We’re back, blindspotters! After this hellatus, our favorite show returns with a very irregular transition episode. “Coder to Killer” clearly prepares us for the last two episodes of the season. However, the episode has some errors in terms of development. On some occasions, the pace has been too slow and, in others, too fast, finding plots with hardly any development and exits from nothing. Let’s talk about everything!
Here we go!
CASE OF THE WEEK
On this occasion, the case of the week has been intimately connected to two characters: Brianna and Kurt. As for the scheme, it follows the line of an imminent attack on the city of New York. A situation that I hope will change next season.
In relation to the characters, Brianna suddenly appears with a relevant role. Dominic is trying to convince her to betray the team. She feels little valued. Always the last they never choose for anything … the one that doesn’t matter. And that makes her value the offer of Domicile and is about to accept. Brianna thinks that she doesn’t matter to the world, why should she care what happens to it?
But the case changes everything. They need her and, for once, she feels valued and useful. She feels that everyone recognizes her work and that, thanks to her, they have managed to solve the case … so she changes her mind … but Dominic doesn’t give her an option and he blackmails her to steal something from the house of Kurt and Jane .
There are several things to say about this. The first is that it is understandable that Brianna feels little valued and forgotten, as if they did not need her. I think we’ve all felt this way at some point. But that does not give her carte blanche to help a terrorist. But it is clear that, emotionally, Brianana is more fragile and Dominic is taking advantage of that.
On the other hand, seriously Brianna had not imagined that Dominic would not give her an option? He is a terrorist, it is clear that he was not going to let her have a choice, it is common sense. Think a little, Brianna, please! And I still don’t understand why she doesn’t go to Reade and she confesses everything.
It’s all too forced. Both Brianna’s actions and her naive thinking that Dominic was going to give her a choice (too naive for someone as intelligent as Brianna) and, of course, the development of this plot. Or, rather, the lack of it.
We have not seen Brianna too much to be affected by her betrayal, and it is a plot that should have been developed over several episodes. In this way, we could have understood Brianna’s actions and feelings, her change of opinion and everything else. However, this plot suddenly appears and disappears. It is clear that it was created to have an impact but the certain thing is that, due to the lack of development, it remains in a weak and inconsistent plot.
In another order of things, we have Kurt. The case highlights the danger he always finds himself in and what that means for his family. He believed in the promise that, at some point, all this would end … but he has realized that it is not so. It will never end.
It is logical to consider something like this considering Kurt’s work and the growing family that he’s building with Jane. However, it is another plot that seems out of nowhere and too forced. It’s as if Kurt had suddenly realized the work he and Jane have, when they have been doing it for quite some time and Bethany was already in their lives for so many years. And this undeveloped plot is very subject with tweezers.
Nor do I forget how little credible they have made the two villains of the episode going free. I don’t understand how being the villains two and being Kurt and Jane pointing at them, they have allowed them to continue moving until they spray Reade with gasoline and burn him. Why the hell have not they shot and ended both? Makes no sense. I hope that in the next episodes take care of more of these things.
PATTERSON
Our precious unicorn is even more precious! I really enjoyed the hilarious conversations between her and Rich. The tandem that both form entertains me a lot. They always do it. But I like them even more when they get serious. Rich is not an idiot and knows that Patterson is rethinking her life. We all reach that moment. That moment in which we consider what we are doing and how we see ourselves in the future.
Patterson’s life has become more frantic lately. Her father is more present than ever and the little Bethany makes her happy (by the way, together they are wonderfully adorable) … that has made the moment we mentioned before, come to Patterson. And she was thinking about adopting a baby. But it’s such a big step that it’s scary, it makes her dizzy and when Rich finds out and coaxes what’s going on, she’s just ashamed to be asking him about it. It’s like preparing for a rejection, trying to make it seem like she doesn’t care, when she does.
Patterson feels … inadequate. There are many things that can go wrong. They may not give her a child. Maybe her friends laugh at the possibility because they don’t see her able to do it. She may also not really be able to do it. She is so afraid … that is what happens before a great change in our life. There are many fears in between, especially the fear of not being able to achieve it. But we are. We all are and, of course, Patterson is. She just needs, like everyone in her situation, someone to remind us, someone to tell us.
That’s exactly what Rich does, filling out the adoption application, it shows Patterson that he believes in her because she will be an ideal mother, she will be able to do it. Patterson just needed that, that confidence … to take the last step in the great change of her life.
That said, the truth is that, contrary to what has happened with Kurt and Brianna, this change in the character has not felt forced and has had a good development. Everything has flowed in this direction with Patterson and, although fast, I have not felt that the change came out of nowhere.
