Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Blindspot 1.08: "Persecute Envoys"

“We thought the benefits outweighed the costs. We were wrong.”
- Mayfair

This is the week we supposedly get answers on Operation Daylight. Weller is still pissed with Mayfair for lying but we learn that she, Carter and another woman were brought in and given a directive by the White House Chief of Staff to use NSA intelligence collected on American citizens to stop crime. Mayfair used Guerrero as her “creative” way to get information. She claims they would have brought him in if she could find him but she had no idea where he was. In flashback, we see that at first Mayfair is appalled by the directive and doesn’t want to do it given the possibility of jail time if they were found out not to mention it is a huge invasion of privacy on the population. I have a feeling though that Carter will talk her into it since none of them can leave unless all three of them agree to move forward. The more interesting part of this backstory turns out to be Mayfair’s relationship with the third person in their little group, Sophia. They fall in love and the things just start falling part. Their contact at the NSA goes public and the Chief of Staff disavows any knowledge of the program. Carter is his usual asshole self and ultimately Sophia kills herself, leaving a note for Mayfair. I like that we got some history on Mayfair and that we know what is motivating her now. But it is rather sad that all of these people seem to have such tragedy in their pasts.

The case of the week revolves around two cops who were shot execution style. Thanks to Patterson we know that their murders were predicted by one of Jane’s tattoos. Apparently these two cops were among a group of five who were present when a young black man was shot (unarmed) in a grocery store parking lot. Gotta hand it to them for using current news stories. I even liked how the different characters reacted to it. While the officer who pulled the trigger was fired, he wasn’t indicted. The NYPD district is not pleased to have the feds brought in to investigate but they need someone on the outside to help catch the killer. In talking to one of the dead officer’s partners, we learn that they wear body cams now (which personally I think makes a lot of sense for all cops) and so we get to witness the murders via footage. That pretty much sucks a lot.

While other analysts are going through video footage to see if they can find the killer, Weller asks Jane what she would do if someone she trusted let her down. She responds that if it was forgivable, she’d forgive but since none of the team has let her down, she doesn’t know how she’d react if the action was unforgiveable. They don’t have time to ponder it further because one of the analysts gets a hit on a pro football player who threatened to kill one of the officers. Thanks to groupies and social media, Zapata finds where the football guy is and the team heads to the party to have a little chat. Of course the minute the guy sees Weller’s badge he takes off running. It kind of takes the whole team to take him down. But hey, I liked the teamwork!

Through the interrogation, we learn that the football player got the cops called on him by his neighbors and then they got an anonymous letter demanding $50,000. So yes, the closeted player threatened one of the cops. Unfortunately, even though the team thinks he is the killer, it turns out they may be very wrong when the cop’s partner is found dead. It also turns out that the football player’s gun doesn’t match any of the killings so they need to find themselves a new suspect.

Through some more digging, the team figures out that the three dead cops were not extorting people after all. And the dummy account had money from lots of different people. Thanks to the football player saying the photos of him having sex looked like pictures of pictures, Patterson realizes someone was taking photos of body cam footage from the archive at the precinct. Too bad everyone has access to it (yeah shared passwords are stupid). The team is pretty frustrated and Mayfair isn’t helping things. Weller is still pissed at her and wants to make sure they do things by the book instead of going the way of possibly using Daylight. Understandable but he does need to calm down just a touch.

Patterson really come through this week in her skills. Thanks to some sleuthing on the social security number used to set up the dummy account where all the money was sent, they figure out which two cops are responsible for the deaths. They used the hostility in the neighborhood to cover up their mess. And they have headed right for one of the dead cop’s widows. Weller and Jane show up and a firefight ensues, complete with smoke/light bomb. Weller takes out of the cops and Jane lands the other one in surgery with a nice shot to the knee. Mayfair has filled in the Captain of the precinct and he demands to see the surviving cop. This is a big clue that he’s in on it and Mayfair takes him out by crashing her car. Weller sees her at the hospital and says he still doesn’t trust her (but hey at least he listened to Jane when she was all concerned about him). One way or another this is all going to catch up to her someday.

The end of the episode is pretty hilarious. The girls go out for drinks where Jane confesses she sneaks out of her safe house sometimes and rides the subway just to feel normal. Zapata points out she’s not normal. And Weller goes home and shares a drink with his dad. That’s progress! Alas I fear we will not be free of Carter any time soon since he basically blackmails Zapata into keeping him up to date on Jane. He is a despicable human being and I really want Jane to just take him out.

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