage and the heartbreak.

And Jane just breaks my heart—as Alice she watched her parents die, as Remi she watched her entire team die, as a fresh-faced Jane she watched the woman who protected her, Mayfair, die, and then she held her brother in her arms as he died, and now she’s had to witness her team, her family and the love of her life “die.” Someone get Jane Doe a drink and a lot of vegan pizza.

As long as we have known Special Agent Kurt Weller, we’ve seen him totally committed to his career in law enforcement. We’ve often referred to him as the “moral compass” of this team and this show. But everyone has a breaking point; how does Weller reach his?

Y: Simple. Kurt Weller’s commitment to what’s right and being the moral compass are a hard thing to shake but if you want to see this happen then all you need to do is threaten or endanger Jane Doe. But even then—even when he’s covering up someone else’s crimes to protect his wife and his friends for that matter—you can see how it eats at him and how he suffers and struggles with it and how he still tries to find a way to put an end to it. This boy is good. This boy is very very good.

In fact, Kurt Weller is such a good boy that when Madeline needed to include him in the “FBI agents to pin crimes on and disgrace” she had to go and both make stuff up and plant evidence to incriminate him. And yes, he might have a few skeletons in his closet that she could’ve used against him—the mess with Weitz and not revealing the truth about Taylor Shaw pop to mind—but he’s so clean that even Madeline couldn’t dig this information up. And even though it’s the situation with Weitz that gets the ball of fiery mistrust and heartache rolling within the team, Kurt’s secret and his indiscretion remains within the team. It never gets to Madeline or gets outside the safe zone of the team which means Kurt is still protected.

What was interesting about the whole Kurt versus Weitz situation was that in many ways both were being extremely selfish. Weitz wanted to protect himself and his personal agenda and secure his future ambitions. And Kurt wanted to protect the people he loved. Granted that the choices they made were eating at Kurt whereas Weitz remained unfazed by them. But I think what truly sets them apart is what Tasha said, Kurt did what he did out of love—his love for Jane mainly and his love for the team as well. I’m pretty sure if he had the option of taking all the blame himself he would’ve, as long as the others were safe. That’s what sets the two men apart, among other things. And I think there was a part of Kurt that was relieved when the truth came out despite what happened because that burden was off his shoulders and the nightmare of living with a lie was killing him.

And I love that ultimately what drives this man—this rough around the edges, introverted, “I build builds walls to protect myself” man—is love because as we saw in the finale it has become his drive for many things.

And what is more beautiful than the love this man has for his little girl? I think it’s safe to assume that if prompted we can easily churn out a thesis-length post about Kurt as a father, his relationship with Bethany, and how much we love everything about it. It would include a whole lot of flailing and feelings all over the place, but it would also be a lot of appreciation for Kurt’s journey, his growth and the amazing arc he’s been on since we first met him in the pilot. The purpose and the motivation that having Bethany in his life gives Kurt is unlike anything he’s had before and it allows him this new view on life that’s unburdened by guilt or anything sinister or any baggage that turns it into anything that isn’t pure and genuine. Watching Kurt question his priorities and come out of it making all the right choices is so satisfying as a viewer and as a fan of this character especially with all the daddy issues he came into the show with and all the concerns he had about being able to be a good father. He’s always just wanted to do the right thing and do right by everyone around him and to see him get the chance to be selfish for the first time in his life but be selfish for all the right reasons makes me happy. He just wants to have his kid in his life and wants to be a part of her life and make the world a better place while being there for her.

I never once expected—back when we first met him—that we would ever get a scene of Kurt Weller taping up a toddler’s drawing in his locker. Or that we’d see Kurt Weller going out into battle with that drawing folded and securely tucked into his vest. I think it’s great that it has in many ways come full circle like this for him but gone from something negative to something positive. Kurt went into this life and this career because of a little girl and what happened to Taylor Shaw. And now his drive and his motivation is also a little girl, but instead of being dark and haunting, it’s positive and a promise for the future. And we have to mention here the incredible relationship between Kurt and Allie and by extension between Jane and Allie and everyone involved in this co-parenting setup. It’s so refreshing to see a show that manages to develop a relationship between exes that is so healthy and that is mainly concerned about the welfare of the child involved without any of the pettiness and unnecessary drama and that finds a way to keep a lot of love between everyone involved. Credit goes to the writers for turning this into one of the most beautiful aspects of the show.

It’s interesting that the show set up Weitz versus Kurt as the huge confrontation that we anticipated come the finale but it eventually led to a Reade versus Kurt blow up. Narratively and emotionally that was much stronger, and using Weitz to set it up was a smart move. When the team imploded, they all said things that were extremely hurtful and while it makes sense that Reade’s anger triggered everything, it’s funny that Reade seemed to forget that not long ago, Kurt covered for him just as he is doing now for Jane and that then he had also done it out of love. Anyone in Kurt’s position back then would have rightfully reported Reade’s drug use, but Kurt had protected and covered for Reade instead.

As I was writing down my thoughts on Kurt’s ”we’re not family,” I remembered that this was not the first time someone from the team had said that. And ironically, it was Reade who had said it before back in season 2 during his drug problem phase. When Kurt confronted Reade about it and offered to help:

“But, Edgar, whatever it is that you’re going through, we can help you, but you need to—”

“How the hell would you know what I need?”

“I know that you need help, I know that I’m in no position to give it to you, so, as your friend—”

“We’re not friends. We’re not family. You’re my boss, that’s it.”

It may not have been as heartbreaking to hear it back then especially since it was just the two of them and not directed at the whole team but the parallel remains.

But coming from Kurt, that line was extremely painful and hurtful and the looks on Jane’s, Patterson’s, and Tasha’s faces said everything. Kurt’s “we’re not family” may have been the hardest thing to watch during the episode and probably the most heartbreaking sentence uttered on this entire show—right up there with “Jane Doe, you’re under arrest.” And it’s funny because that’s the same Kurt Weller who bends until he breaks for these people, and who just an episode ago had everyone over for dinner when he could have chosen to spend the evening with his wife and the daughter he barely sees. He may not be the best with words but he’s always been insanely protective of these people and has for a long time considered them family so you know he was really hurting when he said those words.

So yes, this huge fluffy marshmallow of a man didn’t mean it but even before he even got a chance to apologize, his words once again spoke for him, louder than any apology could have. At the museum, as the cops approach and surround the building, without flinching, he sacrifices his life for Patterson.

But still, that moment in the cabin when he actually apologizes to the team—his family—was terribly sweet and heartwarming and I cry every time I watch. So there you have it. Another favorite to add to my endless list of favorite Kurt Weller moments as I live my life of eternal Kurt Weller appreciation.

L: Yup, right there with you!

I recently rewatched the pilot, and there are two things that we learn about Kurt Weller almost immediately. First, he is a bit of a control freak, and second, he is A Good Guy. If you’ve been reading these reviews for a while, you’ve seen us use the term “moral compass” over and over when we talk about Kurt. In a lot of ways, even though Jane may be the main character of this story, Kurt is the protagonist, like the narrator of a book whose motives we never question. He is the guy who takes off with a bomb in his arms, barely 40 minutes after we’ve met him, to try to reduce the loss of human life in the explosion. Not because he’s wearing a badge, but because in his mind, it’s just the right thing to do.

I find it amusing that both Roman and Madeline set out to find some dirt about Kurt they could expose and use for their own gain, and they both had to resort to framing him for murder because there just wasn’t any dirt to find. Even the things that we know he’s guilty of—reburying Taylor Shaw and concealing the identity of her murderer, and funneling money to drug dealers—were done to protect other people, specifically his family. Because not only is Kurt Weller on the right side of the law, he is the most loyal, most loving family man there is. So there is something about watching him being branded as a dangerous criminal that just seems beyond the realm of comprehension.

And he is also a control freak, as Nas rightly pointed out. He is most comfortable when he’s the one calling the shots. He’s a good leader, because he never asks anyone to do anything that he wouldn’t do himself. But he’s antsy when he has to hand the reins to someone else. Which is why we’ve seen him chafe under the command of his superiors. He’s crossed horns with every boss he’s ever had, with Mayfair, with Pellington, and with both Reade and especially Weitz. And while we saw the conflict with Weitz brewing, the spill over into his relationship with Reade was less expected. Yes, it was weird for both of them to have their roles reversed when Kurt returned to the NYO, and there were certainly a few rocky moments there. But once they figured out how things had to work—Reade wearing the suits and dotting the i’s and reporting to the higher-ups, and Weller calling the shots out in the field—they settled into a productive working relationship. So the blowup in the locker room and again on the plane was especially painful after they’d worked so hard to establish a new normal that fit them both so well.

But it’s the scene in the Perlan Museum with Jane that really brings home all the changes that this man has gone through. Jane takes everyone at the museum hostage, and Kurt.... goes along with it. He lets Jane call the shots. And yes, he loves her and trusts her, but he’s still the one who usually calls the shots when they’re in the field, and he’s the one who gets pissed off when she goes off book. And this time, he just goes with her plan. And then he fires his gun into the ceiling—with no regard for how badly he’s scaring the hostages—and really gets into the part talking to the police on the phone. If that doesn’t show how different he is from the man in the pilot, nothing does.

So this is a new Kurt Weller that we’ll see in Season 5. But, like Jane, he’s not really different, he’s just become more himself. He’s still doing what he thinks is right, he’s just doing it outside of the confines of an FBI badge. And instead of protecting the general populous—although I am sure there were will be some of that—he’s protecting his team, the people who are closest to him. Like Jane, he’s figured out what’s really important to him, and he’s going to do whatever it takes to get back to the life they were planning in Colorado.

I kind of feel sorry for the real bad guys.

Which brings us, finally, to Jeller. They begin this episode as tightly in-sync as we have ever seen them. And then... we’re gonna have to talk about the end of the episode, aren’t we?

Y: By “the end of the episode” you mean when Jeller reunite with the team at the cabin, they all kiss and make up, Patty puts on some music, and Jeller share that sweet kiss, right? Because nothing happened after that. Absolutely nothing.

Seriously, though, I hope no one comes here expecting that they will find some intellectual and objective analysis in this section. Honestly, it is a miracle that we can even type in full sentences and using real words instead of just flailing and posting an endless stream of Kermit gifs and heart eyes emojis. Jeller have taken being an in-sync and an in-tune couple to a whole new level. They are best friends and soulmates and an ultimate battlefield power couple. At this point I am just as in love with this ship as I am with how their story is being told. Good storytelling requires your characters to grow and to learn from their mistakes. And after a few hiccups in the narrative, the writers have found the perfect formula for how to give Jeller exactly this. Conflict when it comes to writing a couple doesn’t immediately equal cheating or break ups or lies, and a couple getting together is most definitely not the end of their story.

Jeller have moved on to a whole new level of storytelling and of being an established relationship on a show and of character growth and development. They’re unquestionably madly in love—they know that and we know that—the story isn’t about questioning that now. The story is about that taking that love and making something real out of it—a marriage and a partnership—and going through all the obstacles together, facing problems together, extracting strength from it, growing together and most importantly fighting for what they have and what they dream of having.

They are so confident in what they have and what they mean to each other and in each other. The trust they share and watching it grow between them is as enjoyable and fun and exciting to watch as it was to watch them fall in love and awkwardly flirt and rebuild everything after they lost it all. They know each other and understand each other in a way that no one else can—in the scene in the locker room when Jane walks in to see Kurt staring at Bethany’s drawing, she immediately knows exactly what he’s thinking and what he’s feeling and what he’s struggling with, and what makes it all better is that she knows exactly what to say and what to do to make him feel better and help him through it.

And when Jane pulls her hostage situation stunt at the museum, you know it takes Kurt by surprise and even though it would not be his choice of how to get out of the situation, he trusts her. He immediately jumps into action and joins her. He plays his role perfectly and follows her lead and doesn’t question her choices. And even as criminals, they fall into that perfect power couple rhythm. And don’t tell me you don’t think they made very attractive and extremely sexy criminals? Come on, now!

Another important thing to take out of that scene—aside from the trust and unhealthy level of hotness—is how they deal with issues when they disagree which in itself is another sign of how much they have grown as a couple and as individuals. The communication between these two is just another aspect of their relationship that is so enjoyable and satisfying to watch. Whether it’s in these moments of silent communication or when they actually talk, when they voice their concerns, when they open up to each other and don’t hold anything back because they know that after everything they have been through they are much stronger together and so much better when they talk and discuss things that they disagree on. It’s such a joy watching a relationship grow and develop and blossom on screen as the writers treat it with so much care and love and respect and in such a way that is real and relatable and not overly dramatic for the sake of drama.

And finally, the most beautiful thing is that these two wonderful people have reached the place where even their purpose in life is aligned. They might want different things individually but what they want as a couple is bigger and more important and a driving force for the both of them. They both want a future—the same one—a peaceful future as a family, moving back to Colorado, watching Bethany grow and maybe have a child of their own—and to get there they know that they have to keep on fighting just a little bit more but it would all be worth it if they get that in the end, if they get to grow old together.

I just cannot with them anymore. They are the worst.

L: If the scene in the museum is the one that shows these two in all of their power-couple glory, then the one in the locker room at the start of the episode is the one that shows them at their heart. And after all the upheaval of the past four seasons, and particularly the first half of this one, I don’t think I will ever get over the novelty of watching Jane and Kurt just be quietly happy together. Whether they are planning for the future or talking about getting kidney-kicked by a toddler all night long, there’s pretty much nothing that makes my heart happier than watching these two be so happy and domestic together.

And I agree about the writing. If this were a romance novel, it would have ended about five minutes before the end of season 2. If it was, well, any other television show, we’d have had four years of will-they-won’t-they and both of them would have failed marriages to other people under their belts by now and probably a divorce from each other, too. But theirs has been a line that’s run pretty much straight and true since day one: These two are at their best when they are together. They are stronger, they are smarter, they are more successful, and they are more resilient.

And this is why they are ultimately going to triumph. We might have been content with an ending in which they rode off into the sunset, to live out their lives in safe obscurity on a deserted island somewhere. But they wouldn’t be happy there. They want to get home, to get back to Bethany, to move back to Colorado, and to be a family. They have some serious motivation to clear their names, put Madeline away for good, and finally achieve the domestic happiness they want so desperately.

