Blindspot is back! And I can only say: Wow! I have to admit that it’s been a while since our favorite show left me so many mixed feelings, so many questions and such a bittersweet feeling. “Deductions” is awesome! The essence of Blindspot is this: mystery, a dark world, complicated situations, even more complicated questions, secrets … this is the series we fell in love with. The secrets of the characters and the situations they can’t control are cornering them and it’s only a matter of time before everything explodes. There are many things to talk about! Here we go!
CASE OF THE WEEK
On this occasion, the case reaches the FBI from two fronts. First, Tasha goes with Keaton to a CIA meeting where she discovers that a CIA plane has crashed into the river. She also realizes that this case is related to a Jane tattoo. On the other hand, Cade – an old acquaintance of ours, a former member of Sandstorm – appears in Jeller’s apartment and asks them for help.
A year ago the CIA kidnapped him, breaking his deal and taking him away from his husband and son, and took him to a secret prison to torture him. But in a transport with other prisoners, something went wrong and the plane crashed. All the prisoners dispersed and Cade risked going to the house of Kurt and Jane to try to get his family back. They promise that they will help him.
Already in the FBI, all begin to investigate the case and relate it to the tattoo, and later with an imminent attack in New York by Hank Crawford. Jane gets Cade to confess what he knows about the attack, despite not having yet signed the agreement, and everyone intends to stop it.
While they are doing it, Cade receives a visit from his son, who doesn’t recognize him and doesn’t want to go with him. But Cade promises that they will be fine and that he loves him. However, when the kid leaves, Cade feels empty, his son doesn’t recognize him and his husband believes that he abandoned him. He has nothing. Jane convinces him to fight to recover his life.
The team’s investigation takes them to Quinn, a former CIA agent who has planned an attack on a secret base the agency has in a library. Her motive is revenge, her husband was an agent and they left him, leaving him to die publicly. The arrives just in time, since Quinn had Keaton’s boss, Keaton himself and other agents of the agency kidnapped. The team manages to kill Quinn and her men, saving Keaton and the others.
Everything seems to have gone well, but Keaton informs Zapata that the agreement that the CIA has signed with Cade is useless, he will be a prisoner again and she must lie to him to take him away. When Tasha is at it, Cade realizes everything, even that when they brought him his “son,” it wasn’t him and he threatens to kill her, which puts the team on the move and Jane shoots him, killing him on the spot.
While this is happening, in Brazil, Roman and Hank, together with Jean Paul – whose son has also been kidnapped – put together a plan to rescue Blake and Jean Paul’s son. Roman knows that the plan is suicide, but his opposition is useless, so he risks going to the rescue … and kills Jean Paul’s men, rescuing Blake and the other man. This is confusing … but Roman has discovered that Hank is the culprit of the kidnapping and to cover it up, makes Roman manage to be closer and closer to Crawford.
The case of the week has been complex, interesting, full of action and has raised some moral dilemmas that Tasha has had to face, causing mixed feelings. But later we will focus on Tasha. For now, I want to talk about Cade.
He is an interesting character, a former Sandstorm terrorist who has tried to make a new life. Only they haven’t left him. I think him going to Jane isn’t just because they have history, but because Cade identifies with her. Jane was just like him, but she changed her life, she started from scratch. He also wanted that for himself and when he got it … they took it from him, so he just wants to get it back. Start again. Jane wishes the same for him.
In some way, Jane and Cade are mirror images. Two sides of the same coin. Jane is the one who has managed to start over, change her life completely. And Cade is the person who tried it and when he had it in his hands … they took away the possibility of change. Jane got it but Cabe didn’t. Jane has a husband, a family, a life. And Cabe finally ended up dead, totally alone.
It’s interesting to see that parallelism between both characters, there’s something sadly poetic about it and I think they have managed to capture it on screen perfectly.
TEAM BLINDSPOT
Tasha
Zapata is at a crossroads. In some way, she had to choose between the Team and the CIA. She is hiding secrets from the CIA’s operations to the team and some of them, like that of the dragonfly, are really close to some team members. However, everything seems to be forgotten and blurred in the day to day … until their two worlds collide with force. It is what has happened in this episode.
