Blindspot #1.10 “Evil Handmade Instrument” Recap & Review

In the monumental midseason finale, the FBI hunts David’s killer, who’s just one piece of a Russian sleeper cell carrying out assassinations. Patterson’s grief leads Jane to make a decision about Weller, and Jane’s kidnapping leads to shocking news about the mastermind behind her situation. Here is a recap and review of the Blindspot episode “Evil Handmade Instrument.”

Recap:

Dr. Borden advises Patterson to take time off to mourn her loss, but Patterson wants nothing more than to stop David’s killer. Mayfair scolds Carter for putting Guerrero in the spotlight because of his death. Relax, Mayfair. Have some jalapeno poppers. They can’t implicate you, but you still need to take care of Jane. Flipping through her mail, Zapata opens a note: “Last chance,” with Carter’s bug included. Weller joins Jane examining her duffle bag and feeling guilty about having no control over her tattoos. Mayfair’s agent followed David while surveilling the book, which has a fingerprint matching an assimilated Russian named Roger. His tactics sound like Cold War tradecraft. Spies! Patterson discovers a window box overlay in the second book. Place it on the designated page and it reveals a message. Too bad the message doesn’t help.

Knowing what it’s like to lose someone, Mayfair checks in on Patterson. She’s fine and promises to be honest if the search for answers becomes too difficult. The FBI storms Roger’s house to find his wife tied up and him chowing down on a cyanide-esque pill. Dead. A photo connects him to the redheaded murderer, Kate, also Russian and married to an American for a decade. Agent Kara Sloane with the Counterespionage Division joins the case after David’s interference activated the Russians’ missions. Patterson tracks a third spy: Olivia. En route to question her, Jane ponders how these women married the men they needed. Weller suggests an extensive profile produced matches. Do they regret giving up their lives for this mission, Jane wonders. Olivia bolts, but Weller and Jane apprehend her after a motorcycle chase.

Patterson crashes the ineffective interrogation, explaining why the reference book has a due date card when you can’t check it out. The dates aren’t dates. They’re the spies’ identities. Bluffing with evidence against Olivia, Patterson and Weller get her to talk. Olivia married to access confidential profiles from the New York Times. She prays in Russian, which (of course) Jane speaks, so Jane prompts Olivia to reveal her target, who the FBI finds dead. Scouring a computer from the spies’ secondary communication location, Patterson determines the last target, a senator, is attending an expo aboard the Intrepid, and so is Kate. Naturally, a chase ensues, with Jane fighting Kate on the flight deck. When Weller joins, Kate flies overboard, syringe in her neck. Dead.

While Zapata signs her resignation letter, Patterson thanks Jane for helping her make it through today, even though solving the case didn’t change anything. Breaking down, Patterson regrets wasting energy on why it wouldn’t work with David when she should’ve held onto him. Understanding all too well, Jane skips her security detail for a moment alone with Weller, and she plants one on him. Sawyer interrupts, so she’ll see him tomorrow. Maybe. Masked men bring her to Carter, who demands answers. NOW. But no luck. While being waterboarded, Jane flashes back. Dressed in Navy camo, Jane hears Carter mention Orion. In the present, Jane inquires about the program, so Carter busts out the power tools. Lucky for her, Tree Man storms in, killing Carter and showing Jane a video of her past self talking to her present self. Tree Man is Oscar, and he’s here to make sure the mission continues according to her plan. She’s responsible for her own tattoos and amnesia.

Review:

Storytelling is a fickle beast, especially on television. One year, “odd couple” procedurals are hot. The next, comic book shows. Now reboots are all the rage. Everyone’s searching for something new but familiar. While it’s none of the above, I’ve heard a few peers dismiss Blindspot as “derivative.” Yes, the concept has several noticeable influences, but the execution never screams “this show” or “that movie.” It uses familiar aspects in an unfamiliar way to demonstrate how to tell a new story the way all stories should be told but unfortunately aren’t – from a character-first perspective, not an audience-first perspective.

Over the course of the first ten episodes, Blindspot has shaped itself into a series that’s well aware of how to do its job, which makes it stand out from the crowd. It knows when to go big and when to hit home. When most series resort to flashier sequences, higher stakes, and crazier twists to cap off November sweeps, this series took a step back from punching suspects in the face to punch the audience in the gut, while still retaining its grandiose foundation. An appropriate successor to last week’s episode, “Evil Handmade Instrument” spectacularly concluded the first part of the season, bowing out in a fashion stronger than many season finales.

This episode tackled an often avoided territory with stellar results. So frequently when characters are killed off, they die in a finale, and the next episode picks up three or six months later, skipping the grieving process and jumping back into the normal rhythm with barely noticeable ramifications. At that point, the story becomes about the audience, about shock value, about creating a fleeting moment to elicit a gasp, buzz, and ratings. But Blindspot took the opposite approach.

Much like how the pilot tugged an emotional cord through Jane’s struggle, the haunting emotion exhibited by Patterson in “Evil Handmade Instrument” elevated the episode at the same time it grounded the episode. Seeing Patterson, a spunky, bubbly character, go through this trauma strengthens the argument that these tattoos are not all fun and games without ever having to bring the idea up again. It was a bold move allowing Patterson to suppress her normal personality, and the bold move paid off abundantly. When a character experiences emotion this intense, there’s a temptation to make a big scene of it, but that only makes it more obvious that it’s television and less obvious that it’s real. Ashley Johnson has always been a standout among a cast of wildly talented actors, but this episode proved that she can conquer anything. In addition to Patterson’s lack of comedic comments and her dedication to the case, the subtlety of Johnson’s performance generated a chilling, authentic example of grief. The aloof glaze over her eyes in a few of her scenes and her delicate breakdown with Jane were so distinct from her normal persona that nothing more was needed to show the audience just how broken she felt. Give this woman all the awards and a hug.