And when the chips are down, my money is always going to be on these two.

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And that is, truly, all from us. Season 4 was a wild ride. Thank you for sharing it with us! We loved your questions and comments, and we can’t wait to hear from you during season 5!

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: kurt weller #character: jane doe #character: edgar reade #character: tasha zapata #character: patterson #character: rich dotcom #character: briana #character: dominic masters #ship: Jane/Kurt #ship: tasha/reade #character: Matthew Weitz #character: Jake Keaton #character: madeline burke

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more--than--anything · 5 years

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Episode Review: "Who needs money when we have all of this?" [S04E20]

It’s been a nerve-wrecking couple of weeks since the last episode of Blindspot. The show was yanked off the schedule, and we didn’t know when we’d see the last three episodes or if the show would ever return. But our show is finally back with its now-penultimate twentieth episode before the two-hour season finale and a definite season five return. Now tell me, how much have you missed our show and our favorite FBI family?

Y: Oh, just so so so much! It certainly wasn’t an easy forced hiatus to go through—what with the heartbreak of being pulled and the uncertainty of the renewal—but I have to say it fills my heart with joy to have our show and our team back! They were missed terribly!

L: I missed this team so much! And I loved this episode. Bethany! Patterson being adorable! Jane and Tasha relating! Tasha and Reade feels! Plus one entertaining and one rather terrifying villain. What’s not to love, really?? (Well, aside from poor Jaimie spending so much time propped against walls. Which they did a pretty impressive job shooting around.) Backstreet’s back!

The case this week comes courtesy of the ever-entertaining Sho Ahktar who pulls a classic Rich Dotcom move and claims he has intel from prison. His return brings bad news to everyone and puts our team in mortal danger on more than one occasion as the team—working with limited resources—find a deadly enemy on home court. How do they manage to face this threat and deal with Sho at the same time?

L: This week’s case interrupts a team pizza party and a long-overdue visit with Bethany, so it had better be really damn important, right? Or at least, the subject of the investigation thinks he’s really damn important. Welcome back, Sho Ahktar! (And I know it’s been a while since our last review, but let’s take a moment to reiterate just what a great a job this show does with creating these unforgettable secondary characters.) Sho claims to have information about an attack that our favorite terrorist organization, the Dabbur Zann, is planning in New York City. He’s pretty vague on the details, and the FBI is understandably reluctant to offer him any kind of deal without something more concrete.

The only lead our team has is Sho’s laptop, which was confiscated when he was arrested. Patterson and Rich get to work on it, but matters are made somewhat more complicated by the fact that the NYO is undergoing a major network upgrade this weekend. The designer, Leonard Perkins, is on-site to oversee the plan personally, and also apparently to irritate the hell out of Patterson. (I think they did that on purpose so we wouldn’t be at all upset when he gets cold-bloodedly murdered ten minutes later.) Patterson and Rich get to work cracking the password to the laptop, but they are only halfway there when the system goes down. Rich goes to find Perkins and see what’s up, leaving Patterson, Tasha, and Briana to finish cracking the algorithm old-school-calculus style. (Which really begs the question: If Briana can hold her own in the lab, why on earth is she pushing papers around for Reade to sign? Surely Patterson could use another assistant in the lab. Although I’m very happy that our favorite hardworking lab tech Afreen got the weekend off. She’s earned it.)

Kurt continues to interrogate Sho and deduces that he’s spinning them a pack of lies, but in the mix finds a clue that puts Sho in Las Vegas on a specific date. Our Girls Who Code are also Girls Who Math, so they successfully crack the laptop password and find two files from that date: stolen security protocols for Nellis Air Force Base in Vegas and a mysterious string of numbers that Briana recognizes as an FBI file number. The system is still down, so the team digs through boxes of FBI records to find the hard copy. Briana locates it and discovers that it contains an arrest record for Pavel Makarov, a Bulgarian citizen and arms trafficker who joined the Dabbur Zann in 2009. Patterson recognizes him as one of the workers on the tech upgrade, and we recognize him as the guy who offed Perkins. Jane figures out that Sho hasn’t actually turned on the Dabbur Zann; his intel was just a ploy to get him to the FBI so the Dabbur Zann could break him out.

Tasha and Patterson set off to find Reade and Rich, while Kurt and Jane head off to secure Sho. But Makarov gets to Sho first, and they head out, using an unconscious Reade on a cart to provide the handprints necessary for security access. (Do those things measure skin temperature, too? Don’t get me wrong, I’m terribly relieved that Makarov kept Reade alive, but carting Reade’s unconscious body around does seem a trifle inconvenient.) Tasha and Patterson find Rich (and poor Perkins) and are able to get the building security back online, but not in time to prevent Makarov and Sho from getting to the lobby and overpowering the security guards. Kurt and Jane arrive on the scene, but are unable to stop Makarov from dousing Reade in flammable cleaning solution and setting him on fire as they make their escape. Tasha sprints into the lobby and knocks Reade away from the flames and extinguishes his burning clothing.

Reade is miraculously unburned (and fortunately keeps a supply of three-piece suits in his office in case his more casual clothes burst into flames) so the team gets back to work on the case. All the missiles the Dabbur Zann supposedly hired Sho to procure are accounted for, so the team goes back to figuring out what Makarov really wanted from Sho. They discover that Makarov was reported dead—along with his wife and daughter—in an airstrike two years ago. Briana deduces that Makarov wants revenge against the person who ordered the airstrike, retired Colonel Sheryl Meeks. He hired Sho to retrieve the information and helped him to escape from the FBI in order to finish their transaction. Kurt, Jane, and Zapata head out to secure Meeks and her family, but Makarov takes out local police to make his way into the house. After a brutal fight (poor Kurt is going to need to bum some ibuprofen off Reade), Jane and Tasha take out Makarov before he can harm Meeks.

So this week’s case is another mixed bag for our team. They protect Meeks and her family and take out Makarov. But Sho is on the loose again. And Dominic has added Briana to his ever-growing collection of compromised FBI agents. (Clearly, Briana’s nickname is going to be “Benedict Arnold.”) We don’t know what she’s taken from the Wellers, but no doubt it is something that can be used to compromise Kurt and/or Jane. Jane’s collection of fake passports perhaps? (They were much safer in the vent.) We’ve officially hit the point in the season when everything is stressful and worrisome. I can’t decide if it’s good news that we get the last two episodes back to back or if eating that much chocolate in one sitting is going to send me into a fatal sugar coma.

Y: These writers and their talent to write such unforgettable secondary characters—it’s phenomenal. Sho has almost no redeeming qualities, but if you don’t cheer every time he shows up in an episode then you’re missing out on one of the most fun and entertaining characters. And this thing that these writers do, bringing these people back all the time, allows them chances to write new stories that always tie back to the mythology and never leave this tight-knit premise but also keep it fresh and new and exciting. We have so many of these characters out there in the universe and all these writers need to do is reach into this rich tapestry and pull out someone and with them they bring so many interesting stories. This week may not have been a tattoo case, or a case connected to Madeline, but still it felt right in place because of Sho’s connection—variety, change of pace, while remaining true to what the show is all about.

Another favorite of mine in how these writers develop their weekly cases is how well they build a connection between the weekly plot and the character’s emotional arcs—how they tie in what the characters are going through and have the case leave such an impact on them that it has to affect what they decide to do or how they change or what they learn by the end of the episode. Kurt’s struggle with fatherhood and his responsibilities and balancing his priorities is at the core of his arc at the moment and this case fit right into that—just as the previous one did—and in working the case it helped him to his own revelations. But we’ll leave that to Kurt’s section.

One last thing I just wanted to point out is how well this show is balancing the action packed, dramatic moments with the lighthearted comedy. It’s not slapstick, but it’s so really and human and natural—like Rich being locked up in a server room with a dead body and building himself a makeshift scissor javelin weapon. The comedy was in no way disrespectful of the dead person in the room and it did not take anything away from the tense pacing or the action scene that followed, but it just fit in there so seamlessly. Once again huge props to the writers and to Ennis Esmer’s insane talent and delivery in that moment—and in every other moment to be honest.

The way this team has become a close-knit family is definitely one of our most favorite things about the show, and this episode gave us all those feels and then some. And to make things even better, we get to see Bethany as part of this family. What more could we ask for? Well, maybe Madeline and Dominic not being determined to destroy them. What new developments and threats in their personal lives are they coping with this week?

L: Patterson is adorably focused on being the best Auntie Patterson possible to Bethany Weller. And while on the one hand the revelation that she is considering adopting seems to come from out of left field, on the other, it does make sense. To say that romantic relationships haven’t exactly worked out for our favorite brainiac is a gross understatement. We saw how hard she closed herself off after David’s death, and Borden’s betrayal was an even harder blow to recover from. But we also know what a loving and caring and person Patterson is—she is almost always the first of her team members to reach out when one of them is struggling. She’s obviously an awesome “aunt” to Bethany. And she’s allergic to cats. So it makes sense that she would consider channeling some of those feelings toward a child of her own. And honestly—Patterson would probably make an awesome mom. Out of all of her teammates, she’s the only one with functional parents, and the only one to have really good memories of her childhood and a good adult relationship with her parents. Sure, she’s a workaholic, but maybe if she had someone else to worry about, she could stop spending so much of her waking hours worrying about the FBI. I’d be totally thrilled for her, if we weren’t so close to the season finale, which in Blindspot-land is the point where everything is about to go to hell. But maybe the end of season five will see Patterson moving ahead with this plan. It would be a nice resolution to her personal arc, without trying to drop her into a new relationship next season.

Y: Those Patterson/Bethany scenes absolutely made my heart swell! And while a small part of me secretly wishes Jaimie had been healthier so we could see Jane interact with Bethany more—which we know she does based on that brief appearance Bee made in season three—I still love that we got to see Patterson’s relationship with Bethany and it helped open up this new storyline for Patterson. And while, yes, they could have completely left it out of Patterson’s entire series arc, I think it is actually kind of perfect. Like L said, Patterson has an infinite capacity to love. She’s always been the most emotional of the team, and the one to offer a shoulder to cry on. Part of it could be the fact that she had the most stable childhood, the most normal parents and still has a healthy relationship with both of them. And her crappy dating history aside, she seems to be the least stunted emotionally.

And look, I will be the first to tell you that not every female character’s arc needs to end with a Prince Charming and that she can get her happily ever after in so many other ways. And if our favorite genius wants to be a mother, to bring a child into her life—a child who will undoubtedly so lucky having a mother like Patterson and a family like our team—then I say let Patty have her happy ending that way! I think it is absolutely fitting and I will take that over them trying to find her a new relationship in the brief fifth season or God forbid try to really make the Rich/Patterson thing a reality.

I know that almost nothing Rich ever says should be taken seriously but I must admit that him referring to them as an “us” in this episode made me uncomfortable. I know he has joked about it before especially in Peru but I really hope they don’t take that too seriously. Their friendship and partnership is far too important and unique to become anything else. Please.

And I know there are people out there who do ship it. Good for you. I’m not saying don’t. But it just doesn’t work for me.

L: Yeah, same. Besides, there’s Boston, and I won’t accept a series finale that doesn’t involve Rich ending up with Boston (in some no doubt dysfunctional capacity).

But I will admit that I’ve come around to the Tasha-Reade pairing. I am rooting for them to wade through all their issues, and I’m enjoying the unexpected side benefits, namely the team calling them on their far-too-obvious feelings.

Watching Tasha and Jane talk reminds me of how long it’s been since we’ve really seen the two of them talking one-on-one and how much I’ve missed that. Jane is the latest person to express skepticism about Tasha’s “just friends” line regarding Reade (and since Jane is a card-carrying member of the “hopelessly in love with a coworker” club, it makes sense that she would see through the “totally platonic” lie). I also love how totally non-secret Reade and Tasha’s relationship is, since clearly the rest of the team is laying odds on how long it will be before they own up to it.

Even if we believed Tasha, it’s pretty clear that what she feels for Reade is a lot more than friendship. When the team realizes that Makarov is loose in the building, she goes into hyper-protect mode (and I love that this illustrates exactly what Jane was talking about; it’s hard enough to conceal your feelings when you’re around the object of them, but it’s almost impossible when that person is in life-threatening danger). Tasha doesn’t hesitate to literally leap through flames to save Reade. (Which makes two couples on this show who have reached “walk through fire” levels of devotion.)

And it’s clear by the end of the episode that even Reade isn’t buying the “just friends” line anymore, although just like Tasha, nothing is said out loud. He quietly cancels his coffee date with Lexi. And really, what exactly is keeping these two apart? (It’s not like the FBI has any problems with coworkers being involved, or Team Weller would be decidedly less team-like.) Whatever anger Reade had over Tasha’s actions while she was undercover with the CIA has long since faded. Sure, she squeezes the toothpaste from the middle, but plenty of relationships have survived this degree of conflict. (Besides, it’s how the dishwasher is loaded that the real stressor on any relationship.) Yes, mixing personal and professional can be problematic, but for these two, they’ve been mixed for a long time already. So why keep denying it? No doubt we’re going to have some sort of reconciliation before everything falls apart in the finale. I am simultaneously enthusiastic and dreading it!

Y: The Tasha and Jane scene gave me life. These two woman have been through so much this year. They were center stage for most of the first half of the season and suffered so much to get here and I am so glad that they are reaching out to each other and that Jane is being so supportive. After everything Tasha went through, she has finally found her place back with her family and I am so happy for her and for how she’s overcome it all. I’m glad we get to see her smile again, her eyes no longer burdened and sad and nothing makes my soul soar like hearing Tasha’s snarky comments and hear her banter with Reade or see her roll her eyes at Rich.

And better than all that is seeing Tasha be such a badass in the field, especially when she saves the boys, which she does twice this episode. My girl’s back!

But like most of her friends, Tasha is emotionally a moron. She knows that. Everyone knows that. She just needs someone to knock some sense into her.

