BLINDSPOT Recap “Evil Did I Dwell, Lewd Did I Live”

By Pauline Perenack

And Nas’ Sandstorm Contact Is…

After a short hiatus, Blindspot is back and ready to pick up right where it left off. When we last saw our team, Jane and Zapata finally began to bond, which led Zapata to research Jane’s new love interest, Oliver, and it seems as though something is definitely off with him. Patterson confronted Reade about his drug use, and Weller seemed to be warming up to Roman, while Nas found herself in a life or death situation.

Not much happened on the Sandstorm front, but tonight’s episode promises a lot of information about the group, including the reveal of Nas’ source. Is it someone we know? Or someone new all together? Let’s recap tonight’s episode to find out.

Not a mole, but a molar

Tonight’s episode, “Evil Did I Dwell, Lewd I Did Live” thankfully picked up right where we last left off with Nas being choked by an assailant. With some slick moves, she manages to escape the garrote, shoots her attacker, grabs the thumb drive her Sandstorm contact left for her, and runs.

The rest of the team is having a much better night, and are gathered at Weller’s for some drinks. After her planned date with Oliver ended quickly, Jane shows up to the festivities, and admits to Zapata she questioned Oliver about his name. Later in the evening, Weller receives a message that Nas has been attacked, and the team leaves to meet up again at headquarters.

Nas joins up with them, and hands over the thumb drive she got from her Sandstorm source, which Patterson needs time to decrypt. While Patterson works on the thumb drive, the rest of the team split up to do their own thing. Reade and Zapata head to the gym, and are informed they’ve been selected for a random drug test. Reade is immediately worried and tries to escape, faking illness, but can’t get away. A few hours later, the tests for both agents come back negative, and after guessing that Reade had been taking drugs, Zapata tells him to get some help and tell Weller, or she will do it for him.

Patterson meanwhile, has cracked the code on the thumb drive, and finds pictures of Borden and Shepherd, along with a login for an FTP site. Once they log in, Nas’ source calls, and says he’ll divulge the location of Shepherd in exchange for half a million dollars that is to be dropped at Trinity Plaza.

Knowing full well it could be a trap, but not really having any other options, Nas, Weller, and Jane go to the drop. Once there, Nas is instructed to enter the hospital, and leave the bag of money in a laundry cart. While Weller and Jane watch, a hospital employee throws the bag down a laundry chute. Knowing the Sandstorm contact is waiting at the bottom of the chute for the money, Jane follows the bag down the chute, and ends up in a fight with the contact. As the fight ensues, Jane realizes the contact is a familiar face – Cade.

Back at headquarters, the team interrogates Cade, who tells them he was recruited by Shepherd, who promised him a way to get back at the government for covering up the cause of his father’s death. However, the longer he worked with Sandstorm, the more he realized they weren’t the kind of group he thought they were, and began working against them by leaking information to Nas. And now, he wants to keep the original deal he made with Nas, with him giving up the location of Shepherd, in exchange for the money and the ability to walk away.

Weller reluctantly agrees to the deal, and Cade informs the team that Shepherd is going to meet with someone who smuggles people in and out of the country. The team deduces that Shepherd is trying to smuggle herself out before Phase Two begins, and race to intercept her.

Once there however, they discover Shepherd has already come and gone, leaving the contact dead. Weller immediately assumes Cade set them up, but as Cade points out, he’s been in the interrogation room all day, so had no way of tipping off Shepherd.

Meanwhile, as Patterson continues to work, she’s hit with yet another debilitating headache, and begins to think back to when she was abducted by Borden and Shepherd, and slowly puts the pieces together. When she was unconscious, Sandstorm put a bug inside of her tooth, and have been listening to everything said around Patterson, effectively always putting them steps ahead of the FBI.

Now armed with that knowledge, Patterson decides to use Sandstorm’s bug against them, and has the team read a script she has written, which suggests the FBI is planning to use Cade to trigger Roman’s memories, and will meet at a safe house for a transfer. They head to the safe house, assuming Sandstorm has been listening to the conversation, and will attempt to kill Cade. Sure enough, Borden has been listening in, and orders his team to the safe house.

At the safe house, Weller and team manage to surround the members of Sandstorm, but watch as one member kills the others before turning the gun on himself, leaving Weller and team with nothing. Borden is able to get away, but Patterson tracks him down, and vows to take him in, even after he apologizes for everything he did to her. Not wanting to be taken alive however, Borden pulls out a grenade, and Patterson barely escapes before the building explodes.

The episode ends on a dramatic note, as it catches up with various team members at the end of the day. Patterson goes in to have the bug removed, and refuses pain medication in hopes the pain will chase away her demons. After watching Reade walk away, Zapata goes to Weller’s place, saying she needs to talk about Reade, and as Jane and Oliver begin to patch things up, two masked men break into his apartment, shooting both Jane and Oliver with tranquilizers.

Goodbye, Borden

Tonight’s episode was much better than recent episodes because it was able to keep the action high, and the mystery deep. There was absolutely no mention of any tattoos in this episode, which shows that Blindspot can focus on other storylines than its original premise, ultimately enabling the writers to go in many different directions.

Reade and Patterson continue to spiral downwards. While Patterson seemed to have been getting the help she needed from Dr. Sun, this latest run-in with Borden might prove to be her breaking point, and she will need her team to rally around her if she’s going to survive. And that might be difficult since Reade is convinced it was Patterson who had a hand in the random drug testing, causing a loss of trust between the two. Compounded with that, Reade is confronted with his best friend, Zapata, telling Weller about his drug problem.

Also, the Sandstorm story finally became more interesting. While we still don’t know exactly what Phase Two is, it seems as though the radical group is nearing its end, with Borden killing himself, and Shepherd leaving the country. However, as Nas pointed out, Shepherd could be even more dangerous now that she’s on the ropes, which could lead to a fantastic final showdown between the FBI and Sandstorm. Additionally, I’m not convinced we’ve seen the end of Cade, and I’m betting he will return in some capacity before the end of the season.

Finally, what does Oliver have to do with everything? Last week he walked out on Jane after she confronted him about his name change, and now people are breaking into his apartment? Who is he? Who is he involved with? Hopefully we’ll find out more next week. Until then!