The mid-season finale of Blindspot is upon us, promising some answers to the show’s mess of mysteries. Well, sort of. A few. Kinda. Define “answers.”
Spoilers for Blindspot episode 10, “Evil Handmade Instrument.” This week’s anagram is “and unveil the mastermind.”
SUPER SPOILER: It’s Jane! Jane is the mastermind!!! OK, let’s do this, my Blindpost buddies. We’ve come so far together.
Let’s face it, the whole “A” plot this time ‘round was essentially thirty minutes of filler leading to the last ten revelatory minutes. Long story short, the episode is a pretty basic procedural as the agents try to hunt down the red-haired woman responsible for David’s murder.
Turns out she’s a Russian spy, part of a sleeper Russian cell deeply embedded in New York City. Big Red (who is no Natasha Romanov, though the show cribs from her orphan-to-Soviet-agent backstory) and the other spies married high-profile dissidents of Mother Russia, then went about their lives until they were activated. It seems that poor departed David set the events in motion, as he was mistaken for a fed when he tried to follow Big Red.
“I don’t get to do much in this episode, and I don’t have any subplot of my own yet. Just thought I’d pop in to say hi. It’s me!”
So the agents piece together the spies’ motivation and backstory, Jane speaks some Russian, we get a bit of a lecture on President Putin cracking down on dissidents as our geopolitical lesson o’the week. SEE WE READ THE NEWSPAPERS, it says on a whiteboard somewhere in the Blindspot writers’ room, underlined thrice.
All of this sleuthing and frankly Cold War-level espionage tricks (Poison capsules? Codes in books? Secret messages via flowers?!) leads to the inevitable shootout and fist fight at a New York City landmark, in this case the awesome aircraft carrier-turned-museum The Intrepid. If Blindspot had to go big and picturesque with their midseason finale, at least they chose a great setting.
“This place is so cool, you guys.”
Or maybe I’m just biased because the Intrepid makes me feel like a giddy kid running around on a giant boat, which is incidentally what Jane and the team does there, only with guns and grappling with poison pens. Anywho, Jane and Big Red have their requisite showdown, Weller steps in to help, Big Red gets the poison end of the pen and falls dead into the river. David is avenged!
Our beloved Patterson is still torn up about his death, and though she’d been instrumental in solving the case the loss only really seems to hit her after Big Red is vanquished. She has a heart-to-heart with Jane about not letting someone you love go, and we know where this is going—the long-awaited (by Blindspot writers) romantic moment between Jane and Weller. Jane goes to Weller and takes the initiative in kissing him, and it’s actually sort of sweet and well done—the world doesn’t end; they’re two adults following their emotions, like you do. Weller’s nephew interrupts, and Jane skidaddles.
“My only consolation is that I can end this midseason as I began it, as the best character and the best actress on this whole damned ship.”
Only on her way home alone (since she ditched her security detail), Jane is set upon by masked people in black, who throw her into a van—because this is Blindspot, and no one is allowed to be happy for longer than five minutes or have any nice things. She then gets tortured CIA-style by shady CIA director Carter, who’s trying to figure out who she is and who sent her. Jane responds that she doesn’t know, but the waterboarding triggers a memory of her in uniform, hearing Director Carter talk about “Orion,” a word we’ve heard muttered cryptically before.
Just when Carter is breaking out the big torture drills, he’s shot to death by a mysterious figure that we can identify before he comes out of the shadows, because we’ve all been watching Blindspot for ten weeks, bless us. It’s Attractive Tree Tattoo Dude, whom Jane has had sexy dream flashbacks about, and flashbacks that indicated that they were once engaged. He’s arrived to save her life and throw a massive wrench into the Jane/Weller subplot. And he’s not even done!
In the biggest revelation of the night, Tree Tattoo shows Jane a video on his phone to demonstrate that he’s legit. The video is of Jane, calm and long-haired, explaining to her future self that the guy—whose name is Oscar—can be trusted. And then she reveals to Jane the seeming answer to one of the show’s biggest mysteries, namely, why is Jane Jane? Why was she abandoned naked in a bag in Times Square, covered in cryptic tattoos? “You did this to you,” Past Jane tells Current Jane. “You did this to yourself.”
“How do you feel, young lady? You only have yourself to blame.”
JANE! Jane is the mastermind. Of course we still have no idea what this really means, or how or why, or who helped her. In an early episode flashback we saw Mystery Beard (R.I.P. may his scraggly visage be a blessing) and Jane in a situation that indicated she took the mind-wiping drug on purpose, as her only chance, so we knew that she was somewhat involved in the process. But the video seems to suggest the whole thing may have been her idea.
Things that we still don’t know
- If Jane is Taylor Shaw
- What happened to Taylor Shaw and if Weller’s dad was involved
- What the whole roomful of orphans flashbacks are about
- Why the Jane plot was necessary and how they have the foresight into so many threats so as to tattoo them on Jane’s body in triply encoded ink
- What Orion is
- Jane/Weller: Chemistry?!?
Things that we know
- The mastermind: Jane
- CIA guy Carter: dead
- Agent Zapata: resigned
- Tree Tattoo Dude: compelling, but no Mystery Beard
Ten episodes, my friends. We’ve reached the midway mark! I never thought we’d make it here. Since Blindspot has already been renewed for a second season, however, there are miles to go before we sleep. I can’t wait to be here to share every gun fight, hand-to-hand combat, threatened national monument and smoldering staring contest the show has in store for us.
Images via NBC