'Blindspot' Recap: Jane Watches Her Own Funeral
Warning: This recap for the “Any Wounded Thief” episode of Blindspot contains spoilers.
A quickly moving tattoo plot is bookended by a number of questionable personal choices on the part of the team that, surprisingly, work well together. Kurt has sex with the right person, even though he thinks it’s wrong; Jane has sex with the wrong person, even though she thinks it’s right; and Patterson is probably going to go home and have sex with a ghost.
The Tattoo
The square and diamond logo of ROR Security. The problem is ROR Security doesn’t exist; the logo is found on a truck that was transporting Sarin gas from the US Army Chemical Materials Agency, where biological and chemical weapons are destroyed.
The Plot
The general in charge of the CMA (Victor Slezak) is secretly stockpiling chemical weapons in a misguided attempt to protect America. Vanessa Chang (Sandrine Holt) is fencing some of those weapons to South Korea to fund the stockpile. She’s also selling a few to North Korea purely for profit. Two canisters of Sarin gas end up headed towards the Stock Exchange in the hands of a radical North Korean faction when the team stops them. Zapata returns to gambling, Ali and Kurt have a heart-to-heart, and Patterson goes to her and David’s favorite restaurant on their anniversary where she finds out David solved another tattoo before he died.
Watching Your Own Funeral
A thread that hasn’t been addressed for a long time is that Jane has isotopes in her teeth that seemingly place her birthplace in Africa, making it possible that she’s not actually Taylor Shaw — which is strange, because the show has pretty much proceeded as if we all know she definitely is. This episode, we see old, pre-amnesia Jane watching a remembrance gathering for Taylor and Oscar saying she never moved on even after 25 years. So, that settles it, right? It feels like the writers left some open doors to possibly explore her not being Shaw, but abandoned them a few episodes into the series.
Related: ‘Blindspot’ Recap: Jane Is Shot by One of Her Own
Mayfair and Reade
An interesting pairing that’s now had two nice one-on-one scenes. Reade reminds Mayfair of herself when she was a young agent, so she spots his lie and gives him an opportunity to spill the beans about being coerced into giving up his pursuit of Jane. Does he not trust Mayfair? Does he think she’s a mole or maybe just that the entire office is somehow compromised?
And, for that matter, why doesn’t he confide in any other member of the team? Sure, it’s hard to talk to Weller (especially when he’s punching you in the liver), but surely he could talk to Zapata. This show could do with more Reade/Zapata banter because the only other inter-team interaction is the weird adults flirting like 5-year-olds thing that Kurt and Jane do.
The Weird Adults Flirting Like 5-Year-Olds Thing
The reasonably normal relationship between Kurt and Ali (sex and delivery Thai food is the Blindspot equivalent of “Netflix and chill”) highlights what makes the Kurt/Jane situation so weird. Kurt is basically trying to go out with the girl he knew when he was five — giving her an old trinket from when they were kids — and Jane is becoming that five-year-old for him because her brain has been erased and he’s the only one who cares about her. Because of this, it’s hard to fault Jane for having sex with Oscar — which is a bad idea for more reasons than she has tattoos.
Ghosting on Patterson
This Patterson/David thing ends one of two ways. One, he’s not dead. He shows up (anybody else half suspect/hope that he was going to show up to the dinner?) and has been part of Old Jane’s master plan all along. Two, he’s still dead, but now follows Patterson around as a hallucination. Which would you rather see? Either way ends with Patterson going bat-spit crazy.
Blind Thoughts
Desperate sex on old crates in a drafty warehouse in the middle of a New York winter with a guy whose facial hair looks it was cut by a blackout drunk with a pair of hedge clippers is the least sexy sex of them all.
Move of the Night: Jane looks like she’s about to shoot the terrorist, but she just shoots out the glass so she can jump down to the floor, roll, then cold cocks the guy, knocking him out cold. It was a moment of pure surprise and delight, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to find out Zapata’s line, “You should’ve seen the look on your face,” was added after everybody saw the finished cut of the scene and had that same look.
Blindspot airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on NBC.