I’m reminded now of the scene in 2.17 after Oliver breaks up with Jane and how Tasha was been so supportive then and offered great advice to her. Well, looks like Tasha now needs someone to give her the advice, and lucky for her, Jane was there ready to return the favor.

Coffee with Lexi… please, Edgar, you too need to stop being such a moron. I know I was never a fan of this ship in the beginning, but I’m not going to sit here and deny these two obviously love each other and can make each other happy. And that is all I want for them, so can they all just stop being idiots. They’re all so exhausting these children.

L: And now we have another child to worry about. Poor Briana has once again been identified as a weak link in the FBI, this time by Dominic. In this episode, we learn that he’s contacted her before, and for whatever reason, she didn’t reject his offer or report it to the FBI. (Which frankly doesn’t reflect well on her, but we’ve seen this season that she’s a little tired of being the chief paper pusher around the NYO, and given her math skills in the lab, she’s clearly way over-qualified for her job.) Dominic is quick to remind her that she’s a minor character in this drama and presents her with an opportunity to “realize” her “potential.” She ultimately rejects his plan, after Reade acknowledges her contribution to the day’s case, but Dominic sends her a picture of her parents, and she caves. Oh, Briana, we trusted you!

Y: I don’t know why I am vaguely remembering a theory from season two that Briana was working for Shepherd when she had Kurt sign some paperwork without him really reading it. Of course, she was not working for her then but I guess the day has finally come. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I had always thought Briana would betray the team. I think on the contrary, she has always looked up to them and admired them and wanted to be like them. And that is what is slightly bothering me with how they set her up to eventually betray the team. I understand that she has always felt under-appreciated but I never saw anything in her that indicates she would consider Dominic’s initial offer.

I understand having Briana be the one to betray the team, and I am insanely relieved they chose someone from outside the core team because it would never have worked and not to mention broken all our hearts if Dominic had used one of our own. But I would have much rather seen Briana flat out reject Dominic’s offer at first and then cave when he threatens her parents. It would have made her far more relatable and sympathetic, especially when she spends the episode being a part of the team and essentially saving the day. That is the only thing that bothered me, but other than that, I think it was smart to use Briana; since she’s been orbiting the team all season, she did not come out of nowhere and she saw enough development this year to make her relevant to the story.

Jane has just come off a great episode for her where she stood so strongly and confidently by Kurt and helped him through one of the toughest situations he’s had to face. With Jaimie’s injury, Jane is still more or less chair-bound most of the time, but not even this inconvenience can stop our Jane from being amazing—as an agent, a wife, a partner, and this week more importantly as a friend. How does Jane do this week in her new-found role of team counselor?

L: As we talked about above, I loved Jane’s conversation with Tasha, both because it illustrates how close this team is, how they’ve all been through so much but the bond between them remains so strong. But I also loved it because this scene and the scenes with Kurt show us a different Jane than we’ve seen all season long: a Jane who is at peace with herself. For as long as we’ve known Jane, her life has been in turmoil. Every new thing that she learned about herself threw her more off balance. We saw her, briefly, content with Kurt in Colorado, but then that life was yanked away from her, and the recovery from their separation was interrupted by the Avery revelation and then Remi’s reappearance.

But this Jane is a different Jane than we’ve known before. This is a Jane who is a whole person, who owns her past, her present, and her future. She’s accepted all of who she is and made her peace with Remi, no longer regarding her past as a series of time bombs threatening to upset the fragile balance of her life. She’s relaxed and confident and looking forward to the future she’s planning with Kurt. (Which, of course, is terrifying, since we know that the season finale is looming, and the rug is about to be pulled out from under them again.) But even still... this Jane? She’s the culmination of everything she’s been through, and it is a reward to both her and to the viewers to see her able to finally enjoy where this journey has led her.

And once again, I have to give full credit to Jaimie Alexander (and to her amazing body-double, who matches her stance and her gait so well I have a hard time believing that it’s not really Jaimie!). This show has showcased her fighting skills so much that it’s easy to overlook what a good actress she really is, and these quieter scenes are really allowing her talents to shine. Which isn’t to say that we aren’t wishing her a speedy recovery, because I’m sure they have some amazing things planned for Jane in season five!

Y: I completely agree—on both accounts—that this new and improved Jane is such a sight to behold and that Jaimie is doing so well in this forced role of much less action and much quieter, dialogue driven, emotional scenes. Like L said, after four seasons of exploring Jane’s journey as she tries to figure out who she is, her past, who she wants to be and where she belongs in the world, and struggling with her as she faces conflicting truths about who she was, fighting internal battles to try to understand her own identity, and going through the dark path of having Remi come back and threaten to erase any presence of Jane, we have finally reached the end point of that part of the journey. And Jane is as whole and as strong and as confident as we—and she—could have ever wished for.

And it could not have happened at any better time because going into the final season, I think no one wanted to see Jane still struggling with that. As their final battle looms, it is great that Jane is at her finest and her strongest and her most sure of who she is, what she wants, and where she belongs in the world.

And you know what? Anyone who stands in her way better be very very scared.

From the looks of things, and the way Madeline and Dominic have been piling up the dirt against the team, it is clear that the last two episodes will probably see some conflict there and I have a strong feeling Jane might need to step up to be the glue that holds them together and stops the team for falling apart. This is her family, and after years of searching for something real, she finally has it and she is not going to let go of it easily. She tells Kurt in this episode that what they have is more important than anything else and you know that Jane will do anything to protect it.

Kurt has really come into the spotlight over the past few episodes. After the developments of the last episode with his mother, we continue to focus on him—on how he is questioning his life choices and how they affect his relationships with the people he loves. We also get to see Kurt have pancakes with Bethany, and that is all that matters. What do you think of the path they have Kurt on at the moment?

Y: I must start by saying that I appreciate that they addressed the fact that Kurt and Jane just spent $100K on Linda’s rehab. I still don’t know how they have $100K but I appreciate that they said how this basically has left them penniless at this point. I guess it’s good Bethany has a second set of parents who can at least for now feed her and dress her? It’s still a bit messy but it’s something.

Either way, this is now such an insignificant little detail compared to how incredible Kurt’s arc has been over the past few episodes. Just hearing Kurt Weller, who just a few years ago lived only for the job, say that what he wants more than anything is to spend time with his daughter and his wife, to make memories, to pet puppies, feed duckies, and eat pancakes makes me want to sob. And watching him with Bethany? It does things to me, but I’ll leave the discussion of this for another place and time.

L: While on the one hand I still wish that there’d been more to the Linda story—more connection with Shepherd, a better explanation for why she’d left, some connection to the on-going mystery this season—I am also relieved that it was resolved in a way that brings Weller some closure and healing, even a sense of hope for the future. Yes, apparently the Wellers are broke again, for the second time in two years, but Linda is apparently sticking with the program and getting sober, which is, as the commercials say, priceless.

But resolution with Linda doesn’t solve all of Kurt’s family issues. We finally get to see Bethany again, in the flesh as opposed to a passing reference. And we see Kurt worrying about what kind of Dad he is. No, he’s not going to murder Bethany’s best friend or take off and abandon her for years. But it’s also a fact that he lives on the other side of the country from her and has a demanding job that cuts into the limited time he gets to spend with her. (I still really want to know who is watching her when the whole team heads back to the office. Allie’s mom? Does Kurt have an emergency nanny on speed dial?) The only way Kurt could really be a full-time father to her is if he moves back to Colorado, and his conversation with Jane makes it clear that it’s something they’ve discussed.

There’s been a lot of focus on the balance between work and personal life this season, which makes sense. This team has spent nearly four full season putting out fires and saving the world. That’s exhausting after a while. And at some point, you have to want to be one of the people you’re saving the world for—one of the people happily going about your life, falling in love, getting married, raising kids, completely oblivious to the numerous terrorists trying to nuke New York City every Friday night. We’ve talked about how Reade and Tasha are wrestling with that, just as Jane and Weller did before they admitted their feelings to each other. Patterson is wrestling with the idea of being a mom. And we have Kurt, who already is a husband and father, but reaching those milestones doesn’t give him any guarantees—opposite, opposite, as Patterson would say. Having a wife and a daughter only make him more aware of the gap between the life he is leading—fraught with danger and taking up nearly his every waking hour—and the life he wants to lead, as a devoted husband and father.

The conversation with Meeks illustrates this beautifully. Meeks retired to spend more time with her family, to leave her life in the military and the dangers it posed behind. But the danger doesn’t go away. This is a nice parallel to Kurt’s own life; he and Jane left the NYO to move to Colorado and raise Bethany. But as with Meeks, the dangers they fought followed them and put their family in danger. “From one bad-guy hunter to another, hug your daughter every chance you get, because it never ends. And if and when it does, it might not be how you want it to,” Meeks cautions him. And it’s a message that clearly resonates with Weller, as we see him telling Jane later, “I know our job is important. We’re making the world a better place. But I can’t keep working just for the future.” So perhaps the question for the series finale is: Will the Wellers ever be able to extricate themselves from the high-stakes world of the NYO and carve out a life where they can live the life they both clearly want, with Bethany and a child or two of their own?

Y: Well I sure do hope so because those two have given so much of themselves to not end up with some sort of happy ending—once where they are together, surrounded by their loved ones, at peace with themselves and with the world. This season has focused a lot on how much these people are willing to sacrifice in order to do the right thing—to rid the world of evil and make it a better place. From Tasha going deep undercover and risking her own conscience and diving straight into the darkness, to seeing things from Remi’s point of view of evil only being defeated by the means and methods that Shepherd had convinced her of, to Patterson almost losing her connection with her parents as she pours everything into work. And Kurt has been no different and this episode showed us just how much his commitment to making the world a better place is weighing on him because it means sacrificing so many other parts of his life/ The conflict and internal struggle is tearing him apart and it’s a wonderful progression for his character who when the show started wouldn’t have felt that way.

Becoming a father and a husband—having Bethany and Jane in his life—has only made him more committed to “fixing” the world for them but that commitment means he sees less of his daughter and puts him and Jane in more danger day after day, and Sully portrayed this struggle so wonderfully. And the scene with Jane at the NYO—besides being absolutely perfect—shows that this is a topic they have discussed before and that is a concern he has shared with her. It is something they talk about often, and it shows just how committed they are both to the job and to being a big part of Bethany’s life and are just trying to figure out the tricky balance in that existence because if you lean slightly more in one direction you risk losing the other. And I do not envy them on their lives.

I just loved the conversation with Meeks—because like I said above I think when they tie in the case with the character’s emotional state it just drives it home—and I absolutely adored the moment with the little boy. But one of my favorite little details in the episode is the bruise Kurt goes home with after his fight with Makarov. We often complain that these people are almost invincible in that they never seem to carry any remnants of the crazy fights they get into. But if there was ever a time to actually have someone walk around with a bruise, this was it. Kurt gets the chance to spend time with his daughter, they go out for pancake and they do get to go to the zoo but all this time, Kurt is carrying around a reminder of what it costs to make this possible. I think that little detail was absolutely powerful and a perfect visual summary of what the theme of the episode was about.

Can we just take a moment to talk about how much fun it was seeing Kurt—our big burly Agent Weller—being so easily lifted off the ground by Makarov? I don’t know about you but I found that hilarious. Not that I find Kurt getting beat up hilarious. You know what I mean.

Anyway, I just want to hug him, give him so much chocolate—and non-vegan burgers—and tell him he’s doing such a great job; that has nothing to worry about because he’s doing such an amazing job—as a super agent, as a friend, as a father, and as a husband.

Martin Gero promised that we would see Jeller being closer and stronger and more committed than we have ever seen them before. And the man so far has not been lying. These two have had a season from hell—suffering through the unimaginable—but they’re still here. They just wipe the dust off their armor and continue to fight—side by side—setting ridiculously impossible relationship goals and ruining our lives. They’re the worst, aren’t they?

L: The absolute worst. Every week I just want to put #relationshipgoals in this section and be done, because I love everything about the way they are portraying these two right now. They take turns reassuring each other, bolstering the other’s confidence when they falter, supporting each other through the trials life throws at them. But they’re also able to relax and enjoy just being together. Daydreaming but also thinking seriously about the future they want to have, the future they are going to make happen. Because if there’s one thing that we have confidence in, it’s the strength these two have when they are as in sync as they are right now. Honestly, as much as I worry about the finale, I also feel kind of bad for anyone who gets in their way, because Team Weller is a force to be reckoned with.

Just as we talked about in the Jane section, they’ve been through so much, and they’ve earned the right to relax and enjoy some pancakes with Bethany and plan for their future. And I’m so grateful that the writers didn’t decide to put them through yet another separation (as they could easily have done in the aftermath of Remi’s return) but instead let them face their future together, side by side. It’s a gift, both to them and to the viewers, and even though I know there’s trouble on the horizon, I am savoring every bit.

Y: L might want to just put #relationshipgoals and be done with it. I, on the other, want to plaster this section with heart eye emojis and sobbing emojis and flailing kermit gifs. It’s one thing when your ship finally get together. And it’s another when they take a significant step in cementing their relationship. But it is absolutely something else when they take them that extra step forward, and the next one, and the next one. And when along the way they stumble and falter and fall but then manage to get up again and continue to move forward, growing stronger and stronger along the way, there is literally nothing like it. When this relationship, with all its ups and downs, helps to make them better people as individuals and as a couple, when they bring the best out of each other with every step and grow closer and more in love, you feel like you’ve won some sort of shipping lottery.

And the Wellers are just that. They’re the ultimate shipping fantasy.

That is all.

Good night, y’all.

-----

Well, that’s all from us about this episode, a fun ride to set up the final two episodes nicely. And of course, as if you didn’t know already, we are terribly terribly worried about our team—each and every one of them. What Madeline and Dominic have planned for them cannot be good, and we are sure there is not enough chocolate in the world to help us through it. But just in case, we’re doing daily runs to the store to make sure we stock up—on chocolate and tissues. Share your thoughts with us, and we’ll see you guys next week!

—Laura & Yas

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more--than--anything · 5 years

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Episode Review: “Wait, does that make us the Rebels or the Empire?” [S04E19]

This episode brought us a weaponized satellite, stolen launch codes, Russian spies, a crazy ex, and a couple of really bad moms. What did you think about “Everybody hates Kathy?”

