BLINDSPOT Recap “We Fight Deaths on Thick Lone Waters”

By Pauline Perenack

Weller For Sale

After being pre-empted last week because of the World Series, Blindspot is finally back!

When we last left off, we were treated to the amazing Rich Dotcom. His presence brought some much needed comedy to the heaviness of this season, and was a good break for our team. Outside of his story however, the episode dove deeper into the friendship of Reade and Zapata, and how far each was willing to go for the other, while also exploring how everything around Jane was falling apart.

If you’re playing the title anagrams, tonight’s episode, “We Fight Deaths on Thick Lone Waters” seems to decode to “When The Soldiers Attack, We Fight On.” But, there’s some discussion in the Reddit subs that this is an error with the episode title. Have you been able to decode it properly? If we accept this decoding to be true, all titles we’ve had so far come out to “Nothing is more dangerous. They invoke fear, for their moment is near. The FBI defends the constitution. Shepherd’s Army only serves themselves. When the soldiers attack, we fight on. ”

Intrigued? Let’s recap what happened tonight.

Phase Two Has Begun

Similar to last week, the plot line of Sandstorm took a backseat this week, and once again, a little humor was injected into the episode. However, what is different this week, is the episode timeline. The episode begins in the midst of a mission that quickly goes south, leaving viewers wondering how the team got into this situation in the first places. While the team is waiting for Weller and Jane to emerge from a building, a bomb goes off, and the team is only able to apprehend two individuals they were looking for, but Weller and Jane are missing.

That would be bad enough for our team, but soon after they return to headquarters, Assistant US Attorney Matthew Weitz shows up, telling the team they are being audited because of their actions out in the field during the mission. The episode then jumps back to explain how the team got on this case in the first place. Turns out, Patterson set up fake profiles of each member of the team and added them to the fake puppy forum which brought them to Rich Dotcom. She hoped that maybe they could catch some other criminals that way. Sure enough, Weller and Jane were contacted to participate in a heist, and were hired alongside two actual criminals – Lynn Burton, a hacker, and Clive Doyle, wanted mostly for homicides.

Since the team has Burton and Doyle in custody, they start interrogations to try to learn what happened to Weller and Jane. This portion of the episode is interesting because we get to see what “happened” through the eyes of each individual, which leads to some interesting points of view. First up is Burton, who Weitz goes after. She admits she was hired by a man named Emile, and they were hired to steal an item. Turns out, Nico Marconi, an arms dealer, who just so happens to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, was the one bankrolling the job, so there was some serious money coming to each person if they were successful in the heist.

Nas then talks to Doyle, who says he was with Jane and Weller the whole time. They made it to the vault, but set off an alarm, leaving Weller to assume they were the distraction so Emile and Burton could steal the real item. The three fight their way out, and eventually meet up with Emile and his escape vehicle, but Weller knocks Doyle unconscious, so only he and Jane go off with Emile.

Using Doyle’s description of the escape vehicle, Patterson is able to trace the possible destination to a defunct state park that Marconi owns. The team heads out to the area, and run into Jane, who has since escaped Emile. She lets them know that Weller is on a boat with Emile and the item, which turns out to be a person, Mingxia Chen, who is an expert in plate tectonics, and has developed a way to harness the power of earthquakes to create a natural disaster bomb.

As they talk through the details of what happened, Jane points out she thinks Burton and Emile knew each other previously. With that information, Patterson is able to find a money transfer site, and off-shore account Burton had set up for Marconi, and Weitz threatens Burton with human trafficking charges, assuming Chen was taken to be sold. Not wanting to go to prison for human trafficking, Burton admits she wasn’t part of a direct sale of Chen – rather, there was a dark web auction happening, with both Chen and Weller up for sale.

Reade suggests buying Chen and Weller to get to them, but Weitz strictly forbids it. As such, Nas, with the help of the whole team, goes behind Weitz’s back, and uses the money from Burton’s off-shore account to win the auction. When they go to the location to make the swap, their cover is blown. However, back at headquarters, Jane has blackmailed Weitz into sending backup to help – saying he can either let four FBI agents and a civilian go missing, or he can be the hero and bring in one of the FBI’s Most Wanted. Weitz relents, and Jane goes with the backup team to save Weller and Chen, and capture Marconi.

Even though the mission was a success, Weitz goes after Nas for disobeying his orders. He backs off though, when she lets him take full credit for the capture of Marconi. Nas isn’t happy with Weitz however, and decides she needs to get closer with her team. As such, she pulls Patterson aside, and gives her full access to everything gathered on Sandstorm in the past six years to see if Patterson can get any further on the covert group.

Throughout the episode, there were also a few running side plots. Reade and Zapata had to figure out what to do with the knife Zapata lifted from evidence in the Coach Jones murder, and decided to plant it on an employee who was already in hot water with the department. They figured he would return the knife, and nothing would be questioned. With that done, and feeling guilty about Freddy’s imminent arrest, Reade sneaks off to give him bus tickets out of town. Patterson meanwhile, was working hard on baking a cake for Weller and Allie’s baby shower, and inadvertently told Jane about the shower, not realizing Jane hadn’t been invited. Weller eventually invites her, and the whole team gathers for the party. Afterwards, Jane goes home only to find Roman waiting for her. He tells her that Phase Two is under way, and in a few hours, the world would be forever changed.

It’s a Girl!

While definitely not as enjoyable as the Rich Dotcom episode, this week’s was still pretty good, and that was because of the different kind of storytelling. Every time you get to see different people’s point of view about the same situation, comedy usually ensues – especially when you’ve got an actor like Mike Murray absolutely nailing his lines. His character, Doyle, thinking he was the hero of the situation, and not Weller and Jane, provided some much needed comedy, and really kept the episode flowing nicely.

However, the case of the week definitely took up the majority of time, so not much else was advanced. The Reade and Zapata storyline seems to have solved itself, but can we really assume it’s that easy and they’ll both get off scot-free? There has to be some sort of consequences for their actions, and it might start next week since we’re already at the fall finale.

Also, much to the dismay of every Blindspotter on Twitter, it seems as though the Nas and Weller pairing is set to continue, unless Weitz gets his way, and gets Nas fired. It was good to see Weller come around to Jane this week though, and admit he would miss her if anything happened to her. Looks like we’re finally seeing some character growth from Weller.

Finally, there is Sandstorm. While noticeably absent this week aside from a small cameo from Roman, it seems time is up for the FBI to figure out what Sandstorm is up to, and Phase Two is beginning. What will it mean, and will they be able to stop it? And since Roman came to Jane, even though he knows she’s sided with the FBI, does that mean she’s turned him? Until next week!