The case itself was rather understated for the ambitious topic it revolved around, but it didn’t need to be any grander. In shows with a procedural backbone, a character’s personal connection to the case automatically amplifies the intensity and reduces any drabness, not that there’s ever much with this show. Three assassinations are no light matter, but they don’t measure up to blowing up the Statue of Liberty or putting the lives of two thousand federal witnesses at risk. Still, it felt just as important. This case meant something to Patterson, so, like Weller said, that matters to all of us. After we learned about Mayfair’s loss of a loved one two episodes ago, the moment in which she sympathized with Patterson allowed the opportunity for another glimpse into the united team spirit.

That reminds me of Patterson’s speech to Jane about tangrams in “Eight Slim Grins,” which is one of my favorite moments of the series. By “Evil Handmade Instrument,” the team has found its new shape. Jane stopped asking why this was happening to her and just accepted her new life. Reade stopped questioning her place on the team. And Zapata was willing to give up her career instead of betray Jane’s trust. Everything was going smoothly, until Jane discovers that she’s the evil handmade instrument. Well, more like a questionably good self-made weapon.

And now that the bar for big reveals has been set extraordinarily high, I’m curious to see what the next piece is that can send my excitement through the roof in the same way. The scene at the end of the pilot prevented the reveal that Jane’s the mastermind behind her own amnesia and body ink from coming as a complete surprise, but that didn’t stop the moment from being any less amazing. The scope of her involvement in whatever the greater plan is opens up so many fascinating avenues for the series to explore. It creates a present protagonist Jane and a past antagonist Jane (not “antagonist” in the sense that she’s evil or a villain, but more in the sense that she counters the FBI). It also adds the nature versus nurture debate within the confines of the same character. Jane has repeatedly shown that her natural instinct is to help, but how did Jane’s past shape the decision that she made to create this mission?

There exists concern out there that the audience will lose their sympathy for Jane because they know she caused her own amnesia, but it doesn’t really change anything about the Jane we’ve grown used to. Her confusion is still real. Her pain is still real. Her feelings for Weller are still real. She made a drastic decision in her past, and now she has to live with that and figure out if she regrets it or not. That doesn’t make her unsympathetic. That makes her human. I haven’t been shy about expressing how impressed I am with Jane as a character, but this takes it to another level. It allows her to be everything a woman can possibly be.

The ending of this episode indicates that Blindspot is aware of where it came from and aware of where it’s going. A series that started out with a woman crawling out of a bag in Times Square ended the midseason finale with the image in reverse. Jane’s elbow tucks back into that duffle bag after what she learns sends her back to before all of this happened. The answers she received (once again) only created a slew of questions that I’m sure make her feel like hiding away for a moment to catch her breath. With television, you have to make the audience want more, but at the same time, you have to satisfy the audience or they stop caring. And then you run into the problem that the audience is never going to be truly satisfied until they have all of the answers. At which point, it’s no longer storytelling. Your story has been told. The writers have crafted such an impressive story thus far that I’m too busy admiring it to care that the isotope test hasn’t been mentioned since episode five and we still don’t know what or who Orion is. That’s a lie. I do care. I’m just trying to make a point. The point being that Blindspot is still walking this line extraordinarily well, dropping major reveals about the mythology while tucking another piece away for a rainy day.

Odds and Ends:

– This title’s anagram is “Unveil the Mastermind.”

– Zapata’s mail indicated that Natasha is her full first name… and Patterson still doesn’t have a first name. Also, Zapata should probably consider moving. Nothing good ever happens in Brooklyn on this show.

– Christina Kim wrote in a digital picture frame but had Weller calling Jane on her landline?

– Two episodes in a row have shown Jane exhibiting a new language ability. I’m waiting patiently for the day we learn that she speaks an Elvish dialect.

– Is Patterson’s random lab assistant a potential threat?

– It’s usually three or four seasons before the lead characters kiss, but Blindspot was never set up as a will-they-won’t-they story, so thanks again for not being typical.

– Patterson: I can’t go back to my apartment. Everything there reminds me of him. His Firefly DVDs. My board games.

– Patterson: I thought that if I solved this, and that I found his killer, I would feel… but I feel the same. Just empty. Solving this didn’t change anything. Is that what it’s like for you? With the tattoos?

– Jane (to Weller): I wanted a moment that was just us.

– Past Jane: If you’re watching this, the mission is going as planned. You can trust the man who is showing you this video. His name is Oscar, and he is here to help you. I know that you’re scared. I know that you’re confused. And I know that you want to find out who did this to you. The answer is you. The tattoos. The memory wipe. Sending you to Kurt Weller. This was all your idea. Your plan. You did this to yourself.

– Blindspot returns with new episodes starting February 29. For the zero of you who were unsure, I just checked my calendar, and 2016 is indeed a leap year. The date doesn’t seem to be a hidden message, or is it? Until then, fellow Blindspotters, I hope the wait over the next thirteen and a half weeks is less painful than full body tattoos and a drill to the shoulder. See you next year!