Y: I have sort of mixed feelings about this. There are aspects of it that I absolutely loved, and there were others that unfortunately fell a bit flat. But look, at the end of the day, we got a Star Wars reference, we got Elizabeth Mitchell, and we got incredible Jeller, so I’m a happy camper here.

L: I’m conflicted about this episode too. I was so excited to meet Weller’s mother and get answers to some of our questions, but I felt like what we got muddied the waters further instead of adding clarity. I loved all the Jeller and the Three Blind Mice, so this one was a mixed bag for me.

This week’s tattoo case starts at a fancy party, gets hangry, stops at a convenience store, and then Russian spies show up and start shooting. How did our team tackle this one?

L: This week’s case starts with an alert from the tattoo database (which is pretty much the hardest working bit of tech on the show). A file stolen in a data breach at a research facility contains a series of numbers that connects to both a tattoo and a classified government project. A bluetooth transmitter found at the site was apparently used to transmit data from a secured network, but when security searches all the phones and devices confiscated at the scene, none of them contain the stolen files. Reade gets clearance to look at the files, and Patterson discovers that the company in question launched a new satellite last week, equipped with nuclear missiles. And Rich (totally running with the Star Wars analogy) chimes in to tell the team that the stolen files contain launch codes for the missiles. Whee! It’s been at least a week since someone tried to nuke something; clearly our bad guy du jour felt this imbalance in the Force and set out to rectify it.

The team keeps digging and discovers that ten employees accessed the restricted area in the hour before the launch codes were stolen. Nine of them are still under house arrest, but one of them, Evan Myers, was permitted to leave home to give a presentation at company headquarters. He supposedly left to drop his son off at school, but his son never arrived, and Evan didn’t show up at work. His son, Thomas, is a diabetic and has a bluetooth-compatible insulin pump capable of storing the small amount of data that was stolen, and because it is a medical device, the security team wouldn’t have confiscated it at the scene with the rest of the cell phones and tablets. (Strangely, no one wonders why someone brought their kid to a fancy otherwise all-adult cocktail hour.) Tasha checks with her CIA contacts and learns that a few Russian operatives have been talking about obtaining control of a weaponized satellite from one of their assets.

Evan looks like their best bet until he gets shot at a gas station by an individual Tasha identifies as a Russian operative. They learn that Evan hired a private detective last month, and the pictures the PI took show Evan’s wife, Scarlett, meeting with the Russian operative who shot Evan. The team realizes that she must be the one who stole the launch codes, while Evan was trying to protect his son. Unfortunately, Scarlett’s already knocked out the FBI agents at her house with some seriously spiked lemonade and headed out to meet Thomas, who somehow managed to escape the Russian operative (pretty impressive for a kid) and phone home. He tells his mother that he’s at “the place where we watched fireworks last year.” The team got the conversation on tape, but they don’t know where the location is, so when Evan comes out of surgery, they give him a massive dose of stimulants to bring him around so he can tell them where to find Thomas. The team races out there, where they engage in a shoot-out with the Russian operatives and then talk Scarlett down so they can return Thomas safely to his father.

All of which means this week was a win for our team. They recovered the stolen codes (which I assume they deleted from poor Thomas’s insulin pump before delivering him to his father), stop a bunch of Russian operatives, and arrest Scarlett. This week’s case wasn’t particularly earth-shattering, but it gave us many parallels to Kurt’s childhood, which was really the main plot in this episode. Thomas is about the same age as Kurt was when Taylor was killed and his mother left. Like Kurt, one of Thomas’s parents tries to run away with him to protect him from the other parent, but fails to do so, leaving both Thomas and Kurt in the position of having to choose which parent to believe. But in Thomas’s case—unlike Kurt’s—law enforcement intervenes and the guilty parent is locked away, which serves to highlight how much Kurt and his sister were failed by all of the adults in their lives. Their father killed their best friend, the police failed to find evidence to convict him, they were abandoned by their mother, and social services failed to recognize the danger they were in, either physically or emotionally. There is one more unfortunate parallel—we never really understand why either Thomas’s mother or Kurt’s mother did the things they did, which makes both cases feel unresolved and less satisfying.

Y: This case may not have necessarily kept us at the edge of our seats, but I think it was mostly meant to take a back seat to Kurt’s storyline and serve as an emotional and psychological parallel to what he was going through. And to some extent I think that was okay, because there was already so much happening in the episode, between Linda and Kathy, and we’ve seen previously what happens when an episode is given more than it can handle—for example, last season’s episode 11 with Boston and Rich and Wizardville and Clem and Jane and Kurt and Avery and Berlin. I guess sometimes one of the storylines needs to take a step back in order not to overwhelm an episode.

Also, we got Elizabeth Mitchell to guest star, and she’s awesome. My only problem is that I wish we’d gotten her for a longer story arc, because she is awesome. Have I already said that? I don’t care. She is awesome.

Our team was battling fires on multiple fronts this week: a tattoo case, a crazy ex-hacker-friend, and an awkward family reunion, plus Reade and Zapata are still sorting out their new living arrangements. How is our team coping under all this stress?

Y: So Rich and Patterson woke up one day and realized they are just too smart and too talented to work only one case per episode and decided they should at least have to tackle two cases an episode to make it worth their while. Because while on the one hand there was someone selling nuclear launch codes to Russians, Rich and Patterson felt they could also track down the recently released from prison Kathy—former Nerd Herd tech and Three Blind Mice hacker Kathy—who presents a threat to not only Rich and Patterson but also Reade who covered for them if she decides to spill the beans on the truth behind Three Blind Mice.

That’s how good those two are.

L: They are just that good. And Rich did all of that while also fishing for gossip about Kurt’s mom. That’s some heavy multi-tasking!

I was pretty excited about Kathy’s return this week. I mean, she’s nutty as a fruitcake, but you can’t deny that she’s entertaining to have around. One of the things that Blindspot does so brilliantly is gift us with these crazy, quirky secondary characters who end up stealing the show. Rich is the best example of this. He was so crazy and quirky that he worked himself into being a full member of the cast (and a lot of people—like my husband—insist he’s the best character on the show). But the guests are so memorable that even when they are bad guys and their return spells trouble for our beloved team, we still cheer when they turn up on our screen again. (Raise your hand if you’re eagerly waiting for Richard Shirley to come back.)

Y: This show really does know how to write well-developed, interesting, and complex secondary characters who we are always excited to get back. Kathy Gustafson is certainly one of those, and Richard Shirley is most definitely another one of them. Rich Dotcom may be the best example of those characters, but we also cannot forget others who’ve made lasting impressions and found more permanent places on the show, from Matthew Weitz to Jake Keaton and, of course, Boston Arliss Crab.

L: Pulling Kathy in really is a stroke of genius on Dominic and/or Madeline’s part. First of all, she’s obviously delusional, so she was likely very easy to manipulate. She has a good reason to hold a grudge against Patterson and Rich, so it probably wasn’t too terribly hard to persuade her to carry out his plan. She was already able to incriminate them as hackers, but this week she helps create a paper trail that ties them to Helios. And she’s also a talented hacker, and Madeline has gone through a lot of those recently; she killed the Del Toro runner-up, she lost Tasha, and Tasha took out the real del Toro on her way out the door. If whatever Helios entails requires some technical assistance, Dominic has Kathy all sewn up.

I actually feel a little sorry for Kathy. She didn’t rat Patterson and Rich out when they sent her to prison, so I do think that some of her affection for them is genuine. Clearly, she doesn’t have anyone else in her life, so these two may have been the closest she ever got to having true friends. She seems to believe that her relationship with Dominic is real, so that’s going to be a real let down. And that’s if he doesn’t also set her up to take the rap for whatever Helios entails, which he likely is. Given how the odds are stacked against her (and Madeline’s tendency to kill off loose ends), she’ll be lucky to escape this season with her life. Watch your back, you crazy loon, okay?

Dominic’s manipulation of Kathy also sheds some light on Madeline’s plans. I’ve been pondering her strange question to Tasha in 4.17, “Will the FBI fully believe you don’t work for me?” We speculated last week that Madeline could be planning to pin Claudia’s murder on Tasha and use that to discredit Tasha’s testimony against her. This week we see Dominic springing a nice trap for Patterson and Rich: Patterson just made a large monetary contribution that ties her to whatever those funds are used for, no doubt Helios. We know Madeline already has evidence she can use against Weitz, so I think it’s becoming clear that she’s collecting leverage to use against the team. If she can’t blackmail them into releasing her, she can discredit the team and the agency that arrested her to prevent them from building a successful case against her. (I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the money that Kurt used to pay off the drug gang also factored in there somewhere.)

We know that the episode title puzzle for this season has been decoded to read, “IS THIS THE END OF THE FBI?” And I can’t help but feel like there’s a lot of foreshadowing going on in this episode. Rich asks Patterson, “Reade’s not gonna tank his job and then go to jail with us, just because of a little harmless, white hat hacking.” But if their history as The Three Blind Mice comes to light—along with evidence that links them to whatever massive criminal activity Madeline is planning—as well as the fact that Reade knew about it and concealed it? All three of them are done at the FBI at best or on their way to jail at worst. And then Rich quotes Patterson back at herself, “Keyboard vigilantes must sacrifice themselves for the greater good,” which makes me wonder what they’re going to have to sacrifice (their careers? their freedom?) to get through this season. Later in the episode, Kurt talks about his mother with Tasha and asks, “So what am I supposed to do, give up our future to clean up her past?” And Tasha replies, “Yeah, I think you are. She’s family.” And our team is a family, and we’ve already seen them ready to go to jail for one member of their team, so there is no question that they would give up their futures and their freedom if it meant saving their family.

I feel like all of this is pointing toward our team going rogue at the end of the season. If Madeline is successful in her goal of discrediting the entire FBI team, they may become fugitives from justice, which would set up season five as a struggle to clear their names. Redeeming themselves and restoring credibility to an agency they all feel such great loyalty toward would be a powerful motivating force for our team in the future. (And in some ways, this might even feel like a natural culmination of their journey, as we have seen all of them flirting with the “freedom” that comes from working outside the FBI rules and regulations at different times.)

But I’m also kind of filled with dread, because as we’ve seen in the past, keeping secrets only ever leads to trouble for our team. Patterson and Rich outright lying to Reade about Kathy can’t possibly turn out well. I’m very very very worried about our whole team right now.

Y: It definitely feels at this point that Madeline is more determined to bring down this team—to discredit them and by extension the FBI—than anything else. We still have no idea what Helios is, but I would not be surprised if it is just a trap to set them up in order to take them down. We still don’t know what her motivation is or why she’s been doing all that she’s been doing but at this point I cannot help but go back to the premiere and her scene with Tasha while watching the press conference on TV and she says that the new director will be good for them. I think that should have been our first indication that maybe Madeline is more after the FBI than after whatever Helios is for whatever reason. It’s still all unclear why and it’s frustrating that it is, but seeing how she’s set up everyone and how she now has something on everyone, I personally believe her objective has always been to target the FBI—for some reason we’re yet to find out.

L: As we’ve said so frequently, our lack of understanding of Madeline and her plans has been one of the weaker parts of the season, but even with the little that we know, our worry for this team is growing stronger every week!

But it’s not all gloom and doom. We get a few lighter moments every now and then to balance out the feeling of impending doom. I love the scene with Reade and Tasha in Reade’s apartment. Their romantic relationship is heading toward some sort of resolution before the end of the season, and I think it’s clear that the love and affection between the two of them is far stronger than any of the forces that separated them for the first half of the season. And just like we only see Jane and Kurt really able to relax and joke around each other, I love the way we see Tasha and Reade being a little silly and fighting over noodles in his apartment. These two, Tasha especially, have been through so much this season that it’s amazing they can even smile let alone be so happy and relaxed. I’m glad they got this moment, because we know things are only going to get worse from here on out. But at least they are facing the future on the same side now.

Y: I loved that scene too. I know I’m not being objective here, but seeing Tasha smile just lights up my world and that scene at Reade’s apartment gave me life. After such a long time of watching both of them suffer—especially Tasha who was going through all of it alone—it’s great to see them rebuild their friendship. And it’s especially great to see Tasha find her place back in the team and within the family. Whatever they are coming up against is going to be horrible and they are going to need each other more than ever. I’m just glad this team are all back together and have each other’s back because they are the heart of the show, and as long as they have one another, they can face whatever the universe has in store for them.

Poor Kurt. We thought Jane had mom issues, but Kurt is giving her a run for her money this week. How did his mother’s return shake up both our favorite special agent as well as the story that we’ve been following since day one?

Y: Okay, so this is where most of my mixed feelings about the episode come into play. On the one hand, we have the story and the back story that they built around Linda, what happened all those years ago when she left her children with Bill, her life since then, her relationship to Shepherd and her introduction into the story now. And that part of the episode was just annoyingly full of plot holes, and weak attempts to patch in pieces of a story to a previously established narrative that don’t fit and in some ways retcon a lot of what we’ve accepted as canon for so long. Instead of answering questions, it gave us a ton more that not only don’t answer older stuff but in many ways contradicted it.

And on the other hand, there was the emotional impact that his mother’s return had on Kurt and the journey he went on during the episode—his shutting down, falling back behind his walls, shielding himself with the anger and betrayal and focusing on the case instead of on the situation with his mom. That part of the story was so well done—so well-written and incredibly delivered by Sully.

So like I said, mixed feelings. Let’s start with the bitter.

L: One of the most over-used tropes, in my opinion, is “kill the mother.” Conventional story wisdom says that characters cannot reach their full potential without being deprived of a loving, nurturing influence. From Bambi to Batman, this trope is everywhere, and I detest it, because honestly, “helping children reach their full potential” is pretty much the exact job description for “mother.” For all intents and purposes, this is the trope they’ve used for Kurt. They threw ten-year-old Kurt into a traumatic situation and removed the natural parental supports that would have helped him cope. But by not actually killing his mother, the writers wrote themselves into a corner, which forced them to fabricate a frankly unconvincing narrative to explain her absence for the past thirty years.

