Blindspot premiere recap: Meet the new Jane, same as the old Remi
The season three finale of Blindspot gave us two massive twists to mull over these last few months. The first saw Zapata seemingly working for Crawford’s daughter, Blake, in an attempt to keep HCI’s global domination plans alive. The second, and equally as shocking, saw the return of Remi. After Jane woke up in the hospital, she seemingly had no recollection of her life as Jane. She managed to play the part well enough while reconnecting with the team in Weller’s hospital room, but behind those eyes was no sense of the love she used to feel towards them. Instead, she was quick to get on the phone, contact Sandstorm, and say that she’d infiltrated the FBI and was ready to execute the next stage of the plan.
Those massive twists are the engine driving this season’s plot, and the season 4 premiere wastes no time putting the pedal to the metal. “Hella Duplicitous” begins in Tokyo, as the team is working an off-the-books heist in order to retrieve another one of Roman’s data caches, the ones he left in secret, far-flung locations should he ever die. We know those caches contain valuable information about the tattoos, and also a potential cure for the zip poisoning that’s slowly killing Jane, so everyone is eager to get their hands on all 12.
This is only the fourth one though, and getting it is no easy task. The heist involves a lot of deception, and none of it works. Rich’s cover is broken almost immediately, and that means Jane is left to fight off a number of katana-wielding baddies on a rooftop. It’s a badass way to kick off the season and, of course, the team snags the data cache and makes it out of Tokyo safe and sound.
That doesn’t mean things are normal though. Again, Jane is no longer the Jane we and the FBI all know and love. She’s back to being Remi, the ruthless Sandstorm operative. What’s worse now is that with Roman and Oliver dead, and Shepherd being held in a black site, Remi is angrier than ever. She sees the FBI — and specifically Weller — as the enemy, as the ones who killed her family. So “Remi” is forced to play housewife when she’s back home with Weller. She stares daggers at Weller when his back is turned; she’d kill him on site if she could get away with it. Weller and Jane have been through so much, and now Blindspot is putting us all through this. What an incredibly cruel thing to do.
Moving away from the personal drama for a second, the FBI team is doing its best to keep tabs on HCI and figure out who will be taking over now that Crawford is dead. They have no leads, but we get a sneak peek inside the meeting. Far away from the FBI headquarters, Zapata gives Blake a pep talk before their meeting with the board. She says that she needs to project confidence to assure the members that she’s the person to step into her father’s shoes and execute his plans. To be fair, the pep talk works. Blake gives a rousing speech and wins the board over. There’s a slight twist though: one board member poisons everyone else, including Blake, and takes over the company for herself, recruiting Zapata at the same time. Now that’s a true power move. (Recap continues on next page)
It’s a smart plan, and it goes off without a hitch. Nobody suspects anything as Jane stuffs a bunch of money into her Kevlar vest. Back at FBI headquarters, the team uncovers that the underground criminal bank was mostly filled with large bills, which means they’re likely not funding crooks and criminals, but rather some corrupt businesses or government organizations. New FBI Director Matthew Weitz — yes, him — doesn’t want the team to do any deep digging yet, as that might destabilize the American economy, and that comes as a relief to Jane. All she wants right now is to be able to keep her cover and fool the FBI until she has Sandstorm back up and running.
Unfortunately for her, her new partner, Dolan Osmond, is a big dummy who manages to get his cell phone tracked by the FBI. Not exactly the best person to set up shop with when your goal is all out terrorist destruction and keeping your identity secret! The FBI nearly catches him after a thrilling car chase, but Jane’s own antics to divert Reade from the chase lead to a collision, and Osmond dies in the crash, but not before he utters his final words to Remi: “Make them pay.”
It’s looking like this is going to be a season defined by double-crosses and revenge (he says, as if that’s any different from previous seasons of Blindspot). Zapata doesn’t hesitate to tell her new boss that she’d kill Reade if she needed to. I don’t think I believe her, but her true intentions are still very, very unclear. Then there’s Jane/Remi. She’s determined to destroy everything about her past life as Jane, and that begins and ends with a single person: Weller. He’s at the top of her hit list, and that will make for one insanely interesting season.
