BLINDSPOT Season 4 Premiere Recap

BLINDSPOT — “Hella Duplicitous” Episode 401 — Pictured: (l-r) Ennis Esmer as Rich Dotcom, Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, Ashley Johnson as Patterson, Rob Brown as Edgar Reade, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC/Warner Bros.)

Blindspot Season 4 Premiere Recap: Goodbye Jane, Hello Remi

By Pauline Perenack

Welcome back Blindspotters!

We’re back with a brand new season, but I would be remiss if I didn’t recap what happened in the wild season 3. If you can’t quite remember, the season started with a two year time jump, with our team reluctantly coming back together to once again solve those tattoo cases that Roman was manipulating. Jane learned she had a daughter, tracked her down, and eventually formed a decent relationship with her; Reade and Zapata navigated a tricky love triangle; Patterson and Rich Dotcom were their usual amazing selves; and Roman ultimately met his fate at the hands of his love, Blake. As the season ended, we found out that Zapata had switched teams and was now working with Blake, while Jane woke up in the hospital with a complete memory wipe of the years she spent as Jane, reverting back to her Remi persona.

Most importantly though? We found out that Bill Nye the Science Guy is Patterson’s father.

So how does the team deal with the changes season three left it with? Let’s recap the season four premiere to find out.

Introducing Madeleine

Tonight’s episode, “Hella Duplicitous” kicks off with the team (Reade, Jane, Patterson, and Rich Dotcom) in Tokyo trying to track down one of Roman’s data caches, which contain information about the tattoos, and the zip poisoning that’s slowly killing Jane. The mission involves some undercover work, which of course falls through, resulting in Jane in a sword fight with some legitimate fighters. The most interesting part of this whole scene is when Jane kills their leader even though there was no need to. It’s a clear sign that we’re now dealing with Remi, and not Jane. The team is successful however, and add another of Roman’s caches to their collection.

At headquarters, the hunt is on for a new Director, so of course Rich Dotcom is running an office pool as to who it will be. However, the more current issue at hand is trying to figure out who is running HCI, now that Hank Crawford is dead. Reade’s focus is still on the disappearance of Zapata, but Patterson interrupts him to tell him that they’ve cracked a file on the latest cache. The file gives more information on the zip drug in Jane’s system, and they let her know it’s killing her. However, they point out that at least she isn’t hallucinating yet, which is a sign of things getting worse.

Jane however, is hallucinating, and is doing so in the form of Roman. She tells him of her plan to get Sandstorm back up and running, and to find a cure for herself, but Roman warns her that the cure isn’t in his caches, because if he had the answers, he would still be alive.

Patterson and Rich however, have picked up on the new Sandstorm chatter (which is Jane), and announce that someone has finally reached out, with a coded address of a meet. Jane realizes that someone is out there, and quickly deciphers the code. She knows she only has 30 minutes of lead time before the team will figure out the code, so fakes a headache to rush out.

At the warehouse, she meets up with Dolan (played by the always amazing Nyambi Nyambi) and convinces him she’s on his side. She lays out her plan to rebuild Sandstorm, which starts with triggering a tattoo that leads to an underground bank. Once the team storms it, she tells Dolan she can steal some of the money, which will help pay for the mercenaries they need to rebuild Sandstorm.

With the tattoo triggered, the team does as Jane plans, and she gets the money she needs. However, back at headquarters, Patterson points out that the money was all in large bills, rather than smaller bills that are the norm of gang activity. This leads them to believe that a larger business or government is in on it. However, their guessing comes to a stop when Matthew Weitz comes in, announcing he’s the new Director of the FBI.

Patterson and Rich keep working on the new Sandstorm lead, and manage to ID Dolan through his cellphone pings. Fortunately, he’s dumb enough to still have his cell phone on him, so the team is able to track him down. Jane tries her best to prevent Reade from getting to Dolan, but a massive car accident kills Dolan, and eliminates Jane’s one last link to Sandstorm.

Meanwhile, Blake and Zapata are in Paris, planning their next move to take over HCI. Zapata is clearly running the show, but needs Blake. Blake asks for a vote of the board of directors, and one in particular, Madeleine, is very enthusiastic about Blake taking over. Once the meeting is complete, Madeleine calls for a toast. Clearly much more cunning than initially viewed, Madeline poisons the champagne, killing all board members, including Blake. Zapata is left to fend for herself, and quickly takes Madeleine’s side, even providing a cover story to get rid of the bodies. As they watch news of Weitz talking about the take down of the underground bank, Madeleine questions Zapata’s loyalties, and Zapata swears she would kill Reade without question.

As the episode comes to a close, Weller catches Jane watching their wedding video, so she can practice being Jane. Throughout the episode, with Weller still recovering from his gunshot wound and resulting complications of last season, he was forced to the side, unable to help the team. However, he seems to not notice that anything is different about Jane, and happily heads out to pick up food for the evening. With him gone, Jane talks to her Roman hallucination one more time, and tells him she wants revenge. He lets her know that they will find a cure for the zip poison, break out Shepherd from the black site, and then kill Weller.

A Brewing Problem

I didn’t love this episode for a couple of reasons. First, Weller and Jane. I realize that Jane is now Remi, and so she’s supposed to be cold and distant, but Remi isn’t really playing the part well, and I feel like in the past three months, the team would have noticed that Jane was acting much more standoffish than normal. Also, Weller was pretty much useless in this episode. I mean, he is recovering from several surgeries, but still. He’s not active on the team, and apparently has been sitting around the house eating the past three months, yet still somehow hasn’t noticed that something is off with Jane.

Second, is the Zapata storyline. Why did she suddenly turn against her team? And it doesn’t help that the Blake storyline fizzled out so quickly. What happened there? Last season’s finale was setting Blake and Zapata up to be the dynamic duo, but in tonight’s episode, Blake was meek and pretty much useless. The shift in her character was jarring, and I didn’t like it. Apparently, the writers didn’t know they were going to get Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio until after the finale, so needed to quickly write out Tori Anderson in this episode to push the Madeleine/Zapata storyline along. It seems sloppy, but hopefully it picks up as the season goes along.

Thankfully however, we have Patterson and Rich Dotcom. The two of them have the best onscreen chemistry, and 100% carry this episode. They’re quick with their one-liners, they add a ton to every situation they’re involved in, and they clearly have a theory brewing about Jane that they’re keeping to themselves. This is what I’m most looking forward to finding out this season. Until next week!