Kurt’s journey as a character really started the moment Taylor disappeared. That would have been traumatic enough, even with supportive parents. But on top of that, he believed that his father killed her. And then his mother abandoned him and his little sister. As a natural response to all that trauma, Kurt stepped into the role of overprotective parent/protector to keep Sarah safe, a cause which slowly expanded over the years to mold him into the dedicated law enforcement agent we met in the pilot.

But that setup has always begged the question: How could Kurt’s mother have left her children with a man she believed killed another child the same age as her daughter? I was thrilled that we would finally get an explanation. In this episode, we learned that Linda left her children with a man who had killed one child and who threatened to kill her children. Instead of an explanation, this makes the whole setup even harder to comprehend. Linda believed that Bill killed Taylor... but she didn’t go to the police with her suspicions or do anything to cast doubt on his alibi for that night. She tried to run away with her children, but when Bill found them and threatened to kill his own children, she still didn’t go to the police or do anything to ensure her kids safety. She just left. Now, if someone threatened my children, I would be glued to their side until the day they left home (and possibly even after that). There is absolutely no way I would let them out of my sight, let alone abandoning them in the care of the person who had threatened them!

So we have no better understanding of why she left than before. And her reason for not coming back was even less convincing. She blames Bill’s threat and then her addictions. I think we are supposed to see her as someone weak, who turned to alcohol and drugs to numb herself to her problems instead of taking an active role in solving them. But the problem is that since so much of what she says contradicts what we learned about this family in season one, we’re left just feeling like she’s lying about everything and anything, instead of believing her and feeling sympathy for her, as I believe we were meant to do. (I also have to admit that I don’t really like the addiction piece of the storyline. Making both of Kurt’s parents alcoholics/addicts means that the odds aren’t in his favor at all. Keep a close eye on the Scotch bottle, Jane.)

I really missed Sarah Weller in this episode. In season one, we got two sides to the Bill Weller story: Kurt’s perspective, in which his father killed Taylor and was undeserving of love or forgiveness, contrasted with Sarah, who didn’t believe that her father could have done such a thing. Sarah included Bill in her life and in her son’s life and tried relentlessly to reunite her father and brother. Even when we discover that Bill really did kill Taylor, we’re just told it was “an accident.” But now we have the picture that Linda paints, of a man who threatened his family and terrified his wife into leaving him. If Bill Weller was a violent man, who abused and threatened his wife and children, surely Sarah wouldn’t have wanted to have a relationship with him when she was an adult? Or leave her child in his care? Instead of providing us with answers, Linda’s appearance only seems to contradict the little that we thought we already knew.

And we still don’t understand how Bill Weller “accidentally” killed a supposedly-in-bed-sleeping Taylor Shaw. I’d hoped that Linda might shed a little light on this mystery, but we were disappointed here, too. Kids are small, yes, but they’re not completely fragile. They’re not knocking-over-a-wineglass easy to kill. If it was a true “accident” (like a kid running into the street and getting hit by a car), there would have been no need to cover it up. As we talked about before, we’ve never heard any suspicion that Bill was a sexual predator. Nor have we heard that he was violent or physically abusive. So we’re still left in the dark about Taylor’s death.

The biggest problem with Linda’s contradictory story is that it ripples outward, leaving other out-of-character behavior in its wake. Specifically, Kurt concluding that he needs to hand over a small fortune to a drug gang. Sure, I loved Tasha and Jane urging Kurt to help his mother, and Kurt being able to look beyond his own hurt and anger to help Linda. But on the other hand... this is Special Agent Kurt Weller, lifetime good guy. Handing that kind of money over to criminals to be used for criminal purposes? For guns or who knows what else that might be used on the innocent public he is sworn to protect? No. Absolutely not. This is the antithesis of everything that we know about Kurt. Putting criminals like that behind bars is his raison d’etre. Having him aid criminals is a complete violation of the character we’ve seen him demonstrate over the past four seasons.

And there’s really no reason why he should give them any money at all. He’s sending Linda to rehab to get a fresh start. When she gets out, she will leave her old life (and bad habits) behind, somewhere far away from the life she was leading in Philadelphia. She no doubt has some information about Jason and his gang that she can share. Make her a federal witness and put her into the witness protection program. Gee, who does Kurt know who could help with something like that? Maybe the mother of his child?? Hell, buy Linda a plane ticket to Colorado or Oregon and offer her supervised visits with her grandchildren as an incentive for continued sobriety.

The money represents other, somewhat smaller, problems, too. A hundred thousand dollars isn’t spare change. And for a couple of federal employees living in one of the most expensive cities in the country... that’s a life’s savings worth. Given that we know Kurt spent their savings hunting for Jane, I guess this money is the money Jane stockpiled in the air ducts from her K&R work? But even more concerning than that is, as we observed with Patterson and Rich, Kurt is now directly supporting criminal activity which could at the very least cost him his job. Jason doesn’t seem directly connected to Madeline the way Kathy is, which should make us feel a little bit better, but we also don’t really know why Shepherd wanted Linda and Jane to connect, which brings us to yet another issue with this plot.

Shepherd never did anything without an ulterior motive. Jane thinks that the room was supposed to help spark her memories and help her return to being Remi after the mission, which is plausible, even though it seems out of character for Shepherd’s “mission first, all sacrifices are necessary” approach. But why send Linda there? I suppose Shepherd might have felt bad about using Linda for information about her son and wanted to put her back in touch with him, but given that this is the same Shepherd who cold-bloodedly ordered Emma Shaw’s death, this seems like just too much of a stretch. The timing makes it even more problematic. Shepherd spent two years in a CIA black site, before she was released and then killed by her daughter. I highly doubt the CIA let her chat with her lawyer, so she must have made her will and set up the stash site more than two years ago, while she was in the midst of planning to detonate a nuclear bomb on the east coast. Did she expect Linda and Jane and Weller to survive somehow? Was this a contingency plan in case she died before executing Phase Two? And whatever the case... What did she hope to gain from this plan? This last question is the one that bothers me the most. There just doesn’t seem to be any motivation to explain why Shepherd would concoct such a plan.

Y: Yes, all of this. It just felt like… it felt like someone found a whole bunch of puzzle pieces in the attic and decided to put them together even though they obviously do not belong to the same puzzle and just went with it anyway and is trying to convince us that it makes sense. No, it doesn’t. There’s a whole bunch of retcon in there that is staring at us and if that wasn’t enough, even the stuff that is not retcon, just doesn’t make sense—from Linda’s addiction, to Kurt suddenly having so much money to throw around to Shepherd’s involvement. And that is without me even coming close to touching the whole parental aspect of things.

But I’m going to just talk about the Shepherd tie-in for a moment because not only did that not make sense at all with respect to who Shepherd is as a character, as L pointed out, but it was also such a wasted opportunity to show us just how manipulative and cunning Shepherd was and how she used Linda for years—not just popping into her life the last five years—in order to get information on Kurt or leverage on him or even use Linda for so so so much more. The least I was hoping for is that through her connection and closeness and manipulation of Linda, Shepherd manage to at least find out about that tiny almost insignificant scar on Taylor’s neck. But no, we got nothing, and I was left just standing there and screaming at my screen, because we could have had so much more, and it was such a letdown.

I understand the dramatic effect that they got out of having the Shepherd/Sandstorm tie in. But the shock factor was not enough because it was not followed through and it did not live up to our expectations, did not answer any questions and did not make the most of who we know Shepherd is and what she is capable of. Honestly, it would have made so much more sense to bring Linda back into their lives through one of Roman’s tattoos. That would have fit so much more into his MO and what he intended with his layer of tats—exposing the teams secrets and digging up ghosts from their lives. So what better way to mess with Kurt than bring in his mother who is clearly involved with some big drug cartel in Philadelphia. It would have been a much easier way to introduce her into the story, dig up some feels for Kurt, and rock the team’s boat. And it would have fit in with Roman’s agenda. But it was certainly not a part of the Shepherd puzzle, and I hate that they did it that way—it was weak, it fell flat and felt so painfully and unnecessarily convoluted with the whole mysterious stash site and sending Linda there—Shepherd could not even be sure that Linda would go there, let alone be caught on camera, or even leave behind a clue for the team to find.

And at this point, seeing how the Kathy story played out and how it seems Madeline is just lining this team up and planning to expose them, it would have even made sense for her to be behind this. What better way to gain some leverage over Kurt and Jane than have them paying off a drug gang? She already has control over Weitz and Tasha and now she has Patterson and Rich. This falls more under her way of doing things than it does with anything Shepherd has ever done.

Sigh… it’s exhausting when you know they can do so much better and end up doing something like this.

There’s one more thing I want to address only because I’ve read a lot of people talk about it and that is that Linda’s drug problems started five years ago. I know they weren’t very clear about it, but what I understood was that her addiction started years ago, shortly after she left Bill, and that was what kept her away from going back for her kids—those were the demons she was telling Jane about. I think she came back into Kurt’s life years ago for some reason and she was already an addict then and that was when he tried to help her and she refused his help. And I also believe he kept that information away from Sarah to protect her from knowing what their mother had become—from what we’ve seen she seems to believe that their mother disappeared from their lives when they were kids and that was that.

I think the Oxycontin story and her involvement with Jason and his gang is only the latest of her problems—thus Kurt asking her what she’s gotten herself into this time indicating that it’s only the latest in a series of crap she’s gotten herself into.

I don’t know. Like we said, the whole Linda situation, plot-wise, seems too much like a patchwork of random ideas—like when you remember last minute that you had a project for school and put together the most random thing out of whatever you find available around you, you know? Yes, it was very disappointing.

But I’m going to put that aside for a moment and focus on something that absolutely did work this week, despite the mess that we had, and something that I enjoyed so very much, and that is the emotional impact that Linda’s return had on Kurt and the beautiful way that was portrayed. Because dammit, when the character-based storytelling on this show is good, it’s good!

I think it’s pretty obvious by now that I love Kurt Weller. I love everything about him. I’ve loved every step of his story, I’ve loved every break through he’s achieved, every obstacle he’s overcome, every battle he’s fought, all his victories and all his losses and every single step of the way that has brought him here. I’ve loved his backstory and how it made him the man we met in the pilot and I’ve loved every moment since then that has helped him become the man we see now.

This season has been more focused on Jane and Tasha in terms of character story arcs, but in its focusing on Jane we got to see a beautiful and precious side of Kurt—a side of him that highlights some of his most important qualities and emphasize the parts of his character that have driven his journey from the beginning. Season one allowed us a longer and deeper look into a part of his past that played the biggest role in forming who he became as an adult through the story with Bill Weller. And from that arc, Kurt Weller learned a lot and evolved a lot and those final weeks with his father and the aftermath of Bill’s confession played a huge role on how Kurt moved forward in his life and taught him a lot in terms of his relationships with others. And while that experience may not have been a happy one, it definitely helped Kurt become the man he is now.

The story arc with Linda was definitely much shorter than the one with Bill, but it gave us so much in terms of seeing who Kurt Weller has become and how important the relationships he has formed are—whether with Jane or with the rest of the team as we saw him open up to Tasha in the scene at the hospital. The emotional impact of Linda’s return and what Kurt goes through this episode showed us exactly who Kurt has become and how much he has grown and evolved and how far he’s come—he’s still this man with an infinite capacity to care and who viciously defends and protects the people he cares about and those who have no one to protect them—but he’s also a man who’s opened his heart and who’s let other people in, who has learned how to listen to others and how to lean on them when he needs to and most importantly he has learned how to let go of the past and how to forgive.

One of my favorite scenes from this episode is the one at the hospital when Thomas is reunited with his father an Evan thanks Kurt. To that, Kurt replies with a simple “My pleasure.” I absolutely loved this scene because we get to see why Kurt does this job. The happiness on Kurt’s face at the reunion between father and son says everything. He later tells Linda that he now knows that he chose this career because she had failed to protect them as kids. And you could see that in the hospital scene—you could see just how important this is to him, how seriously he takes this task of protecting those who cannot protect themselves and how much relief and peace it gives him when he succeeds.

Guys… I just love Kurt Weller so damn much. So, so, so much!

Let me end with this final thought. We are at this point closing up the fourth chapter of this show. We’ve been insanely lucky to get this far and will be infinitely more so if we get a fifth. I am savoring every single scene and every single minute we get. And as a viewer, as much as I am invested in these plots, I am way way more invested in these characters and their journeys and their stories. And at this point, as long as the characters are getting such incredible moments and arcs and being allowed to grow and flourish and blossom like this, I am willing to overlook plot inconsistencies, weak storylines and WTF decisions when it comes to plot-related things. I have had way many shows canceled on me before characters were allowed to have these moments and enjoy these arcs, before I got the chance to watch them grow like this, take emotional leaps and fulfill all their potential. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to just brush all this under the carpet—for all I care, the reason Linda never came back was because she was abducted by aliens and made into a deity on Jupiter for twenty years—if it means I get to see Kurt go through all this and come out of it like that.

L: Kurt’s journey has been so satisfying to watch. It is interesting to contemplate how Kurt would have handled Linda’s return in the first or second season of the show, and how vastly different his response would have been, compared to what we saw in this episode. If nothing else, this storyline provides us with a tangible example of how much he’s changed and grown since we first met him in the pilot.

Forgiveness has been an on-going theme in Blindspot. Season two saw Jane trying to earn forgiveness from Kurt and the team. The entire setup for season three was all about Roman being unable to forgive Jane for wiping his memory and turning her back on their shared cause (and her inability to forgive him for his threats to Avery and the team contributed to his tragic end). This season has been about Jane forgiving her past self for the things she did as Remi, and about the team (especially Reade) forgiving Tasha. Throwing Linda back into Kurt’s life is an interesting twist, forcing him to confront one of the demons of his childhood. Like a lot of childhood terrors, the reality is somewhat less scary when viewed as an adult. With Jane’s help, Kurt is able to see Linda as what she is: a weak, flawed human being who failed him, rather than the villain she was in his mind at the start of this episode. Maybe it’s not true forgiveness yet, maybe he’s not ready to welcome her back into his life as a full member of his family yet, but it’s a start, a step in that direction. Which is good for Linda, but it’s even better for Kurt.

