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more--than--anything · 4 years ago

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Episode review: "We just have to trust each other, like old times." [S05E9/10]

Wow. That was... a lot. How overwhelmed are you feeling after a double dose of our favorite show and knowing that there is only one episode left?

Y: What can I say... I’m usually left exhausted and a ball of anxiety and emotions after one episode of Blindspot. Hit me with two back to back, and I need a couple of days to recover and go back to being a semi-functioning human.

L: I mean, I feel less traumatized than last week? Slightly? But also pre-emptively overwhelmed thinking about what’s going to happen in that last hour. Maybe it’s good that we get this extra week in here...

Let’s take this in pieces. In the first hour, we see our team, after two seasons, finally get an edge over Madeline. How did they get there, and what does it cost them?

L: Our team starts this episode exactly where we left them: In Madeline’s custody in the NYO, grieving for Patterson (as we all were for the week leading up to this episode). In fact, the only people who aren’t grieving for Patterson are Madeline and, well, Patterson, who doesn’t have time for questions about how she survived, because she has a team to rescue. And preferably before Madeline convinces one of the team to confess to all her sins (in another superb bit of cross-cutting, from one interrogation room to another). Madeline is pretty persuasive, even threatening Tasha’s unborn child (how the hell did she find out about that?!), so it’s a good thing our team is pretty stubborn.

I’m not gonna lie, I really thought they’d stretch out the “Patterson is dead” thing longer than they did, but I am not going to complain that we got her back so quickly! Patterson starts by rescuing Boston, arriving just as Madeline’s thugs do, and then cooks up a plan to get Afreen to help her and Boston sneak into the NYO by exploiting the gender-bias on their facial recognition software. (And to cut the software some slack, I hardly recognized Patterson and Boston when they showed up. Josh Dean is fabulous as Boston in these two episodes, as always, but man, he sure makes one hell of a drag queen.) They cleverly send a message to Jane, who is about to confess to all of Madeline’s sins, via a morse code signal in the light on the camera Madeline is using to tape her confession. And then they rescue Tasha and Rich, in short order.

Weller is more heavily guarded, but fortunately Rich is no stranger to crawling through the ductwork at the NYO. And then we get another surprise, when Agent Rose walks in just as Rich reaches Weller. This is one of my favorite scenes in this episode, because it is one of the first that answers a question that’s been nagging at me all season: Does the rest of the NYO truly believe that the team is guilty of all of the crimes they’ve been accused of? Agent Rose has been around since season one. She’s worked under Mayfair, Weller, Reade... and now she’s working under Madeline. She knows what kind of person Weller is, and she knows dedicated this team is. She’s seen them put themselves in harm’s way to save others over and over again. And now she has to decide whose side she’s on. “Agent Rose, you know me. You know my team. We are not what Madeline says we are. You see that, don’t you?” And Weller-the-boss did not underestimate the loyalty of his former employee; she tells him to cuff her so it looks he overpowered her and got away.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this scene, and I think it might be good that some time has passed since the team was branded as criminals and Madeline took over. I am sure that life under Madeline’s reign has not been a party for the agents in the NYO. Even if they were persuaded to believe her about the team (or to follow Weitz’s lead) in the beginning, that confidence must have waned the longer they had to work with Madeline. I’m sure they wondered about the thugs that she brought in, and I doubt anyone was pleased about the draconian security measures she imposed upon them. If this particular scenario—the team locked up at the NYO—had happened right away, it’s possible that there wouldn’t have been as many people willing to stick their necks out for the team. But as it is... Madeline, like so many things, you brought it on yourself. And I can’t deny that it sure was fun watching her come unglued as she realized that the team was slipping through her fingers, right there under her nose.

In the meantime, Patterson has discovered that Madeline has covered her tracks very neatly, placing all the blame for her misdeeds on Weitz. Well, now we know why Madeline has been keeping him around; he’s a very useful fall guy. But fortunately for Weitz, William Patterson is in his corner, and she is able to obtain the original data, all the evidence they need to incriminate Madeline. But just having that information isn’t enough; they need to make it public, so that there is no way that Madeline can bury it. Tasha picks up her phone and calls Megan Butani, Reade’s former fiancée, who we remember is a reporter for “The New York Star.” I guess that answers the question of whether she got deported or was able to stay in the US. Tasha asks Megan to remember what kind of man Reade was and that there is no way he was guilty of the crimes Madeline pinned on him. Megan reminds Tasha that Reade dumped her because he was in love with Tasha, and Tasha tactfully doesn’t mention that she’s expecting his love child as she asks Megan to go public with all of the evidence they have on Madeline.

Ivy’s team is hustling Jane out of the NYO, so the team has to act fast. Madeline has put the whole NYO in lockdown, so the only way for them to get to Jane is to override the lockdown with an evacuation order. Unfortunately, that reveals to the goon squad that they’ve been hiding out in the server room, and the team is rounded up and taken on their second slo-mo walk through SIOC to face the music. We get two surprises then: First, that Weitz hasn’t quietly moved to Canada as he’d threatened, and second, that Agent Rose isn’t the only agent who has signed on to Team Rogue Agents. TRA emerges victorious from the shootout with Ivy’s goon squad, but Weitz is hit in the crossfire. And here we see illustrated the difference between him and the team; Jane took a similar hit, traveled back to the bunker, started searching for her husband, and then directed her own surgery without anesthetic. Sadly, Weitz, is not made of quite such resilient fiber, and passes away with a last dose of his signature snark.

Without Weitz (or Madeline, who has flown the coop), there is a bit of a power vacuum at the FBI. Without a boss to give them orders, Weller seamlessly slips back into the fearless leader slot, and the team heads out to track down Madeline with help from an anonymous tip. Tasha catches up to her on her private plane, but before she can bring Madeline in, Madeline drinks her poisoned champagne and shuffles off this mortal coil. (I’m honestly a little disappointed that Tasha didn’t see that coming, knowing Maddie’s fondness for using poison to get rid of her problems.) The location of the ZIP bombs is still unknown, although Shirley has that information on an encrypted memory stick he tries to sell to Ivy, but all he gets in return is a bullet between the eyes.

I’m not going to lie: I am a little annoyed with the way that Madeline went out. Committing suicide seems like a pretty easy way out after all that she’s done. I really wanted to see her back in prison orange, regretting all of her life choices. Same with Shirley (although I thought the way he went out was pretty harsh, even for him!). But even more, I’m disappointed that this wasn’t really any kind of end of the systemic corruption that our team (and Shepherd, for that matter) have been fighting since day one. Yes, we still have one more episode, but we have to deal with Jane being zipped and apprehending Ivy, plus (hopefully) a few minutes to give the team some sort of resolution, so I don’t know how much time is left to unravel a big conspiracy plot. I will be disappointed if we don’t get a resolution to the questions this show has been posing since the pilot.

And there are still a lot of loose ends left in the Madeline story. What about all the corrupt individuals she put in place? Weitz seemed to take the view that they were all like him, basically decent people who Madeline had tricked into doing something incriminating, but it’s equally likely that some of them were legitimately corrupt and just didn’t cover their tracks well enough, which allowed Madeline to discover their misdeeds and use them for her own ends. Lucas Nash comes to mind here. He was definitely under Madeline’s control. We know Shepherd wanted to put Keaton at the head of the CIA, which would imply that the current director and other candidates were corrupt. Is Nash still in power? Being freed from Madeline’s control doesn’t necessarily mean that those individuals will become model citizens; freed from her oversight, they could do whatever they want, including exploiting the position she put them in for their own gain.

And I am a little worried. I think it would have been better for the team if they’d brought Madeline in to face trial, rather than letting her go out on her own terms. As Weitz would say, “the optics” would be better that way. As it is, if there is any question at all about the evidence they turned up (which might not be admissible in court, or at least, it wouldn’t be in the real world), it could look like the team was just covering their own tracks rather than exposing Madeline. And ultimately... they did run, and they did refuse to turn themselves in. And when they were taken into custody, they escaped, which resulted in yet another shootout at the NYO in which the Director of the FBI was mortally wounded. And then they refused a direct order by the new interim director. But we’ll get to that in a minute...

Y: So much to discuss! So little time!!

I’m sorry, but I’m a little overwhelmed by how much was packed into the first episode, how much of it was absolutely brilliant, and how much I have to say about it all. First of all, I have to say that I absolutely loved the premise of this episode. The way it was set up and how it played out was so reminiscent of 2.21—including the building lockdown, Patterson doing computer stuff stealthily, the team sneaking their way around the office, and of course the ultimate showdown in SIOC and the director’s demise—and that episode is by far one of my favorite Blindspot episodes ever. So all of this made me very happy.

The interrogation scene was fantastic. The editing and cutting made it so much better. But by far the best thing was the head to head between the team and Madeline and the team’s tenacity and stubbornness. The way they took Madeline’s taunting and her threats and just sat there so badass and defiant. We’re going to talk about the team later—and by talk I mean mostly gush and fangirl and make weird noises about how much we love them. But for now, let’s just say that those interrogation scenes were a thing of cinematic beauty.

The way the case played out was really fun as well. There were so many little games of cat and mouse, some were through the FBI servers, some were psychological mind games, and in Rich’s case they were all about crawling through the vents to save his favorite mumbling special agent. And it all led to Madeline standing in the middle of SIOC all alone as everything collapsed around her and then the ultimate showdown between the team, Weitz and his Team Rogue Agents, and Ivy’s men. And in between all those huge moments, we got to see Agent Rose make a comeback, and Megan make a comeback as well. And you would be 100% correct if you assumed that I cheered for both of those comebacks. First, Megan, while the way she was dumped wasn’t really great, at least the show respects her enough to show us that she’s not one to hold that kind of grudge or have that residual pettiness in her. And it’s also a testament to who Reade really was that Megan knows those accusations cannot be right and that the way to honor his memory is to do what’s right here. And at the same time, a testament to Megan, her professionalism and her pedigree as a journalist. I honestly really loved that scene and the conversation with she had with Tasha and Blindspot once again not falling into the horrible cliché of vengeful exes.

And then there’s Agent Rose. Oh, Agent Rose. For five seasons now, I have singlehandedly held on to the hope that she will someday make a return. That sassy agent in that random scene with Fischer all the way back in season one made like one or two random background appearances, and I’ve stood here alone in my crusade to want her back. I am not going to lie. I never in a million years thought they would bring her back. I mean, even I—the founder and only member of the Agent Rose Fan Club—didn’t expect them to bring her back. But they did! And okay, my excitement doesn’t only stem from this weird niche obsession with her but like L said, her return and the role she played was bigger than just her, and it answered so many questions we’ve had all season, and it validated the faith we have in the team. Except for Weitz, Afreen and for a brief moment Briana, we never really got to see the rest of the agents at the NYO react to the news that the team are all traitors. Most of these people have been working with our team for years and a part of us knew they couldn’t have all just fallen for Madeline’s lies. But of course, we never really had a chance to peek into their private conversations so this episode provided the perfect opportunity to show us just how much they’ve been waiting for a chance to stand up for the team—whether it’s Agent Rose or Agent Woods or Agent Shayla or any of the other agents who proudly and confidently joined Team Rogue Agents. So it was great to see the NYO still full of these good people we’ve come to know and that their loyalty to the team is still strong.

