Recap: Blindspot Season 1, Episode 4 – Love is in the Airborne

BLINDSPOT -- "Bone May Rot" Episode 104 -- Pictured: (l-r) Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller -- (Photo by: Giovanni Rufino/NBC)

If you were confused by last week’s episode of Blindspot, get ready. Everything you thought you knew about this show just got a serious shake-up. However, we do get a pair of villains that can cause damage way beyond just a few city blocks.

BLINDSPOT -- "Bone May Rot" Episode 104 -- Pictured: (l-r) Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, Audrey Esparza as Tasha Zapata, Rob Brown as Edgar Reed, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller -- (Photo by: Giovanni Rufino/NBC)
BLINDSPOT — Pictured: (l-r) Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, Audrey Esparza as Tasha Zapata, Rob Brown as Edgar Reed, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller — (Photo by: Giovanni Rufino/NBC)

Blindspot Season 1 Recaps: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3

The focus of episode 4, “Bone May Rot,” is the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The show kicks off with a scene inside the lab from two years back, where a guy named Walter ends both up infected and dead.

Of course, his death is not only connected to this week’s episode, but also to one of Jane Doe’s (Jaimie Alexander, Kyle XY) tattoos. It turns out that she has a pair of leaves that look just like the CDC’s logo. Oh, and those leaves are oak and maple — which also happens to be the exact intersection where the CDC’s offices are located.

Patterson (Ashley Johnson) is the smartie that solved this week’s riddle, along with help from her boyfriend (Joe Dinicol). Is anything on this show not a total breach of ethics? At least those breaches typically lead to answers.

Meanwhile, Jane Doe is seeking answers of her own. She’s wondering about her past, her family, and her relationship with Weller (Sullivan Stapleton, Strike Back).

Patterson is becoming a fun character, but Reade (Rob Brown, Treme) and Zapata (Audrey Esparza) still seem left out. The two start the episode out on the street, where Reade spots Zapata with a guy he assumes is her boyfriend. The two have an actual conversation, which makes me think they may get to do something besides deny Jane Doe’s abilities. Well, maybe not.

Inside the office, Reade expresses his concern about having Jane Doe armed and out in the field. Weller shuts him down, as usual.

At the CDC, the crew is met by Rebecca Fine (Natalie Thomas) and Frank Surrey (Paul Fitzgerald). Reade tries to flirt with a lab tech named Juliette, but Zapata shuts that down. The four are then led into a decontamination room. When the ultraviolet light is turned on, it brings out a hidden tattoo on Jane Doe’s forehead and face. This poor girl.

An ultraviolet tattoo is like invisible ink, but it’s special. According to Patterson, whoever put the tattoo there knew Jane Doe would have to go to the CDC to have it exposed. Well, duh. This tattoo artist has planned out every episode so far!

However, these numbers have something to do with the CDC’s specimens — specifically, dangerous, infectious diseases. And the last person to come in contact with those top-secret files was Walter, the guy who we saw spew blood from his nose and mouth at the beginning of the hour.

Back at the FBI, Patterson wants to check on the Guerrero files, but Mayfair (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Without a Trace) shuts her down. This episode is all about the denial, people! Mayfair claims she’s “handling it.” Mayfair says she worries about agents in the field and questions how Patterson really cracked the code on the latest tattoo. That sends her scurrying.

BLINDSPOT -- "Bone May Rot" Episode 104 -- Pictured: (l-r) Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller -- (Photo by: Giovanni Rufino/NBC)
BLINDSPOT — “Bone May Rot” Episode 104 — Pictured: (l-r) Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller — (Photo by: Giovanni Rufino/NBC)

Weller and Jane Doe are now donning Hazmat suits. Apparently, they ran out when it came to Reade and Zapata. When Juliette pulls out some samples, she realizes that all of the vials listed on Jane Doe’s tattoos are missing. A breach is then detected and the lab goes into lockdown.

Two hours later, Reade and Zapata are waiting, while Weller is freaking out in the lab. To pass the time, Jane Doe asks Weller about the night she disappeared. This leads to a flashback, where Jane/Taylor is being led out of her room by a man. Weller explains that despite there being no physical evidence, his father was the only suspect.