Tasha had to go hiding compromised secrets and seeing how Keaton hides important things about the case. She doesn’t like that, these are her friends, her family, she doesn’t like to hide things from them, but for Keaton it’s a matter of routine, he doesn’t tell them what they don’t need to know.
We have seen Tasha doubt if that was the right thing, if she should continue to trust Keaton and choose him … or definitely choose her old team. Her doubts have reached their peak when Keaton informed her that Cade’s deal didn’t exist and was going to take him back to a secret facility/prison of the CIA but that the team should believe that the deal was still standing.
Tasha is outraged at this – and I with her – after all, Cade has helped them and they promised him immunity, he wanted to return to his family and he risked so much for them, but for Keaton, Cade is still a terrorist and nothing changes that. According to his vision, he deserves to be in that prison and things are the way they are.
But all that talk of Keaton turns against Tasha when Cade realizes everything and threatens her. It’s the team and Jane in particular who saves her, shooting and killing Cade, thinking that he was wrong, the deal was still standing and Tasha would be unable to deceive him … only that she was doing it. On this occasion, Cade had a very well-founded reason to do what he did but nobody believed him, the team, as is normal, trusted and chose Tasha only that she … didn’t choose them.
That is clear at the end of the episode in the conversation that Zapata and Reade maintain. In that moment we see a little of what Tasha thinks. All her doubts have dissipated and while Reade sees Keaton’s decisions as wrong – like me – Tasha believes that they are just different and that Keaton makes the difficult choices that need to be made so that no one else does them.
She got her call with that dark or gray side and believes in Keaton’s methods, thinks that what he does is the right thing to do. In the CIA that behavior is not only accepted, it is day to day while in the FBI those methods are despised. That is the reason why Zapata left. Although I would rather say part of the reason, because I think her situation with Reade had to do with her hasty exit from the FBI.
And I have to say it. Tasha has disappointed me. She has always been willing to go in the gray zone for the people she loves. But she’s not someone who doesn’t know when it is right or when it is wrong to deal with gray areas. After all her doubts during the episode, I thought that Tasha was going to point this out to Keaton and choose her team, her family, before him. I thought Zapata was going to do things right.
But it hasn’t been this way, on the contrary, she has separated a bit from her team and has joined more with Keaton. It is as if she had drawn a clear line and chosen a different side to the team. That is the feeling that has given me. And I didn’t think Tasha would agree with such an injustice as we have seen in this episode. And I didn’t think she was going to continue after the team believed so firmly in her that Jane would kill Cade – someone with whom she has a story and who came to her to help him, trusting her – without any hesitation to save Tasha. Because everyone has firmly believed in her.
I don’t know if I’m the only one who feels that way, but I feel that Tasha has betrayed the team. And I also think that Cade should never have died because of a situation that Tasha and Keaton provoked. Don’t get me wrong, Cade wasn’t an angel, but on this occasion, he was betrayed after everything he took to get to them and help them, after putting his trust in them. The man just wanted to live his life, get the same change that Jane did, have that opportunity … and Tasha and Keaton snatched it away.
Cade has been the victim of an injustice and didn’t deserve to die. Worst of all is that Tasha has been part of it and is convinced that it is the right way. I was very disappointed … but I think the worst for Tasha is to come, because the team will soon realize the secrets that she’s hiding and, although she thinks that Keaton will be there, in reality she will be left alone because she will not have any real friends, she will not have anything left. I hope I’m wrong, but the immediate future doesn’t seem very promising for Tasha.
JELLER
This couple gives me more and more joys ! It seems that everything has returned to normal with them and little by little they are rebuilding their relationship from the beginning. Now I see them more united, more … like a true couple. I don’t see that they hide even the slightest thing from each other and that is what they should do.
Patterson’s advice has taken effect and Jeller invites Avery to dinner. For a moment, they have felt like a true family, they are building their relationship from the beginning. But soon the bubble breaks up when Kurt and Jane tell Avery the truth about her father. As expected, her reaction is quite bad, she doesn’t believe what they say and she thinks they are wrong, she leaves angry and confused from Jeller’s house. Both decide, correctly, not to follow her and give her space.