And if I may take another moment here to just flail at how completely epic that moment was! Hands down one of the most badass moments on the show for a single character—Weitz—and one of the most badass group entrances by the Rogue Agents.

And speaking of rogue agents, I love that the little underdog resistance that Afreen and Weitz had going, never knowing if they were doing more good than evil, managed to have such a tremendous payoff. If only they knew they had so many others willing to help… And I also hope we get to see Afreen one last time in the finale because this episode and review don’t really do her enough justice for me to flail about how much I love her. I need the finale to give me some Afreen so I can justifiably spend ten hours talking about her. Or else I will have to have an independent Afreen is Awesome post. You’ve been warned.

But for now, let’s talk about Madeline. Watching her stand all alone in the middle of SIOC as everything she built collapsed around her was the first moment this season we felt the team actually win something. After everything they’ve been through, destroying all that Madeline has built felt good. But the disappointing thing about it is that in Madeline’s eyes, in some ways, it didn’t matter. She had set out to destroy the FBI and even though now she stands there defeated, in so many ways, she has already achieved what she had set out to do. The damage she has caused at the moment looks almost insurmountable. The team has put at an end to her reign of terror but the damage she has done is already catastrophic. And while this part of her story is a plot line I do enjoy, I don’t enjoy the next part of it. Setting up the finale and the next chapter in the universe with the task of rebuilding the FBI and rooting out the corruption once and for all is actually a very hopeful note to end on and maybe Madeline inadvertently did the FBI a favor. And like L, I do wonder if this opens the door to getting rid of all corruption and allows us to finally go back to what started everything and come full circle to the mysteries from season one.

I think it’s poetic that Madeline ultimately died by the same poison she used on most of her enemies, but it is frustrating that she gets to go out on her own terms, that she does not pay for her crimes and that the team don’t get the revenge they deserve. Tasha should have seen it coming. I think we all did when she sat there with a glass in from of her. But dammit, I wanted her to suffer for what she did to the team and not dictate her own fate. But I suppose that is quite a true reflection on how most monsters in this world get to go?

One person who didn’t really have things go his way was Shirley. After cutting ties with Madeline, claiming he wants to do what’s best for his family, Shirley proved he’s nothing more than a bottom feeding leech and went to Ivy seeing as she’s the boat that hasn’t sunk yet. But Ivy was lucky to be the person to do the one thing we’ve all wanted to do for almost a year now. She put a bullet between his eyes. And I know that’s cruel, but he was just unbearable. Some characters you hate to love and others you love to hate, but Shirley was just… ugh. I mean, amazing performances by Raoul Bhaneja every single time, but still. It’s interesting that this episode saw the end of two characters who for most of what we’ve seen from them have always been self-serving and good at attaching themselves to “winning projects”—Shirley and Weitz—but ultimately they went down on opposite extremes of the spectrum.

And finally, there is one more thing I want to touch upon in this section, and that is the way this season set up its villain—or villains. Essentially, it looked like the season’s ultimate villain would be Madeline and that Ivy was just the muscle she hired to get her dirty work done. But as the season progressed, we watched as Ivy and Madeline became more on equal footing in terms of who was in charge, even if Madeline thought she was the one in charge, Ivy clearly didn’t see the agreement between them as such. The power struggle was a really fun one to watch—especially with Shirley in the middle, serving Madeline for the most part but ultimately showing his true colors as only serving himself. The more things got complicated between the two women, the more the cracks showed between them and the disparity in their endgames widened the gap between them and made their agreement less amiable.

Blindspot’s never really done that before—had more than one villain at the same time—and I think in this shorter season, it gave it a little something extra and definitely made things harder on our team, especially going into the finale. It’s going to be an intense finale, but I have to admit I loved the way the antagonist was set up this season as a two-headed monster that in the end had to be split up.

L: I both agree and disagree. I liked that Madeline wasn’t the only bad guy that needed to be taken down, but I also want the final case to be more than just stopping a bomb-toting terrorist (in other words, just another Thursday for this team). I really hope there is a much bigger resolution and payoff coming—not just a case of the day, but a sewing up of the thread that somehow ties all of their cases over the past five seasons together.

Our team won the day—or at least, they finally brought Madeline down—but it was not without cost. I am not going to lie: Weitz’s death made me cry. We had a feeling that he wouldn’t make it through the season, and we were right. He finally discovered his convictions, only to die for them. But there’s no question that he died a hero. As Rich says, “When we needed you the most, you were here for us.” His resolve might have wavered like a flag in the breeze, but when it really counted, he made the right call. When we first met him, he was self-absorbed and snarky, and for the most part, he remained true to that image. But somewhere, deep down inside, he discovered a conviction and courage that no one, least of all him, suspected he had.

And it’s important to note that if he and Afreen hadn’t been able to get rid of the blackmail files on Shirley’s laptop, the team wouldn’t have been able to take her down. The editor of “The New York Star” would have killed the story before it ever saw the light of day. Not only did they destroy Madeline’s hold over him, but Weitz must also have contacted him to tell him that Madeline no longer had any leverage over him, or else the editor would have simply assumed that the blackmail was still in place. And we can’t forget his phone call to warn the team about the drone strike. Rich is right; Weitz may have driven the team crazy over the seasons, but in the moments when it mattered the most, he had their backs.

Rest in peace, Matthew. I never would have thought I’d say this, but I am really gonna miss you.

Y: Oh Matthew Weitz… what can I say to do your character and your journey justice? This was the final chapter in Weitz’s story, and like everything else in his story so far, it was an uphill battle. His instincts were screaming at him to go full ostrich, to pack up and head to Canada, but in the end he remained true to the path he’s been put on for a while, a path that Afreen—out of nowhere—helped him stay on when things got really really tough this season, and he saw it all through. It did cost him his life, but he went out completely redeemed and a true hero.

And his last words were appropriately about his hair.

It was heartbreaking to learn that the only reason Madeline kept him around for so long was to pin everything on him, but that came back to bite her because in his time staying alive, he played a huge part in destroying her blackmail material and in taking her down. I think Madeline hugely underestimated him, and I’m glad he was there to see her defeated.

That scene in SIOC when the rogue agents walked in, armed and ready to fight for him—well, for the team but also for him—brought tears to my eyes. It was an epic scene, and as Matthew’s last stand, it was as heroic as it can get.

Would I have preferred him go full ostrich? He would’ve survived which would have made me happy but very disappointed so ultimately not so happy. This is how it was meant to be. I am heartbroken but so damn proud.

Rest In Peace, Matthew. You did good. You did good.

In the second hour, our team has to face the fact that stopping Madeline doesn’t stop the threat she posed, and it doesn’t guarantee that they will ever get their old lives back. What does that mean for their present and their future?

L: Madeline’s gone, but Ivy is still out there and so are the ZIP bombs. As much as the team would like to focus on clearing their names and getting their lives back (or in Rich’s case, making a clean getaway with a new identity), or even on getting a shower and a change of clothes, first they need to stop a terror attack. You know, business as usual at the NYO? Not quite. The team doesn’t work there anymore. They have no authority to call any shots (and probably don’t even have the clearance to walk through SIOC). So Kurt, showing us exactly why he’s always been the true leader of this team, leaves it up to the people who still work there: “We are not here to take over. We’re here to help. If you’ll have us.” And the agents at the NYO, of course, take them up on his offer, because the FBI doesn’t hire dummies. (Or at least, they didn’t when Mayfair, Weller, or Reade was in charge of the NYO. I’m guessing Madeline vastly preferred dummies she controlled as opposed to the rebels who helped take her down.)

Finding Ivy isn’t going to be easy. The only clue that they have is that Madeline had a good hacker on her team. Someone who could doctor all the documents to point to Weitz and build a puzzle that would trick Patterson and lead Madeline to the bunker. Someone very quirky, kooky even. Someone like their old pal Kathy “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” Gustafson, the third blind mouse, who disappeared after she set loose all manner of chaos in Iceland. The team is moving out to track her down when she walks into the NYO and turns herself in. Patterson and Rich try to “good cop/bad cop” her but are entertainingly blindsided by her offer to help them in exchange for the “good” deal. “The one where you ignore all the bad stuff I did and put me on the team full-time. I want the Rich Dotcom deal.” And frankly, you gotta love a show that can laugh at itself like that. Because, yes, it really is kind of ridiculous that Rich is in the position that he’s in. He should be in jail, or at the very least, not on the FBI payroll. But he is, and of course we wouldn’t have it any other way.

For all of Kathy’s craziness, she’s actually pretty straightforward about this. Ivy wants her to hack Madeline’s Darkcloud server, so she can find out where Madeline stored the ZIP bombs. But Kathy doesn’t want to be on Ivy’s team. “I’m not an evil person. Ivy is and so is her plan. I don’t want people to lose their memories. They’re all we have.” So she’s come to the FBI instead to tell them what she didn’t tell Ivy: She doesn’t need to hack Madeline’s Darkcloud key, because she built it and left herself a backdoor. Of course. If this show has taught us nothing at all, it is that programmers always, always leave themselves a backdoor, whether it’s a videogame, a secure messaging service, or a cloud server solution.

Rich and Patterson squabble for a bit about whether they can trust Kathy, until Patterson finally tells the whole team off: “You are all being hypocrites. We are asking... for a second chance, and we can’t even give Kathy one?” Which is a valid point, no matter how little we trust Kathy. Rich attempts to bluff Kathy, but Patterson delivers her second truth bomb of the day, “We can’t give you a deal because we don’t even have a deal. Stopping Ivy is our best chance at getting one. And if we can get a deal, I will do everything I can to make sure that you get one, too.” It’s not the offer Kathy was hoping for, but it’s the best she’s gonna get—especially once she realizes that the alternative is being arrested for taking down the power grid for Madeline—so she accepts.

Unfortunately, by the time Kathy gets to work, she discovers that she’s too late. Another hacker has beaten her to the punch. Another hacker with a very familiar coding style. Another hacker named Boston Arliss Crab. They need to find him, and fast, because Ivy is going to kill him as soon as she gets what she wants. Or she’ll kill him if he doesn’t get her what she wants. Either way, the outcome for Boston is very very not good. And just to make sure that he grasps the gravity of the situation, Ivy cuts off one of his fingers. And eeek, as much as I should have expected Ivy to do something horrible, I did not see that one coming. Boston puts his remaining nine digits to work doing Ivy’s bidding, and his first order of business is locking Kathy, Patterson, and Rich out of the darkcloud server.

As it turns out, our Three Blind Mice do not, in fact, appreciate being blind. Since they can’t get the information Ivy is after, they figure out how to remotely enable the webcam on Boston’s machine and try to locate him that way. They can only narrow his location to a neighborhood, so they have to resort to old school sound triangulation to find him, which means that Weller, Jane, and Tasha are in one SUV, and poor Patterson gets to drive with Rich and Kathy bickering in the backseat. I think Patterson might reconsider the whole adoption thing, after her “driving mom” experience. It’s really not for the faint of heart, and I can attest that being good at math is really no help at all.

