BLINDSPOT “Everlasting” Review

BLINDSPOT — “Everlasting” Episode 314 — Pictured: (l-r) Audrey Esparza as Tasha Zapata, Ashley Johnson as Patterson — (Photo by: Barbara Nitke/NBC)

BLINDSPOT “EVERLASTING” REVIEW

BY PAULINE PERENACK

Groundhog Day

Last week on Blindspot we were treated to the return of Nas, and some wonderful interactions with Rich Dotcom. As the team reeled from the information that Hank Crawford was the founder of Sandstorm, they had to try to focus on the case of the week, which had them saving the world from a nasty computer virus.

Meanwhile, Jane was able to inch closer to having a better relationship with Avery, while Blake was kidnapped from the arms of Roman.

So is Roman able to save Blake? How will the new information about Crawford play into what the team is working on? Let’s recap tonight’s episode to find out.

Breaking the Loop

Tonight’s episode, “Everlasting” starts off with Patterson being woken up by her neighbor playing the trumpet. She heads to work, and on the elevator ride up, a professor named Jack strikes up a conversation with her, which quickly turns into flirting, as Jack points out that Patterson has a dryer sheet stuck to her pants. Patterson awkwardly refuses a date for coffee, and then has to deal with Zapata, who happened to step on the elevator just in time to see the date denial.

As the two banter back and forth about what happened, Reade beckons them into his office, where he lets them know he proposed to Meg, and that he wants Zapata to be his best man. Once out of Reade’s office, Patterson and Zapata continue their banter, but are interrupted by one of Patterson’s assistants who has cracked a tattoo. She discovered that when multiplying the numbers on Jane’s body by Pi, the answers resulted in numbers corresponding to autopsy reports of three marines who all died on the same day, and all from drug overdoses.

However, as Patterson digs into it, she discovers the reports have been forged, and wants to run a controversial test on the cremated remains. While initially reluctant, the military allows the tests. Zapata invites Jack in to help since Patterson didn’t have the experience, and as she and Patterson continue to pour over the autopsy reports, they hear a rattling in the lab. Patterson goes to investigate, and a centrifuges explodes in her face.

After the commercial break, the episode starts all over again, Groundhog Day style, but Patterson picks up on the similarities quickly. Unfortunately for her however, no one else notices, so she has to talk herself out of believing she’s stuck in The Matrix. No matter what she does, she ends up back in the lab with the centrifuges, even though this time she noticed that there were different styles of the number 7 being used in the tattoos.

This time when she wakes up, she finds herself standing with David (remember her awesome boyfriend from season 1 who was murdered?) in the elevator. The two discuss why she’s trapped in the loop, and know she needs to fix whatever happened.

At this point however, we are shown that Patterson was actually being rushed to the hospital after being seriously injured in the explosion. Her injuries are so bad that Weller and Jane are told to call Patterson’s next of kin.

Meanwhile, in her mind, Patterson is now being helped by Stuart, but once again, she finds herself being blown up. At least this time, she ends up in the elevator with a very naked Roman, who tells Patterson she clearly has a crush on him. However, once she escapes the flirty moment, she’s cornered by Borden who hosts a sort of marriage counselling between Patterson, David, and Jack.

The next time Patterson exits the elevator, she finds herself in the middle of a scene out of The Breakfast Club, with the entire team sitting in a classroom. It’s here however, that Patterson is able to put together that the marines were poisoned. She leaves the classroom to meet up with David who helps her put the clues together. With his help, she discovers that the three marines were actually on a top secret mission in Beijing, led by General Mahoney – the same General who allowed Patterson to conduct the tests to begin with.

This time when she wakes up, Patterson can’t understand why she’s still stuck in the loop, and enters the office to find it deserted. As she walks around, Director Pellington, David, and Stuart all tell her to live her life, and stop blaming herself for their deaths. The General attacks her, and comes close to killing her, before she’s able to fight him off, and ultimately save her own life.

As she comes out of her coma, she tells the team about General Mahoney, and the case is solved.

With the episode wrapping up, while in her hospital bed, Patterson makes sure to tell Jane and Weller that they shouldn’t keep anything from Avery. She also tells Zapata to admit her feelings to Reade, and as she and Zapata talk, Patterson admits that she felt like something was off with her visions of Borden. Specifically, she felt almost as if he wasn’t really dead.

Sure enough, as the episode closes, we see Borden, alive and well, helping an injured man who says that “the attack” is coming soon.

Borden’s Back

I loved this episode. For some reason, I always like Groundhog Day-type episodes but especially enjoyed this one because Patterson figured out what was going on so quickly. Usually it takes the hero much longer to put the pieces together, but obviously, Patterson is smarter than everyone.

Also, the return of David will pull at the heartstrings of every Blindspotter out there, and his character was so useful that it made sense to bring him back. It was wonderful to see.

And the movie references? Fantastic. It’s fun how relatable a character Patterson is. She’s a geek through and through, and has seen all the same movies the rest of us have. She even has her name spelled wrong on her coffee order (anyone else notice that she doesn’t even use her first name when ordering? And even then, gets “Peterson”).

Getting to the overall themes of the season however, not much was revealed. Really, the only thing we were given, was something new – that Borden is actually alive, and seemingly, still pushing Sandstorm’s agenda to fruition. So, the question that comes out of that is, how does that tie into Roman? Does Roman know Borden is alive, and as such, is trying to take down Sandstorm by way of Crawford? Guess we will have to wait until next week to find out. Until then!