"This Profound Legacy"
Original Airdate: December 1, 2017
Hello, Blindspotters! I am back. I am way behind on Blindspot reviews (sorry about that), so let's not waste any time and get right to it. Blindspot dropped yet another bombshell on Jeller in "This Profound Legacy."
CASE OF THE WEEK
The backbone tattoo is a series of numbers and letters tattooed along Jane's spine. The tattoo correlates to a tracking number for a box of evidence that is being transferred. How on earth would Roman know the tracking number of an evidence transfer months before it takes place? Easy — this tracking number is 20 years old. It's been sitting in storage and has now just been released.
What's in the box is not only disturbing, but about as close to real life as Blindspot gets. It's an untested rape kit. Unfortunately, this is a big problem in law enforcement. Budgets require prioritization — narcotics and homicide comes first, which means there are hundreds of rape kits left untested. It's a major bottleneck in the system. Hundreds of thousands of kits remain untested and DNA, which could lead to arrests and prevent future assaults, remains locked away. It's beyond frustrating and difficult not to be #TeamRoman on this point.
This particular rape kit belongs to a woman named Yasmine who was assaulted by the king of Kazahrusian. Blindspot really needs to work on their fake country names. King Ivan was a brutal dictator and died this past year without an heir. Or did he? Yasmine conceived a son named Vanya nine months after the rape. King Ivan decided to get one last dig into his younger brother, Cyrus, and confessed on his deathbed that he has an heir after all. So, now King Cyrus is trying to kill Vanya to remove any potential threat to his reign.
Luckily, Kurt and Jane find Yasmine and Vanya hiding in a hotel room and bring them to a hospital before Yasmine bleeds out from a gunshot wound. Eventually, the Kazahrusians find them at the hospital and it leads to pretty epic gunfire battle. Of course, Kurt and Jane save the day because they are Kurt and Jane. King Cyrus is ultimately hanged by the Kazahrusian elites (whoever they are) and demand Vanya come home to rule. Vanya is young, idealistic, and noble and decides he has to return to Kazahrus by asking, "What if I can make things better for these people? Don't I have to try?"
The plot was more than a little ridiculous, and don't even get me started on the fake country names, but I still found myself slightly choked up when Vanya decided to leave everything he's ever known behind to help a country full of strangers.
TEAM BLINDSPOT
Patterson believes someone at the FBI is covering up Stuart's murder, so when his phone inexplicably washes up on shore Patterson and Zapata decide to use it to flush out the betrayer. The phone is mush, but they bluff instead and pretend they were able to obtain valuable information from it.
Someone logs in and erases the last fifty uploads to the server, including Patterson's bogus phone data. Who? Reade.
Now, if you're going: "No way," then Zapata is your spirit animal. Granted, Reade told Patterson she wouldn't get anything off the phone and he has been sketch about his after hours meetings with high-profile officials. But that's a far cry from cover-up and murder.
Luckily, Blindspot knows our tolerance for "Reade is the mole" is only going to last for so long. We're still burnt out from Borden. Patterson figures out that someone is using Reade's login credentials and the key strokes match Eleanor Hirst. I have no idea if you can identify someone based off their key strokes, but if Patterson says you can then... sure.
Patterson and Zapata try to bring their discovery to Reade who refuses to believe them. This man really needs to watch Blindspot. THERE'S ALWAYS A MOLE, READE. THAT'S THE SHOW! He waxes poetic about real evidence and sends Patterson and Zapata on their way. Sigh. This is the second rule of Blindspot that Reade has ignored:
- Patterson knows all.
- There's always a mole.
- Jeller is the heart and soul of everything Blindspot.
Them's the rules. I'm this close to kicking you off the team, Reade! I'm excited to see how Mary Stuart Masterson plays the bad guy, even if the Director of the FBI isn't exactly an inspired choice. She's the newest team member and in a position of power. In the immortal words of Rachel Green, "She lifts right out!"
Sure, the team is attached to her, but that primarily happened over the time jump. So, I'm not terribly invested in her relationships with anyone on Team Blindspot. This makes Reade's refusal to believe Patterson and Zapata even more ridiculous, but I'll give him a pass. At least he's not doing drugs this time.
KURT AND JANE
KURT KNEW. HOLY FREAKING CRAP. HE KNEW!
Kurt knew Jane has a daughter. That's what Berlin is. While Kurt was racing around the country handing out pictures of Jane like she was a lost puppy, he casually bumps into a young woman named Avery who speaks fluent German. She recognizes the photo in Kurt's hand because she is also looking for Jane.
