Blindspot recap: Bone May Rot
Blindspot returns this week with an edge-of-your seat episode, complete with crime puzzles, tension among the Scooby Gang, and more mystery behind Jane’s true identity. This week, Jane’s tattoos lead the team to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where they find some shady business has been occurring. We start with a flashback from two years ago, where a former deputy director at the CDC, named Walter, dies in an unfortunate accident in one of its super-secret BHL4 labs. Apparently, Walter’s suit had a tear in it, causing him to get contaminated with a deadly disease that made him react like King Joffrey when he was poisoned at his own wedding. (If you aren’t caught up on Game of Thrones, to quote Chris Hardwick at SDCC this year, “The world does not need to conform to your poor viewing habits.”)
Fast-forward to present day, and Patterson is making coffee with her boyfriend in her apartment and finds that her main squeeze has dug into her photos of Jane’s tattoos. She’s mad at first that he’s rooting around in her stuff (at least it wasn’t her cell phone — that’s a relationship felony), but she discovers that he’s been able to uncover one of the mysteries behind Jane’s leaf tattoo.
The tattoo appears to be a maple leaf, but Patterson argues that it’s an oak leaf. Her man points out that it’s actually both types of leaves, but where they overlap is where the true clue is hidden. It turns out, he was right. The clue looks like a specific logo: the CDC’s. The CDC headquarters sits on the corner of Oak and Maple street, thus showing the leaves’ significance. (I actually tried to look this up to see if this was actually a CDC location in real-life, but I’m directionally challenged and after two failed Google searches I gave up.)
This was a turning point in the show for me. The puzzles and the quirky boyfriend uncovering their mysteries is either extremely ridiculous, or widely clever — or both. This show is like an adult version of Pretty Little Liars. “A” always knows where the team is and is one step ahead of them; the clues and situations are ridiculous, but I can’t stop watching. I’m trying to uncover the mysteries along with the team while simultaneously trying to ignore Agent Weller covering up his real-life Aussie accent (he was way better this week though, right?).
Anyway, the team is greeted at the CDC by the new Deputy Director of Epidemiology, Rebecca Fine, and her counterpart and CDC military liaison, Frank. They are handed off to lab assistant Julie, who takes them into a screening before they can enter the facility. The super high-tech UV lights — ones that only the CDC has — reveal that Jane has UV tattoos on her face (ouch), all with numbers in a sequence that match the CDC’s lab specimens. The sequences are for the 10 most deadly diseases on the planet, all with no known cures.
Jane and Weller are taken into the same lab where Walter died to investigate further and discover that all of these diseases have been stolen. The CDC is then put on a two-hour lockdown, later named “a false alarm.” Rebecca is one of two people who has access to do this and is no longer in the building, and agents Reade and Zapata recognize the coincidence. They hack into her computer and see that she remotely triggered the lockdown.
Patterson discovers that every outbreak of the viruses taken happened at the same time Rebecca had traveled to the country with the outbreak, pointing all conspiracy to her. They find her husband’s location from his credit card use at a gas station, and when Rebecca and her clueless husband are cornered by police, she shoots both of them before they can even get out of the car.
Fortunately, there’s still time for the team to figure out what she did with the 10th strain, which is apparently the deadly cousin of Ebola. They track Rebecca’s movement to the Manhattan Cruise Terminal, and the pier is evacuated so the team can find whatever device Rebecca planted. Jane and Weller find an out-of-place bag, and the team has no time to wait for the CDC to contain it. With only minutes to figure out a plan, Weller calls Patterson to help him MacGyver his way into saving millions of people. They makeshift a containment device out of cleaning supplies (like I said, widely ridiculous but can’t stop watching), and the strain is contained before it’s released. Where they found enough Saran Wrap to make a military-worthy containment tent I don’t know, but hey — it’s entertaining.
NEXT: The team comes across another conspirator.
Thinking all is good and well, the team heads to the CDC camp to make sure they aren’t infected. Weller is stubborn and stays with the device, and it’s good thing, too, because when Rebecca’s counterpart Frank arrives, we learn he is actually in on the scam. Apparently, the two of them believed the Earth is trying to eliminate all known threats to the human race by mass murdering millions of people with incurable diseases. His master plan was to get infected (and Weller, too) and fly all over the world infecting millions of others. His double-digit layovers on the trip he booked just an hour earlier gave him away, and Weller and Jane take him down during a fight scene before he can release the virus from the makeshift containment tent.
The team reconvenes at the office, and a troubled Jane is looking at the news article of her kidnapping on the computer. Earlier, Weller told Jane that he was babysitting her at the time she was taken. There were no signs of forced entry or struggle, and to make matters worse his father was the only suspect. His father ended up lying about an alibi (I can’t wait for that story to surface), costing him his innocence. Knowing that Weller is wracked with guilt of letting her get taken, she struggles to remember the day she was kidnapped. She has a blurred flashback of being walked out of her room by a man, but we can’t see his face.
Weller comes in and gets all nostalgic, telling her that he recognizes the location of the photo in the article. Recalling memories, Weller looks painfully relieved that he’s finally found his long-lost friend. Of course this is short-lived, as Patterson privately takes Weller into her lab to show him that she’s uncovered some unfortunate news through her fancy research. She took samples from the tooth Jane lost last week and discovered markers that trace to Sub-Saharan Africa. The real kicker is that these are dated to when she was an infant, indicating that Jane was born there — which would mean she is not Taylor Shaw.
Weller begins to panic, because he was there the day “Taylor” was born in the Unites States. Patterson explains that the DNA test and the tests she ran from Jane’s tooth contradict one another, but she can’t determine which test is the actual truth. It looks like we will still be calling our mystery lady “Jane” for now.
Notables and questions:
Zapata and Randy: What’s going on here? Agent Zapata seems to be in hot water with a bookie, owing $40,000. Is this related to Jane at all, or are the writers trying to bring some depth to this character?
Orion: This is the only possible clue we have into Jane’s past as a “super-spy” or whatever she is/was — will we learn more about this next week? The show is diving into a familiar formula of solving a new case each week with an over-arching story line, but I’m hoping that because the cases are all linked to Jane in some way they will all come full circle.
CIA Deputy Director Tom Carter: He’s getting antsy with Bethany, and I’m betting next week he’ll take Jane’s possible link to Operation Daylight into his own hands. So far, Jane’s tattoos have lead to the CDC and the Department of Defense — is Operation Daylight an inside conspiracy that spans across the entire government?
Taylor’s/Jane’s past: Jane learned that Taylor Shaw (whom she may or may not be) had a single mom who is now deceased and has no siblings. Whether she’s Taylor or not, I’m anxious to find out how this person fits in.
