Blindspot – In Night So Ransomed Rogue

        By: Jessica Wolff

NBC’s hit drama “Blindspot” returned for its second season, opening three months after last season’s season finale. Jane Doe (Jaimie Alexander) is in captivity, haunted by months of torture. While Jane doesn’t know much about the organization that tattooed her and left her in Time Square, the torture triggers a memory of her former mentor teaching her how to withstand pain. As her captors try to force a needle into her arms, Jane retaliates and beats them up. While in her cell, Jane pulls a needle she stashed in her arms during the struggle and uses it to pick through her handcuffs. She attacks her captors as they bring her back into the torture room. She escapes and fights her way out of captivity, stealing a car and driving to freedom.

Two weeks later, the FBI closes in on a suspect. Led by Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton), the FBI chases the woman through the woods on motorcycles. Patterson (Ashley Johnson) gives Weller instructions from headquarters as he shoots the tires of the woman’s motorcycle, sending it flying. The FBI surrounds the woman and arrests her. Weller congratulates Edgar Reade (Rob Brown) and Tasha Zapata (Ashley Esparza) on a good job, but they tell him that they miss tracking tattoo cases. A helicopter lands nearby and NSA agent Nas Kamal (Archie Panjabi) steps off. She asks to speak to Weller and his team, including new FBI Director Pellington (Dylan Baker), and informs them about Jane’s escape. She tells them that she believes that a single terrorist organization nicknamed Sandstorm is responsible for a number of seemingly unconnected terrorist attacks and that Jane was left in Times Square for the FBI as part of a terrorist plot. She wants Weller and the team to find Jane before the CIA does, as she believes that Jane was about to turn on Sandstorm before her escape.

Kamal shows the team that Jane has been working as a hotel maid in New Jersey since her escape. Weller takes off his vest and insists on going to talk to her. Reade and Zapata take off their vests at Weller’s assistance and follow him inside. Within the hotel, Weller looks for Jane, but she finds him first and puts a gun to his head. Weller insists that he just wants them to talk and Jane demands that he put down his weapon. Jane refuses to come in because of what happened to her and Weller apologizes for her winding up in CIA custody. He insists that she’ll have to shoot him if she doesn’t come in. He uses the element of surprise to attack her and they get into a fight in the hallway. After being thrown into her housekeeping cart, Jane pulls out a gun and aims it at Weller. Reade and Zapata run onto the scene and Jane drops the gun.

Back at the FBI, the team watches as Jane is hooked up to a high-tech lie detector. Kamal enters the room and begins to question her, insisting that Jane didn’t go to far from New Jersey when she escaped because she wants to find Sandstorm, too. She offers Jane a deal – her cooperation for her freedom. Kamal questions her when Oscar approached her and she answers truthfully as the team watches from the other side of the glass. As she answers Kamal’s questions, Jane confesses to her role in framing Mayfair (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and her murder. Weller is affected by the confession and storms out of the room. Kamal assures Weller that Jane is telling the truth, but Weller doesn’t believe Jane is trustworthy regardless. She insists that Jane is vital to bringing down Sandstorm and avenging Mayfair’s death. Weller goes to Jane and unties her. Face to face, they talk about what happened and agree to work together to bring down Sandstorm, despite Weller’s inability to forgive her for Mayfair’s death.

The team gathers and comes up with a cover story to explain Jane’s disappearance when she goes undercover in Sandstorm. They decide that a rogue Sandstorm agent captured her and tortured her. As Jane prepares for her mission, Reade and Zapata argue over whether Jane is to blame for Mayfair’s death or just a pawn. Jane insists that Sandstorm won’t believe her cover story and asks Weller to shoot her to make it more believable. Jane boasts about her role in Mayfair’s death to piss off Weller and get him to shoot her, but Zapata shoots her instead. Satisfied, Jane drives away and sets the plan in motion. As she drives, Jane pulls out her tooth to get rid of the tracking device inside. Zapata and Kamal are pissed about losing the tracking device, but Weller justifies Jane’s decision and insists that she’s still on their side. A Sandstorm associate, Roman (Luke Mitchell), finds Jane on the street and asks her what happened. Jane and Roman pull up to a police blockade and Weller pleads with his team to trust Jane as long as she is working with them. The team agrees for Mayfair’s sake. Roman answers the police officer’s questions and nearly passes the officer’s test until he sees that Jane is bleeding. Roman tries to convince the officer that there’s nothing to worry about by the officer tells him to step out of the vehicle. Roman steps out and attacks the police officer. He shoots several other police officers to Jane’s horror and they drive through the blockade.

Patterson shows Kamal the flash drive with files from the NSA’s secret operations. Kamal denies that the NSA is behind Orion, but they show her the files that prove otherwise. She agrees to help with the encryption. They show her a third file with three pictures that they are unable to figure out the significance of. Roman drives Jane to the hospital and she flashes back to several memories. A police officer knocks on the car, but Roman returns dressed as a nurse with a stretcher. In the hospital, Roman tends to Jane’s wound. Jane has a memory of them as kids in an orphanage and asks how long they have known each other, to which he admits they’ve known each other for a while. Weller confronts Kamal about withholding information from them, but Patterson interrupts and tells them that Jane’s tracking device has been activated. Kamal admits she slipped a second tracking device on Jane and Weller panics about the tracking device causing Jane to get killed by Sandstorm. Roman drives Jane to a park for a meeting and a woman gets out of a car. She asks if Jane has been searched and Patterson turns off the tracking device just in time.

The woman introduces herself as Sheppard (Michelle Hurd) and tells her that she is Jane’s adoptive mother. Sheppard explains that Jane’s real name was Alice Kruger, that she was born in South Africa and that she was forced into an orphanage that trained children to become assassins after her parents were killed. She also reveals that Roman is Jane’s brother and that Jane changed her name to Remy. After informing her that Oscar was killed by the rogue agent, Sheppard asks her to go back to the FBI and continue to infiltrate it. They hug and Sheppard assures her that they will succeed in their mission and that she won’t have to hide her identity for much longer. Roman tells her about leaving her in Times Square and gives her an old trinket that he’s held on to. Jane informs Kamal and Weller about what she learned. After Kamal leaves, Jane asks Weller why he lied about the possibility of her not being Taylor Shaw and he explains that he wanted her to believe that she really was Taylor. Jane admits that she wanted to be Taylor Shaw badly for him. Patterson looks through the photos on the drive and the team sees Jane in a military uniform lying dead on the ground in one of them. Sheppard and Roman discuss whether they can still trust Jane. Roman insists that his sister is still in there, but Sheppard isn’t convinced. Sheppard reveals a giant nuke as their master plan.