'Blindspot': Sandstorm's second mole revealed
Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Wednesday’s episode of Blindspot. Read at your own risk!
It turns out Sandstorm did have a second mole within the FBI.
During Wednesday’s episode of Blindspot, the team aligned with Nas’ Sandstorm source, who turned out to be Cade (Tom Lipinski), in order to catch Shepherd (Michelle Hurd). However, when the team was thwarted, they suspected there was another mole within their ranks - and they were right!
When Shepherd tortured Patterson (Ashley Johnson), she implanted a micro-transmitter in Patterson’s tooth, hence Sandstorm has heard everything the team has been planning since Borden (Ukweli Roach) left. The FBI then set a trap for Sandstorm, but instead of being able to interrogate the four henchmen accompanying Borden, one of them kills the other three and then himself. Borden subsequently blows himself up as well, nearly taking Patterson with him. What’s next? EW turned to executive producer Martin Gero to find out.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Patterson was ready and willing to shoot Borden. Can you talk about how that affects her? She says she’s fine, but is she really?
MARTIN GERO: This kind of grief affects people in a lot of different ways. She was willing to shoot him in pursuit, but she’s an FBI agent, she did not want to kill him. She winged him to stop him, and then when faced with the opportunity to mow him down, she didn’t, because she’s better than that. We had a lot of talk inside the room, there were certainly a fraction of people that wanted her to mow him down, because he’s done pretty much every despicable thing you can do to a person to Patterson, but she’s better than that. That’s what the show is about in a lot of ways; this team is a high ground team. Weller doesn’t want to use Omaha, he doesn’t want to take shortcuts - he wants to fight them their own way. This was Patterson’s moment to show Borden that she’s better than him.
How much guilt does Patterson feel after all this?
She wasn’t the mole, it was the molar. [Laughs] It’s a tough situation for her. Yeah, you see at the end that Patterson has had a rough go with David, with Borden, with this bug in her mouth. It’s been a rough ride for her, so the next part of the season is her trying to figure out, what now? How does she move forward now in a job that used to give her nothing but solace from her real-life problems? Suddenly, her job is causing her a lot of real-life problems.
At this point, did Borden have to die?
Yeah, I think so. The second we realized he was the mole early into season 1, we realized - especially if we were going to get him together with Patterson - he had to go. I don’t know how you redeem a character like that. I think we also wanted a death of a major character that still didn’t necessarily feel like a major victory. It’s a real mixed emotion for everybody because obviously it’s a character we love so much. He went from being a shining star on our show to being truly vile. Ukweli really played that transition so beautifully and spectacularly. It, unfortunately, continues our long line of killing off these really tremendous performers in service of story and nothing else. He’s fantastic and we’ll be very sorry to see him go.
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How will Shepherd react to not only losing her bug within the FBI but also losing Borden?
What’s nice is that after a run of six episodes where we couldn’t get a win with these guys, the noose, we feel like, is finally starting to tighten around them. We’re pushing toward a really satisfying ending for the season. We finally have turned the tide a bit in this episode.
Phase 2 is going to result in a lot of loss of life. What can you tease of the build up to this? How difficult will this be for the team to stop?
It’s going to take everything. It’s going to be the hardest thing the team has ever done. The good news is, they’re the most united they’ve been all season in a lot of ways toward the end of the season. They’re scattered now, but the second part of the season is bringing the team back to the good old team. When our team is intact, there’s nothing they can’t handle. The steps that we do to get there to get to the end are [surprising] as well. I’m insanely proud of this last half of the season, especially because there are payoffs in there that we’ve been setting up since episode 2 or 3 that finally you’ll be like, “Oh sh-, that’s what that was about?” These last run of episodes are going to be the most fulfilling for even the most casual viewer of the show.
Shepherd is on a barge in the middle of the ocean. Where is she going?
You’ll find out in episode 18!
Is she actually running or is there more to this?
No, she’s got to pick something up.
We’re getting closer to Roman finding out the truth that Jane is actually to blame for his memory loss. How will he react to that?
How do you know that’s happening?
Because that has to happen at this point! It’s the moment we’ve been waiting for all season.
Well, you can wait a little while longer.
Zapata has seemingly revealed the truth about Reade’s drug problem to Weller. How will that shake up the team?
It’s really rough on them. That’s a friendship that’s been tested a lot this year. Reade is in a really rough place. He’s definitely not going to be thrilled that Zapata has [ratted] him out.
How will Weller handle that?
It’s the next episode, so you’ll see.
The episode closed with Jane and Oliver being drugged. What can you tease for what’s next? Might this have to do with Oliver, not Jane?
Yeah, I think the twist there is - I will tease it out - not what it seems. There are layers of complexity to Oliver that we have yet to find. Jane’s initial reticence to maybe not trust him was probably right.
Blindspot airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.
