BLINDSPOT Review: “The Night of the Dying Breath”

BLINDSPOT — “The Night of the Dying Breath” Episode 417 — Pictured: (l-r) Audrey Esparza as Tasha Zapata, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller, Ashley Johnson as Patterson — (Photo by: Zach Dilgard/NBC/Warner Brothers)

BLINDSPOT “THE NIGHT OF THE DYING BREATH” REVIEW

BY PAULINE PERENACK

Saving Jane

It’s been a couple of weeks since we last saw our team, but when we did, Jane visited Borden to get some clarity on her internal struggle of Jane vs. Remi. She came away with some sound advice, and for the first time in a long time, was at peace with herself. Meanwhile, the team managed to capture the elusive Madeline by tracking her through her personal pilot, but the episode ended with Jane being captured by Dominic.

Buried Alive

Friday’s episode, “The Night of the Dying Breath” starts shortly after the events of the last episode, with the team frantically looking at security footage from the hospital, which shows Dominic wheeling a body under a blanket out on a stretcher. The team knows it’s Jane, but their only real lead is Madeline. Weller passionately interrogates her, but Madeline plays as if she’s been brought in for protection from the cartel. She wants to help, and says she can’t ID Dominic from the grainy hospital footage. Eventually, she says she wants her lawyer, and will only deal with Zapata.

Frustrated, Reade and Weller leave the interrogation room to see if the team has been able to track down Dominic. Unfortunately, they haven’t, but they’re interrupted by a man with a southern twang getting off the elevator. He talks up a storm, and eventually explains that he’s Madeline’s lawyer, and wants to see her, because according to him, there’s no way she’s done anything wrong. She was merely trying to flee the cartel.

At that moment, a call comes in for Reade, and it’s Dominic, using a voice scrambler, calling to ask for Madeline’s release.

As the team tries to find her, Jane wakes up buried in a coffin. Feeling around, she finds a flashlight, but when she tries to punch her way out, dirt starts to rain down on her. Dominic has left her with a phone, which he uses to prove to the FBI that Jane is alive. With that proof, he wants Madeline on a plane out of the country, and once she lands safely, he’ll hand over Jane to the team. Weller is eager to make the deal, but Reade isn’t as convinced that the DOJ will allow it. As such, when the team gets a ping off a cell tower from the phone with Jane, they’re able to draw a 5 mile radius of her location.

Using that cell tower, Patterson and Rich call every phone that pinged the tower at the same moment they had talked to Jane, and are able to find the phone number to the phone she has and make contact with her. She’s scared, and the team get to work on finding her, because according to Patterson’s math, Jane has less than 40 minutes of oxygen left, so the team needs to work fast.

Worried, Weller wants to take Dominic’s deal, but Reade refuses. As the two talk, Madeline’s lawyer shows up and says he has a proposal. If they move Madeline out of the interrogation room, she’ll tell them some information she remembered about Dominic. Reluctantly, Reade agrees, but tells Weller to wire the conference room so they can get Madeline’s words on record.

Once in the conference room, the lawyer pulls out a signal jammer, preventing anything from being recorded, but Madeline doesn’t give any information. Instead, she asks to speak to her sons. Reade refuses, and Weller storms out. Reade catches up to him in the locker room, and explains why it doesn’t make sense to give into Madeline’s demands. Weller doesn’t agree, so takes off to find Jane, while Zapata requests to talk to Madeline. She knows her well, so knows her weakness.

Once in the conference room, Zapata uses Madeline’s family against her. She tells Madeline that Reade is in the process of exhuming her husband’s body so they can test for chemicals they believe were also used to kill the members of the HCI Global board. This doesn’t rattle Madeline, but when Zapata points out that Madeline’s sons will learn about what she’s been up to, and ultimately, the youngest son’s DUI will be exposed, Madeline begins to crack.

In exchange for keeping her husband’s body buried, Madeline gives up the location of Dominic’s hunting cabin. With this information, Patterson and Rich are able to narrow down Jane’s location even more after crossing it with other clues they’ve been working with. They give the exact location of the cabin to Weller, but once he arrives, it’s empty.

Weller pressures Reade to put Madeline on a plane, but Reade continues to refuse, saying the only way they can do it, is if the team makes their own deal, without signoff of the DOJ. The whole team agrees to take the fall if need be, and Reade tells Madeline they’re putting her on a plane.

Jane meanwhile, has been able to get the phone working again by using her bra wire to create a charge with the flashlight’s battery, and Patterson and Rich are able to ping her phone off the phones of the FBI agents in the area. This gives them the exact location of where Jane is, and Weller starts digging. When he gets to Jane, she’s passed out from lack of oxygen, but he’s able to resuscitate her.

With Jane rescued, the team backs out of the deal with Madeline they made (since the lawyer’s jammer prevented anything from being on record), and arrest her again.

As the episode ends, Zapata tells Reade that the CIA has backed off, and she wants to rejoin the team. Dominic meanwhile, is on the run, and meets up with Madeline’s lawyer, who informs Dominic that Helios, the plan to attack the eastern seaboard, is still on, and Dominic is now in charge.

Dominic is the new Madeline

I feel like I’ve seen one too many “main character buried alive” episodes of TV shows, because while I know this was supposed to be really tense, I felt like it fell a little flat. I mean, we all know that Jane isn’t going to die and the team will get to her in time, so a lot of the stress just isn’t there. However, once again, Ennis Esmer and Ashley Johnson were completely on their game, and the stress their characters had really broke through. If it wasn’t for those two, this season would not be nearly as good as it is.

As for the team, we finally have a full team back, and it feels good. And, it looks like the whole team will be needed to stop Dominic from following through on completing Helios, and the attack on the eastern seaboard. The final few episodes will undoubtedly build towards that final attack, which the team will thwart in the season finale.

Next week however, has the return of Bill Nye, so I’m sure that’ll end up being a favorite episode of the season. Until then!