Blindspot – Regard A Mere Mad Rager

By starrymag | May 2, 2017

By: Jessica Wolff

 

In Bangkok, Sheppard (Michelle Hurd) makes a deal with Ying (Charlie Ruedpokanon) to acquire explosives for Phase Two while Patterson (Ashley Johnson) discovers Sandstorm’s offshore accounts.  Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton) tells her to disable the accounts, but the money is all dumped into a single account.  Ying ups the price of the deal and Sheppard threatens him to go through with the deal.  Before she can transfer the funds, Patterson manages to freeze the account.  Ying believes that the deal is a setup and a shootout occurs between Sheppard’s and Ying’s men.  He drives off with the explosives and Sheppard chases after him.  Jumping onto moving truck, Sheppard and Ying struggle for control but Ying punches her back onto the street where she is arrested by Bangkok authorities.

 

Patterson shows the team Jane’s tattoo of a Russian hacker’s emblem.  Though the hacker is a ghost, facial recognition spotted him nearby fairly recently getting on a train that stops at Grand Central.  At the station, Weller spots a man pick up an envelope and walk towards the exit.  Jane Doe (Jaimie Alexander) follows him, but another man kills him, takes the envelope, and runs away.  Tasha Zapata (Audrey Esparza) chases after him, but another man kills him and steals the package.  Weller tackles the man and the package rips open to reveal a Rubik’s cube.

 

Though Weller is perplexed by the Rubik’s cube, Patterson tells the team that it is connected to a website that publishes classified documents run by the Garens.  She shows them a mannequin challenge photo found on the hackers’ phones that has a secret message leading to the package in the station.  They figure out that the Garens are looking for a successor and Weller sees the Truman Protocol on the list of documents linked to the website.  They realize that they need to get their hands on the Truman protocol to figure out Phase Two.

 

In a Bangkok jail cell, an older cop (Jojo Gonzalez) tells Sheppard that she will be handed over to the American consulate the next morning and leaves Panit (Pun Bandhu) to watch her.  Sheppard asks him for a glass of water, but Panit refuses to give in to her request and tells her to shut up.  Patterson decodes the patterns of the Rubik’s cube to reveal another challenge to hack one of the documents on the list, and tells them that they have to complete the challenge for real in order to move forward in the challenge.  Weller tells her to pick a document that will cause the least national security risk and Patterson picks the memos of a pharmaceutical CEO, Jerry Barnes (Jeremiah Wiggins).  However, they need to get Barnes’ password first and Patterson comes up with a plan.

 

Jane asks Weller about Kamal on their walk, but he hasn’t heard from her.  They reach Barnes’ car, and Jane punctures the tire.  Barnes comes out and gets into a taxi driven by Weller.  Patterson calls Barnes as she poses as an IT technician.  She tells him that she needs his password to prevent a hack.  Barnes recognizes the attempt as a scam and calls his actual IT technician, whose call is rewired to Zapata.  She tells him to log into his account to check his security and Patterson figures out his password from a hidden camera in the taxi.

 

Edgar Reade (Rob Brown) goes to see Weller, who brings him to his office to talk.  He apologizes for his behavior, and tells him that he wants to get back on track.  Weller gives him another chance, telling him to work hard to get cleaned up and ready for the field.  Reade is appreciative and promises not to let him down.  Zapata sees Reade come out of Weller’s office and checks in on him.  He thanks her for being there for him and believes that he can start to move on now that he knows the extent of his abuse.

 

The team gets another message from the Garens, which tells them to come to a location wearing red and to bring someone they trust.  Zapata is worried that this will lead to a trap, but the others believe it’s off the risk.  Weller offers that he and Jane go, but Patterson believes she should be there in case she needs to use her computer and puzzle skills.  Weller tells Patterson and Zapata to keep an eye out while he and Jane get dressed in red to go undercover.  Dressed in red, Jane and Weller are instructed by two men to follow them.  Several other people in red join them while Patterson and Zapata follow them.  The group splits in different directions and Patterson and Zapata lose sight of Jane and Weller.

 

Patterson and Zapata comb through the security footage and struggle to find Jane and Weller.  Meanwhile, Jane and Weller are dropped off at a building and find themselves faced with a math problem.  Jane tries to figure out the equation, but Weller sees that the door is open and the math problem is a trick.  Inside, they find pairs of people clad in different colored clothing.  Jane contemplates going after the documents, but Weller reminds her that they don’t know that the Garens look like.

