BLINDSPOT “Solos” Recap: Threats and Breakups Plague the Team

By Pauline Perenack

A New Threat

Last week on Blindspot, we finally learned the identity of Nas’ Sandstorm source, and it turned out to be a familiar face – Cade. While his intel didn’t lead to a successful capture of Shepherd, it ultimately led the team to discover how Sandstorm was always able to be one step ahead of them. Turns out, Patterson had a bug implanted in her while she was being interrogated, which allowed Sandstorm to hear everything being said around her. With that knowledge, the team used the bug against Sandstorm, ultimately taking out several members of the group, including Dr. Borden.

Meanwhile, both Reade and Patterson continued their downward spirals, while Jane found herself getting into unexpected trouble with Oliver. Who is Oliver? Is he involved with Sandstorm? Let’s recap this week’s episode to find out.

Heavy Baggage

Tonight’s episode, “Solos,” opens to Jane waking up from being drugged, and finding herself in a bed with Oliver in some sort of cabin, where the two quickly discover they’re trapped in the room. Oliver then seems to slip up and mentions that even if they could escape, they would freeze to death in the mountains of Vermont. Jane is immediately on alert and begins questioning Oliver, assuming he’s a part of Sandstorm. He says he has no idea who Shepherd is, and knows the cabin because his family used to vacation there when he was a child, which means they’ve been kidnapped because of him. Sure enough, a voice comes over an intercom and tells Oliver he needs to read a message, which describes how his father, Magnus Steele, stole over $200 million dollars which needs to be returned, or else Oliver and Jane will be executed.

At headquarters, Weller walks in to find Nas deep in files. Turns out, Sandstorm’s fixer from last week’s episode had several hard drives hidden at the copy store, and Nas was able to retrieve some information off of them that included numerous forged passports for Shepherd. Amongst those forgeries was a single forged passport for Roman, which was used for a quick trip to the Bahamas. Tracing the trip, Nas was able to find security footage of Roman at a bank, where he withdrew $33 million dollars from a trust fund. Assuming he killed the owner of the trust fund to gain the money to fund Sandstorm, Weller and Nas decide to talk to Roman to see if he can remember anything. Seeing pictures, Roman remembers withdrawing the money, but not much else.

Next up, Weller has to deal with Reade after being told by Zapata about Reade’s drug problem. Reade however, is not too happy about being called into his boss’ office, and doesn’t react well to Weller’s good intentions. Weller does all he can to help Reade, but Reade wants nothing of it, and instead of taking the offered leave of absence, quits on the spot.

Jane meanwhile, talks to Oliver and learns about his father. Realizing they need to get out of the room on their own, Jane destroys the video camera, causing the kidnappers to enter the room. She’s unable to fend them off, and she and Oliver are introduced to the leader of the group. Turns out, his daughter was part of Magnus’ Ponzi scheme, and committed suicide. Wanting to get back at Magnus, the leader has Oliver read the ransom note to a camera, and posts it on YouTube for Magnus to find. He also has another set of group members do the same thing with the kids of Magnus’ co-conspirator, Edith.

Patterson finds the videos on YouTube and alerts the team, who for the first time, realize Jane isn’t around. Knowing they need to stop the paying of any ransom, the team tracks down Edith and bring her in for questioning, to see if they can find Magnus. Edith informs them however, that Magnus died 6 months ago.

As the team tries to find where she is, Jane does her best to once again escape on her own. She and Oliver are quickly caught however, and so she makes up a story that Magnus is in hiding, and would never see the YouTube video, but does check his voicemail. As such, she leaves a message, which begins with heavy Sandstorm mentions, triggering Nas’ NSA tracking. The rest of the message is in code, telling the team to rescue Edith’s kids, and where to find them.

The team rushes off to save the kids, and at the same time, Jane attempts yet another escape, and because of Oliver, is once again caught. This time however, she manages to talk the leader down, but is still trapped when the leader is quickly killed by one of his gang members, who just wants his money. Oliver says his charity has a lot of the money, but he needs to be in the city to get it. They hit the road, but not before Jane leaves a clue as to their destination for Weller and team, who arrive shortly after their departure.

Once at the main office of the charity, Oliver uses an opportunity to fight off his captor, but at the point of losing the battle, the captor is shot by Nas who has arrived on scene. Jane meanwhile, fights off her own captors, and the threat of the week is neutralized.

Back at headquarters, Oliver predictably breaks up with Jane, but she doesn’t have time to dwell on it as Weller calls her away to inform her that he’s sending Roman home with her on house arrest. Once settled, Roman remembers more about the trust fund, and it turns out, it belonged to Alice Kruger – one of Jane’s alter egos.

As the episode wraps, Reade finds himself in trouble when people he tries to buy drugs from recognize him as a cop. Patterson’s paranoia begins to surface, and she tears her apartment apart looking for any more bugs that have been left. And Weller and team are all served with papers, informing them that they’re being investigated for aiding and abetting a terrorist organization.

A Broken Team

Tonight’s episode was similar to last week’s in that there was no tattoo case of the week, and I have to admit, these episodes are much more interesting. The plot is moving along, the main characters continue to be developed, and unexpected twists are thrown at both the characters and viewers which will keep the tension levels high as we near the end of the season.

While Oliver turned out to not have any connection to Sandstorm, he still has enough past baggage that can rival Jane, and his character could turn out to be a great diversion for Jane from Weller. It seems as though the Jeller storyline has been pushed aside, and I could see it not coming back for at least a season or two. Besides, both of them seem to work better together anyways when they’re not romantically involved at all.

Reade and Patterson meanwhile have both hit pretty much bottom. Reade has quit the FBI, and will likely end up in pretty serious condition in the hospital, while Patterson clearly still needs help from Dr. Sun, who she’s pushed away, as well as her teammates. Zapata was pretty much non-existent tonight (can the Blindspot writers please give Audrey Esparza more to do?) but it will be interesting to see how she deals with Reade’s rebuke of her.

Finally, while the Sandstorm story was only pushed slightly further along tonight – how did Jane have a trust fund with that much money in it, and what was done with the money – it appears as though the group will be aided in taking down Weller’s team by this new investigation. While technically, it’s true the team has on occasion aided and abetted Sandstorm, it was all done with the bigger picture in mind of taking down the terrorist organization. However, to someone without insight to that bigger picture, it would look bad. So, does that mean there’s yet another mole working around Weller that has tipped off the higher ups? Or has Weller’s luck just run out? We’ll just have to wait until next week to find out. Until then!