We always knew that Jane would have to wrestle the demons in her past before she could move fully into her future, but that’s also true for Kurt. When we met him in the pilot, he was still carrying the guilt of Taylor’s disappearance, weighted down by the idea that he had failed to keep her safe. Finding out—for certain—that his father had killed her in some ways made that guilt even worse, because by learning that he’d been correct in his suspicions all along, it reinforced his feeling that he should have somehow been able to prevent her death. But he was just a kid, and in this episode, we see an adult who tried and failed to keep him and Sarah safe. If Linda couldn’t stop Bill, how could ten-year-old Kurt have stopped him? Forgiving Linda means that Kurt can also begin to forgive himself. And if the show does come to an end three episodes from now, this would still be a fitting conclusion for Kurt’s arc.

Kurt has been a super-supportive husband this season, but this week it’s Jane’s turn to step up. Is she able to help Kurt with everything he’s going through?

Y: I think it’s important to keep in mind at this point that this episode and every episode until the finale were filmed after Jaimie’s injury. So the writers really had to do a lot of rewriting especially in this episode and to reimagine their storylines for the next few episodes to take that into consideration. With that said, I think we’re going to have to see Jane in a way we’ve never seen her before—basically sitting down the whole time.

Now, with that said, and even though seeing Jane just literally sitting around for an entire episode was completely odd, I absolutely loved Jane this week. She did something that no one else could and proved she doesn’t need to be physically kicking ass to be a big damn hero and save the people she loves.

We’ve spent a lot of time this season seeing how the things that Jane goes through resonate emotionally with Kurt and in this episode, we got the chance to see how the opposite is also true—how what Kurt goes through also resonates with Jane. And just like Kurt has been there for her all season—standing by her side through everything, being there when she needs him, and pulling her up when she was falling—Jane was there the same way for him. A few episodes ago, Kurt dug Jane out of a grave, and in this episode, it may have not been a literal one, but Jane also managed to dig Kurt out of a similarly dark and suffocating grave. Jane knowing Kurt better than anyone else and her ability to get through to him and read him are at the core of their relationship and one of Jane’s many superpowers. We often get to see this in a more subtle way, but this episode really highlighted them. It also managed to show us how Jane helps Kurt become this better version of himself—the man he loves that she helps him be.

This episode also let us see that side of Jane that has this endless capacity to care—not just about Kurt but also Linda—and her tenacious belief in the goodness of people and her unrelenting need to help others. Had Jaimie not been injured, I am sure there would have been that added element to that in her commitment to the case and to saving Thomas. I think this episode also highlighted this new version of Jane—the one who is the perfect mixture of Remi and Jane—and Linda’s comments about demons was a strong reminder of that dark past, but more importantly, the way Jane dealt with it all really emphasized who she is and who she is becoming and how confident she is in this newborn version of herself.

L: We talk a lot about how great an actress Jaimie Alexander is, and her quiet scenes in this episode might not seem as intense as the action sequences we are used to, but when you consider the fact that she couldn’t even walk at this time and was no doubt in a great deal of pain, I can’t help but be even more wowed by her performance. She’s been phenomenal, week after week, for four seasons, and even when injured, she doesn’t disappoint. Get well soon, lady, because we need to see your badass ninja self back on the screen kicking butts in season five!!

And yes, even sitting down, Jane is still a powerhouse in this episode. We’ve gone on a lot about how amazing Kurt has been as a husband this season, how supportive he’s been. And this week, we get a bit of a role reversal, as Jane steps into the loving and supportive spouse role to help Kurt deal with a heavy emotional load. We’ll get to Jeller in a bit, but I am loving so much how the writers are showing this marriage. Because none of us are strong all the time, and in a good marriage, you share the load, taking turns being the strong one. Sure, maybe most marriages don’t deal with the extremes that these two do, but even if you’re just juggling careers and housework and childcare, you still gotta have each other’s backs the way that Kurt and Jane do. And this week, Jane stays by Kurt for every step of this painful journey.

I keep thinking about what Kurt says about Jane in 2.15, “You always look for the best in people. I wouldn’t want you to change that. It’s one of my favorite things about you.” And nowhere is this more true than in this episode. When someone hurts a person we love, our natural instinct is to view that person as a hostile entity. But Jane keeps reaching out to Linda, treating her far more kindly than Kurt does, trying to see the best in her. But even more importantly: Jane sees the best in Kurt. She knows that he is capable of great love and forgiveness. She knows that no matter how he may try to cut off Linda and push her out of his life, the cost will be much higher to Kurt if he succeeds. “I just don’t want to see you do something that you regret because you’re hurt and angry,” she tells him. And it works; by the end of the episode, Kurt is able to reach out to his mother a bit, enough to listen to her, offer to pay her debts, and get her into a rehab facility.

The scenes where we see Jane talking to Linda were amazing, and I wish there was time in the episode for more of that. I mean, the most obvious question that a mother would ask upon meeting her daughter-in-law for the first time is, “How did you and my son meet?” I really want to know how Jane would answer that. Would she be honest with Linda about how she ended up at the FBI? Would she refuse to answer? Make up a bullshit answer like, “We met at work”? I’m sorry that we didn’t get to see how much Linda knows about Kurt’s life. Does she even know that she has a granddaughter? The way Kurt describes their interactions, it sounded as though it had been a few years since he’d last seen his mother (I’m still wondering how Jane recognized Linda from the police sketch, since it’s not like Kurt has a recent picture of her hanging in the apartment), so I highly doubt he called her up to tell her about Bethany’s birth. Surely Linda saw pictures of Bethany when she was looking at the other pictures in the Wellers’ apartment. Did she and Jane talk about her? The next most obvious question would be to ask if Jane and Kurt were thinking about having kids, and I really want to know how Jane answered that one!

I thought Linda’s line about demons—“Something tells me you know about that. Having demons.”—was very interesting. I’m not entirely sure why she said that to Jane, but I love that it gave mother and daughter-in-law a moment of shared understanding. That’s something else that they have in common, besides the fact that they both love Kurt. And it makes me really want to know what—if anything—Jane told Linda about her past. She and Kurt talk about having been sent to the storage facility and that Shepherd wanted Jane to meet Linda, but even though they are conversing in front of Linda, I’m still not sure if Jane ever explained to Linda who Shepherd was, and why she might have wanted Linda and Jane to meet. (It seems a little unfair for them to make Linda feel guilty for being duped by Shepherd, when Shepherd manipulated all of them.) Given Jane’s more than mixed feelings about Shepherd, it might have been interesting for her to get to see Shepherd through the eyes of someone who viewed her as a friend, rather than as an enemy.

I was so glad that Kurt asked Jane if she knew that Shepherd had recruited Linda. We’ve kind of glossed over the fact that Jane has all of Remi’s memories now. That means that she knows the meaning of all of the original set of tattoos (which begs the question has she told Patterson and Rich what they mean so they can investigate to see if the corruption they reveal is still active/relevant?). It means that she remembers all of her childhood, from the time before the orphanage—her parents’ names, any extended family or friends who might have searched for her, not to mention, ahem, siblings other than Roman (yes, I am going to be upset if we never learn about the third kid in those flashbacks!)—and I’d really love to see her talking about some of this to Kurt. And it means that she remembers everything about Orion and Shepherd’s organization, which I hope we will delve further into. I still feel a bit underwhelmed by Shepherd’s final “legacy” for Jane, and I hope there is more to the contents of the room of requirement than we’ve seen so far. And even though it’s still not entirely clear why Shepherd wanted Jane and Linda to meet, it feels like this is another necessary step on Jane’s journey to reconciling with her past.

It’s been so satisfying watching the journey that Jane has been on, from the start of the series to now. She’s come so far. We first met her scrambling for a solid footing in a world that was so foreign and full of pitfalls. And she struggled for so long and so hard to find her way. She made mistakes, and she paid for them. She’s collected up the bits and pieces of who she is, both the things she’s learned about herself in the present as well as the things she has now recovered from her past, and she’s assembled them, finally, into a single, complete mosaic. She’s reached a point where she can be secure enough in herself and who she is and what her purpose is that she can be a solid foundation that supports Kurt. She’s never been a helpless damsel in need of rescue, but it’s still so satisfying to see her able to be an equal partner to him now, in all ways. Even while sitting down!

Things may not be easy for Jeller right now, but one thing they don’t have to worry about is whether they have each other’s backs. This team is still 100% in the same corner, even if the roles were a bit reversed this week. How is our favorite couple doing?

L: The conversation between Jane and Kurt in the diner might be one of my favorite Jeller moments of all time. Jane catches Kurt’s hand and tells him, “If it were me, you would tell me to not run from my problems. And that we would get through this together, right?” Yes, it shows Jane being very supportive of Kurt, which is awesome. But even more importantly, in my opinion, it also shows Jane’s acknowledgement that their relationship makes both of them stronger individuals. They are both better able to cope with their demons because of the strength they give each other. We always joke about the two of them being #relationshipgoals, but really, this is what everyone wants out of a relationship, isn’t it? Someone who makes you be you, but better. Stronger and more confident, and better able to handle the curveballs that life hurls at us so unceasingly. And no couple has had to cope with the extremes that Jeller has. And yet, through it all, they emerge, not only unbroken, but stronger than before.

One thing that I keep dwelling on as I rewatch this episode is how well-suited Kurt and Jane are, how they really do complete each other in a way that I don’t think anyone else could. And in some ways it’s because they are so very similar. In the flashbacks we saw of Jane’s childhood last season, of her playing with Roman when her parents were still alive, she was about the same age as Kurt was when Taylor died. So both of them had normal, relatively happy and carefree childhoods up until about age ten, when their lives imploded. In Jane’s case, those memories remain somewhat pure. Her parents, along with that whole life, simply vanished. But for Kurt, those memories are forever tainted by what came next; every happy memory of his parents tarnished by what they became: monsters who murdered his friend and abandoned him. The years that came after that point forced both Kurt and Jane to grow up too quickly, as they appointed themselves protectors of their younger siblings, looking out for Sarah and Roman in a world which failed to nurture them as it should, in which adults couldn’t be trusted. And it set both of them on a path to try to protect others from that fate, whether it was through military service, a career in the FBI, or joining a terrorist organization. They both put up walls that they wouldn’t let anyone else through, because no one else would understand what lay behind them. But in the other, they found a kindred spirit—broken and wounded by life—with the same determination to keep going, no matter what the odds.

I know that there’s been a lot of debate online about whether Jeller should have kids or not. And I do agree that a pregnant Jane or Jeller as sleep-deprived parents of a newborn baby wouldn’t really work with the action-packed format of this show. (And a married-with-children happily-ever-after isn’t a requirement or even appropriate for every couple.) But for these two, I really hope that when this series ends (hopefully more than three episodes from now), we get something that tells us that they eventually reach that milestone. For one thing, it’s been established as something they both want, and we want our favorite characters to achieve all of their dreams. But also, with all the parent issues that both of them have had to work through, that would be tangible evidence that they’ve made it through, that despite all the ways in which adults failed and betrayed them, they were able to find hope for the future and appreciate the loving potential inside of both of them that was stifled for so many years. Yes, Bethany helped Kurt to get over some of those issues, but that wasn’t a choice that Kurt consciously made, and Allie has shouldered most of the burden of child-rearing. Kurt and Jane choosing intentionally to have a child together, with all that that entails, would be the culmination of the very similar character arcs that both of them have traversed.

Y: Look, I have a lot of feelings about the Jeller this week. It may have just ticked all the boxes for me on what makes this ship just so unbelievably epic—bringing out the best of who they are as a team and going to the absolute core of what makes them so special.

I agree with L that the diner scene could go down as one of the best Jeller scenes to date. It highlighted all the things that make them so special and so perfect for each other and more importantly how they help each other become better people. And also, the lighting in that scene was absolutely brilliant and they both looked exceptionally gorgeous. What? I’m allowed to be shallow every once in a while. But in all seriousness, that scene, and the rest of the episode for that matter, showed just how much these two know each other and understand each other and are capable of getting through to each other. Their connection is stronger than it has ever been—they know what the other person is feeling and thinking and going through without a word being spoken between them. It’s almost as though their connection exists on a whole different level than anything else. And the best part about it is that we’ve been able to watch them get here, to watch every step of this journey, every up and down and every obstacle they’ve faced and overcome.

And on that note, I need to point out how brave the writers were and how lucky we were that they chose to get their main ship together at the end of season two. I have watched way too many shows, as I am sure many of you have, where the writers and the creators choose to drag the main ship for way longer than necessary. And while those journeys and stories may be great, I think I sort of love what the Blindspot creative team chose to do and have Jane and Kurt grow together and travel through their journeys together and evolve as individuals and as a couple together. Yes, it may have gotten ugly at some points, and they’ve had their fair share of ups and downs, but getting to watch them go through it all together and come out stronger and more in love has been an absolute gift for us as viewers.

And this journey that we’ve had the privilege of witnessing has taught us many things and proved many things about this couple, and one of those things as L has pointed out is how well-suited Kurt and Jane are for each other and how they are both very similar and also complete each other so beautifully. From their tragic childhoods, to taking on the role of protector of their younger siblings to choosing an adult life dedicated to protecting others, they may have come from different parts of the world and different paths, but the fires that forged them and made them who they are and the scars that were left somehow made them destined for each other and destined to heal each other in ways only they are capable of and in ways only they can understand. And after everything they’ve been through, all the horrors they’ve witnessed and all the tragedies they’ve suffered, these two deserve something so pure and beautiful and peaceful more than anyone and they deserve to experience it with someone who loves them so fiercely and unconditionally.

Martin Gero has promised us that the last few episodes of the season will see these two closer than ever and more solid and committed than ever and I’ve never been excited for anything on this show than I am to see those two in these upcoming episodes—and how it will all set up season five!!

That’s all from us this week! We have a bit of a breather before we dive into the final three episodes of season four. Do you have any big predictions or worries that are keeping you up at night? (Besides the lack of news about season five, that is.) Come talk to our ask box!

