Blindspot: Rules in Defiance has Jane take a back seat to events as she suffers a crisis of faith. She does not trust her handler and after talking with Borden, decides she wants out of the FBI. Meanwhile, Tasha Zapata finds herself in the hot seat, figuratively and literally. Weller opts to distance himself from Jane/Taylor and turns to Allison.
At the start of the episode Weller wakes up in Allison’s bed and Reade is in the shower with Kurt’s sister. At the bureau, Patterson has two “Jane” tattoos that were pointed out from an anonymous email. They lead to a shoot-out in Queens.
Zapata’s phone call at the end of last week’s episode leads to her meeting with the assistant US Attorney who has something in common with Jane’s “handler.” Both men believe that the FBI is corrupt from the inside and that it needs to be sorted. Matthew Weitz (Aaron Abrams) forces Tasha to cooperate with the threat of jail.
Weller and his team head to the coordinates found by Patterson. She received a tip from an anonymous email and Jane, who has stopped by, knows her handler sent it. Jane goes home and the agents end up in a shoot-out. They also end up blowing a “three month operation in 30 seconds” that was set up by the NYPD.
Enter a mural that leads the agents to their real mission this week. Paloma Diaz a 24 year-old who was murdered seven years ago was the target of the tattoos. Her former boyfriend; Ronnie Vargas, is due to be executed for her murder the next night. Weller and Zapata go to visit the boyfriend in prison after learning that the man submitted an application to the Innocence Clinic in Georgetown.
Vargas now tells the FBI agents that he is guilty and refuses to talk further with Weller and Zapata. Jane spends a short time at home and then heads back to the bureau.
The FBI learn that Vargas decided he was guilty after this sister’s house was burned down. Weller and Zapata question an ICE agent who tells of a coverup. He reports that the dead girl, who was meant to be deported, disappeared and then turned up dead.
Jane has a session with Dr. Borden (Ukweli Roach) and she explains how she could feel that everyone thought she was the mole. She ends it after telling Borden she wants to leave the FBI.
Patterson learns that the dead woman’s file had her birthday listed as 1885 rather than 1985. She tells the team that this is not a “one-off” as there are hundreds of women with this “flag” in their deportation file. The tattoos have lead the FBI to a skin trade crew who are kidnapping women.
Weller and his team learn that ICE agents are trafficking the women. Patterson tells the team that there is a girl due to be picked up that day and Zapata offers to go in the young woman’s place.
Zapata is given a tracker but when the bus makes an unscheduled stop, it is taken from her and the agent lose sight of the undercover agent. Tasha finds out the deported women who are earmarked get used as prostitutes. She puts up a fight and as a result the man running the operation figures out she is a fed.
The man orders the house burned along with all the women. Patterson and Jane work out where the house must be and Weller and Reade come to the rescue. Zapata is saved, but is very close. Jane tells her handler that this is the last time she will see him and he responds by saying that if she walks away Weller will be killed.
Blindspot: Rules in Defiance let Jaimie Alexander take a break and allowed Audrey Esparza to shine a bit as Agent Zapata. The agent with the gambling addiction may have lost Carter as a threat, but he has been replaced by Weitz. Regardless of what personal problems plague Tasha, her bravery is not in question as she places her life on the line.
Weller decides to distance himself from Jane by focussing on U.S. Marshall Allison Knight (Trieste Kelly Dunn) and the threat from the handler to kill Kurt if Jane refuses to cooperate puts things in a different light. While there may well be corruption in the hierarchy of the FBI it appears that the organization that Jane was part of may be worse.
Esparza took the lead and ran with the show. Alexander stepped back as part of the plot and gave the entire team a chance to be focussed upon without the star distracting the audience.
Blindspot continues to expose secrets and ask questions about where everyone stands. Mayfair has some personal agenda outside the bureau, similar to Jane, and Zapata is now back where she started,before Carter was killed. Agent Reade, who is reporting directly to Mayfair, is assaulted from behind.
The series airs Mondays on NBC.
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