Kurt: How do you know Jane?
Avery: She's my mother.SAY WHAAAAT? I'm not going to sugar coat this for you friends. This is bad. We're not at "Kurt is cheating on Jane" bad, but I'm not grading on a curve. So let's run down the list of all the ways Kurt Weller has screwed up:
- He knows Jane has a daughter and didn't tell her.
- Kurt has met Jane's daughter and didn't tell her.
- After Jane found out she has a daughter, Kurt didn't tell her he already knew (re: see 1 and 2).
Are we seeing a pattern here? Man, just when I thought we were past lying. Darn you, Weller! This will delay my Jeller babies for sure. I'm sure Kurt has an honorable reason for not telling Jane about Avery, because he's Kurt Weller. Honor is his middle name. My money is on Kurt being afraid he'd spook Jane again, after he found her, and she'd run off to the Himalayas or something.
A valid fear, of course, but it's been several months now. Kurt needed to cough up the information. Full stop. It doesn't mean he doesn't love Jane — quite the opposite. I think Kurt would do just about anything to save Jane from more pain, but that's exactly the problem.
Kurt: I want to be there for her but I don't know how.
Patterson: Just listen to her and don't try to fix it.
Kurt: That's the problem. I can't fix it.This is a very typical male response. Women mostly just want someone to listen to us, whereas men feel the need to fix the problem. My bet is that Kurt is approaching Avery as a problem to be fixed or something he can save Jane from. But that's not his call to make. Furthermore, sometimes keeping the ones we love from pain only exacerbates it more. We seldom prevent pain entirely. So Kurt has simply compounded a problem that was already difficult to being with.
And yes, this is difficult. Jane has absolutely no idea what to believe. At first she thinks Roman is just messing with her and argues against all the evidence Patterson comes up with. This is pretty smart on Jane's part. She obviously watches Blindspot (take notes Reade) and is trying to figure out how this is one big lie.
It's not until Roman calls and reminds Jane he has no reason to hide this from her. He wants to cause Jane pain. The truth is painful enough all by itself. Roman wants Jane to know this. He wants her to feel the grief that comes with the knowledge that she has a child. A child Jane doesn't know and, now, barely remembers. A child who was taken from her or... a child she gave away.
Jane immediately blames herself, which plays right into Roman's plan. This is why he told her. Jane doesn't believe Sheppard took Avery from her. Jane believes she let Avery go. Seeing Yasmine stand by her son Vanya — a child conceived from sexual assault — only twists in the guilt knife further. So much so that Jane believes her daughter is better off without her.
Jane doesn't know the full story yet. She only has a few pieces of the puzzles, but she often believes the worst about herself. That self-hatred is what is driving Jane's belief that she just let her daughter go. But in reality, she doesn't know what truly happened.
"He's 20 years old and he doesn't want this," is a point Kurt lovingly points out when he tells Jane she was just a child herself. This is a part of life though. The decisions we make even as teenagers can have ramifications for the rest of our lives. However, Jane needs to leave some room for being manipulated by Sheppard because that's been the story of her entire life. Why would Avery be any different?
I'd also like to point out that giving a child up for adoption is a profound act of selfless love. If Jane chose to give her baby up for adoption it doesn't mean she loves her daughter any less than Kurt loves Bethany. She may have simply recognized that raising her daughter with her loony bin of a mother may not be in the best interest of the baby. I reject the concept that adoption equals abandonment. More often that not, the birth parent has given their child a chance at a better life.
Or maybe the baby was taken by Sheppard or Jane was manipulated. The point is that we don't know. And neither does Jane. She should try to see it through Kurt's eyes rather than believing the worst about herself.
Kurt needs to learn he is the one truth in Jane's world of manipulation. Jane depends on his honestly and trustworthiness. That's what gets her through the madness. If that foundation begins to crack, then yes, I would say Jeller has a difficult road ahead of them. Not insurmountable, but difficult. But then again, that's been Roman's plan all along.
Stray Thoughts:
- Avery's father is Jane's high-school sweetheart. I accept that Jane had a life before Kurt Weller, but any acknowledgement of past lovers makes me scream internally.
- "How could I forget I had a child?" You zipped your memory, Jane. You were supposed to forget. You aren't freaking superwoman.
- Okay Zapata and Reade's competition of Patterson's app is the cutest ever.
- "You used to be a cop. We get it." That was just mean, Reade. Stop being such a jerk to Zapata.
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