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: jane doe #character: kurt weller #character: edgar reade #character: tasha zapata #character: patterson #character: rich dotcom #ship: Jane/Kurt #ship: tasha/reade

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Hey, folks! Just a quick note to say that yes, we are working on a review for 4.19. Real life has been pesky lately and gotten in the way of our fangirling (so rude), but we hope to be back on track next week. Stay tuned!

And we also want to say that yes, the lack of renewal news isn’t good, but we’re not giving up hope, and we hope you aren’t either. We’re not ready to say goodbye to our FBI family just yet! Let’s just keep our fingers crossed. While we stock up on chocolate for the last three episodes, because they look like they are going to be a doozy!

#blindspot

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Episode Review: "You're my little superhero." [S04E18]

This week Bill Nye returned, accompanied by a load of killer bees (which, it could be argued, made the science a little more gruesome and a little less fun), and Patterson displayed a few human flaws. How un-bee-lievable was this week’s episode?

Y: It was nice to take a breather after the heart-stopping buried-alive episode with a light fun-filled killer-bee-themed episode. I can’t believe I just said that. Are the writers now just going through the list of “Top Ten Fears Most People Have” and addressing one each week? What’s next week? Spiders? Snakes? Monsters in closets? But seriously, I loved this episode. Actually, to be fair, I came in having already decided that I will love it because Bill Nye was coming back and how can you not, right?

L: You just can’t. According to Kurt, Bill Nye is an American hero; who are we to argue with that?! The bees were seriously creepy, but as always, the science was just plausible enough to be interesting (i.e., terrifying), and the case was exciting. And Patterson was at her most adorably human. What’s not to love?!

Our team faced down both weaponized bees as well as every imaginable bee pun in this episode. They’re good in the field, but it’s hard to take on a swarm of killer bees with guns and hand-to-hand combat. How did they avoid getting stung—by the bees or the bad guys?

L: This week’s case starts with a rash of dead bodies. (You know, just another day at the office for the FBI.) All of the victims died after exposure to a rare but deadly marine bacteria called tetrodotoxin, TTX, the formula for which shows up in one of Jane’s tattoos. The CDC is able to find one food that all the victims had consumed in the past twenty-four hours: Cantaloupe. (I feel like there’s a message in the fact that people seem more likely to die of food poisoning from fruits and vegetables. Our mostly-chocolate-based diet might be a healthier choice than you’d think!) Our team tracks the infected cantaloupes to a greenhouse at a research farm and heads out to bring in the scientists running the facility, a group led by none other than Patterson’s father, Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Weller is delighted to fangirl all over Bill again, but Patterson is thrown into the awkward position of having to question her own dad as a suspect. (Although Rich as her “bad cop” sidekick makes it well worth all the awkwardness, in my opinion.) And she’s just a wee bit jealous of Bill’s fatherly rapport with his research assistant, Ginny Kelling. Bill and Ginny admit that they are working on a variety of projects, such as diversifying nutrient-dense crops, urban farming, bee repopulation, and genetic modification, but deny cultivating poisoned melons. Patterson and Rich examine the cantaloupes, where they discover traces of lactobacillus, bacteria that bees leave behind on plants when they pollinate. They figure out (with the help of a science lesson from Bill Nye geared toward children and Kurt Weller) that the bees have been genetically modified to carry the toxin. The FBI sends a team out to secure the bees, but they are missing.

Rich discovers a research paper written by Ginny in which she suggested that bees could be used as a weapon to poison crops. But when they question Ginny, she insists that it was purely theoretical. The team has also found a requisition form for live cultures of the bacteria that produces the toxin, but Ginny insists that she wasn’t even in the lab the night the requisition was filed, because she was busy eating lasagna and playing Star Trek Settlers of Catan with Patterson’s parents. She admits that she has been looking into creating edible vaccines via pollination. “Imagine stopping flu season with a piece of fruit.” And okay, that’s... noble... and actually pretty cool. (Even if Patterson has decided to move on to Bad Cop to Reade’s Good Cop.)

They question Bill Nye some more, and he tells them that he left Nick Pomeroy in charge of the lab the night the requisition was filed. But Nick Pomeroy is missing along with the bees, so the team concludes that he stole Ginny’s research to turn the bees into tiny weapons of mass destruction. And since the bees are missing, he is likely on his way to sell them. They examine his financial records and discover that he just got a payment from a defense contractor, who is probably planning to market the bees as a weapon, since they could spread the toxin both while pollinating foods as well as by stinging their victims (a concept that seems designed solely to give us all nightmares; thanks, writers!).

But this information also gives them a few leads. Whoever is buying the bees needs a place to keep them and breed more, so they are able to narrow down the type and features the structure would require and zero in on a warehouse that fits the bill and is owned by a subsidiary of the defense contractor in question. They find Nick (who seems inexplicably shocked to discover that the weapon he developed specifically to kill people has, in fact, killed people) in the process of handing over the bees. Our team takes out the goons, but the containment system for the bees is damaged, allowing them to escape. And frankly the rest of that scene—Nick yelling that it’s too late for him, Jane apologizing to him as she closes him into the back of the truck with the bees, right down to Nick’s hand on the glass before he dies a gruesome death—seems right out of a horror film, so I’m just going to pretend it didn’t happen, okay? Okay, thanks.

And as much as we’d really like this whole case to be neatly resolved now, we’re barely halfway through this hour, so there’s more terror to come. Patterson goes to the lab to help her dad and Ginny figure out how to “cure” the infected bees, but she arrives just in time to be taken hostage by more goons from the company that purchased the bees from Pomeroy. (And I don’t know what they’re getting paid to collect the bees, but whatever it is, after seeing what happened to Pomeroy, it’s definitely not enough for this job. But hey, they got to meet Bill Nye, so there’s a job perk to brighten their last moments.) Fortunately, Patterson is as good in the field as she is in the lab, especially when “in the field” means “in a lab.” She calms Ginny (“I need you to type the periodic table, okay? I find that it centers me.” I really adore Patterson, have I mentioned that lately?) and then guides Ginny to release the bees, while carefully arming both herself and Ginny with Benzaldehyde to repel the bees and prevent them from getting stung. Jane and Weller (with Bill Nye in tow) arrive on the scene, alerted by the fact that the agent Patterson came to the lab to replace didn’t return to the NYO, but Patterson and Ginny have already rescued themselves and gotten the bees back into their hives.

So this week is a win. They stop genetically engineered bees from being turned into a population-destroying weapon. Patterson gets to spend a little quality time with her dad (and makes a new friend). And thanks to Tasha’s efforts (which we’ll talk about in a minute), they make a little bit of progress tracking down Dominic, even though Claudia’s death definitely qualifies as a loss. So our team, our favorite little family, is still together, still hanging tough and looking out for each other, and working toward their goal of taking down HCI Global and stopping Madeline’s plans.

It may not be an earth-shattering win, but I’ll take it.

Y: It was nice to go back to a classic tattoo-triggered case and great to see that Patterson’s system is still working with the tattoo database. Not only is it great to see that the premise of the show is still in play, but also a reminder of just how much Shepherd, Remi, and Roman had laid out in these tattoos and how much corruption they’d managed to uncover and planned to expose. And now that Jane has all her Remi memories back, it’s nice to see her be able to continue Remi’s fight and struggle for justice but from the right side of the law.

This episode also went back to the classical structure of breaking down a case, and there’s something comforting about that, especially after the madness of the previous episode. But that is not to say that I found the case to be boring. How could it be when Bill Nye is there? We got to see Patterson—the almost flawless in every way Patterson—be jealous that her parents were making lasagna for someone else, and we got to see Kurt be the adorable fanboy that he is, Rich be awkward in so many ways, Reade deadpan his way through every line, and did I mention Bill Nye was in the episode? And I must say, I too was on the “Ginny is guilty” train with Patterson. The twist may not have been the wildest one, but it was a solid one and worked well within the plot of Patterson’s emotional journey in the episode.

And yes, at the end of the day, it was a win, and it’s nice to see a case wrap up so neatly—at least the killer bees part of this week’s episode.

But seriously, can we flail some more about Bill Nye? I know I’m being such a Kurt right now, but it still has the same thrill that he’s Patterson’s father, and it’s great having him around. But what’s more impressive is that they don’t just use him as a marketing prop for the show. He’s also perfectly cast in the role and always brings so much to the episode he’s in and more importantly always helps nudge Patterson’s arc forward. Patterson has had a relatively quieter season than previous ones, but this episode did a lot for her character—which we will get to in a bit—and the fact that we get Bill Nye to be there to give us that is just such a gift to us as viewers.

I may not be laughing out loud at Bill Nye videos, but I grew up on Bill Nye the Science Guy, and that ten-year-old science nerd in me is smiling and giggling that he’s now on my favorite show.

Our team has been through a lot, and this week they are forced to face up to some of the repercussions of their “can’t stop, won’t stop” lifestyle. What truths really hit home?

Y: Week after week, these writers, and these characters, make us fall more and more in love with this family. And just like each one of these characters has had their journey since the Pilot episode, the same can be said about this team—as a unit—having its arc and its journey. They’ve had their ups and their downs. They’ve soared and excelled, and they’ve also failed and reached rock bottom. But they always get back up, and they grow stronger and better and closer with every passing day. This season has been as much about the team as the star of the show as it has been about any other character. And with the focus on how much this team is a family, this episode has come to remind us that even though they cling to their chosen family, these people still have families outside the walls of the NYO, and they come with their own different kind of baggage.

L: I love that the name of this episode is “Ohana.” Even if your Hawaiian isn’t all that fluent, if you’ve ever seen Lilo & Stitch you know that “Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” And this episode is all about family and not being left behind, whether you are a weird blue alien, a tattooed amnesiac, a math wiz, or a rogue CIA agent. It’s about Patterson not being left behind by her family, even though she works all these crazy hours at the FBI. It’s about Tasha not being left on her own, even though she’s been away from the FBI for so long. It’s about Jane’s past not being forgotten, nor Weller’s mom, even if he’s tried to put her behind him. And it’s been a theme this whole season, which has challenged our team’s determination not to leave anyone behind while highlighting all the ways in which they mean “family” to each other.

And I also kind of loved that one of the themes in this episode is Patterson not getting to spend enough time with her parents. Because, let’s face it, this is at least the third episode in a row where the team basically only gets to go home for long enough to shower and change clothes. None of these people have time to spend with their families. (When was the last time we saw Bethany or Avery? Last season?) There’s a reason that Weller and Jane are the only two members of this team who are married; the only people this team sees often enough to build a relationship with are each other. (So it’s funny but not entirely unsurprising that Bill Nye thinks his daughter has something going on with Rich. And yeah, it probably explains why Reade and Tasha will likely end up together in the end, too.)

Y: It was fun to see this angle of one of the characters. Not since season one have we had the chance to see that these people at the end of the day are relatively normal people and not just badass agents. It was always nice to see Kurt go back home to Sarah and Sawyer, play games with his nephew and tease Sarah about her lack of expertise in PB&J sandwich skills or who she’s dating. So having the chance to see this side of Patterson, as just another person whose job occupies all her time and leaves her with no free time to see her parents even though she desperately misses her mom’s lasagna, was nice. I just wish we’d get to see more of that. We’ve heard Rich complain about how he’s a disappointment to his parents, and we know Tasha has a grandma who sounds pretty awesome, so come on, Blindspot, give us more of that!

Watching Patterson go through something that seems so normal and relatable was great—not just as viewers but also for her character. For someone who has had such bad luck in love over the years and who has leaned on her job and her career to fill some void, it was a beautiful and sweet reminder to her and to everyone else that there is more out there and that your family will always be there for you and will always welcome you back with a plate of hot cheesy lasagna. And I love how that resonated with everyone else, and Jane’s little pep talk to encourage her to go see her dad was such a beautiful moment. These people give so much and sacrifice so much and put their lives on the line every day, and they have earned the right to hear someone call them a superhero every once in a while and the comfort of knowing that there is someone out there who appreciates what they do and who will always be there for them and love them and support them.

L: Which brings us to Tasha. Tasha’s journey has been tremendous this season, and that was even before the arrival of Claudia, a.k.a., the Ghost of Christmas Future. Because Claudia’s fate—murdered in an alley in pursuit of a suspect, her body discarded in a pile of trash, to be collected by an agency that will likely disavow her—is exactly the road that Tasha has been headed down, ever since she left the FBI for the CIA. Like Goldilocks, Tasha had to try being a uniformed police officer (too much structure, not enough power, but lots of brotherhood) and a deep-cover CIA agent (no structure, lots of power, but also no one to vouch for her or watch her back) to find the role that suited her just right, FBI agent (a little bit of wiggle room, the power to make a difference, and a family that will always be there for her, watching her back and standing beside her). So her decision to come back to the FBI in the last episode—as a full agent, not as a temporary loan from the CIA—made total sense. As did her spending-the-night-in-the-office-working-instead-of-sleeping, because this is Tasha. She isn’t going to change her approach just because the signature on her paycheck changed. She’s given up her whole life for this case, and she’s not going to give any less now. She has to bring down Madeline and Dominic to make up for all the bridges she burned and all the things that she did that she wishes she’d never had to do.

“I’ve been on my own for such a long time, I forgot what it’s like to work with other people. To be a team,” Tasha tells Reade. But lucky for her, this team remembers her, and I love how much they have her back. Jane and Weller brought her the bagels she requested, and Jane—the one who got buried alive by Dominic and has arguably the most reason to want him behind bars—is the first one to reassure Tasha, “Tasha, we all want to catch him. But you gotta take care of yourself, too.” And then Reade gives her the keys to his place and sends her off to get some sleep. And whether or not you ship the two of them romantically, you cannot deny the depth of the caring between Tasha and Reade. I’ve always loved the way the two of them looked out for each other, and their scenes together in this episode—especially the one after Claudia’s death—were just so damn good. They’re two very strong, very independent people, and watching them leaning on each other—in Tasha’s case, literally—is a moment that just got me right in the feels.