By the time the team arrives, Ivy and her team are long gone, leaving poor Boston standing on a pressure-plate bomb, a distraction to keep the team busy while Ivy goes to get the ZIP. Weller, Jane, and Tasha head out after Ivy while Rich and Kathy and Boston bicker incessantly and Patterson works on defusing the bomb. (And I am not gonna lie, listening to them all throw shade at each other’s coding skills totally cracks me up.) Unfortunately, instead of disabling the bomb, they engage a timer which gives them five minutes to figure a way out. Boston tries to send them all away, but Rich recognizes what he’s doing (in much the same way that Patterson realized that Rich was plagiarizing Harry Potter when he told them that Boston was dead). “I always thought we’d all end up together. All of us. Like some really good looking modern family,” Boston says, and he is not at all alone there. Trust us, Boston, that is what this entire fandom wants!

Kathy insists the only way she can defuse the bomb is by switching places with Boston, so they pile some weights on her as Boston attempts to be honest about his weight (a struggle that everyone who has been eating their way through quarantine and mainlining chocolate during this final season can relate to). The two of them trade places, and then Kathy tells them that there really isn’t any way to stop the timer. “Look, I created this mess. The attack on the power grid. Framing you guys and your friends. Helping Madeline find you... I just need to make it right.” She shoos them away, and they run and take cover, only to discover that the bomb has been disarmed and Kathy is gone.

And at the end of the day, Patterson and Rich were both right. Kathy did help them, and yes, she also played them. But can you really blame her for escaping at the end? She’s already been to prison, and she doesn’t want to go back. Yeah, her obsession with Rich and Patterson is a little weird, but it’s not all that different from Rich’s fascination with Jane and Weller, and he turned out okay. For all Kathy’s kookiness, she was honest about what she wanted. And in the end, Boston does pretty much exactly the same thing as Kathy does; he takes off instead of waiting around to see what the new director decides to do with them. Rich is our only convicted felon who is brave enough to stick around and hope for clemency.

Arla Grigoryan, the new Interim Director of the FBI has arrived in the NYO and her first order of business is to recall Weller et al from the field, where they are closing in on Ivy and the ZIP bombs. But the backup is too far out to get there in time, and so our heroes make the call to go after Ivy instead of following orders. I really want to believe that this decision won’t doom them at the FBI, but honestly, this season has been a lot more grim and loss-filled than we’re used to on this show, and my optimism is really running low.

Weller takes out Ivy’s thugs as Jane finds Ivy, loading the ZIP into the bombs. Ivy escapes through a door which locks behind her, trapping Jane in the room just as the ZIP bomb goes off. Knowing she has already been exposed, she does the only thing she can to protect Kurt and seals the airlock door. And for the second time in two weeks, the music swells as we watch someone mouth “I’m sorry” through a door before being obscured, and frankly, that is two times too damn many for my poor, broken heart.

So if those were the only bombs that Ivy had, the team just won, but nothing has ever felt less like a win. We know that Patterson has the antidote for ZIP, so it’s a good bet that she’s gonna be able to serve up a cure for Jane, but damn.

Everything hurts and I need more chocolate.

Y: I’m going to say this here and no one take it the wrong way. Nothing ever good has happened that has involved Kathy Gustafson! I was completely team Rich on this throughout the episode and was screaming at Patterson to not trust her and yes, I know she ultimately saved Boston’s life, but was it all worth it?!

Yes, Boston’s life is worth it, but I am sure the team would’ve saved him some other way, and they would’ve found the ZIP some other way too. Oh, and speaking of finding the ZIP, we all know how that ended so maybe not finding it would’ve been better? I’m sorry, but I am just very very upset and even with all the chocolate I’ve consumed, it has not helped, and I just want to team up with Rich and rant about Kathy for the next fifteen years.

I think I am mostly upset, also, that this being the penultimate episode, Tasha, Kurt and Jane got so little time because we were focused on the A Plot of the episode, and I was hoping we’d see more of them. There I said it. It’s all Kathy’s fault and I hate Kathy. In fact, everybody should hate Kathy. Maybe this could have been called Everybody Hates Kathy Part Two?

Okay, now that I have gotten this off my chest, I can relax—not really—and talk about something else. All the bantering and bickering and the shouting and the nerding aside, this episode provided an interesting character juxtaposition by including both Boston and Kathy along with Rich. These three in many ways fit in the same category, and Kathy really was trying to fit into the Rich Dotcom mold—if we’re going to believe her claim that she wanted to work with the FBI and get a similar deal. In many ways those three represent that category in its different phases, and they’ve been allowed evolve within it surrounded by different circumstances.

For Kathy, I think, she put it perfectly when she mentioned how lonely she is. We know that one of the main reasons Rich has been allowed to grow and develop is the fact that he was welcomed into this family and was surrounded by these people. Kathy has a lot of issues, not necessarily the same issues as Rich, but issues nonetheless. And maybe had she had the same nurturing environment that was allowed for Rich she could find a way to change and become better. The question is, does she want to? It seems that the concept of it is something that appeals to her, but then again, when she talks to Patterson after escaping, she tells them that they’re delusional.

Who knows what could be next for Kathy Gustafson, whether her love for chaos would overpower her inkling for good, if she’ll find the right environment to allow one to outgrow the other, or if she will continue to sway in the middle—one minute lending a hand to the good guys and the other minute dancing over the ashes of the city with the Madelines and Dominics of the world.

Our team has been through so much, and they still haven’t gotten their lives back. But they just never, ever give up, especially not on each other. How are they staying strong, both individually and together, through this journey?

Y: All you need to know is that Patterson is not dead and she saves the world. Again.

Okay, maybe that’s not all you need to know, but it is at the core of what you need to know because William Patterson is alive! And if you think we’re happy about it, you should’ve seen how happy the team were! And if there was ever any doubt of how loyal this team are to each other, how supportive they are of each other, how far they’re willing to go to save each other, and how much stronger they are as a team, this episode denounces all those doubts.

First of all, the first of the double bill episodes gave us what will go down as two of the best reunions ever on Blindspot.

Maybe even three, because Afreen and Weitz’s discovery that Patterson is alive was just absolutely precious. Okay, maybe precious on Afreen’s end and absolutely adorably panicked on Weitz’s.

And then there are the reactions of both Tasha and Rich to Patterson being alive and nothing in the world could ever be so pure and also so heartbreaking. Tasha’s reaction made me smile and cry all the happy tears. But it was Rich’s quiet somber reaction that absolutely destroyed me. This man has come such a long way, and this relationship has grown to become one of the most honest and loving and genuine relationships on the show, and I am an emotional wreck.

Watching Patterson take full control to save her friends and to clear their names was a thing of magic. We know just how good she is. She has spent the last years proving day in and day out that she is the best. Simply the best. But it never ceases to amaze me when I watch her do her thing on screen. Seriously, my love for Patterson in this episode was almost all consuming that I cannot even bring myself to talk about things, you know, intellectually.

Patterson was her beautiful Patterson self. In the first episode she was everything we know she is. She survived the bunker explosion, found her way back to the US, saved Boston and then spent the day as the true leader that she is to get her friends out of lockdown and bring Madeline down. In the second episode, she again showed the true leader in her, and while I personally was on team Rich with regards to Kathy, I know Patterson did the right thing and that her decisions led to saving Boston and locating the ZIP. She displayed true leadership qualities, unparalleled empathy, and genuine belief in other people, in the concept that people can change and deserve second chances.

And at that she’s a much bigger person than I am.

L: Patterson isn’t our LeBron for nothing. She figured out how to survive the bunker explosion, rescue Boston, sneak into the FBI, save the team, and get the evidence they needed to stop Madeline. I’d appreciate her feats even more if I could stop crying for joy that she’s alive.

I am not going to lie; the reunions of the team members—especially when they realize Patterson is alive and well—are my favorite moments in these two episodes. And I honestly can’t decide which I loved more: Tasha’s “You are the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen” or Rich’s heartfelt “Promise me you won’t ever do that again.” This team is a family, and there is nothing more painful than believing you’ve lost a member of your family. This team has been through so much and lost so much, and this week I am crying tears of joy right along with them that they didn’t lose Patterson, too. For the first (and only) time, I’m glad that this season is so short, because if it was longer, there probably would have been a Patterson-free episode in the middle of this arc, and honestly, I don’t know if my heart could have taken that.

I think the thing that struck me most about Patterson in these two episodes is how all-around smart she is. She’s computer smart, we all know that. And she’s pretty damn good at disguises. But she’s also people smart, as we see in her decision to trust Kathy. She refuses to lie to her, she yells at Rich when she realizes he is deliberately slowing Kathy down. Okay, maybe she should have known that Kathy was lying about the bomb at the end, but also... maybe she did know, and went with it anyway.

I think Patterson understands Kathy better than anyone else. As we saw in the conversation between Rich and Patterson in last week’s episode, it’s not always easy to be the smartest person in the room. It might make people respect you, but it doesn’t always win you a lot of friends. Being part of the FBI team gave both Patterson and Rich (and Boston) a circle of close friends who look out for them and love them for their eccentricities, not in spite of them. Kathy has never had that, and it has been clear in all of their interactions that she’s been desperately trying to find that same kind of family of her own. And Patterson knows that Madeline and Dominic played on Kathy’s loneliness to reel her into their nefarious plans. Patterson was manipulated by Borden in the same way that Kathy was manipulated by Dominic, so of all of them, she is the one most likely to understand Kathy’s perspective.

So in summary... Patterson is smart, but she’s also got a really big heart. And that’s one of the reasons why we love her so damn much.

Y: These guys have been through hell this season. It’s true that no season has been easy, but this year has just felt like it’s been so much harder. With the loss of Reade, the endless string of losses to Madeline, and all the bad luck they’ve faced, it’s a true testament to who they are that they’re still hanging in there, still fighting, refusing to give up and determined to do the right thing.

And no one has had a rougher season than Tasha. She’s really had to dig very deep to continue to find strength and purpose to push forward. She hasn’t found it easy to open up to her teammates, but still she’s leaned on them when she’s needed them, and not once did they abandon her or let her down.

But Tasha has really shined in the moments where she’s been on her own and in a head to head confrontation with someone else. And she has done especially good when she’s come up against Madeline. In the brief scenes of the interrogation that we did see, Tasha once again was just fantastic, resilient, strong, fearless and the perfect antithesis to Madeline, as much as Madeline would want to believe that she and Tasha are the same.

And as much as that last scene on the plane with Madeline frustrated me for how it ended with Madeline, it was great for Tasha in that she finally got to finish the case that has taken so much from her over the past two seasons and to finally stand victorious in front of the woman who has literally destroyed her life in so many ways.

I don’t know how much Madeline taking her own life will feel like a victory for Tasha or if she too will take it as a cop out—like everything she had gone through has gone to waste. But I also hope that Tasha can find some peace after all of this and feel like she’s been on the right side of this whole thing all this time and that her sacrifices have not gone to waste.

