BLINDSPOT Recap: “The One Where Jane Visits an Old Friend”

BLINDSPOT — “The One Where Jane Visits an Old Friend” Episode 416 — Pictured: Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe — (Photo by: Barbara Nitke/NBC/Warner Brothers)

BLINDSPOT RECAP “THE ONE WHERE JANE VISITS AN OLD FRIEND”

BY PAULINE PERENACK

The Wisdom of Borden

Last week on Blindspot, Rich developed an amazing board game called Tattoo Squad, and Zapata came closer to clearing her name with the CIA as Keaton woke up from his coma. Jane however, was forced to once again face her past as the case of the week had the team pitted against a man Jane had recruited into Sandstorm.

A Coming to Terms

Tonight’s episode, “The One Where Jane Visits an Old Friend” begins with giving us some information of what Madeline and Dominic have been up to the past few days since the botched plane attack. We see them killing the girl who attacked Zapata, them setting up Weitz for blackmail, and Madeline giving Dominic a list of people who could still be a liability. He points out Zapata isn’t on the list, but Madeline says she has something special planned for her.

Speaking of Zapata, Reade finds her crawling around on the floor of Madeline’s office and asks what she’s doing. Zapata is convinced that Madeline left something behind that could help the team catch her, and finds a safe under the floor. She’s able to break in, but doesn’t find anything inside. As she roams around the office a bit more, something catches her eye through the window, and the office explodes in a hail of gunfire. Reade wonders if the gunman was after Madeline, but Zapata knows that they were the target.

Back at headquarters, Patterson and Zapata brief the team on the shooting, and Patterson is able to find security footage of the man responsible, and discover it is Alfonso Cortez, who is the main hitman for the cartel that Madeline was working with. Not too much later, the team discovers that Cortez has been killing members of HCI, and they know they need to bring him in. However, they’re having a tough time finding him until Boston is brought in, who is able to quickly find the building Cortez is hiding out in.

Meanwhile, Jane is dealing with her own demons. Unable to cope with what she did as Remi, she’s spent the past few days in bed. Worried about her, Weller gives her the name of a therapist he found. Reluctantly, she goes to talk to the therapist, but after he passes her off to another one who really just wanted to believe everything was a metaphor, Jane gave up and went back home. When Weller returned to check on her, she explains to him that she needs to talk to someone who knows her as both Jane and Remi. Weller says that person doesn’t exist, but Jane thinks of someone. Borden.

While visiting him is controversial, she takes the chance, but their conversation doesn’t go as she hoped. However, when she goes to leave, Borden points out that she always refers to Jane and Remi as if they’re separate people, and the only way she’ll be able to move on with her life is if she can realize who she really is. He points out that she needs to accept the bad she did, but focus on the good she can do.

At headquarters, the team has brought in Cortez, but don’t have anything to hold him on, and then their case against him crumbles even more as more HCI executives end up dead. The team talk through it, and figure that Madeline is killing her executives, and using the cartel as cover. As such, they need to find Madeline, who is currently at the home of the last surviving HCI executive that she’s trying to convince to not talk to the FBI. She ends up killing him too, and when the team sweeps the apartment, they find the number of Madeline’s personal pilot, JB Kelly.

Figuring they can track Madeline through JB, they reach out to him and try to trace the call. He knows what they’re up to, and is about to hang up, but Zapata keeps him talking, telling him he has a target on his back, and they can help him. He agrees to come into the office to tell them where and when Madeline is leaving the country in exchange for ten million dollars.

JB arrives at headquarters, and gives his bitcoin account number to Reade. Reade then asks Boston and Rich to make it look like the money was transferred to the account. When JB checks and sees the money in there, he tells the team that Madeline is leaving in an hour from a private tarmac. The team races out there with JB to intercept, and as JB and Zapata wait inside the plane for Madeline, Boston watches them on surveillance footage, and tells Patterson that JB is conning them. Zapata calls JB’s bluff, and sure enough, Madeline is nowhere near the area.

Back at headquarters, the team scrambles to find where Madeline could be. They’re able to ground all flights, and Weller notices that a few are still in the air. Turns out medi-helicopters are still flying, and one of JB’s old co-pilots is in one of them, heading to a specific hospital. Weller says that’s got to be the extraction point, so the team heads out to intercept, and run into Jane. She’s back, and joins the team on the mission.

At the hospital, Reade and Weller deal with some of Madeline’s guys in a stairwell, while Jane and Zapata try to find another way to the roof. First though, they have to deal with more of Madeline’s men, and as Jane fights them off by using the MRI machine to pull their guns away with magnets, Zapata makes her way to the roof, and arrests Madeline. It seems as though the day has been won, until Jane is attacked by Dominic, injected with something, and is dragged away.

The Capture of Madeline Burke

I’m really enjoying these cameos by characters of past seasons. We had Hirst, and now Borden. It shows how much of an effect these characters had on members of the team, and just how knowledgeable they were about the team, since both Weller and Jane had to go back to these characters to help them move forward. Is there anyone else left that’s sitting in jail that could help the team?

I also enjoy any episode with Boston. I’ve said before that he doesn’t need to be in every episode, but in small doses, the character is great, and plays off Rich and Patterson so well. The whole storyline of Rich buying all of Boston’s paintings was fantastic, and ultimately showed how close the two of them are.

And while Madeline may be in custody, she seems to have already had a backup plan in place. Since Jane was able to finally make peace with who she’s become, how much do you want to bet that Dominic just dosed her with another shot of zip poisoning? Madeline knows the team extremely well, and it wouldn’t surprise me that she has the antidote to the poisoning, and will use it, and Jane, as a major bargaining chip to get herself out of FBI custody. However, we’ll have to wait until next week to find out. Until then!