BLINDSPOT Recap: “City Folks Under Wraps”

BLINDSPOT — “City Folk Under Wraps” Episode 308 — Pictured: (l-r) Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller, Ennis Esmer as Rich Dotcom — (Photo by: Barbara Nitke/NBC/WarnerBros)

BLINDSPOT MID-SEASON FINALE REVIEW “CITY FOLKS UNDER WRAPS”

BY PAULINE PERENACK

The Downfall of Hirst

Somehow, we’re already at the winter finale of this season’s Blindspot —  a season which has been action packed ever since its premiere this fall. We’ve seen the reunion of Jeller, watched as the team slowly came back together after being apart for months, and laughed along as Rich Dotcom attempted to justify his presence at the FBI.

However, with the good came the bad, and we were introduced to the dangerous Director Hirst, were left dumbfounded as to whatever it is Roman is up to, and were stunned to learn that not only does Jane have a daughter, but that Weller knew about her and kept it a secret.

All of those storylines have been racing along, and have gotten us here, so let’s recap tonight’s episode to see what plots were wrapped up, and which ones will leave us longing for the January premiere.

Captured One by One

The beginning of Friday’s episode, “City Folks Under Wraps” revisits the end of last week’s episode, as van Gogh is killed. However, instead of seeing it as we did, we see it from Hirst’s perspective, as she sits in her office and receives a phone call telling her “it’s done.” She then quickly makes another call, and a man (the amazing David Morse) answers. When she confesses that she thinks her team is on to her, the man tells her to take care of it, or he’ll take care of her. And not in a good way. Worried about her life, Hirst meets up with Reade in his office in the scene we saw last week, and tells him they need to watch each other’s backs.

Reade makes his way to Jeller’s apartment where the team is meeting, and they all agree that they can’t go after Hirst without solid evidence. As such, Reade says that it needs to be business as usual, so the team heads into work.

However, Hirst is fully onto them, and brings a laptop to Rich Dotcom to hack, which supposedly was just confiscated by the FBI. However, when he hacks into it, he finds massive amounts of evidence pointing to Patterson as Stuart’s killer. He brings it to the team, and they know they’re running out of time. Jumping to action, Rich releases a virus into the computer system, giving Patterson a chance to run.

As the rest of the team plays along with Hirst’s frantic hunt for Patterson, Rich helps her to escape through an air vent, and ultimately out of the building by wearing a mask that looks like an old man. Zapata picks her up, and Patterson is safe. Rich however, is not, as agents find his fingerprints all over the vent, and Hirst immediately arrests him and begins an interrogation. She promises him freedom, and the location of his ex-boyfriend, Boston, in exchange for Patterson, but he refuses.

With Rich in interrogation however, the easy way to get to Hirst’s personal phone in her office is off the table, so Jane and Weller go the old-fashioned route by stealing it. They have Patterson call in a bomb threat, and with the building evacuating, they pick the lock on the door and walk in. When they do however, they discover the doorframe was fitted with an electromagnetic device, blocking the only way to get the personal phone out. As such, Weller throws the phone through an air vent, and tells Jane to go after it as he gives himself up to give her time to get the phone and escape.

Weller wakes up from being stunned, only to find himself sitting next to Rich in the interrogation room, and Hirst giving Reade the lead in the interrogation. During his questioning, Reade’s irritation is not only evident, but includes a callback to the first season of the show and Weller’s focus on Jane. The moment makes us all question if Reade’s loyalty is shifting, especially when he asks what would happen if the FBI searched Weller’s apartment.

Jane meanwhile, sneaks into Patterson’s lab to hook up Hirst’s phone to the server. After receiving a message from Jane, Patterson is able to connect into the system to download the information from the phone, where she finds a hidden contact list, including one for Kinga, the “Alexa” type device in Stuart’s home. Zapata receives a warning from Reade (who is still loyal!) that the FBI is on the way, so Patterson tells her to run, while she completes the phone decryption and sends the data before getting caught.

Zapata makes her way to the apartment of the Kinga employee they had questioned a few episodes ago, and finds the place tossed. The girl is watching however, and texts Zapata, saying she recognizes her and needs help. Zapata says she can assist, but needs the voice files from Stuart’s device. The girl points Zapata to the bleach bottle, and sure enough, there’s the flash drive.

Back at headquarters, Jane is on the run, and is quickly caught. Hirst and her loyalists hold a gun on her, but at that moment, Zapata calls one of the agents on the floor, and asks her to patch the phone into the PA system, where Zapata plays the audio of the night of Stuart’s murder. Hirst is exposed, and put into custody.

As Reade walks Hirst out and makes a comment about her being very calm about the whole situation, Hirst flips the script on him, and points out that not only are the agents walking with them loyal to her, but Zapata has been kidnapped, as evidenced by the picture message Reade receives. Hirst says Zapata can go free if she can, and Reade is forced to agree.

After being tipped off to what’s going on, the team rushes to intercept, and Weller and Jane manage to free both Reade and Zapata, and re-arrest Hirst.

This is about the time where Roman’s storyline finally intersects with what’s been going on. Throughout the episode, he’s still in Barcelona with Blake, and eventually gets to meet with her father, who just so happens to be Hank Crawford – the man pulling the shots with Hirst. Crawford ends up offering Roman the job of bodyguard to Blake, which Roman accepts. This puts him in such a good mood, that during his second call of the episode with Weller, he admits he’s fine with Hirst not being eliminated, and won’t even tell Jane about what happened in Berlin.

On the other end of the line, Weller can’t handle the stress of the secret he’s keeping from Jane, and finally tells her what happened in Berlin. He apologizes for not being more helpful in her hunt for her daughter, but it’s because he knows Jane won’t find her, since he killed her.

Berlin Bombshell 2.0

What. An. Episode. Blindspot has been fantastic this season, and this fall finale not only kept up the pace set by previous episodes, but utterly destroyed it.

So, let’s start with the lighter aspects. The humor of tonight’s episode was on point. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I love the interactions of Zapata and Patterson. In a scene that’ll be forgotten because of tonight’s bombshell, Patterson put together that Zapata liked liked Reade, and was ready for some hardcore girl gossip. However, the notice of a completed upload pointed out by Zapata put a stop to that, but not before Patterson requested that this was to be continued.

Then, there’s Rich Dotcom. Did anyone else notice he has Zapata in his phone as “What’s Her Name”? Also, he really came through for the team, and even though he said Hirst was bluffing about knowing where Boston was, he held fast, and didn’t turn on them. Hopefully this isn’t setting the team up for the ultimate betrayal later in the season.

But now the heavy aspects. Roman’s plan has come slightly more into focus, but then is just as fuzzy as ever before. He’s been working for the past year to take down Hirst, but it’s still not obvious as to why. Since Crawford seems to be his endgame, perhaps he needed Hirst taken out so that Crawford would never learn of Roman’s connection to Jane. Clearly Roman has something deeper going on that we’ll learn of in the back half of the season.

And then there’s Jeller. All I can do is sigh. They’ve been working as a team all season, and it’s been fantastic, but with this latest bombshell from Weller, it’s clear the two will be ripped apart, and we’ll have to spend many episodes hoping Weller can convince Jane to come back. I’m assuming Weller didn’t mean to kill Jane’s daughter and that it was some horrible mistake that invariably he didn’t really have a hand in, but instead was unable to prevent. Perhaps this is the connection with Crawford?

Unfortunately Blindspot is off for a few weeks, so I guess we’ll all just have to theorize in the meantime. Until then!