L: Oh, Tasha. There’s no surprise that Tasha was the first one on the scene to capture Madeline. Facing down Madeline might be Tasha’s most powerful moment in this entire series. Madeline took literally everything from Tasha. Her professional reputation, her career at the CIA, her friend and mentor in Keaton, even her best friend and the man she loved. And Madeline knew that and gloated about it. I am sure there is nothing more Tasha wanted than to slap the cuffs around Madeline’s wrists, and I’m angry again at Madeline that she did not get that moment.

And I’m not going to lie, I’m worried about where Tasha goes from here. I think she’s been able to avoid really thinking about Reade’s death or the fact that she’s carrying his baby by focusing on taking Madeline down. Now that she has... what’s ahead of her now? She’s lost Keaton, too, and any chance of returning to the CIA. Is there a place for her at the FBI? And if so, can she still fit in there, if she even wants to be in a place where everything reminds her of Reade?

When they were on the run, the team was just focused on stopping Madeline and magically getting their lives back. But now they are finally admitting that it might not be that simple. As Kurt says, “We didn’t do what Madeline framed us for, but we did do a lot of other things. And... Grigoryan, she doesn’t know us. And on paper, we don’t look so good.” Tasha isn’t the only one to worry about their future, but she’s the one I’m most worried about, because her place is the least clear of all of them. Patterson is back in the lab, where she belongs, and if Grigoryan isn’t smart enough to do everything in her power to keep her there, then she’s not smart enough to run the FBI. Kurt and Jane will be with Bethany and Allie and Conor, either in NYC or in Colorado. Whatever is ahead of them, they’ll face together. And I think Rich and Boston will be much the same, even if they do it from the flirty distance they usually do. But Tasha? Stay with your family, Tasha. You know they will be there for you. And really... kids are a lot of work, and it’s hard to find babysitters you can trust.

Y: If season five should be remembered for one thing, it should be how we got to see Rich Dotcom finally become the best version of himself. He’s found his purpose, found his heart, found his family, found his strengths, found his light, learned how to balance it with his dark and embrace all the parts of himself.

I’ve talked about this before, and I am going to do it again, and it’s how season five has more than once brought back people from Rich’s past and put them side by side with Rich to compare the two. These people have presented who Rich was and who he would have been now had he not found this team, and it’s been really great seeing that comparison and appreciating Rich’s journey more and more.

The second episode in the double episode did that with two people—Boston and Kathy. In some ways, Kathy represents the other extreme to what Rich has become. The taste for chaos and anarchy that is left unchecked and giving in to every impulse that Kathy displays versus how Rich has evolved until—much to his annoyance—he often finds himself the voice of reason.

And with Boston, the phone call between them in the beginning of the episode provides insight as to how Boston, while trying to find that path that led Rich to where he is, isn’t there yet. If Kathy is on one end of the spectrum, Boston still finds himself in the middle, struggling to give up some of his older habits as he tells Rich “we have to take care of ourselves.” To which Rich replies, “Yeah, but that’s all we’ve ever done,” indicating that for Rich, these older habits are things they have to learn to move on from.

Boston is still stuck in that mindset, while Rich has moved on and is in a place where he would never abandon his team even if he knows it will lead to something horrible.

Finally, one last thing… I think what made me the proudest I have ever been of Rich is how he’d forgiven Matthew. I cried, people, I totally cried.

L: Yeah, that scene got me right in the feels. And I think it’s significant, because, like Weitz, Rich certainly vacillated between being out for himself and being a team player. It makes sense that he is the hardest on Weitz, not just because he got sent to a blacksite, but also because he is measuring Weitz by the yardstick he uses to measure himself. We are always the least tolerant of the flaws in others that we struggle with in ourselves. It’s safe to say that no matter what happens in the finale, Rich Dotcom has officially completed his amazing character arc. He’s successfully transitioned from self-serving criminal to full-on FBI team player. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy being Rich DotTwo, with all this new self-awareness and a highly developed conscience.

I loved Rich’s speech to the team at the start of 5.10. “Sorry, just before anyone else says anything heroic, may I remind you that we’re still wanted criminals.” One part of Rich’s evolution is this new, adult way of looking at things. “Best case scenario, we get fired. Worst case? I’ve been there before, and I don’t exactly plan to go back.” He understands what’s at stake, and he knows that—of all of them—he’s the least likely to get a deal at the end of all of this. So honestly, I couldn’t blame him if he wanted to run. But the thing is, he doesn’t, because the second part of Rich’s evolution is his newly-discovered skill of self-sacrifice (which, yes, he totally picked this up from the team as Madeline describes, “These people have made falling on their swords into an art form.”). He can’t leave the team to see this through on their own, knowing that he could help, even when it means giving up on the idea of a future with Boston. When Boston tells him that they need to look out for themselves, Rich tells him, “Yeah, but that’s all we’ve ever done.” Being a part of this team is the first time he’s been part of something bigger than himself, and it’s the first time he’s gone out of his way to do the right thing just because it’s the right thing—and it’s even more poignant because of what he is giving up—the chance to run away and build a new life with Boston. And even if you’re not Rich, it’s a tough call—save the world or save your future with the person you love? But in this context, knowing how far Rich has come and how hard he’s worked to get to this point... It’s an impossible call, and I’m all the more proud of him for making it.

Y: One last, probably completely unnecessary note, but I cannot be the only one who freaked out when Ivy grabbed Boston’s hand to cut off his finger, right? Forget hacking, the man is an artist, and he needs those fingers!! Fortunately, she left him with nine so his art career isn’t ruined.

And I know I was a bit tough on Boston in my review, but I do love me some Boston Arliss Crab. Since his days of bantering with Patterson are over, I am glad we got to see some with Kathy. Josh Dean is really good at that. And he’s also good at many other things. His humor is fantastic, he has amazing chemistry with Ennis and with Ashley, and in these two episodes he really got to shine. It’s hard to believe that Boston is only a recurring character. It feels like he’s been part of the show for so long and such an integral part of it.

I just love them all so much and I am very emotional—and yes, I am writing this on the day of the finale, just hours before it airs, so I am extra emotional. If that is even possible.

Like the rest of their team, Kurt and Jane go through a lot in these two hours of television, only to finish on a terrifying note. How do they tackle these challenges, both together and alone, and what do we think this means for their future?

Y: Was it just me or was Kurt extra barky in the second hour of this double episode? He just seemed a bit more growly than usual. And yes, I am talking about this to avoid talking about the… other thing.

There are other things I’m willing to talk about as well. Mainly all the awesome Kurt things that happened this week. Like the rest of the team, Kurt during the interrogation was as badass as we’ve known Kurt Weller to be. He was absolute fire, stubborn as hell, defiant, and so confident in his team. Honestly, that sequence was close to the most badass we have ever seen the team—all of them.

But I think the most badass Kurt scene is—not just in this episode but maybe in the history of badass Kurt moments—is him taking out six armed mercenaries on his way to rescue Jane. Excuse me, but what was that? I don’t know about you, but I cannot stop watching this scene, watching this man do literally the impossible to save his wife and become an entire army himself to get to her.

The Jeller reunion was quintessentially Jeller. It involved some badass fighting, trademark Jeller softness, and of course the adorable flirting during a life and death situation. This is our ship. This is the ship we’ve loved for five years.

And then there was Kurt’s reunion with Bethany. Sigh… that was just the purest thing ever and Little Bee is the most precious little girl ever. That scene melted my heart and soul and Bethany telling her dad to hurry back to her absolutely destroyed me. So I can only imagine what it did to poor Kurt.

L: One of my favorite Kurt Weller scenes in these two episodes is at the start of 5.10, when he stands in the middle of SIOC and basically announces that he doesn’t have any authority there anymore. He tells the gathered agents that the team is not there to take over. They are there to help... if they’re wanted. And he leaves the choice up to them. We’ve talked a lot about how different members of the team have shown leadership this season, and those examples have frequently contrasted with Madeline’s dictatorial style. And this moment showed us so much about what kind of a leader Kurt is. He doesn’t tell them what they should do. He lets them make that call. As we’ve mentioned before: Kurt Weller never asks anyone to take a risk that he wouldn’t take. And he respects the people who look to him for leadership. He asks for their input, he respects their opinions (even when they disagree with his own), and he gives them the choice of doing what their consciences dictate. In short, he is the exact opposite of Madeline and is the best leader that any of them could ask for.

And yeah, he’s also a devoted husband and father. We just really love Kurt Weller, okay??

Y: Oh! How could I forget to mention that scene in the opening of 5.10. That was… just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Everything we love about Kurt Weller and then some. Seeing him standing in the middle of SIOC, in his natural born leader pose… it just makes me happy… and it’s such a perfect parallel to the scene in the Pilot as well. Yes, I know we have had several of those scenes, but that one from the Pilot really jumped at me.

Now… onto Jane… Jane, Jane, Jane...

Not to be outdone by her husband, who is willing to fight six fully armed men while he himself is not armed, Jane does the thing we all expected her to do—sacrifice herself for her team. I had a feeling Jane would do this. We know Jane. We’ve known her long enough to know that she would be the first to fall on her sword to protect everyone else. That’s what makes her Jane. That’s what we love about her. And I know that Madeline would not have honored the deal, but Jane really didn’t have much of choice and it’s so true to who she is that she would do that.

But sometimes Jane’s willingness to sacrifice herself to save those she loves can become a little too much and cause us a little too much pain. And I am still not ready to discuss this.

L: Jane’s self-sacrificing nature is simultaneously one of the things I love most about her and one of the things that makes me yell at my television screen like a crazy person.

We already know that Jane blames herself for, well, everything. And to some degree, she’s not entirely wrong. Her arrival in Times Square did put this story in motion. But that doesn’t mean it’s all her fault. The cases the team followed, the corruption they were fighting... all of that was already there, whether Jane showed up or not. If her tattoos hadn’t led the team there, something or someone else might have. There’s no guarantee that Shepherd—or even someone else—wouldn’t have put some other plan into action if Remi hadn’t returned from Afghanistan willing to join Sandstorm. And it’s not fair to blame her for the actions of others—for Oscar or Crawford or Madeline. And even if Jane can’t admit it, an awful lot of good came from her joining the team. All the criminals they put behind bars, all the evil plans they stopped, and all the innocent lives they saved. As Tasha put it, “Do you realize how many times this team has saved the world?”

But we know all of this has been weighing on Jane’s mind all season. And then we add in the weight of Patterson’s “death”; Patterson, who was the first person to welcome Jane to the team and who saved Jane’s life from her lab so many times out in the field. And finally, add the knowledge that Kurt will never get to be there to watch Bethany grow up, when Jane has already sacrificed her own happiness once before to ensure that Kurt would have this future. So it’s really no surprise at all that Jane is willing to accept all the blame for the team’s “crimes” in exchange for Madeline’s promise that the team will be treated fairly and sent to federal prison instead of an anonymous blacksite.

