It’s been a while! When we last left Blindspot, well… a lot happened. That said, the second half of the season kicked off with a bang and an episode titled “Cease Forcing Enemy” (or for my anagram fans, “In Case of Emergency”). Ready to decipher a new set of clues? Let’s get to it!
• BLINDSPOT recaps: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 | Episode 9 | Episode 10
The episode opens on a flashback of Jane Doe (Jaimie Alexander) getting her tattoos, as Oscar (François Arnaud) and the bearded man (Johnny Whitworth) look on. Remember them? Oscar was the one who rescued Jane Doe from Carter in the last episode. He’s also the subject of her steamy dreams. The bearded man had an all-too-short role in the first half of the season, before getting capped in episode 3.
The action jumps around a little bit and soon Jane Doe and Oscar are wrestling on the ground — and not in a fun way. She gets his gun and starts asking questions. Of course, he’s not answering, but he does manage to slip in the news that her FBI buddies are not what they seem.
Jane starts to remember that she and Oscar used to be engaged. She doesn’t remember much else, including her name. Oscar tells Jane that she needs to get back to the safe house before anyone realizes she’s gone. Before Oscar takes off, he makes a rendezvous plan with Jane Doe, saying when she shows up, all will be revealed. Now that’s a date!
Next, we see a major cliffhanger get quickly resolved. Remember how Zapata (Audrey Esparza) was planning to quit the FBI? Well right when she’s about to hand in her letter of resignation, Mayfair (Marianne Jean-Baptise) informs her that Carter is missing. Things don’t look good for him (and they aren’t), so Zapata asks who would want him dead. Does it really matter? Her problem is solved!
Weller (Sullivan Stapleton) sees Jane out in the hallway and wants to talk about that kiss. She quickly changes the subject. It seems that she doesn’t want the FBI following her tattoos anymore, but he thinks the good outweighs the risks. She mentions David, but really seems more worried about something happening to Weller.
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Patterson (Ashley Johnson) interrupts. She’s so good at doing that! However, she’s got some new information. She’s found a series of numbers on Jane Doe’s body. She says it’s Pi, but it’s not Pi because some of the numbers are missing. That little tip translates into a series of coordinates that lead to a spot in the Black Sea. And just like that, the crew is off to Ankara, Turkey!
Weller, Zapata, Reade (Rob Brown) and Jane Doe arrive in Ankara. Jane Doe immediately gets a nose bleed while having a flashback about being water-boarded, but that doesn’t slow the team down. The coordinates lead the four to a hangar, which has a plane inside. It turns out that it’s Pan Asia Flight 921, a flight that had vanished three months prior, somewhere between Istanbul and New York.
The crew enters the plane to investigate. Reade mentions to Weller how Jane seems a bit off. Of course, that subject gets dropped when the team is ambushed by a large group of men right outside the plane. They don’t seem pleased about the presence of the FBI, so they shoot the attaché in the head and take the good guys away.
The Turkish captors decide that a cattle prod is the best way to extract information out of our favorite tough guy: When he doesn’t answer, Zapata gets shocked. Weller barely blinks, but instead of offering up information he tells his ungracious host, “I’m going to kill you.”
The entire crew gets prodded during the session, but no one is talking. Reade, however, seems to be listening. The guy apparently knows some Turkish! He hears the group saying that the FBI doesn’t seem to know about their “mission” and how they need to get ready.
As the crew is escorted into a holding area, they identify the terrorists as the same group that had been working on a dirty bomb back in New York. Inside the barracks, they meet all of the passengers from Flight 921. However, the standout is Dr. Susan Albright (Sakina Jaffrey), an aerospace engineer. The terror group wants to tap her brain, in order to disable the military’s GPS satellites. If that happens, we would never be able to see an attack coming. However, they’re also going to use the plane to launch a bomb.
Weller and Reade take off with Mike the cop (David Alexander Hernandez), in search of the cattle prod. They want to use it as a source of power to use the satellite phone. They get the battery, but Weller is captured in the process. The captors come back to take all of the FBI with them, but not before Zapata fires off a little Morse Code back to the office.
