BLINDSPOT “Ca-Ca-Candidate For Cri-Cri-Crime” Review

BLINDSPOT — “Ca-ca-Candidate for Cri-cri-Crime” Episode 406 — Pictured: (l-r) Ashley Johnson as Patterson, Ennis Esmer as Rich Dotcom — (Photo by: Peter Kramer/NBC/Warner Bros)

Blindspot “Ca-Ca-Candidate For Cri-Cri-Crime” Review

By Pauline Perenack

Political Shakeups

Last week on Blindspot, Reade spent the day tied to a chair while Zapata and Claudia negotiated access to FBI files. Fresh off her betrayal of Reade, Zapata then handed over the files to Madeline, and quickly killed Claudia, claiming she was a mole. Rich found himself thrown into the fire of solving a tattoo case when one of bad guys of the week recognized him as an alias Rich had once used. Jane narrowed down Shepherd’s location, while Weller learned more about the lady Jane was talking to. Finally, Keaton was shot on a mission, and is in a medically induced coma.

Can we Trust Weitz?

Tonight’s episode, “Ca-Ca-Candidate for Cri-Cri-Crime” starts with a man pleading for his life as a gun is held on him. It does little to help, and the hitman shoots him regardless. As the man lays dying, he writes the letters GPA in his blood.

Meanwhile, after Jane finishes practicing with Violet on breaking into the CIA black site that holds Shepherd, she heads home to a suspicious Weller. He suggests she invite him on her next run, but since Remi wants absolutely nothing to do with Weller, she declines, saying he could never keep up.

At headquarters, CIA agent Sabrina Larren, who is filling in for Keaton, wants to interrogate Reade about the files Zapata was able to steal. She wants to make sure Reade hasn’t been compromised, so settles into an interrogation room with him.

With Reade busy, the team focuses on the latest tattoo case, which has been triggered by the GPA letters the man in the beginning of the episode drew out. Turns out, the man was Congressman Justin Trimble. Rich and Patterson figure that GPA points to the lobby group Growth and Prosperity for America, which is the biggest lobby group there is. They’ve given money to a lot of people, one of whom seems to be none other than Matthew Weitz, due to his history in politics. Jane and Weller question Weitz, who denies talking to Trimble recently, but Patterson is able to find text messages on Trimble’s phone which suggest Weitz met up with Trimble the night before. This revelation leads Weller to believe that Weitz is covering up a murder.

Surprisingly, Rich defends him, pointing out that Weitz has put himself on the line for the team more than once, but when Weitz cancels all his meetings, and orders a car, Rich has to admit that something seems to be going on. At the same time, Jane and Weller are searching Trimble’s home, and are having a painful conversation which is loaded with subtext of Jane/Remi’s deception. Thankfully the conversation comes to a halt when they find a USB drive, which ultimately contains an audio file of Trimble being blackmailed.

Rich and Patterson use their sleuthing skills and are able to determine that the GPA is trying to strip away sanctions on China, which would enable China to expand tech companies into the US and win the 5G race. Weitz joins the team, and after explaining that he drove out to Congressman Davenport’s house to try to help a friend, he helps the team narrow down who the next target of GPA will be – Elaine Bell. The team races to protect her, but they arrive too late, and she’s shot in her driveway by GPA’s hitman.

With Bell fighting for her life, Rich and Patterson narrow down a list of members of Congress who have taken money from GPA to try to figure out who is being blackmailed. There’s no way to know, so Weitz orders them all to be put into protective custody. However, due to his past friendship with Davenport, Weitz asks Reade to go with him to bring Davenport in. They arrive at his house, and Davenport admits he could be blackmailed because he had an affair with an underage girl. He agrees to go with Weitz and Reade, but asks to first lock up his office. Turns out, Davenport is the one behind everything, and takes the opportunity he has away from Weitz and Reade to order a hit on them.

At the hospital to check on Bell, Jane and Weller interrupt a GPA hitman who is trying to finish the job. Now armed with the hitman’s cell phone, Rich and Patterson are able to track the other GPA hitman to Davenport’s house. They warn Reade, who engages in a gunfight, while Weitz starts to question Davenport’s affair story. He manages to get Davenport to admit to being the head of the GPA, and almost loses his life, before Reade saves the day.

With the tattoo case solved, Weller and Jane can leave their watch of Bell. Jane says she just wants to go home because she’s not feeling well. Weller begs her to tell him what’s going on, and she “admits” she’s been searching the black market for a cure. Weller hugs her and says he’s in, and willing to help.

As the episode comes to a close, Reade is put on leave due to Larren’s belief he can’t be impartial when it comes to Zapata (whose storyline this week consisted only of her getting photos of some top-secret research for Madeline). Technically, it’s Weitz who fires Reade, but it’s because of Larren. However, the tables are flipped when it comes to Weitz as he shows up later that evening at Reade’s apartment, telling him he needs Reade to help him find Zapata before the CIA kills her.

Weller meanwhile, slipped a tracking device on Jane when he hugged her, and finds the warehouse where she was practicing the black site breakouts. While there, he ends up in a gun fight with Violet. Soon after, back at the Jeller household, Jane is quickly packing when Violet calls to tell her of Weller at the warehouse. Jane tries to get out of the apartment, but Weller confronts her and draws his gun as he asks her what is going on, but the episode ends before she says anything.

Jane on the Hook

It’s no secret that I don’t like the tattoo case of the week episodes, and this was definitely one of those. The case was boring, and ultimately seemed to be there to fill space in this episode. And then there’s the whole Weller and Jane/Remi storyline which has been awful this year, but hopefully since Weller has finally confronted her, this storyline can end already, and we can move on.

Zapata had next to nothing to do this episode, but it was very interesting that Weitz is having Reade track her down before the CIA gets to her. It’s been established that there is a mole in Madeline’s employees, and since Zapata took out Claudia last week, the mole is clearly Zapata. This of course makes complete sense, as it’s easy to see that Zapata was sent in to manipulate Blake to take down HCI, but when Madeline took over, everything went south. What’s more interesting is that it seems as though it was Weitz (or the FBI) who put her on this mission. The CIA burned her, so we knew it couldn’t have been them, and Keaton admitted they had no knowledge of her whereabouts, which further solidified that theory. So the question now is, why isn’t Weitz letting the rest of the team know about what Zapata is up to? She’s clearly in trouble, and they would step in to help. But also, we need to discuss how finally Weitz has turned into a fantastic character. He impressively figured out the Davenport situation, he manipulated Larren, and quite frankly, his comparison of himself to LeBron coming to the Lakers deserves a second watch. But his whole side mission to pull in Reade to find Zapata is fascinating, and I can’t wait to see what happens.

However, with Thanksgiving next week, we’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to see if they’re able to find her. Until then!