And similarly, it was no surprise at all that, when faced with the prospect of exposing Kurt to ZIP or taking all the risk herself, Jane would choose again to sacrifice herself. It’s who she is. It’s who she was as Remi—willing to sacrifice herself to stop the corruption they saw in the government—and it’s who she is as Jane. Like Kurt, she won’t ask anyone to take a risk that she won’t take, and if she has to sacrifice herself to save her husband or the rest of her family? Well, then there really isn’t a choice to be made.

Look, I am not worried about Jane. We know that Patterson has the stem cells and the cure for ZIP. Jane’s gonna be fine. Honestly, I’m a lot more worried about how Kurt is going to deal with Jane having her memory wiped.

Y: Okay, enough days have passed that I think I am ready to talk about that last scene in 5.10. If the elevator kiss in 5.08 was peak Power Couple Jeller, then the final scene of 5.10, with Jane in the world’s worst Escape The Room situation, is peak Epic Tragic Jeller. First from Jane’s perspective, this is such a Jane thing to do—sacrificing herself for the ones she loves. And that moment right there reminded me so much of 1.15, when Jane goes on the run to protect the team from Cade, and in the end when Kurt confronts her about it, and she asks him what he would have done in her place. And to that, Kurt replied that he would have done the same.

And he would have. In both situations, Kurt would have done exactly what Jane did.

And that is why these two will always be the most epic of ships—tragic, legendary, heartbreaking, a love story for the ages. As heartbreaking as that scene was, and what it sets up, and as nervous as it makes us going into the finale, it just seems right that Jeller get to go through something this huge in the finale. Every season finale has put Jeller through the impossible, so it is in typical Jeller tradition that the series finale puts them through even a harder final ordeal than ever before.

I don’t know what is going to happen. I am braced for the worst and hoping for the best. But what I do know is that this ship has for five seasons been perfect—well, almost perfect. They’ve made us laugh and cry and flail and swoon and cry some more and flail some more. They’ve been through everything—and put us through everything—and it’s only appropriate that at the end of the day they go through one final challenge that really tests who they are and who they’ve become and that beautiful bond between them.

I’m terrified and excited and scared and worried and at the edge of my seat.

And I have faith.

I have faith.

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Which brings us almost to the end of the fifth and final season of Blindspot. How has this season met your expectations? Is there anything that you need to see in the last episode? Come talk to our Ask Box. Or just come and wail about how much you love this show and don’t want it to end.

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: jane doe #character: kurt weller #character: patterson #character: tasha zapata #character: rich dotcom #character: boston arliss crab #character: matthew weitz #character: madeline burke #character: ivy sands #ship: Jane/Kurt

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more--than--anything · 5 years ago

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Episode Review: "These people are all the family I have now." [S05E05]

Instead of asking how you liked the episode this week, we should just ask... Are you okay??

Y: I don’t think I have ever been this not okay. I don’t know when I’ll ever get even close to being okay after this.

L: Same. That hurt on pretty much every level. And we ran out of chocolate halfway through.

Let’s start with the case of the week, which wasn’t so much of a case as it was a massive round of “panic in the bunker.” How does Team Bunker rally to save their captured and wounded teammates?

L: As is often the case, this episode feels like it starts just moments after the last one ended (although there was apparently time for Jane to take the train back to the bunker with a bullet hole in her side; I guess public transportation is full of bizarre sights all around the globe). The team immediately sets to work trying to locate Weller, once again hampered by normal people computers. But Ivy’s people are very good at what they do, and the SUV they speed off in is careful to avoid traffic cameras. The team is forced to deal with the idea that they might not be able to find Kurt before Ivy tortures their location out of him, but before they can seriously consider leaving the bunker, Jane collapses, and the team realizes that her idea of a “graze” is more like a normal person’s “get my affairs in order” wound.

No one in the bunker feels confident about the idea of operating on Jane to remove the bullet, but she refuses to go to a hospital with Kurt still in Ivy’s clutches, so the team preps her for surgery (and by “preps” we mean Patterson gathers medical supplies from their rather impressive stockpile while Rich freaks out). And then we get a totally awkward moment in which, despite Rich’s desperate attempts at deflection, Tasha is cornered into admitting that even though she is the only person in the bunker with the right blood type, she can’t donate blood for Jane because she is pregnant. Talk about a pregnant pause. Tasha insists that it’s okay, she’ll donate in spite of the risk, but Jane flatly refuses to let her. And then, proving that she is every bit the badass we think she is, Jane proceeds to direct Patterson through the surgery to remove the bullet as she watches in a strategically-placed mirror. I’m not particularly squeamish, but I am not going to lie; this whole scene had me curled up in the fetal position. Patterson gets the bullet out, but Jane passes out, and just as Tasha is about to donate blood anyway, Rich shows up clutching an Igloo cooler with a bag of blood for Jane.

Not to be outdone, Patterson proves that she almost as badass as Jane by completing the surgery and immediately continuing the search for Kurt. Ivy’s team ditched the SUV, but there were only four roads out of the location where it was found, and two of those roads are washed out. Tasha’s had enough of being treated like glass, so she grabs a gun and heads out to Germany to be ready to follow up on whatever lead Patterson has by then. Patterson and Rich don’t let her down; they figure out the likely route the Dabbur Zann would have taken and locate an abandoned machine shop along the way. They send the info to Tasha so she can collect their stubbly, drugged up, emotionally destroyed friend. And again, I’m wondering exactly how they got back to Prague on the train, but I suppose people around them not-incorrectly assumed Kurt was just going through detox and gave them a wide berth.

So this week’s case was less a case than it was damage control. And the damage wasn’t too bad, all things considered. Jane is recovering from her bullet wound. Their location is still more or less secure. Ivy and company are still alive and know that the team is squirreled away in a European bunker, but it’s still not going to be easy to find them. Bethany is out of the hospital and has disappeared underground again with Allie. And in the meantime, the team has the footage from Ivy’s camera that Kurt swiped on his way out that gives them a cell phone number that Ivy called before she began torturing Kurt. It’s a small clue, but it’s something, so today seems like another mark in the win column.

But this is Blindspot, and we can’t end on an upbeat note. Just as our team is able to take a deep breath and relax, their old buddy Ice Cream and compatriots burst into the bunker and demand that Rich hand over the Gardner paintings. Which of course he doesn’t have. So you know what that means: We get a heist next week!

And honestly, I’m all for it. That will be much easier on my nerves!

Y: It’s really hard to determine whether this week was a loss or a win for our team. So far this season, their losses have outweighed their wins and even when it was a win, it still managed to carry some feeling of loss with it. Unfortunately, with Madeline things are proving a lot harder than ever before. And that is for many reasons. Madeline plays way more outside the box than anyone else. Her endgame is so unclear. And on top of that, the team is playing with more disadvantages than anyone can be comfortable with—they’re a man down, they’re being hunted by every law enforcement agency in the world, and they don’t have access to their favorite toys or their strongest allies.

Another disadvantage is that the team is still playing defense against Madeline. With such limited access to intel, all they can do now is attempt to block anything she’s trying to do. I don’t know how they can do so, but to cause serious damage against her they need to start playing offense.

But anyway, back to this episode. Stopping the chemicals from getting into Dabbur Zann’s hands was definitely a win. And tracking the phone number they got from the surveillance footage is definitely a win. It finally gives them a window into what Ivy and her team are doing.

The one thing that is questionable as to what column it belongs is Ivy surviving this week. I’m going to try and be the glass half full person here and say it might not end up as bad as we fear. Yes, it keeps Ivy in the game and now she has one piece of information she can work with when it comes to tracking the team. But Ivy surviving this might also be bad news for her. She had Kurt Weller right there and lost him. And we know how Madeline feels about people who fail her.

She’s not a big fan of them. So who knows... maybe Ivy failing at this mission will be too much for Maddie to swallow?

Although as much as I hate her, I think she’s a formidable opponent, and I’d like to see her stick around a little longer. Mostly just to see the team take her down properly.

Even in the face of multiple crises, our team continues to cope with their personal turmoils as best they can. But what does all this mean to their family dynamic?

Y: This team... this team is everything. We know this team is capable of doing things that are beyond amazing. They save the world on a daily basis and do it in style. But whenever the case is saving one of their own, they turn that dial up and become infinitely more amazing than they are on a typical workday. We’ve seen this happening since day one. It’s not a new thing.

So what happens when it’s two of their own who need saving?

Magic. Pure magic.

Seriously, what the team was able to accomplish this week is right up there with stopping Shepherd and Sandstorm from nuking the East Coast. And for the sake of shaking things up, let’s start with Patterson this week. And the reason for that is while once again we saw Patterson be brilliant, we also had a rare glimpse of Patterson portraying some “intellectual” vulnerability.

I loved that moment when Patterson pauses and admits that she’s not confident enough to perform the surgery—that despite usually giving off an air of being good at everything, this just might be the line where Patterson’s expertise stops.

And I have a feeling that put in the same situation under any other circumstances, Patterson wouldn’t have hesitated as much. I think part of what made her take a step back is the fact that she’s having to perform surgery on Jane—one of their own. I honestly believe that Patterson does possess the basic know-how of how to perform this surgery. But I think that was outweighed by the fear of anything happening to Jane on the operating table and the fact that Kurt is out there most definitely being tortured by the Dabbur Zan. We got to see Patterson’s heart overpower her mind for once.

But the minute Jane’s out of danger and Patterson’s back where she’s most comfortable—behind her computer—she’s back to being that confident badass genius we know her to be.

L: It’s not that often that we hear Patterson say something like, “I honestly don’t think we can do this.” She is always certain that they can think of a way out, and she is usually the one who comes up with the solution that saves the day. But operating on Jane sends her way outside of her comfort zone, and frankly, watching Patterson, I think I was as tense as she was. But I also loved the way Jane kept reassuring her, telling her that she could do this and giving her the confidence to go on. There is something about the friendship between these women and how they support each other that is just so awesome.

My read on Patterson this week was that she definitely did not feel confident in operating on Jane, but she knew that Jane wasn’t going to go to the hospital, so if Jane was going to survive then it was up to Patterson to do it. And Patterson being Patterson, she more than rises to the occasion. And I think some of that goes back to that “birth of a leader” moment we talked about in the season 4 finale. It’s not just that Patterson is smart; there are plenty of people out there who are extremely smart but are far more comfortable to fade into the background and let others take the lead. But Patterson isn’t going to ask anyone else to shoulder the responsibility for Jane’s survival. Like any good leader, she steps up to shoulder the risk herself. In some ways, she was protecting Tasha and Rich—if the outcome was bad, she would be the one to carry the blame, not them. And then Jane one-ups her, by taking the decision out of Patterson’s hands to relieve her of that burden. Again, these women!!

But even worse than the surgery, I think that finding out about Tasha’s pregnancy—and that Rich was in on the secret but she was not—was the biggest trauma for Patterson in this episode. We’ve commented before that the friendship between Tasha and Patterson never really recovered from Tasha concealing Borden’s role with the CIA. And while keeping the information about Borden from Patterson was a mistake in retrospect, I do understand Tasha’s position: Tasha Zapata is fiercely loyal to the people she loves. And she expected that Patterson would know that and would understand that if Tasha kept something from her, it was to protect her from being hurt. But Patterson, of course, saw it as an unforgivable betrayal. And although I do think that by now Patterson has more or less gotten past that, in the shocked moment after she found out about Tasha’s pregnancy, I think she finally realized that Tasha hadn’t ever really gotten over Patterson’s lack of trust in her. And frankly, I don’t think she really considered that before. I think she was too overwhelmed by her own pain to see that Tasha might have been hurt by the way Patterson cut her out of her life.