It looks like they’re going to execute the crew right in front of cameras. While they threaten Weller to read off a set of cue cards, Jane Doe makes her way out of her tie wraps, grabs a gun and starts shooting. Bet they’re happy she came along now! Surprisingly, the rest of the crew is able to fight back as well, even with their hands tied.
The crew makes it out and manages to save all of the remaining passengers, except for Susan. They’ve taken her aboard the plane to help launch the satellites. The plane takes off, but not without a little extra baggage. Both Weller and Jane Doe are onboard!
Now, the real problem. The rocket is programmed to launch when the plane hits 60,000 feet. The only way to stop it is by getting into the cockpit. Weller has another idea. He goes down below and looks for the previously disabled transponder.
This seems like a perfect time to mention this week’s side plot with Patterson, Mayfair, and a new character, Chief Inspector Fisher (John Hodgman). He’s there to find out about David’s death. More specifically, he wants to know how and why he was privy to classified information. Maybe he just wants Mayfair’s job.
Either way, he’s about to suspend Patterson (which, c’mon seems sort of fair) when Mayfair interrupts. Patterson is needed to decipher the Morse Code Zapata had sent from the island. After decoding the message and looking up a little info about the plane, she realizes that it’s in the air and steadily gaining altitude.
On the plane, Weller says that the only solution is to blow up the plane. As he apologizes to Jane Doe for dragging her into this mess, the crew hears Patterson’s voice. She’s made contact with the plane, but the team needs to get into the cockpit. The answer? They need to shut the engines off. Yikes!
When the pilots hear the plane start to shut down, they go to investigate. That’s when Weller and Jane Doe step in and take over the controls. However, the plane doesn’t start back up. Patterson is a smartie, though. She realizes that Jane Doe and Weller can land the plane without any power. It’s a harrowing few seconds, but c’mon… they can’t kill off Weller and Jane Doe!
Of course, Weller and Jane aren’t the only heroes. Mayfair stands up for Patterson, but Fisher still doesn’t seem too pleased. I’m guessing he’s going to fill the void left behind by Carter.
Once the crew is back on U.S. soil, Jane Doe asks that her detail be dropped. She wants her independence and is willing to take whatever risks are associated with that. Of course, she really just wants to meet up with Oscar and maybe have the option to grab a beer once in a while. As Weller tries to have another heart to heart with her, Zapata and Reade walk in. It will have to wait another week.
The episode ends with Jane Doe indeed meeting up with Oscar. He informs her that the FBI is scared of her — “and they should be.” He then tells her that she is indeed Taylor Shaw and that he has missions for her, but she needs to prove herself first. She says she can’t hurt her FBI friends, but Oscar tries to tell her that he’s one of the good guys. Jane/Taylor says that if they’re going to proceed, it needs to be on her terms.
Oscar says: “You still don’t get it, do you? These are your terms. This is all your plan, and it’s time to get started.”
Wowee! What a great way to start the second half of the season. In the first half, it felt like they were giving away too much too soon. Apparently, that was just a big tease. Well, except that Taylor Shaw thing. First it was her name, then it wasn’t, now it is? Were you surprised? Frankly, I’m just happy to see the whole Jane/Weller relationship get pushed to the backburner. Sure, I expect it to resurface — a lot. However, it just seemed too soon. This episode left a lot of unanswered questions (as usual), but they really pumped up the action. Let’s talk about your hopes for the back half of Blindspot Season 1 in the comments section below.
See you next week!
Blindspot airs Monday nights at 10/9CT on NBC.
Looks like the writers from scorpion are also penning these new episodes. Joy T Lane should be ashamed after approving this garbage. The special effects from Zoic studios…amateur hour. The drop off in viewers is a direct result in ones inability to grasp the reality in every scenes situation. You could argue this shows genre is falling into the sci-fi with how unbelievable it presents itself. Here’s a note to Hollywood writers working on these types of scripts: People run AWAY from reality distortion not towards it.