But even though Tasha seems back on track, career-wise and team-wise, I am worried about the possible repercussions of Claudia’s death. If Sabrina Larren and the CIA were out for Tasha’s blood after the fake death of an MI6 agent, they aren’t likely to take the real death of said agent any better, especially since there are no witnesses and only Tasha’s story to explain what happened. And I am still worrying about Madeline, who told us she has “something special planned” for Tasha in 4.16. If Dominic supposedly came up with the plan to bury Jane alive on his own, then that wasn’t the plan for Tasha, which means that Mad Maddie has something even worse planned for her. So what fate would be worse than death? Tasha sacrificed everything for this case, so destroying Tasha’s credibility—leaving her alive but unable to continue in the career that is so important to her—might be a suitable punishment for Madeline to dole out. What if Madeline (and/or Dominic; I don’t even know who the real “bad guy” is here anymore) find a way to pin Claudia’s death on Tasha? If they have enough sway at the CIA (or if that’s the favor they call in from Weitz), they could argue that Tasha has always been working for Madeline and that she killed Claudia to avoid being exposed. Which would explain Madeline’s weird question last week, “Will the FBI fully believe you don’t work for me?”

I have spent this entire season worrying about Tasha, and frankly, that doesn’t seem likely to change anytime soon.

Y: Waiting so long to get a Tasha-centric story arc has been beyond worth it. I know I’ve said this in previous reviews, but dammit, I stick by this, because we’ve been witnessing one of the most interesting storylines and one of the most mesmerizing performances this show has ever seen. We’ve talked about how the Madeline-as-our-villain storyline may not be the strongest, but this does not take away at all from what Tasha’s arc has been. Her emotional arc has been so powerful and her journey in rediscovering who she is has been enthralling. And honestly, Audrey has been phenomenal every single week in carrying Tasha’s pain, her fears, her insecurities, her heartbreak, her guilt, and her struggle with her identity.

L outlines perfectly how this episode fits into this arc and how Claudia’s return and demise fit into the story. And her breakdown of how Tasha’s whole journey has been a Goldilocks tale is just spot on, and I love her description of it. And yes, Tasha’s traveled far away from home and burned many bridges along the way, but she’s found her way back and also found that with these people, she’ll always have a place and a home and family to come back to—people who love her and will forgive her and welcome her back and protect her no matter what.

Jane finally seems to be finding a little peace and tranquility in reconciling her life as Remi with the person she is now. Is there any chance she’ll get to hang on to it?

L: Jane is continuing to sort through the emotional rummage sale that Shepherd left for her, and for the first time ever, we see her able to look at her past in a balanced light, seeing the good moments that it contained instead of just the bad. We’ve waited four seasons for this moment, and it really paid off. And it makes me feel very grateful, for two reasons: First, because we know there is more upheaval ahead for her and her sexy-crooked-smile husband. And second, because it is much harder to believe in the possibility of a happy ending for someone who has never actually known happiness. If Jane’s past as Remi was only dark and traumatic, it would be difficult to believe that Jane could rise above that and find lasting peace and contentment. But by showing us that Remi had moments where she was able to be happy and playful—a normal teen, writing angsty poetry in her diary—we are able to believe that she can have normal, happy moments in her future.

I keep dwelling on what Jane says to Patterson. “There’s always gonna be plenty of excuses to not spend time with family, but one day they’re not gonna be here, and you’re gonna wish you had more chances.” We know that she’s talking about Roman. She missed him as Jane, but with her Remi memories back—and all the years of history that she and Roman shared—it has to be a thousand times more painful to know that he’s dead, that she’s lost the only family member she had left. (And I am going to feel extremely cheated if we get all the way to the end of this season and never discover who the third kid in the Kruger flashbacks was!)

But I also wonder if she might be talking a little bit about Shepherd. Shepherd’s character has often felt inconsistent to me—is she an evil mastermind who cold-bloodedly used two kids to carry out her schemes, or did she really want to help them when she adopted them? We’ve never known for certain, but perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle. Maybe Shepherd, like most parents, had good intentions, but she just fell short. Maybe she became more twisted as the years went on and her own losses piled up (and hey, raising two teenagers who went through psychopath training can’t have been a walk in the park, even for her). After all, we are judging her based only on how we saw her at the end—driven beyond all sanity and reason—rather than how she was when Remi and Roman were young. But whatever the truth, I am glad that Jane doesn’t have to mourn her entire childhood. That even amidst all the horrors, there were good moments worth remembering, moments that gave her hope for a better future, and memories that she can look back on fondly, without pain. She deserves at least that much.

And I wonder where this new peace with her past will lead her. Even when her memory was freshly wiped and she’d just met Kurt, she valued family and connection and urged him to reconcile with his father. So I have to wonder if she will also try to find some way to help Kurt reconcile with his mother. I’m sure it will depend on how drunk his mother is on the Sandstorm Kool-Aid, but once the dust settles, I suspect that we will see Jane urging Kurt to give his mother another chance and make her part of their family. It’s just the kind of soft, compassionate heart that we know Jane has.

Y: Tasha’s and Jane’s stories have been the character plots that have driven this season, and they have made it an absolute winner in my opinion. Granted Jane’s arc has spanned over the four seasons the show has been on the air, but this season it has taken center stage more than any time before—maybe because it seems the evil plot is weaker than ever before—but also Remi’s return had such a strong impact on the show and on Jane’s journey, and it has been such a delight.

I’m sure Shepherd’s stash site is going to have more plot-related ramifications going forward, but so far it has been the perfect vessel to carry Jane into this next phase. Seeing all these objects and reliving all these memories has allowed her to get in touch with a past that may have been dark and traumatic for the most part but also managing to find some joy there, moments of peace and some semblance of normalcy in an otherwise life of turmoil. It’s such a beautiful story being told here, and the writers for the most part are doing it justice. Yes, it is being rushed at some points, but there is only so much dwelling on it they can do without sacrificing the action part of the show.

And honestly watching Jane embrace all this and find that peace and rebuild herself from the ashes to become the best and strongest and most incredible version of herself is so worth the time we have spent with this incredible woman, and seeing how far she’s come and how much she has sacrificed to get here gives me so much joy and warms my heart.

Parents might be the bane of Kurt Weller’s existence. His dad killed his best friend (and he’s got a serious case of father-envy when it comes to Patterson’s dad), his mother-in-law’s meddling continues beyond the grave, and now his long-lost mother has returned to shake up the little bit of domestic happiness he’s managed to find. How do things look for our favorite special agent?

Y: It’s a good thing that Bill Nye as Patterson’s father exists in the Blindspot universe because he is singlehandedly bringing balance to the parental figures on this show. On the one hand, you’ve got the likes of Shepherd and Bill Weller and Hank Crawford, so it’s such a relief to have Bill Nye in there to balance it out. Kurt’s little comedic line about killing to have Bill Nye as his father was indeed a cute little moment, but it was also very heartbreaking because underneath it all—as is in my opinion the case with Kurt’s love for Bill Nye—is the innocence of a little boy who is searching for a proper male role model and a father figure. The repercussions of Bill Weller’s actions and his treatment of his son are still felt and still leave scars on Kurt, and even though he has come so far, there is no denying that the trauma still lingers there.

And now, after four years of us asking questions and shaking our fist at the sky, we finally get to learn about Kurt’s mom! We’ve never been a fan of her. And I know that’s probably not fair, because we know close to nothing about her. But we do know that she chose to leave her two young children with a man she believed killed their five-year-old neighbor. Honestly, the odds were never in her favor. So to say we are excited about this upcoming storyline is an understatement. And as much as I am looking forward to the chance to see Sullivan in scenes that will have him bring out undoubtedly incredible emotional performances, I am also looking forward to finally getting some answers.

It has been four years since Bill Weller died, but the mysteries and the questions did not die with him. If you’ve ever read one of our questions features here on this blog, you know that we have a ton of questions surrounding Bill, Taylor, Emma, and Kurt’s mom, what happened all those years ago, why Bill killed Taylor, or if he really did, the circumstances surrounding the whole thing, why the police investigation was so terribly conducted, how Sandstorm, Shepherd, and Remi managed to get all the information they did, and so much more. So hopefully with Kurt’s mom returning, we will finally get those answers.

L: Poor Weller. Every time he thinks that they might catch a break, that he can relax and drink a glass of wine or a nice Pennsylvania beer, enjoy a little romance with his finally-mentally-and-physically-healthy wife, maybe even plan a vacation to Colorado to see the daughter we haven’t heard a peep about all season, the universe (in the form of the Blindspot writers) decides to clock him upside the head. What does this guy have to do to get a break??

And yes, since the reveal at the end of the episode, my mind has been going a mile a minute, churning out questions. Will we finally find out how Bill Weller (obligatory FUBW) “accidentally” killed a child? That sort of case would make us wonder if he was some sort of child predator, but that kind of behavior is rarely a one-time thing, and there were never any other allegations along those lines as far as we know. Did Kurt’s mother really abandon her two children to a man that she believed killed a girl the same age as her own daughter? (What kind of horrible mother does something like that?!) The Sandstorm connection opens up a thousand new questions: Did Bill really kill Taylor, or was she killed by someone else and they just made him think that he’d done it in a drunken haze? If he didn’t kill her, then who did? And why? Did Kurt’s mother have something to do with it, or did she help cover it up? Did Kurt’s mother get involved with Sandstorm after she left her family, or was she involved before then? (Honestly, how long has Sandstorm been around?! If they were working toward something 25 years ago, when Weller was ten, Shepherd would have been in her late twenties, on active military duty, surely too young to already be plotting the downfall of the American government.)

I hope we get answers to at least a couple of these. And maybe Weller could at least mention Sarah somewhere in there, even if she doesn’t actually show up at the NYO. This season it feels like all Weller family members (Bethany, Avery, Sarah, Sawyer...) have just dropped off the face of the earth. Yes, the team is like family, but actual family is nice, too, and Patterson shouldn’t be the only one who gets to eat lasagna with hers.

Y: But it wasn’t all painful childhood memories and angst for Kurt this week. On the contrary, we got to see him smile quite a bit, which by Kurt Weller standards is quite a lot. He got to see and hang out and make puns with his favorite American Hero, Bill Nye—and save his life which must have been the highlight of his day, along with Bill laughing at his bee pun. Also making him smile is seeing his wife alive—always a plus for any person—but also finally finding peace with her past and in her life and no longer at war with herself and the two parts of her. And as Jane is finally learning to love that part of her life and herself, she is letting Kurt in, and he is getting to know all these parts of her and in his own words he is loving that—loving to learn about her past and her present and her future—and more importantly that she is letting him in and letting him be a part of it.

Our favorite couple can stop any bad guy (up to and including killer bees), and yet they continue to fail in their on-going quest to finish a glass of wine at home. What is it going to take for the two of them to find a romantic moment alone??

L: Can we just accept that the Jelleruption is the writers’ favorite gag? Every time the scene shifts to the two of them in their apartment, drinking a glass of wine, it’s like an announcement that some upsetting Sandstorm revelation is coming their way!

But that said, yes, I love where Kurt and Jane are in their relationship right now. They’ve both been through a lot. And they’re still together and are even able to laugh and joke about some of it, which is pretty huge, actually, given how traumatic most of it is. We talked about Jane coming to grips with Remi, but I think it’s worth noting that Kurt has also managed to come to terms with Remi. Boy Scout Weller is pretty much the straightest arrow on the show, and Remi represents all the things he went into law enforcement to fight. And that’s even before all the personal manipulation she used on him. She was an accessory to the murder of Emma Shaw, the closest thing to a mother Kurt had; she pretended to be his long-lost childhood friend and emotionally manipulated him; she set up his boss and mentor, destroyed her reputation and legacy, and helped cause her death. These aren’t small issues, and they aren’t things that Kurt can wish away. Just like Jane, he has to accept that Remi and Jane aren’t two separate people. He can’t draw a line between the wife he loves and the criminal he wanted to stop. They are one person, and he has to be able to love both halves of Jane for their relationship to work.

We get two scenes in this episode that illustrate this nicely. The first is when Jane and Kurt are sorting through the items from the bunker, and Kurt reads teenage Remi’s poetry. It shows that both of them recognize that there was another side of Remi; not a bogeyman, just a kid who didn’t get the kind of nurturing she deserved. And in case that wasn’t clear, we get Kurt putting that into words in their apartment at the end of the episode (before Rich’s “Jelleruption,” which we are going to ignore!). “I love getting to know everything about you. Your past, your present, your future.”

And really, what more could we (or Jeller!) ask for??

Well, maybe not to be interrupted. But that’s like Patterson’s first name... one of those things we hope for but don’t actually expect to ever get.

Y: We’ve talked about how much we’re enjoying watching these two be so comfortable and confident in such a strong relationship, enjoying the love and commitment and trust that continues to grow between them. And this week… well, this week we love it even more because with the unique circumstances of their relationship, they just keep finding new ways of growing and evolving and falling more in love and for this love to grow and evolve and bloom in new and more beautiful ways.

Jane embracing her past and the Remi side of her and finding peace and some joy in it and bringing Kurt along with her on this journey is just such a beautiful thing to watch especially for these two who have seen so much pain and heartache. One could argue that the journey of accepting that part of her life and her past is a part of Jane’s story and her arc but honestly, it is as much hers as it is Kurt’s, and I don’t think she could ever fully embrace and accept any part of it without Kurt by her side. The fact that Jane can love that part of her and find the happiness that was once there and share it with Kurt and have him fall in love with all parts of her is very important and a testament to how strong their love is and how unbreakable their bond is.

I feel we are so lucky to be a witness to this journey and this process and like L said, what more could we really ask for? And who knows, maybe when all this is said and done, Jane and Kurt will get the uninterrupted vacation they deserve where no one knocks at their door just as things get interesting, no one slips an envelope under the door, no secret service agents come to pick them up, no one hijacks Air Force One, no one sends assassins after them… you know, a normal romantic evening alone… Jeez, these two have seen it all, haven’t they? Can we just settle on them installing a security system at the main entrance of their building for now?

That’s all from us! Are you as shook by Kurt’s mother’s reappearance as we are?? What do you think it means, to both his past and his present? Come speculate with us in our ask box!

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: jane doe #character: kurt weller #character: edgar reade #character: tasha zapata #character: patterson #character: rich dotcom

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