So yes, it made total sense for Patterson to reach out to Tasha with love and concern and support, to try to overcome that breach—but unfortunately, Tasha was really not ready to deal with any of that.

Y: Patterson is also terribly socially awkward because Patterson trying to convey to Tasha that she’s there for her and she supports her through what she’s going through was just so... beautifully awkward. But we really can’t put all the blame on Patterson because Tasha isn’t making it any easy for people to be there for her. Because in her words, Tasha doesn’t do feelings. Also in her words, Tasha likes it better when they all had their secrets.

That line cracked me up, as did the whole scene leading up to Tasha blurting out the news of her pregnancy. We talked last week about how the pregnancy can serve as a motivation for Tasha to keep fighting and as a force that helps ground her and help her focus. But to be fair to Tasha, it’s easy for us to put all that in words. It would have been unrealistic for Tasha to just flip a switch from one episode to another—especially when they’re separated by just a few hours—and be all perfectly fine with it all. I appreciate that they are making Tasha struggle with this information. It’s normal for anyone, especially for someone like Tasha and given... everything, to not be sure where she stands or how she feels or what exactly she’s supposed to do now.

The team is supportive and showing her all the love and encouragement that they can. But it’s understandable that she feels suffocated right now. It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate everything they’re offering but it’s all so... overwhelming and terrifying. And Tasha is the kind of person who handles her things alone, in private, and doesn’t share until it’s absolutely necessary. So let’s just give her the space and time she needs and she’ll be okay. I know she will.

L: You know this season is tough when Jane gets shot, Kurt gets tortured, and Tasha still gets put through the wringer during a single episode.

I have to say, I totally get Patterson’s urge to want to surround Tasha with love and concern. But I also understand why that is the very last thing Tasha is ready for right now. And it might be the most honest Tasha has been since the start of this season when she says, “I appreciate your support. Everybody’s support. But I’m getting a little tired of all of the love and concern. You want to support me? Stop telling me how to feel and give me a second to figure out how I feel.”

Think about the confusing mess swirling around inside Tasha right now. Reade is dead; he is the one she wants here with her. Before Reade, she wasn’t sure she could even manage to maintain a relationship with another adult. Taking care of a kid is a crazy level of commitment way beyond that. In 2.15, she told Jane that her grandmother “tells me my ovaries are dying.” I’m not sure Tasha has ever given much thought to having kids, except maybe to think that it wasn’t for her.

But now she’s got a kid on the way, and she’s got Patterson being so determinedly happy about it, only it’s not happening to Patterson’s body, it’s happening to Tasha’s. Pregnancy is a risk for a normal woman, with regular access to prenatal care. But for a woman on the run, living in hiding, and engaging in almost-daily firefights with evil henchmen who want to kill her, where even the slightest slowing of her reflexes could mean certain death? Make no mistake, deciding to keep this baby would be a huge risk for Tasha, and it’s clear that she hasn’t really decided to take that risk yet and commit to having a child. And even if she does decide to go through with it, and even if they do survive this fight and clear their names... then what? Her line of work isn’t really conducive to single motherhood. How could she juggle a baby and a career like the one she had?

So for now, you can’t really blame Tasha for not wanting to think about any of that. She is, like Jane, a very practical person who deals with the crisis in front of her. And right now, that crisis is Jane. And if she can solve this crisis by donating blood to Jane, then, well, as she tells them, “It is my risk to take, and I say it’s fine.” That’s the kind of friend Tasha Zapata is. This pregnancy might not be quite real to her yet, but Jane is real, and she is one of the tiny group of people that Tasha calls family, and if Jane needs blood, then Tasha is gonna give her blood, no matter what she stands to lose as a result. Jane refuses to let her donate, but when Tasha thinks that they are losing Jane, her immediate response is, “Screw it, we’re out of time. Prep me for a transfusion.” Honestly, Tasha Zapata is the kind of friend we all want but very, very few of us will get.

But there is a little bit of irony here. This is the second time that we’ve seen Jane get shot in the gut, and the first time was at Tasha’s hands. So you have to wonder if Tasha is remembering that now and realizing what Jane went through last time. No, I don’t think that’s why she was willing to offer up her blood, but if Jane had taken her up on the offer, I am sure it would have alleviated the guilt Tasha likely still harbors about shooting Jane in season 2.

And when you think about it.... everyone surrounding Jane at the operating table has been shot. Tasha was shot during the Sandstorm raid on the NYO. Patterson was shot in the gut by Borden. Rich was shot in foot by Weller. But Jane, ever the overachiever, was shot first in the pilot (well, okay, that one really was a graze), then by Tasha, and has now moved on to the bonus round. Can they please hurry up and defeat Madeline before the rest of the team plays catch up?!

But of all of the Tasha scenes in this episode (every one of which Audrey Esparza knocked out of the park), my favorite might be the scene with Kurt at the end, when she meets up with him after Ivy has tortured him. Kurt is drugged out of his mind and still doesn’t know what’s real, and he thinks that she is Ivy in another hallucination. He points his gun at Tasha, and in much the same way as she is willing to risk her baby to donate blood for Jane, she stands there in front of his gun and carefully talks him down from that edge to convince him to go with her. “How do I know the right thing to do?” Kurt asks her. “You can’t,” Tasha tells him, “You need to trust me. You need to take a leap of faith.” And that, more than anything, is what this season is all about. Every member of this team has to trust each other, and they all have to take that leap of faith that they are doing the right thing, because that is the only way they are all going to get through this.

And Tasha might have to take an even bigger leap of faith than the rest of them as she decides what to do about her pregnancy.

Y: And last but certainly not least, we have Rich Dotcom. Another episode, another opportunity for Rich to be the incredible character we’ve watched him become. For starters, he’s the only one to react normally to the plan to perform surgery on Jane in the bunker—and that is to completely freak out and panic because that idea is cuckoo bananas. Seriously, you know things aren’t right when Rich is the one thinking straight and being logical. But I guess this is the season for things to not make sense. Madeline is the savior of the FBI and our team are terrorists. So Rich being the sensible one fits right into that formula I guess.

But what Rich has been especially good at this season is being an amazing friend and protecting his team at all costs. And we saw that, in all the Rich awkwardness and hilarity, when he tries to keep Tasha’s secret while also trying to stop her from making a stupid decision and endangering her unborn child. Rich bends backwards with ridiculous excuses and is willing to make a fool of himself just to protect his friend and keep her safe.

And then he takes it one step further and saves his other friend. Rich manages to protect Tasha and save Jane—and later plays his part in locating Kurt. Rich takes a huge risk, he knows it, but he’s not going to let Tasha endanger her life or Jane lose hers. And of course Rich has been in town a few months but he already has a blood guy!! Unfortunately, a guy who can hook you up with human blood in under thirty minutes has to be a shady guy. And unfortunately, shady guys usually hang around with other shady guys. No one can really blame Rich for what this all leads to—for his blood guy leading Ice Cream to the team. And honestly, the price paid is worth it when the alternative was Tasha or Jane’s lives. The team has dealt with people far more dangerous than Ice Cream, so they can handle him. The only real problem is him leading anyone else to them and the time they’re going to waste getting those paintings—time better spent fighting Madeline.

L: I absolutely adore Rich in his new role as the team’s secret-keeper. You have to love the way he scrambles so hard to find a reason to explain why Tasha can’t donate blood without giving her secret away. As long as we’ve known Rich, he’s been the guy with no filter, blurting out whatever inappropriate thought tumbles into his mind. The discretion he’s shown Tasha—even when Patterson asked him directly in the last episode—is all the more special because we know how hard this must be for him; he is going against all of his natural instincts to try to protect this secret for her.

And then the way he scrambles to find another solution to their problem. For all that he pretended not to know “what’s her name,” he knows there is no question that Tasha will sacrifice herself and/or her child for Jane. So to protect her from having to do that, he puts himself at risk instead by leaving the bunker to contact someone locally who can get him the blood that they need. And, yes, this put him and the team at risk, showing that their location was somewhere near enough that a cooler of blood can be transported in time to be useful, but Rich is willing to stick his neck out to save both Jane and Tasha.

Yeah, our favorite criminal is all grown up.

Jane’s been through a lot over the years. Even getting shot isn’t a new experience for her. But this week pushes her to her physical and emotional limits. How does she take charge, even while laying flat on her back?

Y: Jane Doe took being Jane Doe to a whole new level this week. Sure, she somehow spent most of the episode lying down but it was probably one of the toughest episodes for her. And also we have to give credit to Jaimie here because, again, while she may have spent most of it lying down, she took Jane to places, both emotionally and mentally, that she’d never been before.

Jane Doe is strong. Honestly, that’s the one word that keeps coming back to me. She’s strong. Not just physically strong. And not just strong for herself. Jane has a kind of strength that makes the people around her strong. A strength that can lift others up when needed. A strength that shines through when she’s at her weakest.

And that’s the best part of it. Physically, this episode saw Jane at close to the weakest we’ve seen her. And emotionally, she wasn’t doing so great either. And yet she managed to pull through, she managed to be a great leader, a great friend, and a great wife. It reminded me a lot of when she was buried alive and still managed to help the team locate her and rescue her. Jane Doe is a lot of things, but she’s never a damsel in distress.

Jane arrives at the bunker with a bullet in her gut but insists that the priority is finding Kurt whom she watched get shoved into the trunk of Ivy’s SUV. And she continues to deny her own injury until she can’t anymore because she passes out from blood loss. Her behavior here is a great parallel to season one when Kurt was running around New York with a punctured jugular trying to find Jane who had gone missing. Another parallel to that episode is the faith Jane has that Kurt won’t lead Ivy back to the bunker; instead her fear is that Ivy will kill Kurt when she realizes he won’t break. Similarly, Kurt had faith back in season one that Jane was not running away but was in fact protecting the team.

In this episode, Jane knows how critical her condition is, but like the true leader and the true friend that she is, she flat out refuses to let Tasha give her blood when the truth of Tasha’s pregnancy is revealed. Jane is firm in her decision. She leaves no room for negotiation on the matter and makes it clear that her decision is final. I loved the juxtaposition between Jane’s pale, tired features and her confidence and strength of character and decision—that’s the leader we’ve seen evolving all season.

But then, after that firm leadership moment, Jane and Tasha share a sweeter, gentler moment. After making her stand as a leader, Jane becomes the supportive friend, the one who is happy for her friend but also understands her hesitation and her fears. She also understands that maybe this, what they’re doing, isn’t what Tasha wants to do right now. She understands that the pregnancy can be a trigger that changes Tasha’s goals and motives right now and she offers that point of view that undoubtedly has crossed Tasha’s mind. I loved that moment because it might have seemed like Jane was suggesting the selfish option here but it’s also the safe option. It’s the option that could ensure that this child is born in a safe place and in circumstances not like the crazy ones that they are living through. It may have sounded selfish, but it came from nothing but love for Tasha.

