Zapata goes undercover to take down a ring trafficking Hispanic women in an episode whose implications are far more important than mere entertainment. Here is a recap and review of the Blindspot episode “Rules in Defiance.”
Recap:
After a bit of an alcohol-fueled night, Weller wakes in a trashed room where Allie casually sips coffee and dons flawless hair. Elsewhere, Reade and Sarah steam up a shower until he asks about Taylor Shaw. Jane requests a sick day, which Mayfair quickly grants. Zapata meets Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Weitz, the man who bugged her home. He busted her gambling ring, but all he wants is her help righting the wrongs of the higher ups in her organization.
An anonymous email prompts Patterson to piece together two tattoos. Both contain animals that represent NY landmarks and numbers that complete a triangle. Patterson does the trigonometry, in her head, where math is done, and the team arrives at a house in Queens. A shootout ensues, escalated by an NYPD Surveillance Squad. The FBI botched their investigation and realizes the real clue is a mural of a young woman, Paloma. The man wrongfully convicted of her murder will soon be executed.
The man, Ronnie Vargas, was threatened into confessing and leads the FBI to a witness, an Immigration and Customs Agent. Although he too was threatened, he admits that Paloma never arrived in Mexico like ICE claimed. Patterson discovers Paloma’s birth year on her ICE file was a hundred years off, as were hundreds of other deported women’s. They were marked for abduction. Zapata volunteers as bait, so Patterson gives her a tracker, and Weller and Reade tail her bus. At a rest stop, Zapata gets shoved into a van, then thrown into a basement. Weller and Reade don’t notice until it’s too late.
Jane attempts to entertain herself with cards, chin-ups, and television until her session with Borden. Doubting her trustworthiness, Jane decides to quit the FBI, but Borden insists that running from her problems won’t fix them. Passing by the lab, Jane sees that Zapata’s in trouble and wants to help. Maybe the women aren’t being transported out of the country. Maybe they’re being kept in a brothel.
A Bald Man gets rough with another girl, so Zapata launches an attack. Guys with guns break it up. With Zapata zip-tied to a post, baldy realizes she’s not the girl on file. Party’s over. Leave no evidence. They set the house ablaze with all the girls locked inside. The FBI rolls onto the scene as Zapata shuffles girls out the window, but the fire swells, trapping her inside. Weller and Reade kick down the door just in time. The FBI questions a captive turned captor, and her testimony that a Senator killed Paloma frees Ronnie Vargas.
Scanning traffic footage from the night Carter disappeared, Reade spots Oscar driving Carter’s car. Outside, a man in black knocks Reade unconscious. Weller invites Allie to a basketball game, but it’s really a booty call. Jane checks in on Zapata, who’s grateful the tattoos saved those girls when no one else could. Still unable to trust Oscar, Jane says they won’t meet again. She’s not his asset anymore, and she’s staying with the FBI. Her former self anticipated this reaction and authorized the men they work with to kill Weller if she refused to cooperate.
Review:
If you’ve come here anticipating my typical “this was great, and this could have been better” Blindspot review, then I must warn you, you’ll leave unfulfilled. However, I do hope you’ll grant me the honor of sticking through the end because “Rules in Defiance” deserves all the attention it can get. This isn’t a piece to tell you what to believe, because frankly, I don’t have the right. This is a piece that tells you what I believe. And I believe this episode speaks to an underlying problem that permeates the whole of society.
Sometimes television shows successfully imbue their stories with a statement about humanity to give them credibility and purpose beyond entertainment. Sometimes their efforts never reach the audience because we become keenly aware that we’re receiving a lecture and tune it out. The most profound statements come when they’re not made at all, when they’re allowed to exist in the story without needing justification, explanation, or even without being intended. I’m sure writer Kristen Layden intended for this episode to highlight the very real struggles that women face when it comes to the existence of human trafficking and sexual slavery, but those shed light on another issue. What seems to me, from an outsider’s perspective, to have come as an unintended statement was the fact that Zapata became such a hauntingly accurate depiction of what it’s like to be female.
Having finished re-watching the first season of Agent Carter mere hours before “Rules in Defiance” aired sent me into this episode with a uniquely enlightened perspective. It struck an unsettling chord each time Peggy Carter mentioned that she can conduct secret investigations without her coworkers paying her any mind because she’s a woman, because “unless I have your reports, your coffee, or your lunch, I’m invisible.”
