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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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