Another incredible moment for Jane—that blended both leadership and friendship—and gave us what I think is my favorite “Blindspot ladies” scene of all time, is when Patterson admits that despite her all around brilliance, performing surgery in a dirty bunker with limited supplies isn’t really one of her strengths. And Tasha chimes in to admit that she too cannot really do this despite having some medical field training. Once again, Jane is clearly in so much pain and terrified, but she digs deep and finds unbelievable strength to lift her friends up. She gives them strength and confidence and faith in their capabilities and then she grits her teeth and talks them through the whole surgery.

And then, as they’re ready to finish up and she knows they don’t need her help anymore, she makes them promise they will find her husband, and then asks for permission to pass out.

L: Holy crap, but is Jane the most badass ninja goddess you ever saw or what?! Sure, let me travel an hour or more with a bullet in my gut so I can get back to my secret underground lair and focus on finding my husband. Just another day in the life, right? Oh, Jane. And I mean, yes, sure, this isn’t her first gunshot to the gut. But still. Undergoing surgery without anesthesia is badass. But directing that surgery via mirror? Give this girl all the badass awards ever.

But that’s the thing about Jane; she’s not just a superhero. She’s also a badass human being. We mentioned above the way she took ultimate responsibility for the surgery, to alleviate the burden of guilt from Patterson’s shoulders if it didn’t go well.

And then there was that amazing scene with Tasha. “I know we’re big on ‘All for one and one for all’ around here,” Jane tells her, “but no one would fault you for just disappearing, having this baby somewhere safe, if that’s if that’s even what you want to do.” Think about what she’s saying to Tasha here: First, that she would understand if Tasha just wanted to run away and focus on keeping herself and her baby safe, even if it meant leaving the team behind—and let’s be honest, this team is tiny and desperately needs every single one of them if they have any hope of survival. So what Jane is saying is that she wouldn’t try to talk Tasha into putting her baby at risk even if meant dooming their cause. Which is exactly in line with what she said earlier, when she refused to allow Tasha to put herself at risk by giving Jane blood, even if meant that she might die. How many friends are you truly willing to die for?

But I think the second part of her statement is just as important. “If that’s even what you want to do.” Unlike Rich and Patterson, who both leapt to the assumption that Tasha was going to have this baby, Jane is telling Tasha that she understands it’s a choice Tasha needs to make and that Tasha might not have made it yet. That’s kind of huge. Yes, these are modern women, but Jane is the only one to voice this. She’s telling Tasha that it’s okay if Tasha decides not to go through with the pregnancy. If the risk is too great, if it’s just not a burden she can carry, literally or figuratively. She’s telling Tasha that she’s here for her either way, that she will respect and support Tasha whatever she decides. Friendship without judgment is what Jane is showing here.

For an episode that spends more than half of its screen time torturing Kurt, the theme of this episode seems to be more about friendships between women. Which probably explains why we love this show So. Freaking. Much.

Kurt Weller has had more than one “not good” week since the start of this season. But I think it’s fair to say this one probably made his top ten list of “worst weeks ever.” What does it take for our favorite special agent to survive Ivy’s special treatment?

Y: It took all of him! It took everything from him!!

And yes, that is a Kurt Weller quote from season one. And I am very proud of myself for using it.

And I’ll hand it over to L for now and come back later when it has stopped raining on my face.

L: I am not sure I have ever hated a fictional character as much as I hated Ivy while I was watching this episode. But I have to give her credit. She’s horrible, but she’s very good at sizing her victims up. She figures out almost immediately that the threat of physical pain isn’t going to get her anywhere with our favorite tough guy, so she immediately shifts gears and goes for emotional pain instead. First she shows Kurt a picture of Jane collapsing from her gunshot and then offers to get her “best medical attention the American prison system can buy.” (Can we just give a shout out to Jane here? Seeing Jane injured can’t possibly be easy on Kurt, but imagine how much worse it would have hurt him if they’d parted still angry at each other.) Then she hints that Bethany is in danger. And then, having planted her evil seeds, she heads out to leave Kurt on his own and see what terrors take root.

So what darkness lurks in the shadows of Kurt Weller’s mind? We saw Shepherd torture Patterson in 2.10, and that was really, really rough. But it turns out there’s something worse than watching a character you love being physically tortured, and that’s watching one be tortured by their own subconscious, by their own deepest and darkest fears. This was as excruciating to watch as it was for Kurt to endure it. I can’t decide if I should give the writers kudos or send them the bill for the therapy I need after watching this.

In Kurt’s drug-induced delirium, we get an angst-ridden version of A Christmas Carol, in which Kurt is visited by the “ghosts” of his past (his father), his present (Oscar), and his future (grown-up Bethany). Oscar shows up first, to warn Kurt that he won’t be able to keep from divulging the team’s location by hiding behind his “bigger fears and anxieties.” So what are those fears? First and most obvious: that the team won’t win. “The bad guys never do, trust me. And like it or not, as far as the world’s concerned, you’re on the other side now,” Oscar tells him. Next: That he will accidentally reveal the team’s location to Ivy and Madeline. Then Oscar reminds him of his role in the events that lead to Reade’s death, as well as Mayfair’s and Pellington’s. Just as we saw in Jane’s nightmares, Kurt carries guilt that his actions contributed to those deaths... and the fear that he will cause the deaths of other members of his team. Digging even deeper, Oscar points out the one point that we know has been bothering Kurt since the team set out on the run: By becoming a shadowy group trying to bring down those in power, Kurt has essentially become the very thing that he hates, the thing he’s spent his whole career (and the past four seasons) fighting. “Have you ever once considered that you may be on the wrong side of history here?”

Kurt’s subconscious masquerading as Oscar keeps pushing, telling him that Kurt was just a mark to Jane, that she set out to destroy him and the team and has succeeded. Now do we think that Kurt really thinks that Jane is just manipulating him? Of course not. What’s really going on here becomes clear when Oscar taunts him, “You really think you’re that special? That someone could love you that much?” Kurt doesn’t doubt Jane’s love, he doubts his own lovability. His father was an alcoholic, his mother walked out on him, every relationship he had before Jane—including with his child’s mother—failed. How could Jane love him, when no one else could? Ouch.

And when that doesn’t break him, Oscar goes in for the kill, putting Bethany, complete with hospital bracelet and gown, in Kurt’s arms. “She’s just a little girl. If you give up the team... They’ll let her go.” (My daughter decided to watch with us this week, and I’m pretty sure that my husband was hugging the crap out of her at this point, while she quietly polished off my chocolate.) And then both Bethany and Oscar are gone and Ivy is back, gloating that Kurt revealed that his team was in a bunker (he also revealed that his daughter was in a hospital in St. Louis, which for some reason doesn’t seem as important to Ivy, although I would think that would give her more leverage on Kurt than just about anything else) and also that she made him cry. Bitch.

Y: Man, Ivy is really good at her job, isn’t she? I really hope Madeline’s paying her fairly for all her efforts. Not that I’m on Team Ivy or anything, but I’d like to think that, as a woman who’s really good at her job, she’s getting her worth on payday.

Blindspot loves to occasionally take us deep into a character’s subconscious, and last season’s venture into Jane’s remains one of my favorite episodes of all time. And this episode and the trip we take through Kurt’s has already found its place near the top of my list as well.

It’s always interesting to see how a person sees themselves and compare it to how everyone else sees them. We always knew Kurt had fears and ghosts and that there are some things about himself that he sees in ways the rest of us don’t see in him. And it’s those fears that are always there driving him and pushing him, and though he might not always be aware of them, they have their roots digging deep into him.

The choice of “ghosts” who visit him in his hallucinations is quite interesting. To be honest, Oscar is the last person I expected to show up but now that I think of it, he kind of makes sense. I would’ve assumed we could have seen Shepherd or Roman as those representing something from Jane’s past—and a lot of what Oscar does say to him could have been easily be relayed by either Shepherd or Oscar. Everything about him being on the wrong side of history could’ve been said by Shepherd or Roman—and to some extent, Shepherd has already said that to him when she tied him to a chair in season. She’d also taunted him about the two of them being the same. She also threw in the seed that Jane had been designed for him when it was his turn to interrogate her.

But I liked that it was Oscar who showed up because it was unexpected and the way I see it, and based on his final showdown with Ivy, Kurt was still somehow in control and I think using Oscar instead of Shepherd or Roman, allowed him to keep some sort of distance between him and the ghost… if that makes any sense. And moreover, Oscar can taunt him about Jane and his relationship with her in ways that neither Shepherd or Roman could. But what is important here are the fears that come to the surface. These are things we always knew Kurt carried with him but I guess we never got to see the extent of how much they weighed him down and how much they haunted him. L broke them down perfectly: his morality and his place on the good/evil spectrum, his role in the deaths of those closest to him, his lovability or just how much he deserves to be loved, and finally his competence as a father.

Those are four heavy blows and they do manage to hit Kurt hard but still he manages to find the strength to push them away, or at least push through them and withstand that first round. And once again we bid farewell to Oscar… only for him to be replaced by the one character whom I hate the most. L, feel free to hate Ivy all you want, I’ve dedicated all my hate to this monster. Bill Weller.

L: As you well know, I am no fan of Bill Weller (obligatory FUBW!). He shows up as the ghost from Kurt’s past. We might have expected to see Taylor here as the ghost who has haunted Kurt throughout his life, but what really haunts Kurt isn’t Taylor as much as it is his own failure to protect her. “I think you wanted me to kill her,” Bill tells Kurt. “I did everything I could to keep her away, and you did everything you could to keep her around. I fought, and I fought, and you wore me down.” As with Mayfair and Pellington, Kurt blames himself for Taylor’s death. If he hadn’t befriended Taylor, she wouldn’t have been in his father’s orbit, and she wouldn’t have died. And I guess this is as close as we will ever get to knowing what really happened the night Taylor died. We don’t really know if young Kurt picked up on his father’s interest in Taylor or if adult Kurt believes that he should have, but the outcome is the same either way; Kurt believes the blame lies with him for failing to keep Taylor safe. And then Bill gets to the crux of the matter: Kurt’s deepest fear is that inside of him, just like his father, lies a killer. And the camera pans back, so we can see all of the people that Kurt killed over the years in the course of his job. (We should point out, especially in light of current events, that if it really was that many people, he would have spent most of his FBI career under investigation and probably would have been fired long before Jane Doe appeared in Times Square. But this is Blindspot, where the body count is always high.)

Y: This part of the hallucination just absolutely destroyed me. I think this was the hardest part to watch. The Oscar part shared some fears and insecurities that we either knew about or that were circumstantial in some ways. Kurt’s on the wrong side of the law right now because he’s been forced there, and it’s based on lies and is something they can undo when they take down Madeline. And Kurt is separated from Bethany also due to their current circumstances when we all know that just a few weeks ago they were planning their move to Colorado to be close to her again. And even what Oscar—Kurt’s subconscious—says about him and Jane, Kurt himself is quick to deny. His faith in their relationship and their love is strong, even if some nagging insecurities will always exist. And the next part with grown up Bethany is all imaginary, a huge What If that doesn’t really have anything concrete to back it up.