I thought about how difficult it must have been for capable, independent women to live in a society where what they stood for and desired was frowned upon and near impossible to attain.
I thought how lucky I am that that mindset lived in the 1940s and I live in 2016, where we’ve grown as a society.
And then I realized we haven’t made it all that far.
Tasha Zapata, a woman just as capable and intelligent as Peggy Carter but one who lives seventy years later, can easily go undercover because, as a woman, she’s underestimated and ignored by her male captors until she causes a problem for them. Jane’s former self orchestrated her memory wipe, tattoos, and infiltration of the FBI because the first and only assumption upon seeing a naked woman crawl out of a body bag in that condition would be that she’s a victim, not that she’s capable of playing a long con. Maybe Zapata and Jane didn’t even think of it this way, but both women use this concept to their advantage with confidence that it will work because it’s that ingrained in how society views women.
Don’t get me wrong, this episode of Blindspot was one of the best so far, and I’m grateful it exists because it told a powerful and unsettling story and because it provides a platform for discussions such as this one, but with great power comes great responsibility. The responsibility to turn the tables on another trope was not met. Although Zapata proved herself a hero and saved all the other women, she needed rescuing herself. She switched from knight in shining armor to damsel in distress in a matter of seconds because the male characters needed something to do. Yes, the escalating fire made it plausible that she’d need help, but in a series based in heightened reality and with just as many competent female as male characters, it would have been equally as plausible that she could make it out of the burning house on her own.
Just like that, Zapata’s back to being overlooked. She received no praise for saving numerous lives. No “thank you.” No “good job.” No “congrats on not dying in a myriad of ways.” Mayfair’s “good work team” doesn’t cut it. Most impressive is the way Zapata handled it. She’s completely unbothered because she knows her value and doesn’t need or expect validation. In fairness, there may have been scenes cut for time, but she at least deserved a glint of recognition from her male coworkers that she accomplished something they couldn’t. And Audrey Esparza deserves an award, a raise, and a spa weekend. She owned this episode.
We as vocal audience members make it sound like an accomplishment when a series portrays a strong woman, and we make it sound like a miracle when it’s done without her being entangled with a man. Having female characters on television as strong and as admirable as Jane Doe, Tasha Zapata, Olivia Benson, Jane Gloriana Villanueva, and Annalise Keating shouldn’t be an accomplishment. Accurately reflecting the potential of women shouldn’t be an accomplishment. It should be the norm. The industry is catching on, but it still has a long way to go.
On more than one occasion, I’ve had to suck up my fear of judgment and force myself to be that person in pilot writing classes who brings up the overwhelming gender imbalance in a classmate’s script. “Maybe consider adding another female character since you only have one,” I’d say as nicely as possible. “I think this character could work really well as a woman.” Meanwhile in my head: “What on Earth could have possibly possessed you to write a story with a 90% male cast and think a female audience would accept that?” It has never once occurred to me to write a story with a shortage of male characters because it would be absurd to all but ignore half the world’s population.
I hate being that person because it makes me look needy and demanding, and those aren’t qualities I particularly enjoy being, especially around my classmates, my friends. They’re not old-school Hollywood executives stuck in the ways of the past. They’re people on the brink of entering the industry. They don’t avoid female characters to fulfill a sexist agenda, but rather I think it just doesn’t occur to them to add more, so once again, women are invisible. As much as I enjoy watching a team of attractive men save the world, I also like feeling included. I want the opportunity to root for someone like myself, and thereby, given the opportunity to root for myself. I want that childhood reminder that I can do anything I want. I don’t deserve that as a woman. I deserve that as a human. So, if it solves the problem, we should all be that person.
Odds and Ends:
– This title’s anagram is “Find a secure line.”
– How have I not noticed the barcode tattoo on the inside of Jane’s right wrist? I feel like that one should prove very interesting.
– And the scenes set outside the elevator in this show keep crushing me. First, Jane tries and fails to make a friend in Ana, and now Weller’s all but avoiding her while simultaneously missing her. The simple, little lie about which direction he was going spoke volumes to a breakdown in his trust and comfort with Jane.
– Allie: You sent me a text at 11:30 that said, “You up?” I’m not expecting a marriage proposal.
– Mayfair: You thought it was a good idea to use this magical intel from the North Pole to solve a puzzle?
– Jane: I’m not your asset inside the FBI anymore. I am FBI.
