A tattoo leads the FBI directly to Saul Guerrero’s hideout in Michigan, but escaping alive proves to be a trickier task. Back home, Patterson and her boyfriend decode another tattoo in the most treasure-filled episode to date. Here is a recap and review of the Blindspot episode “Sent On Tour.”
Recap:
Six months ago, the Tree Man and an accomplice buried a trunk under wooden floorboards. Now, Patterson’s boyfriend, David, multitasks his morning, making coffee and reading the wallpaper of Jane’s tattoos. Dropping the L word, he says they practically live together. Why not make it official? Patterson has to … um … go to work, but they’ll talk later. Weller confronts Mayfair about Guerrero. He was an informant. She was his handler. Then a mole tipped him off about his impending indictment, so he went off grid. Embarrassed by the situation, the Bureau redacted the file. Patterson cracks a new case. The steganography tattoo is a Petoskey Stone with one section shaped like a Michigan county. Jane faces her newfound fear of flying before the team arrives and meets a gardener who’s not a gardener at all. He’s Saul Guerrero.
The FBI searches his home. It’s clean. Too clean. Guerrero hired an army of townspeople to protect him, which includes slashing the FBI’s tires and draining their fuel. Leading a chatty Guerrero by foot, the FBI walks into a firefight. The oil derricks on Jane’s neck appear on the horizon, so they follow them to refuge. Digging up floorboards, they uncover the trunk filled with supplies and a map. With the militia closing in, Weller discovers a tracker on Guerrero. Weller and Zapata set off to drop the tracker, while Jane and Reade escort Guerrero to where X marks the spot. The Ranger Station houses another map, this one a match to Jane’s calf, complete with a little red X. At that spot, she finds their getaway vehicle, a helicopter, but Weller and Zapata haven’t returned yet.
Thinking David called to follow up on this morning, Patterson explains that it’s because she loves him that she doesn’t want him to move in. Her track record doesn’t include much success. He’d rather talk about the Brooklyn Historical Society. He’s not giving up on this arch tattoo, so Patterson joins his adventure. The Roman numerals in the tattoo match the ISBN of a book used to transmit several messages. Waiting for her software to crack the code, Patterson suggests that maybe David should move in. A furious Mayfair breaks up the party. According to Mayfair, everyone gets one mistake, so when Patterson makes another, she’s fired. After Mayfair vets David, Patterson sends him home … to his home. She loves her job too much to be distracted. This is goodbye.
Swarming the station, a militia member uses Zapata as his shield. The Sheriff shoots him down and informs Guerrero that too many died today to justify protecting him anymore. Jane powers up the helicopter and flies them out of there. Weller and Mayfair argue about who will interrogate Guerrero. She finally caves, but gets nothing out of him regarding the mole or his associates. Suspicious, Weller comments that Guerrero didn’t react like he knew her and demands the truth. Only three people in the world know the truth, and it’s called Daylight.
Review:
“Sent On Tour” subtly, and at times not so subtly, reminded the audience of the crazy, fun, wildly dangerous, and convoluted premise behind this series. A treasure hunt in two separate storylines, this episode delivered a captivating adventure while watching it, but upon dissection, “Sent On Tour” left me with a split reaction. All of the glistening action, the enchanting search for clues, and the revelations regarding the tattoos did not fully distract from the lack of resolution by the end of the hour.
Last week, both Weller and Jane struggled to define and walk the line between professional and personal interactions. This week, the line in question related to the greater mythology behind the series and had the audience struggling to determine the answer themselves. Where is the line between a well-planned course of action and a series of events conveniently falling into place? At a certain point, the audience has to take a leap of faith with Blindspot, acknowledging that the series operates in heightened situations that don’t play out as grounded as they could. Where that point falls on the line is up to each viewer.
The FBI’s treasure hunt through Guerrero’s property for their way to escape proceeded rather smoothly. Sure, they encountered a few hiccups, a few ambushes along the way, but overall, the clues led the team exactly where they needed to go with all the right supplies to succeed. On the one hand, whoever encoded the escape into Jane’s ink spent enough time formulating the perfect plan that its success shouldn’t be a surprise. The teaser seemed to reveal that just like the Ruggedly Handsome Man did so directly, the Tree Man and a third accomplice indirectly played a part in preparing Jane for these missions. The team effort makes the success more plausible, but still not fully possible. On the other hand, these men had no way to account for every single factor because people in dire situations often act unpredictably. It felt as if that spontaneity was missing from the militia’s and Guerrero’s reactions. Where was his Hail Mary escape attempt? Their eleventh hour call for reinforcements? The FBI never lost Guerrero and had to re-capture him, they got out of there unscathed, and they accomplished exactly what they set out to do once they knew what they were supposed to be doing. Everything well-planned conveniently fell into place.
The storyline with Patterson and David provided a distinct contrast to the surrounding dangers that the rest of the team was facing at the same time. The lovebirds’ lighthearted quest to solve the arch tattoo was perfectly complemented with the classy and flirty violin and piano score as they fluttered through the Historical Society. But at the end of the day, even this storyline kept the stakes in play – not physical stakes, but personal ones. The arc of their romance within this episode was written and portrayed so realistically and so clearly that their breakup was beautifully heartbreaking. Couples on television often break up because the demands of work get in the way of their relationship, but Patterson’s additional acceptance of her flaws, her current inability to change her ways, turned this trope into something unique. Joe Dinicol continues to impress as David with his energy and enthusiasm. If (When) he turns out to be in cahoots with the antagonists, that’s going to spark another discussion about planning versus convenience.
