"Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten." - Lilo and Stich
By the end of last week’s episode, the team had decoded Roman’s cryptic text message about Crawford, Bruyere and a gala. So this week, they needed to find the gala’s top secret location and manage to sneak in unnoticed. « Mum’s the Word » or « The Episode Where Avery Actually Does Something Useful » was a great episode of Blindspot. While being mostly mission oriented, it had great pacing and dialogue. Still, there was importance on the relationships that link the characters together, there was focus on family. It’s in this episode, where finally, they have their big fish on the line, even if nothing ever goes smoothly in this show.
After the reveal of the CIA’s Dragonfly Project and the admittance of her feelings towards Reade, in “Artful Dodge,” it’s not a good week for Zapata. During the hour, a frown decorates her features. She isn’t quite herself. There are no jokes, no teasing. It’s easy to see that she’s taking it hard. She’s withdrawing into herself, and I can only hope this version of Tasha isn’t here to stay.
Tasha doesn’t hold the fact that Patterson is icing her out of the task force meetings against her. Throughout the episode, we could also see that Patterson isn’t completely indifferent to Tasha’s feelings in all of this. They’re far from where they were in the end of “Everlasting,” but they’ll get back there, there is just no way of knowing when. Patterson is still incredibly mad and hurting.
“I’m just saying, I’ve been in your shoes. I used to lie to the people I care about the most. At the end of the day, we’re family. Families forgive.” -Jane
In the absence of Patterson as a support system, Jane is there to empathize with Zapata, who does not know if she deserves to be forgiven. She’s beating herself up about it. She is a long way from the woman in last week’s episode that tried to convince the others that Project Dragonfly was the right thing to do. If she truly believed what she had said, she would not be so uncomfortable about it now. But they are family, and I believe Zapata needed to hear that. She needed to hear that eventually Patterson will come around, just like they had for Jane. I enjoyed the little throw back to the beginning of the second season within that conversation. It was a nice reminder of how far they'd come.
There was a lot of focus on family in this episode, and showed different dynamics. There are families you are born into, some you fall into, and the other you chose. It’s weird to have Jane talk about family with Zapata, when her brother is so close by, yet so far away. Forgiveness does not seem to be possibility for them, they are too far gone. Jane basically tells him that she chose another family, away from him, despite was he was doing, despite the good he as trying to do. Let’s not forget that Roman’s morals are flawed because of the way he was brought up. In his own twisted mind, I am convinced he thought he was helping his sister out by trying to bring Crawford down. But he is alone in this, and given the chance, she would bring him in. She chose Weller over him.
“So how does it feel? To be on the right side of history.” -Crawford
Roman has been without love, without family, for some time now. The Crawfords are changing this; Blake is changing this. By the end of their operation, right before the team can close in on the deal, Roman changed his mind, he had chosen this family; he had chosen Blake. With her he would not have to be alone anymore. No one wants to be alone, not even Roman. If Jane had the chance to start over, maybe so would he. I’m still unsure, if that was always the plan, or if really he has feelings. He wasn’t able to change for his sister, so I have a hard time believing he would change for Blake, but maybe he doesn’t have to here. I am still sensing that Blake is playing him, that she knows more than she lets on. What’s your take?
The team doesn’t know why Roman initially wanted to take down Crawford so badly, and why he can seem to forgo these reasons now. Just like them, I'm curious about this. Any theories? My theory is that he is the reason his biological parents were killed, and thus he is the reason Roman became who he is.
Speaking of family, Avery and Jane seem to be getting closer, in the annoyed teenager, overprotective mother type of dynamic, and it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. It took me a couple of episodes to get used to her, but I enjoyed Avery’s presence in this episode, and her interactions with Jane. I was getting increasingly annoyed by the whole moody teenager act Avery was pulling, and I feel like she’s slowly going towards the light. She’s still moody, but to be fair, Jane isn’t actually a beam of sunlight either.
They pushed the fact that Avery and Jane are similar. More than having Weller and Roman simply state it, which they did, several times, they also showed it. It stood out to me that at the same time, Avery wouldn’t listen to Jane’s instructions to retreat and Jane wouldn’t listen to her teams instructions to stand down. Yes, they are pretty similar, in a pig-headed kind of way.
“Thanks for the assist.” -Avery
With the help of Avery, their wo-man on the inside, the team (aka a blond Jane, a red headed Tasha and a glass wearing Weller) ends up at the exclusive gala in Croatia, hosted by Blake. Avery does everything she can to stop being sidelined, with Jane is being all mother hen on her a**. I understand Jane’s side on this, Avery is basically just out of High School, she is still a child.
During all of this, Tasha is also in an awkward position with Reade after she confessed her feelings for him. Reade is being the bigger person, and does not want it to be awkward between them, but for sure, it’s going to be. We did not get to see the end of their conversation, but we can assume it didn’t end with Reade telling her he felt the same way. He stormed out, and he is still engaged to Meg. To make it even more awkward, the team changed up the MO a little bit, with this one, as Jane and Weller were not the ones to play undercover couple, but Reade and Zapata. I thought this seemed a little forced. They aren’t as hot and cold as the early makings of Jeller were, Tasha was mostly cold, but then again, this isn’t the same situation. Like at all. Now, with her feelings out into the open, Tasha simply can’t be Reade’s friend anymore, or at least not for now. So it’s going to continue being awkward for her at work.
The ending of the episode promised some future development, as Roman sent out contract killers after the team. He made his choice on which side he wanted to stand. I was surprised that he didn’t keep Weller or Jane/Remi for himself. Still, I have a hard time thinking that he could actually go through with it. I no longer see the crazy guy from the beginning of season 2. He is calm and collected, and he doesn’t feel as psychopathic as he used to. Then again, I think it will make for an interesting next few episodes. Also, let's not forget there is also Avery's daddy's body that should resurface soon.
Side questions: What is up with Roman’s medical issues? Are they real? I’m so confused.