After that, Avery shows up at the FBI to talk to them and first has a conversation with Kurt. He talks to her about his own father. If someone knows what it is to have to face a father who has done something horrible but who, at the same time, was a father who loved him, it is Kurt. He lived that, he was in Avery’s place. He can understand it.
The case prevents Avery and Jeller from talking until the end of the episode, but when they do, both are there for her, making her see that her father loved her even though he did horrible things. That’s when Avery drops that shell, that protection she has always maintained, and lets us see the girl she is. To a girl who has been through very hard things and that every truth she discovers destroys her a little more. The girl who needs her mother. And she is there, hugs her, comforts her, and Kurt is also with them. In fact, this moment has felt more like a family than ever. There are no secrets, there are no lies and Avery is left to love. I have felt the three more united than ever.
By the way, I’ve noticed that when Jane mentioned that she was tortured by the CIA, Kurt has looked down and winced. That Jane would go through all that, that she suffered so much and he didn’t know anything and couldn’t help her or do anything for her is something that still hurts and torments him. He can’t bear to think about all the pain that Jane suffered. I don’t even rule out that he feels guilty – without being guilty of anything – for not having known. Kurt loves Jane so much that he never, ever wants to see her hurt.
I have noticed our favorite couple very close, without any fissures between them. They are following the right path to rebuild and return stronger than ever. There are no issues and everything has been forgiven between them.
ROMAN
Roman has been very busy. The kidnapping and rescue of Blake and the son of another important man who had been kidnapped along with her has been the focal point of this plot. At first, Hank has made it clear that he was very angry with Roman for not having avoided Blake’s abduction and that he no longer trusted him, so he was not going to leave the rescue in his hands. That has made Roman quite nervous.
In fact, I’ve seen him very worried about Blake and when Hank has pulled him away from the rescue I felt him helpless. Roman is accustomed to being able to control everything and now there are many aspects of his life that he doesn’t control: his growing feelings for Blake, who kidnapped her, not being able to organize an effective plan to rescue her, making sure she isn’t in danger …
Roman is feeling real romantic love for the first time and that leads to many feelings that he isn’t used to, such as feeling panic about what might happen to Blake and needing to make sure that she is going to be fine. It’s like a nightmare for him to know that Blake is in danger and he isn’t there to help her, knowing that he can lose her torments Roman.
Therefore, when Roman has realized that the rescue plan was suicide and was going to go wrong, he intervened by letting Hank know, but he has agreed with Jean Paul. For that reason and when he realized that Hank was the culprit of the kidnapping and why he had done it, he took the reins of the matter and rescued Blake, getting to enter the inner circle of Hank at the same time, taking his goal closer.
And we are going to talk about Hank, he has deceived me, I have seen a father quite worried and hurt by what was happening, almost lost … but he is a psychopath and has been able to kidnap his own daughter, making her feel panicky and go through a traumatic situation, only with the goal of approaching Jean Paul. He’s a monster … and Roman knows how to recognize them, that’s why he has realized everything.
Roman has let him know and the truth is that I was scared when Hank joked that he had poisoned him. Roman must take care … but the result of everything is that he has entered the inner circle of Hank and he relies fully on him. The trouble is that every secret that Roman keeps, every lie, will separate him more from the person he loves – Blake – when she finds out everything. Can Roman bear the price of losing her to take Hank down?
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it has been an episode that has returned to the rhythm that we were accustomed to and where the case of the week and the personal dilemmas of the characters have come so close that there have been several moments in which they have intersected. We can see that the final stretch of the season is beginning and the secrets that are still to be discovered will not be long in coming to light and … that will have its consequences.
The action and moral dilemma have been present throughout the episode, forcing viewers to have mixed feelings, despite what is right, what is not, where the limits are. I think the best episodes of a series are those that leave you wondering about these questions, an episode where knowing is bittersweet because there are many feelings at play.
I think this episode has been the best proof that the final stretch of the season has given its starting signal and that from here, several stressful situations await us with, surely, the odd heart attack. But, hell, I’ll be damned if I’m not willing to experience everything. And you?.
Agree? Disagree? Don’t hesitate to share your opinion with us in the comments below! We’ll be back next week with episode 3 × 16 “Artful Dodge.” And here’s the promo for the next episode.
Blindspot airs Fridays at 8 / 7c on NBC.