“Sent on Tour” demonstrated the complexity and variety of the tattoos’ potential. Not only can they be used to uncover plots to terrorize America, but they can also be used to find missing people, to unlock secret trunks, and to lead the way out of a war zone. Weller refers to Jane’s tattoos as a “treasure map” in the pilot, but it wasn’t until this episode that his comment became accurate. She literally has a treasure map on her body, complete with a little red X-marks-the-spot. As awesome (to put it plainly) as this concept is, having the team come across two maps to lead them around Guerrero’s property unnecessarily complicated the story. Even though one map was located in the trunk and the other on Jane’s calf, this type of clue only works once before it loses its novelty. The presence of two maps did nothing more than add extra material to fill the airtime instead of using the time to figure out a different type of clue or to provide more insight into the characters.
In addition, the FBI learned that the location of the tattoos on Jane’s body can also hold an important clue, which could potentially lock the writers into a bit of an issue. Now, there is less wiggle room when it comes to connecting certain clues to one another and the potential for the team members to over-think the importance of a tattoo’s neighbor. But, they seem to have built themselves an escape hatch leading away from being locked down. Like the site-specific CDC tattoo in “Bone May Rot,” the Petoskey Stone tattoo exists separate from the other tattoos in the sense that the writers could have come up with the content long after the rest were set in stone. With the tattoos not being visible to the naked eye, it allows them to create and change the clues at will – a smart, but fitting method to ensure more freedom and creativity with their stories.
Lou Diamond Phillips portrayed Saul Guerrero as vivacious and amusing with a tinge of terrifying, a far departure from the Henry Standing Bear character I’m used to seeing him embody on Longmire, and still fully believable here. He and Reade appear to be on the same page regarding the dangers of blindly following the tattoos. Given that this concept has been present since the beginning, I’m growing increasingly interested in seeing these dangers play out. If it’s going to be this strong of a concern, it needs to be validated, but it may also subside in the wake of Reade’s growing acceptance of Jane. He had a few monumental moments with her where he would have reacted differently six episodes ago, namely that he would have chastised her for whacking Guerrero in the face with her rifle. Even if Reade still holds reservations about her place on the team, he regards her value as a person and an asset enough to have her back without making any remarks about it.
The cliffhanger at the end of this week’s episode certainly makes the audience want to tune in next week to find out the truth along with Weller, but for some viewers, including me, this ending also left a sour taste in our mouths. When a scene cuts to black before its natural conclusion, it creates a guaranteed cliffhanger while also running the risk of leaving the audience with a negative reaction. That reaction starts with a brief moment of confusion about whether the writers and editors intended to finish the episode at that point or if our televisions are playing tricks on us. After concluding that there’s no reason to unleash our inner conspiracy theorists (because we’re not drawn to this show without having one) on the cable box, the reaction turns to one of mild frustration. We were about to receive the answers we waited the entire episode for, and then we didn’t. The main characters spent an hour in our time and a day in theirs with a highly talkative Guerrero, and yet they and the audience learned nothing more about Daylight. Why? Because they’re saving that for next week. Regardless of how personally we react to this type of cliffhanger, it’s not personal; it’s business. It’s Mayfair’s tactic to protect herself and presumably the Bureau. It’s the writers’ tactic to protect their ratings.
As a wise doctor once told Zapata, turbulence can’t take down a plane. There will be times when our reactions to the plot, the characters, the tactics have their ups and downs, but it’s not the end. Come next week, there I’ll be, fixed to my seat, waiting to embark on another journey. I only hope that the millions who started this adventure with me will continue to sit beside me.
Odds and Ends:
– This title’s anagram is “Trust No One.”
– The “Previously on Blindspot” section started with last week’s tractor-trailer explosion and not because it was necessary. I’m guessing it was their humble brag to showcase how proud they are of what they visually accomplished. And who wouldn’t be?
– I’m still unclear on why Jane had to drop her pants instead of pull up her pant leg to get a look at a tattoo on her calf.
– How much paperwork do you think they had to fill out for Jaimie Alexander to operate a helicopter with half the cast and Lou Diamond Phillips inside?
– Are we not going to address the fact that the FBI killed several civilians and just left them there for the Sheriff to clean up?
– Zapata: A doctor once told me that turbulence can’t take down a flight.
Jane: Well, I’d feel a lot more comfortable if a pilot told you that.
– Guerrero: So, which is it: hands up, down on the ground, or don’t move?
– Patterson: This is good. This is really, really good, so why mess it up?
David: Hey, can I talk?
Patterson: No, just not yet. Everyone that’s moved in, moves out within six months, and if you don’t move in, then you can’t move out. And I know that’s ridiculous, and it doesn’t make a ton of sense, but–
David: It’s not a tunnel. It’s an arch.
Patterson: It’s not a tunnel. It’s a … sorry, is that a metaphor?
– Guerrero: Wait, you’re not blindly following a bunch of riddles in her tattoos? And you don’t even know who put them on her body?
– Patterson: How did you find me?
Mayfair: I’m FBI. That’s how.