 

During their discussion, the lights go out and a woman steps out into the spotlight.  She introduces herself as Kiva Garen (Jewel Staite) and points out how nobody expects a hacker to be female.  She tells them that her sister was killed and that she wants to leave the hacking business.  She declares that her successor has to be creative, skilled, and tough.  She tells the group that one among them is a cop, and pulls out a gun.  Back in Bangkok, Sheppard tries to appeal to Panit but has trouble getting through to him.  Meanwhile, Garen asks Jane who she thinks the cop is but she refuses to give anyone up.  Garen picks out a pair dressed in white and shoots them revealing that she found out that they were spies.

 

Reade practices at the shooting range, but has flashbacks to his recent trauma.  Garen leads the group to rooms for their next challenges and reveals that the winner will get the documents on the hard drive in her hand.  Inside are two polygraphs and a message declaring that the next challenge is a test of trust.  Though unhappy with the never-ending challenges, Jane and Weller strap themselves to the polygraph and begin the test.  Patterson finds information on the dead Sandstorm hacker’s hard drive that shows them that Sheppard is in Bangkok.

 

Jane and Weller answer a series of questions for the polygraph.  The last question is about why they chose to work with their partner and Jane says that she chose to work with Weller because he is honest, loyal, and trustworthy but that Weller was forced to work with her.  They pass the test and a door opens revealing a series of locks.  Figuring that the keys are hidden in the room, they look for them.  Working together, they manage to find all of the keys and a button appears.  The door opens to reveal a room with a pair dressed in blue and a message that the other room will fill with lethal gas if they press the button.

 

In Bangkok, an international security alert appears on Panit’s computer, but the image is unable to load on the ancient computer.  They talk about Sheppard’s kids, and he decides to give her a glass of water.  She uses the close proximity to kill him and escape from the cell, taking her passport and phone with her.  Jane and Weller struggle to find another way out of the room.  The pair in the other room finishes unlocking their locks and presses the button, but their own room fills with gas and Jane and Weller’s door opens.  Weller breaks the glass with the chair and pulls the pair to safety.  A pair in green runs from another room and Jane and Weller chase after them.  They jump down the stairs and knocks out one of the men before running to the finish line.

 

Garen tells them they lost and reveals that the woman she shot earlier was really her sister.  She tells them that she and her sister are tired of being fed false information to influence governments and want out.  Weller argues that the other green man doesn’t have his partner with him, and Garen calls him a sore loser.  Desperate, Weller argues that he and Jane staying behind to rescue the other pair makes them more suitable to win the challenge.  After a look to her sister, Garen hands Weller the flash drive and declares him and Jane the winners.  The man in green is angry by the turn of events but Garen calls him a sore loser.  She tells Weller to take the documents somewhere safe and that his and Jane’s fates are now intertwined.

 

Patterson and Zapata are relieved to regain contact with Jane and Weller.  Zapata receives a call that the police are opening an obstruction of justice investigation into the stolen knife from the Coach Jones murder.  Sheppard tracks the vehicle with the explosives and kills Ying before escaping with them.  Reade talks with Dr. Karen Sun (Li Jun Li) about his trauma, and she advises him that he should remove himself from harmful triggers and look into a non-FBI profession.  Patterson looks at the hard drive for all of the documents and pulls up the Truman Protocol.  The document is blacked out but is signed by every president since Truman.  Jane spots a Cogs Logo and Weller remembers Kamal mentioning Cogs at one point.

 

At a bar, the team drinks to their progress.  Patterson and Zapata go to get more shots, and Weller tells Jane that he was never forced to work with her.  Jane reminds him that they’re only here because of Sheppard’s manipulations, but Weller reminds her that they’ve done a lot of good together.  He declares that all of this lead to her and that he would never want to undo that.  They are about to kiss, but Patterson and Zapata return with drinks and interrupt the moment.  Sheppard calls Parker (Jefferson White) and assures him that they are on track.  He tells her that the FBI has the Truman protocol, and it is revealed that the pair in green was working for Sandstorm.  Sheppard declares that they need to change the plan and orders Weller to be killed.  Zapata steps out of the bar and is arrested.