JELLER
I love them! Is that every time I love them more. Their gestures, their caresses, their looks, their smiles, even their flirting. I liked seeing them so united. Kurt is going through an emotional state because having Bethany around has made it more real that he is losing part of her life … and that he is always in danger of losing everything. As it happened with his mother, who was too absent.
Jane at all times supports him, never questions him. She wants him to know that he has her and that his daughter, even if she is little, she knows that her father is there. There will come a time when they can enjoy a family life without restrictions but now … they are working for a better world, a better world for them.
Kurt feels the presence of Jane and her silent support, even not so silent. It’s those little gestures that make him fall in love with her even more every day. The only important thing is she and Bethany and he doesn’t want to feel that he can lose them at any moment, he doesn’t want to live them half-heartedly. With Jane, he doesn’t feel that he is alone, he feels that together they build a family, a life and a home. And he would not want it to be otherwise.
RAPATA
Great advances in this couple. They begin in a bad place the episode … a painful place. Reade has a date, although he doesn’t want to accept that he has. He doesn’t want to accept it because he knows that this would mean that he has turned a page with Tasha and doesn’t know if he is ready for that … he doesn’t even know if he wants to do it. She is everywhere. At work, in his life … even at home. She is present. Everything starts and ends with her.
Actually, he knows that he doesn’t want to turn the page but he is too afraid to be the one who took the first step. So he only half lives it. Having her everywhere … and not having her at all. And trying to normalize to it.
Tasha, for her part, calls things by her name and knows that coffee with that woman is a date. And she also knows what that means. It means that Reade is trying to turn the page, he wants to do it … and she receives the message loud and clear, even though it destroys her. Because she is devastated, although it is difficult for her to admit it and try not to do it, that is why she can’t help but let off steam with Jane.
She advises her well, sometimes, appearances deceive … and neither of them is ready to let go. It doesn’t matter how much they try to deceive themselves. That’s the reality. There is something between them … something strong and unfathomable, and it will not go away. Because real love never disappears.
What happens is that both are too afraid to take the first step again, to suffer again. So both decide to live half. Having and not having. Because having friends and roommates is better than not having oneself at all, even if it doesn’t compare to having oneself for real.
But in the end, Reade takes a step towards Tasha by canceling the date. He admits to himself that he doesn’t want to turn pages with Tasha. That doesn’t want to date with another that is not her. He is not ready for it and maybe he never will. From here, it is up to them to continue taking steps that will lead them to rediscover themselves.
PS: when Tasha has jumped to save Reade without caring what might happen, I promise I’ve screamed.
CONCLUSION
This episode has been transitional, it is impossible to deny it. It has prepared everything for the last two episodes of the season. The experience with shows as long as this, teaches you not to expect too many of the two episodes before the season finale, because they keep everything for that last episode. However, I expected more from what we have seen in this 4×20.
It has been a strange situation. On the one hand, everything seemed to be too slow, the tonic of the season. And, in other hand, everything too fast. So the result has felt forced, everywhere.
On the one hand, we have Brianna’s betrayal and Kurt’s opinion about his work and what that means for his family. We have not really met Brianna to make her betrayal impact or matter. Neither have developed enough in previous episodes how she feels for us to understand the character. Suddenly, she has appeared and we have learned that she felt less … and that she was thinking of betraying the team. Then, just as quickly, she felt valued but forced to do so. The plot is good, it’s interesting … but it has come out of nowhere and felt forced, this needed more time to develop the impact it was going to have.
It’s something similar to what happens with Kurt. Adorable Bethany has been with us for some time, although we hardly see her, and Kurt has been an agent for even longer. It seems forced that it is precisely now when the danger that he and Jane run and what that can mean for his own family is raised. It is not something that has developed throughout the season, not even during the last episodes. It’s something that seems out of nowhere … to have an impact on the season finale. Which has felt really forced.
It is difficult to explain. It is as if they have logical and interesting situations and have decided not to develop them and we find them now, being stuck with a shoehorn. A very serious mistake that should not be made at this point. And it’s even more serious when you think they’ve been spinning on the same point for most of the season.
On the other hand, throughout the episode we want something to happen … anything. Something more than just the bad guy who tries to attack the city of New York. But it doesn’t happen. Nothing remotely interesting until the last moments of episode and, even then, it was predictable what was going to happen. They have not surprised and they have gone at a slow pace. Losing the episode time in … nothing.
All this leads us to an episode that is quite irregular. With plots taken from nothing and without really developing them so that they feel forced, and with others that are so slow that they don’t even have rhythm.
Agree? Disagree? Don’t hesitate to share your opinion with us in the comments below! We’ll be back next week with two hours season finale, 4×21 “Masters of War 1:5 – 8″ and 4×22 “The Gang Gets Gone”. And here’s the promo for the next couple of episodes.
Blindspot airs Fridays at 8 / 7c on NBC.