“He denied it,” Weller says. “He still does.”

Just as that revelation is leaving Weller’s lips, the lockdown is lifted. However, the source of the whole incident was found to be Rebecca. It was part of her getaway plan.

It’s revealed that Rebecca has been running her own lab on the side and it’s not part of an entrepreneurial venture. On a nearby map, Zapata points out that Rebecca could be responsible for several major disease outbreaks from the past five years. There’s SARS, Ebola, MERS, typhoid fever and more. It turns out she’s visited everywhere these diseases have popped up. To date, she’s used nine of the 10 disease strains she has in her possession. It seems that she’s been saving the tenth to create a weapon.

As Rebecca dupes her husband into making yet another escape, the couple runs into a road block. Rebecca tells her husband to pull over. She tells him she loves him, says she’s trying to save the world, and shoots her husband. Then, she shoots herself.

There’s no vial inside the car, but there is a receipt for the pier. It looks like Rebecca was planning to spread the virus through cruise passengers. Sort of makes no power, bad shellfish, and occasionally losing a passenger look not so bad, right?

On the way to the pier, Jane Doe presses Weller about his father. He’s not ready to talk. After all, we need something for another episode. Now is the time to find that vial! Jane Doe and Weller go through the terminal, while Reade and Zapata hang back to go through security footage (of course).

The two see Rebecca on tape place some type of virus bomb into a bag. The crew can’t wait for Hazmat backup. Instead, they MacGyver up a containment system. Seconds later, the bomb goes off, but the crew’s handiwork holds up.

The Hazmat crew shows up, but Weller wants to hang back. Surrey brings him a Hazmat suit. However, right as the two start working to dismantle the homemade containment system, Weller gets word from Patterson that the good doctor isn’t so good after all. When pressed by Weller, Surrey says that he and Rebecca were trying to save the world — yeah, by killing everyone. He says that diseases were designed to weed out the human race. Yes, he’s completely insane.

BLINDSPOT -- "Bone May Rot" Episode 104 -- Pictured: (l-r) Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, Audrey Esparza as Tasha Zapata, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller, Rob Brown as Edgar Reed -- (Photo by: Christopher Saunders/NBC)
BLINDSPOT  Pictured: (l-r) Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, Audrey Esparza as Tasha Zapata, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller, Rob Brown as Edgar Reed — (Photo by: Christopher Saunders/NBC)

He’s also sort of strong. Surrey and Weller begin to fight and just as he breaks free, Jane Doe steps in to kick some ass. We can’t have a week without that!

After the excitement has ended, Jane Doe and Reade have a moment during some follow-up bloodwork. He finally breaks down and says she did a good job. He also informs her that he’s not really worried about her; it’s Weller he’s thinking about.

“When he’s around you, the guy I lean on, the guy I know isn’t there,” he says. “And it scares the hell out of me.”

Back at the FBI, Mayfair sees Thomas Carter (Michael Gaston, The Leftovers), who asks to speak to Jane Doe. Mayfair claims that she’s dealing with “the situation,” but he seems impatient. Yes, that whole Daylight thing seems to be a source of stress. After a few words, she boots Carter out of the office. Of course, he doesn’t leave without a threat.

Zapata ends this episode by running into her “boyfriend” again, but the guy actually turns out to be her bookie. Her big storyline is that she has a major gambling problem? Ugh.

What’s more annoying is that subplot interrupted the moment Weller and Jane Doe were having — well, until it was interrupted by Patterson. It turns out she examined Jane Doe’s tooth and found out that she was actually born in Africa. In other words, she’s probably not Taylor Shaw after all.

Yes! I knew having Jane Doe be Taylor Shaw just seemed to wrap things up into too neat of a package — as well as too soon in the show’s existence. Will we find out about her identity before we find out about Daylight? What about before Weller and Jane Doe get romantically involved? I actually see that coming soon — sooner than I want it to. And what about Zapata? This is the plotline she gets? Hopefully it will go the way of the bearded man sometime next week.

New episodes of Blindspot premiere Monday nights at 10/9CT on NBC.