BLINDSPOT “My Art Project” Recap

BLINDSPOT — “My Art Project” Episode 402 — Pictured: (l-r) Luke Mitchell as Roman, Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

BLINDSPOT “MY ART PROJECT” RECAP

BY PAULINE PERENACK

Map of Possibilities

Last week we were fully introduced to Remi, and know she’s really not happy about having to play house with Weller. She’s also started to hallucinate, due to her degrading health through zip poisoning, and those hallucinations allow her to talk to none other than Roman.

Meanwhile, Matthew Weitz is now the new FBI director, Rich Dotcom is thankfully a bigger part of the team, and Zapata finds herself with a new boss after Blake meets her demise. The question is, is Zapata playing something bigger than just flipping sides?

Let’s recap tonight’s episode to see what the team is up to now.

The Deviousness of Remi

Tonight’s episode, “My Art Project” begins with a flashback to 13 years ago of two men working on a sculpture, which we eventually are able to see as a map of the world. Apparently they’re putting clues in the map that the “right people” will find.

Back in present day, we drop right back into last week’s ending scene of Jane working hard to portray herself as the loving wife of Weller, but the moment he leaves, she drops the act to fully become Remi. Talking with the Roman hallucination, she acknowledges that time is running out for her to find Shepherd, kill Weller, and find a cure for the poison within her.

At headquarters however, Weller finally is able to make his return to duty, and Rich seems to be the happiest to have him back, instantly welcoming “Kurtis ‘I don’t know his middle name’ Weller.” The team is focused on finding the last remaining Sandstorm member, but Rich is also working on finding Zapata. He tells Reade he’s tracked her down in Paris, and has a picture of her with Blake.

Patterson calls them back into the briefing room, and announces that Blake’s plane had crashed, killing all on board. She announces that this development thrusts Madeline Burke into the head of HCI, and it worries Reade about Zapata’s fate.

As the team disperses to do various things, Rich notices that the world mural in the office looks a lot like one of Jane’s tattoos. Since we last saw the team, they were able to look through the Tokyo cache, which contained the map tattoo. Once Patterson gets involved, they notice that the mural is made of different materials, and Rich suggests that an art expert — his ex-boyfriend Boston — should be called in to look at it.

Boston, like Rich, is always able to help out the team, and discovers that part of the mural is made up of magnetic materials. When Boston throws some metal filings up in the air, they attach to the mural in specific locations, which ultimately point to a physical address. Patterson suits up with Jane to check the place out, and they find an abandoned warehouse, with an ATM sitting in one of the rooms. When they approach it, it welcomes them, and asks them to make a transaction. Patterson is able to solve the puzzle it gives her, and the machine takes a picture of them, identifies them by name, and then gasses them.

When Jane and Patterson wake up, they’re in the presence of a Jason Stack, who apparently works for the NSA in a division called Zero Division, which is the same division that was named in the opening flashback, and the same division Nas worked for. Stack tells Jane and Patterson that Zero Division is all about inter-agency information sharing that bypasses the usual routes to get information faster. He tells Jane and Patterson he needs them to bring him three specific FBI files which can help him avoid an upcoming militia plot, and if they do, they can join the division.

As as soon as they get back to headquarters, Jane and Patterson run his name, but find nothing, and a phone call to Nas leads to the same. Patterson suggests bringing in Boston since he’s so helpful, and Boston is able to put together that Stack is really Boris Sokolov. Sokolov has been running a con for years to get crucial intelligence that he can deliver back to Russia. Jane suggests she and Patterson go back to the warehouse, but this time with drugs to block the effects of the ATM gas, which would allow them to track the location of Sokolov.

Jane/Remi however, has other plans because she can use Sokolov for her own. As such, she switches Patterson’s pill so that when they’re gassed again, Patterson is knocked unconscious, leaving Jane/Remi to deal with Sokolov on her own. She convinces him to give her files on CIA black sites in exchange for information on his family, who he thought was dead. However, Boston and Rich are able to find the warehouse, and send the team. Jane sets everything up so that Sokolov looks like he’s holding her hostage, and Weller ends up killing him, but not before Jane gets the flash drive with at least some of the CIA black site files.

Meanwhile, Zapata finds that Madeline Burke is much more lethal than Blake could ever have been. To make sure that HCI is fully under her control, Burke tells Zapata they’re going to fly to Stockholm to get all of Hank Crawford’s files. Zapata enters the house of Crawford’s lawyer, and retrieves the hard drive, but it’s not enough for Burke, who comes in and kills the lawyer, leaving Zapata to clean it up. As she’s working, she hears a noise, and finds the lawyer’s young daughter cowering in a closet. Thankfully, Zapata tells the girl to be quiet, and backs away.

As the episode comes to a close, Remi talks to her hallucination of Roman as she puts together a needle full of poison she fully intends to use on Weller. Roman doesn’t think Remi can do it, but when Weller walks in and asks what Jane/Remi has behind her back, Roman points out this is the only opportunity they have to kill Weller, as the episode ends.

Zapata’s Struggle

I enjoyed this episode much more than the premiere, and it’s mostly because of the incredibly strong performances by Ennis Esmer, Josh Dean, and Ashley Johnson. Those three completely made this episode, and I really hope we see much more of Dean in future episodes. Boston’s constant need to be better than Rich will drive both to better things, and it’ll be those two who will not only figure out what’s going on with Jane, but will also figure out whatever it is that Zapata is up to, and ultimately be able to bring her home. Esmer even got the best line of the episode when he pointed out that “statistically speaking, there’s probably going to be a shootout,” because what episode doesn’t have a shootout? Technically this one only had a standoff with only a few shots from Weller, but they were still shots.

Speaking of Weller, he once again had a limited role in this episode. Sure, he saved Jane/Remi at the end, but other than that, there were only a few scenes of him starting to suspect something with Jane. Invariably now that he’s back on the job, he’ll get more screen time, but I’m not fully convinced I’d be sad if he didn’t get that extra time. Also, in regards to the whole Jeller relationship, what happened to Avery? At the end of last season, she was hanging out with them all the time, yet she’s been non-existent this season. I feel as though she would quickly sniff out that something was wrong with Jane, so that’s likely why we haven’t seen her yet.

Finally, it was interesting to have Agent Keaton back, to at least let us know that even the CIA doesn’t know what Zapata is up to, which means she’s doing this all on her own. But why? Until next week!