BLINDSPOT Recap “Condone Untidiest Thefts”

By Pauline Perenack

The Secret is Out

Last week’s episode had the entire team undercover, and we all swooned over Patterson’s high-tech accessories. With another tattoo case solved, Reade was forced to delve deeper into his own past with Coach Jones, and Zapata proved how loyal she was to Reade by not only asking Freddy to leave, but to cross a line and ask a known hacker for help.

Jane also fell deeper into the rabbit hole of Sandstorm as she learned more about why they’re doing what they’re doing, and Weller discovered that Sandstorm had been watching him for decades.

If you’re playing the title anagrams, tonight’s episode, “Condone Untidiest Thefts” seems to decode to “Defends the Constitution.”

All titles we’ve had so far come out to “Nothing is more dangerous. They invoke fear, for their moment is near.

The FBI defends the constitution.” Intrigued? Let’s recap what happened tonight.

A Mobbed up Senator

Tonight’s episode opens with a man working on loading a gun, which he then places inside the body of a television news camera. After putting the final touches on his creation, he raises it just like he would an actual camera, and shoots the head off of a dummy. He’s built a powerful weapon. We then shift focus to catch up with the team. Jane has a discussion with Shepherd, and mentions remembering being saved by a doctor in Afghanistan. Shepherd tells her the doctor was killed however, and this troubles Jane.

At headquarters, Weller and Nas are going through files and discussing why Sandstorm might have been watching him for so long. As he continues to go through boxes, Weller finds an old cell phone that Nas says came from her Sandstorm contact, but had yet to be decrypted. He puts it aside, but this undoubtedly will be important later in the season, so make sure to remember this for future episodes.

Zapata interrupts the two and says she’s found out how to decrypt the Black Hole picture from Mayfair’s USB drive. Turns out, that was the job she asked SHDWCAT to do at the end of last week’s episode. The swirl in the picture is actually a laminar flow, and if unwound properly, the picture would become clear. Near the end of the episode, Patterson was able to decode the picture, which proved that Mayfair had been working with Douglas Winter.

The team gathers to be briefed on this week’s tattoo case, which Patterson was able to decode to an IP address for an app very similar to Snapchat, in addition to five accounts within the app which belonged to known members of the Irish mob. The five accounts recently posted multiple photos of a chess board, which Patterson’s team was able to decode to “Adams Park Wednesday Noon.” Turns out, an immigration reform rally was taking place in an hour at Adams Park, so the team rushes to the rally. There, we see the shooter from earlier in the episode, who takes aim at the senator talking, but misses and flees. The team runs after him, and he’s taken out by Jane and Weller.

Back at headquarters, with help from Allie, who grew up with several members of the Irish mob, the shooter is identified as Michael Herskope, a known mob associate, and he was shooting at Senator Quinn Donahue, who just so happened to be the cousin of mob leader Patrick O’Malley. Over the years, Donahue locked up various members of his family to rise in the political ranks, and as such, had a hit out on him. However, when the gun Michael used was traced back to Patrick, the team was confused as to why the job was so sloppy, and easy to trace back to the mob.

They bring Patrick in for questioning, but he’ll only talk to Allie, so Weller reluctantly has to let her take lead. Patrick denies being involved in the shooting, and points out that Donahue could have ordered the hit on himself to raise his profile in order to be elected for Governor. Additionally, Patrick admits that he’s actually not the leader of the mob – Donahue is. Weller and Allie don’t get much further with Patrick, and Jane takes over. She’s able to convince him he’s being used by his family, and he admits he has tapes which will prove everything about Donahue. The only catch is that they’re in his lawyer’s office in a safe, which can only be opened with a scan of his retina, and a scan of his handprint.

Reluctantly, the team takes Patrick to the lawyer’s office, where they’re quickly ambushed by the mob. Jane and Allie go after the tapes with Patrick, while Weller and Nas hold off the mob. Once separated, Jane and Allie get the tapes, but Allie is shot in the leg as they try to escape. Hearing Allie get shot, Weller loses control, and it’s up to Nas to keep him in check. The two finally make it back to Jane and Allie just in time, but only because Patrick gave up his life to give everyone more time to get out.

With the tapes in hand, the team is able to get Donahue arrested, and another case of the week is solved.

The case however, did not feature the whole team, because Reade skipped out on the mission to take a personal day to go after Coach Jones. He roughs him up on the street, asking if he was one of the victims, but has to leave so he won’t be arrested before he gets his answer. Not satisfied, he goes to Coach Jones’ house and breaks in – heading immediately for the basement. There, he finds a secret closet filled with video tapes with names and dates on them, and finds one with his name. He hesitates, but puts the tape into the VCR to see what’s there.

Meanwhile, Zapata gets a call from one of her friends at the NYPD who tells her about Reade having the cops called on him. Worried, she asks for a personal day as well, and leaves to track Reade down at Coach Jones’ house, finding him standing over Coach Jones’ dead body.

It’s About to Get All ‘Die Hard’ in Here

I honestly thought tonight’s episode was the best one yet of the season. Finally, we had a case that took the entire episode to play out, and yes, we had the typical gun battle of the week, but this battle was long, and intense, and people actually got shot. There was real danger, real emotion, and it wasn’t a tag team of Jane and Weller that finished off the bad guys.

The action was great, and the character stories were really pushed forward.

While there wasn’t much new given about Sandstorm, it effectively bookended this episode. Near the beginning, Shepherd and Jane discuss her recovery in Afghanistan. However, near the end of the episode, Roman confronts Shepherd about lying to Jane about her recovery. Shepherd is concerned that Jane is remembering too much, and Roman requests to take her on the next mission, so she can feel invested in what they’re doing. And, if the mission is successful, everything will be in place, so it won’t matter what she remembers. Therefore, the question we have to ask is, why doesn’t Shepherd want Jane to remember her past?

We saw a small glimpse of Borden and Patterson getting ready together in the morning, so, they’ve clearly taken another step in their relationship. Weller and Allie finally seem to be getting on the same page about their baby, and Jane is now privy to the knowledge of Baby Weller, after Allie broke the news as Jane was trying to save her.

The biggest character story however, was that of Reade. What has he gotten himself into? In the previews for next week, he admits to killing Jones, but that almost seems too easy – and would mean a trip to jail for him, which wouldn’t exactly allow him to work with the team. He’s covering up for someone, but, who? And why? I guess we’ll have to wait until next week to find out.