'Blindspot' Recap: Pieces of Pi Uncover Hijacked Plane
Warning: This recap for the “Cease Forcing Enemy” episode of Blindspot contains character and story spoilers.
On the midseason return of Blindspot, the team recover a missing plane and take down the terrorists hoping to disable all of our GPS devices. But, more importantly, we get more from Oscar, the guy who’s been stalking Jane all season and might possibly be her former fiancé.
The Tattoo
Digits of pi on Jane’s upper thigh. The missing gaps spell out, along with dots and arrows in the tattoo, the latitude and longitude for the Dark Isles in the Black Sea.
Related: ‘Blindspot’ Postmortem: 'No One Gets to Be Happy on This Show,’ Says Creator
The Plot
Oscar has just killed Carter who was about to kill Jane. He releases her, but she tries to kill him because, despite her flashbacks in which they seem to be married, she doesn’t trust him. He convinces her to dismiss her FBI security detail and meet him on an old transmission tower. Meanwhile, another tattoo sends them to an island where the team finds a plane and its occupants that had disappeared without a trace. It was hijacked by the Dabbur Zann (the dirty bomb guys from episode 5) who plan to launch CubeSats and take out all of America’s GPS satellites.
Back in New York, an internal affairs investigator (John Hodgman) grills Patterson about her boyfriend’s death and tries to get her suspended, but she has to help Jane and Kurt land the hijacked plane that they’ve re-hijacked so he is forced to back down. Jane meets with Oscar and tells him she doesn’t trust him, but he tells her, “This is all your plan and it’s time to get started.”
That Forearm
What’s with the serious mistrust for Oscar (or Tree Guy if you can’t shake the name you gave him back when his forearm tattoo is all we knew about him)? She’s got memories of their engagement; he saved her life by killing the guy who was waterboarding her. Does it have to do with her feelings for Kurt? Or could it be something more? He definitely felt a lot creepier than he did previously — and that’s a lot of creepiness considering most of what he’s done this series is hang around her place like a stalker.
What if those memories of him were implanted? Oscar says, “We’re the good guys,” but, then, wouldn’t you say the same thing if you were the bad guys? His treatment of her felt a little more like handling than genuine concern. Those tattoos have saved the U.S. from major, major destabilizations on more than one occasion though; if you were trying to overthrow the government or whatever, why not just let them happen?
That Mustache
You’d think the role of villainous bureaucrat Jonas Fischer was written for John Hodgman, it’s so perfect. Turns out, it was. It’s an interesting contrast to Michael Gaston’s Carter, the CIA foil to A.D. Mayfair for the first half of the season. Where Carter was all about physical threats, the investigator for the Office of Professional Responsibility (a name so dull, you’d think that it was made up for the show — turns out, it wasn’t) seems to be going after Mayfair with the death by a thousand paper cuts. Of the two, it’s Fischer who’s much more likely to succeed; you can dodge bullets*, but you can’t dodge Form 827-B/6 when it’s filled out in triplicate.
* Yahoo TV is not responsible for injuries resulting from trying to dodge bullets.
Related: Head to Toe: Every ‘Blindspot’ Tattoo So Far
Duffelbag of Thoughts
* If it were a straight-up fair fight for the affections of Jane, the FBI agent loses, right? Even without the mystery, Tree Guy has the sullen, brooding thing and Kurt is just a 5 o'clock shadow and a whole lot of muscle.
* It’s OK, Kurt: That nine-second pause between when Zapata and Reade walk in and you say, “See you three tomorrow,” was not at all suspicious and they definitely could not tell you were having an inappropriately intimate conversation with Jane at work. Very not awkward at all.
* Is the old transmission tower shot on the same set they used for the oil derricks from episode 7 or does this show just really like rickety old metalwork?
* Line of the Night: “I did the math.” “How? Where?” “In my head, where math is done. Please don’t interrupt.” Don’t mess with Patterson when she’s on a roll!
Blindspot airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on NBC.
