BLINDSPOT “Check Your Ed” Review

BLINDSPOT — “Check Your Ed” Episode 409 — Pictured: (l-r) Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller, Rob Brown as Edgar Reade — (Photo by: NBC/Warner Brothers)

BLINDSPOT “CHECK YOUR ED” REVIEW

BY PAULINE PERENACK

Jane vs. Remi

Welcome back Blindspotters! I hope you all had a great holiday season, and are ready to dive back into the world of Weller and team. As a reminder, when we last left the team, everyone was preparing for a nuclear attack until it was discovered that NORAD had been hacked – by Boston – who discovered he wasn’t working for the good guys. Remi is able to break Shepherd out, but the team is able to track Remi down. So, while Reade and Weitz have a lock on Zapata, Weller has a lock on Remi.

The Ultimate Battle to be Won

Tonight’s episode, “Check Your Ed” begins right where we left off, with Weller and Remi fighting. No matter what he does, Weller can’t break through to Jane, so he’s forced to knock Remi out with a needle so he can bring her into the FBI.

At headquarters, Patterson, Rich, and a doctor believe that they’re ready to try the experimental procedure they found in Roman’s data caches on Jane, and Weller tells them to try, even though there’s the possibility that trying could kill Jane.

From there, the episode takes us within Jane’s mind as she tries to return to being Jane, by ridding herself of Remi. It begins with her being found in the duffle bag in Times Square, and then moves through her experiences of the pilot. Things are different however, and Weller is older, but wants to help her figure out what’s going on. She touches him, but nothing seems to jog her memory.

At this point, we leave Jane’s mind to see Weller have to leave the room when Jane’s vitals start spiking. Patterson goes to talk to him, and tells him if he wants to save Jane, he needs to fight with her, and be in the room with her. He agrees, and goes back in, and grabs Jane’s hand. When he does, in her mind, Jane once again touches Weller and is suddenly able to remember their relationship, and everything that’s between them, but is still unsure of what’s going on. Weller doesn’t know either, but tells her he thinks she’s in trouble. At that point, the location changes to the lab, which is now filled with mementos of Jane’s life. On the TVs, Jane can see Remi sitting in another room, bathed in red light.

To get out of the lab, Jane has to solve a number of puzzles, and needs help from her friends. Patterson, Rich, Zapata, and Reade all jump in to help, and Jane begins to remember more and more of her old life. Solving the puzzles, all of which call back to prior episodes, leads Jane to the box from season three that only she and Weller can open together, and once they do, a key is revealed. With the key, Jane is able to leave the room, but only Weller is able to leave with her. Together, they make their way through darkened hallways, and after avoiding a creepy little girl, and a door that is glowing red, Jane steps onto an elevator, but is separated from Weller by Remi, who slams the doors shut before Weller can get in with Jane.

Unable to get the elevator to go anywhere, since it’s coin operated, Jane forces the doors open, and steps out into the darkened hallways. There, she’s immediately confronted by the creepy little girl, who begins a nightmarish scene as the girl walks awkwardly backward from Jane. Jane heads towards the glowing door, but runs as something on the other side is clearly trying to break out. She runs in fear, and runs right into Weller who is able to calm her down, and tells her she needs to turn the tables on Remi. He disappears, and Jane follows a trail of blood which leaves to a monster-esque Roman.

Now with a plan in mind, Jane runs from Roman, expecting him to chase, and he does, right into an interrogation room. Weller locks them inside, where they begin to play the marble game they did as kids, and Jane apologizes to Roman for not doing more for him. He forgives her, which gets her that much closer to Remi. However, before she can deal with Remi once and for all, she must confront Shepherd. After taking the elevator to the basement thanks to a coin given by Roman, Jane is held captive by Shepherd, who forces her to remember all the pain she’s caused. Instead of breaking from these memories however, Jane instead gets stronger, as she sees all the joy she’s had as Jane.

After dealing with a situation where she has to save Weller over and over, Jane realizes that she’s the one who needs to deal with Remi – no one else. As such, she turns to the little girl she kept seeing, and realizes it’s Alice Kruger, the little girl Jane used to be before everything went bad in her life. Alice is able to open the door to Remi, and the fight between Remi and Jane is on.

Shepherd shows up to cheer on Remi in the fight, and Jane realizes that Remi is a part of her, and can’t be eliminated. As such, she’s not the true enemy – Shepherd is. She uses what Shepherd did to both of them to form a bond with Remi to destroy Shepherd, which is the key to her waking up. When she does, she’s surrounded by Weller, Rich and Patterson, and is fully back to being Jane.

As the episode winds down, Jane remembers that she set Shepherd free, and as Rich takes her to the hospital to be checked out, Patterson and Weller head out to find Shepherd. She’s gone however, so Weller heads home to Jane. He walks in, and Jane isn’t there, but Shepherd is. The two fight, and just as Shepherd is about to shoot Weller, Jane arrives, and kills her.

The next day, Jane and Weller walk into headquarters, and Jane is welcomed back by Rich and Patterson. Rich mentions that the family is back together with no more drama, but is distracted by the elevator doors opening. They open to Reade leading a handcuffed Zapata through the room, after having arrested her in Mexico.

Zapata is back, Shepherd is gone

This episode was fantastic. The awful Remi/Jane/Weller storyline is finally over, and the writers were able to create a “Jane being cured” storyline that was really interesting. A variant of this storyline was used already with Patterson in 3.14, but it definitely worked in that episode, and did here as well. Jane’s mind however, was much darker than Patterson’s, and quite frankly, if you’re one to shy away from horror movies, there are definitely a few scenes that could potentially produce some decent nightmares. There are also so many callbacks to previous episodes, that this was a goldmine for diehard Blindspotters.

And now that Remi is out of the picture, and Shepherd is finally, fully dead, the villain of the story seems to be shifting to Madeline, and potentially Zapata. With Zapata now in custody however, it’ll be interesting to see if she tells the truth about why she was working undercover (if that’s what she’s doing), or if she stays fully undercover until Madeline somehow breaks her out. Or, has she actually become the villain of Blindspot. Regardless, I’ve missed Zapata a lot, and I’m so happy she’s back with the gang, even if she is in handcuffs, because now we’ll get more storylines with her, and hopefully by end of season, get her back on the team.

Until next week!