Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Blindspot 1.04: "Bone May Rot"

“You know, ever since you told me I’m Taylor I’ve been focusing on what that means for me but you’ve been living with this for 25 years.”
- Jane

Things wouldn’t be right in the “Blindspot’ universe if there wasn’t heaps of drama, mortal peril and mystique. And boy do we have that this week! First, we see a scientist die two years ago. Jump to the present, we see that Patterson isn’t so good about keeping her work files at work and her boyfriend helps her decode one of the tattoos. After a session where Weller tells Jane that she was raised by a single mom, they get pulled into the case of the week. This leads them to the CDC where they learn about said dead scientist. As the team is prepped for going into the lab, they are exposed to ultraviolet light which reveals a series of numbers on Jane’s face. They correspond to vials of really nasty strains of viruses that have had outbreaks in the past five years. And it shouldn’t shock anyone that they are now missing!

Just as they discover the missing vials, the entire lab goes on lockdown. This doesn’t sit well with Weller and he starts anxiously pacing. So Jane convinces him to sit down and talk to her about Taylor. He reveals that he used to babysit her a lot (there was a five year age difference). He was there when she went missing and the way he describes the scene, it was like she just vanished. There was no physical evidence to link the crime to anyone, including Weller’s father but people still assumed that since little Taylor spent so much time with the Wellers there had to be something sexual going on. Of course Weller’s dad denied those allegations (even to this day). And Jane has a snatch of memory of being a little girl and a shadowy man coming into her room and walking her out of the house.

She doesn’t have a chance to tell Weller about the memory because the lockdown is finally lifted and they get to regroup with Zapata and Reade. They’ve discovered that Margaret, one of the higher ups triggered the lockdown after she left the building. Yeah because that isn’t sketchy. The team determines that she was in areas where outbreaks of the missing viruses occurred shortly before outbreak. Also very sketchy. They send out state troopers who flag down her car. They don’t have time to do anything because she pulls a murder-suicide with her poor, clueless husband. The team is hot on the heels of the final vial of contagion. One of the crime scene photos points to a lead at the local cruise ship terminal and a good spot from Jane gives them the time frame they have to work with (two hours). On the way, Jane tries to get Weller to talk about his father and how he dealt with everything but he clams up and gets a little emotional. I guess Reade is right to be a little worried about the way Weller gets when Jane is around. They make it to the harbor and find the bag just in time. Together, the four of them make a makeshift container for the gas. All seems fine until the Director of the CDC heads off to try and handle the contagion. Weller is still there, too. Patterson connects in on comms and warns that the Director was in on the whole spreading of disease. He has this whole big speech about how these viruses are the planet’s way of fighting back and keeping population down. Yeah, he’s a nut job for sure. Weller is starting to get his butt handed to him when Jane rushes in, no Hazmat suit on and tackles the guy. Reckless move, but lucky nonetheless.

Back at FBI headquarters, Mayfair has a visitor. The sleazy guy from the CIA wants a sit down with Jane. Mayfair isn’t having any of it. She is understandably a little annoyed since Patterson came bugging her about the case file earlier. This ended in a bit of a stale mate when Mayfair called her out for the help her boyfriend gave her on the tattoo. Oh the secrets these people keep. Speaking of secrets, Zapata has one, too. Reade saw her talking to a guy at the top of the episode and it turns out he is her bookie sand she is now $40,000 in the hole from gambling debts. I did not expect that to be at all what was going on with her. Very intriguing indeed.

Weller finds Jane in the conference room looking at an old news story about her going missing. She doesn’t remember anything else (and she doesn’t tell Weller about the memory she did recover) but they do get to have a very sweet bonding moment. Weller remembers where the photo was taken that was used in the article. He even recalls a fond memory of his fishing with his dad in the creek behind their houses. He says that his sisters would always stay inside playing with dolls but Taylor was a tomboy and loved to tag along on all Kurt’s adventures. I can see why he would blame himself for her disappearance. Especially if the evidence led to the mysterious conclusion that there was no forced entry and it seemed Weller was in the house at the time of the abduction. Poor kid. And because nothing can be simple, Patterson has some shocking results to share with Weller. While Jane’s DNA is a match for Taylor Shaw, the isotopes in her teeth show that she was born in Sub-Saharan Africa. Those two conclusions (both supported by physical evidence and science) seem to conflict. My question is, why do they have to? Maybe Weller didn’t know Jane’s mom adopted her from Africa. Plenty of people do that. She could still be Taylor Shaw. Now I just want to know exactly who she is. I thought we’d solved one mystery and could move on to others.

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