But the thing with his dad... that was a little too much for me to watch. On the one hand, Bill Weller’s face alone makes me sick to my stomach. And we have to stop here and give Jay O. Sanders so much credit for just how damn good he is. He terrifies me. Absolutely terrifies with just how good he is. So we had to see Bill. We heard him talk. We heard him taunt Kurt—and not just grown up Kurt but also ten-year-old Kurt—and it was just a little too much. And then we saw him hold Taylor’s hand with her grave dug up behind them. And she was wearing those boots and holding her doll.

And since when was Blindspot a show that gave me nightmares?

Everything about this part of the episode was so perfectly done. The writing was flawless. The acting was spectacular—I mean, Sullivan Stapleton playing ten-year-old Kurt? Phenomenal. And the music and production design and the visual effects… Everything. Was. Perfect.

Linda was not mentioned here, but I am always thinking of the fact that before she left, Kurt’s mother told him he was just like his father. And now we see how Kurt sees his father. This is the monster that Kurt sees. And this is the image he has of himself. And this is heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking. Because we know Kurt Weller is anything but like that. He is everything his father was not. When all those dead people step out and surround Kurt… that was a chilling moment. And again, seeing how Kurt sees himself was so interesting because here we are always referring to him as the show’s moral compass, and then we see what he sees and it’s heartbreaking. No wonder this man rarely smiles. He’s walking around with all these demons, all this weight on his shoulders and this horrible image of himself that he is never going to be worthy of anything good, that whatever good he tries to do will never make up for the evil he brings onto the world, and that in the end none of it matters because he is inherently a horrible monster.

Excuse me, but I now have to go cry again.

L: Have some more chocolate. Kurt has a lot of painful baggage, and it’s almost as painful for us to unpack as it was for him to face it!

Kurt worrying that he is like his father leads us in perfectly to Kurt’s final ghost, in the form of the young female guard keeping watch over Weller. Weller tries to appeal to her, promising to keep her safe (although as we have noted, he has no real way to do that). She tells Weller that her parents told her the same thing, right before they left and never came back. They were killed fighting the American government. “When they died, I had nothing. No one. These people are all the family I have now.” Her message is lost on Kurt at first, but then he realizes that she is a grown-up Bethany. “After you died, I was so angry. I was so lost. I read and watched everything I could find about you. All these horrible things people said you did. I hated you. But then the Dabbur Zann found me. And they told me the truth... that it was America that was rotten, that my father was a hero who died trying to change things.” And there it is. Last week, we saw Kurt agonizing over what Bethany thinks about him and why’s he’s a fugitive now. As much as Kurt fears something happening to Bethany, he fears even more letting her down the same way his father let him down. “All I’ve ever wanted is to be just like you,” she tells him in her Dabbur Zann uniform. Just like Kurt.... and just like Bill Weller and all the very worst things Kurt believes of himself, a horrifying family tradition.

There’s another fear there, hiding behind the big one, that we see when Bethany tells Kurt that her parents were killed, not just her father. Even if she did see Jane as a second mother, Bethany wouldn’t have been truly alone if Kurt and Jane died—unless Allie is killed too, another name to put on the list with Reade and Mayfair, people whose deaths Kurt can blame himself for. Yes, Allie is a US Marshal, and yes, she is smart and strong and capable. But she’s human and could be killed as easily as Kurt or any other member of the team, leaving Bethany utterly alone in the world without a protector.

Unfortunately, unlike Scrooge, Kurt doesn’t come to any happy realizations as a result of his visitors. But he does find the presence of mind to tell Ivy he was playing her as much as she was messing with him to give the team time to abandon the bunker and move to a new location, as well as lying to her about where his daughter was. Ivy can’t tell if that’s the truth any more than Kurt can tell what’s real anymore, but he does still remember how to fight, so when Ivy lashes out, he’s able to use that to his advantage and knock her out. With his father’s words still ringing in his mind, he holds a gun over her but doesn’t shoot. And just as with Scarface in the season premiere, I feel like this might have been a mistake. Yes, Kurt keeps his conscience clear for the moment, but that’s not going to be much comfort if Ivy goes on to kill some member of the team or the FBI Resistance later on.

Or maybe this show is just making me really bloodthirsty. I can’t rule that out.

There is no question that Kurt is shaken by his experiences, even after his hallucinogenic cocktail wears off. And I suppose that’s the thing about deepest fears; it is easy to pretend they aren’t there when they are shoved down in a dark corner. But it’s much harder to escape them when they’ve been dragged out into the light, and you’ve been forced to look at them. If we thought Kurt was struggling with acting outside the law at the start of the season, it’s only going to be harder for him to stomach what they’re doing now. Which is going to put them at a real disadvantage, because Ivy and her team have shown that they have absolutely zero hesitation about doing whatever it takes to get the job done, no matter how illegal or immoral. I think the soul-searching Kurt is doing now is going to continue, not just while the team continues to work to bring Ivy down, but into whatever life he and Jane decide to craft for themselves once they’re done. Which they will be able to do, because if there is one thing that we learned about Kurt Weller in this episode (no matter what he may believe) it is that he won’t bend and he won’t break until they’re all home safe and sound again.

Y: Don’t mind me. I’m still curled up here in the corner crying. Because even after all this, Kurt still manages to protect his team, still protects Bethany, still outsmarts Ivy, even though putting himself through all this shatters him mentally and emotionally, and at the end, he chooses to do what he believes is the right thing to do. He’s strong. So unbelievably strong and that strength has never shined as bright as it did in this episode when he was at his absolute weakest.

And this man is not just a good man. He is absolutely incredible. A beautiful soul and a righteous man and a good man.

Yup, you got it. Gonna go cry some more now.

All marriages have their challenges, but most marriages don’t involve torture and bullet wounds, especially not in the same day. How does our favorite couple fight for each other and their relationship when so many things are working against them?

L: If you are a new watcher to this show or if you had any question about the depth of the level of commitment between Kurt and Jane, this episode should be enough to convince you that these two love each other so much that they will do basically anything to keep the other safe. Jane refuses to go to a hospital or to leave the bunker, even if might mean that she dies from her gunshot wound, knowing that staying in the bunker with the equipment they have presents their best chance of rescuing Kurt. And Kurt? Well, as Jane says, she’s not worried at all about Kurt telling Ivy where they are; she is certain that he won’t. She’s more concerned that Ivy will figure out that Kurt would die before giving them up, and thus no longer have a reason to keep Kurt alive. (And frankly, I think it’s a legitimate concern; sending the team a picture of Kurt’s dead body, a la Sho Ahktar, would be a blow the team might never be able to recover from.) There is absolutely nothing more important to each other than the other’s safety, up to and including their own lives.

I absolutely adore the scene with Jane and Kurt back at the bunker at the end. It was the mirror image of the scene we saw between Kurt and Jane at the end of 2.21, when Jane was worrying that she would turn out like her mother and brother. Kurt reassured her, “We’re not our families. Jane, I know your heart. That is not who you are.” Tonight it is Kurt’s turn to worry that he, like his father, is a ruthless killer. He confesses to Jane that he wanted to kill Ivy, but as she reminds him, he didn’t. “I know who you are,” she tells him, “You’re Kurt Weller. You’re my husband. And you have fear and darkness and love and light inside of you, just like me and everyone else. And you are a good man.”

These two. For all that they are so tough and badass, able to rescue themselves against seemingly impossible odds, they still harbor the same weaknesses that all humans do. And what makes their relationship and their marriage so strong is that they are both able to be weak and vulnerable together in a way that they can’t be with anyone else. They have each other’s backs out in the field, but they also protect the fragile pieces at the heart of each other. And that in turn makes them both that much stronger.

Y: There were so many amazing parallels in this episode, both between it and previous episodes and also between Jane and Kurt. The parallels with previous episodes serve as a wonderful reminder and reinforcement that this relationship is at the heart of the show and at the heart of its mythology. And the parallels between the two of them are a reminder and reinforcement of how perfect they are for each other and of the love and commitment between them.

The parallel between the two of them and how perfectly perfect they are for each other was also incredibly shown not just through the writing and acting but also through the editing. I was blown away by the transitions between the Jane surgery scenes and the Kurt torture scenes. They were separately going through two of the most horrifying experiences they’ve had to endure but they both powered through and showed unbelievable strength and resilience, and a lot of it had to do with surviving to save and protect the other person. They also both risked so much and endured unbelievable pain to protect their team.

Their reunion scene in the bunker… that scene… well let’s just say I haven’t stopped watching it since the episode aired because it is all kinds of perfection. And by all kinds of perfection I mean—yes, there is actually a meaning behind this nonsense—is that it was perfect in its parallels to previous episodes, a perfectly sweet reunion, a perfect portrayal of these two and what their relationship represents, a perfect reflection of how important they are to each other, and a perfect moment for shippers to sob.

Like L pointed out, there was a parallel here to the scene in the cell in 2.21—from the topic of discussion, to the setting, to the dialogue and even the physical gestures they used to comfort each other. But there were also two less clear-cut parallels to earlier episodes. The first was to 1.02, after Jane has the memory of killing a nun and asks Kurt what if she was a bad person before this. He didn’t know her as well back then, but he still knew her enough, and he lists all the things he’s learned about her since she’d come out of the bag and reassures her that she is a good person.

There was a smaller parallel to Kurt’s wedding video message in 3.04, in which he tells Jane he loves the man that she makes him. This here, once again, breaks my heart. We’ve seen now the image of himself that lurks in Kurt’s subconscious. And for five seasons, we have seen in every single episode the man that Kurt strives to be, and it is just so beautiful to know that this man that he strives to be and the man he thinks he is—the one he questions in this episode—is a result of Jane being in his life. And the fact that she confirms to him that he is in fact that wonderful man is absolutely beautiful.

I think L covered pretty perfectly the part about these two being so perfect for each other, being so tough and resilient and yet when they’re together they allow themselves to be vulnerable and they expose their fears and weaknesses to each other knowing they will take care of that for one another and protect each other form the rest of the world. I just wanted to mention just how tender that dynamic is between them when Kurt is telling Jane about that moment when he wanted to kill Ivy. His so scared of what he might be, so ashamed of how he felt and so worried about what this means, that when he says it out loud, his voice is barely even a whisper. It is almost inaudible and yet Jane hears this loud and clear and she just wraps him up, she embraces him and holds him close and protects him from the whole world—even though this world is inside him—and that moment just melts my heart and soul.

That’s it from me. And you guessed it, I’m gonna go back to eating chocolate and crying.

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That’s really all we can take this week. We’re gonna go indulge in a little self-care to try to recover from this before the next episode. Drop by our Ask Box if you’re having trouble coping; we need a little fandom group therapy right now!

—Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: jane doe #character: kurt weller #character: patterson #character: tasha zapata #character: rich dotcom #ship: Jane/Kurt #character: oscar #character: Bill Weller #character: ivy sands

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