Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Blindspot 4x06 Review: "Ca-Ca-Candidate for Cri-Cri-Crime" (The Jig Is Up) [Contributor: Jen]


"Ca-Ca-Candidate for Cri-Cri-Crime"
Original Airdate: November 16, 2018

"Ca-Ca-Candidate for Cri-Cri-Crime" is highly focused on the case of the week, but that's just because the writers want to drop the "Kurt knows" bomb at the end of the episode.

CASE OF THE WEEK


New York Congressman Justin Trimble's murder triggers the tattoo database. He spells out "GPA" with his own blood (yuck), which leads Team Blindspot to a tattoo they already solved — the flag. Does anyone else remember this tattoo? I sure don't, but then again I never remember the tattoos.

The marked stars on the flag correlates to Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Alaska (GPA). Given the political angle of Justin Trimble's death, the team determines the tattoo is pointing to Growth and Prosperity for America — the most powerful lobby in the United States. One of the candidates GPA gave money to was Matthew Weitz, the director of the FBI.

However, when the team questions Weitz, he says he doesn't know Trimble very well. Patterson and Rich rapidly discover evidence to prove he's lying. Why does anyone ever lie to Patterson on this show? Lying to Patterson is like shooting a gun at Wonder Woman. (Yes, I just compared Patterson to Wonder Woman and I am completely comfortable with the analogy.)

Rich is not convinced of Weitz's guilt simply because he lied, saying: "I know the role of FBI director has been a little Defense Against the Dark Arts around here lately, but it makes no sense for Weitz to be working against us. That's career suicide, and Weitz loves his career."

Rich gets ten points for using logic and 100 points for referencing Harry Potter. This whole Weitz thing hits the team squarely in their Eleanor Hirst-damaged hearts, but quite frankly I always thought the team was a little quick to trust Hirst. It's nice to see them distrustful of the next FBI director — it is Weitz we're talking about here — but Rich plays out the director's angle and it doesn't make sense. Honestly, having a reformed criminal and smarmy politician on the team may be the best thing to ever happened to the show. Team Blindspot often needs help seeing the shadier side of things.

Kurt and "Jane" investigate the murder scene and they find a USB drive Justin had been hiding. He was being blackmailed and recorded the conversations. Unfortunately, Justin pushed GPA too hard for evidence. GPA became suspicious of his motives and had him killed. The team needs to find out who else is being blackmailed.

Weitz shows up at Frank Davenport's house, who is third in line for Speaker of the House. Davenport also got Weitz his job at FBI.  It's all about networking people! Don't let anyone tell you different.

Justin wanted to blow the whistle on GPA, but Weitz needed proof he was being blackmailed before opening a criminal investigation. Unfortunately, Trimble lacked the finesse required for such a task and he was murdered. Weitz is certain Davenport is also being blackmailed since he voted the same as Justin on every GPA-related bill. Davenport refuses to listen to Weitz and tells him to let it go.

Jeller and Patterson Dotcom (Yes, I made Rich and Patterson a ship name. They are work spouses after all) come to the exact same conclusion: "This whole conspiracy is about China." Kurt notes the outline at the bottom of the flag is the same shape of the Yangtze River. Roman was trying to tell the FBI that the country has been infiltrated by China. Patterson Dotcom came to the same conclusion when they discovered China's interests were represented in all the bills GPA lobbied for.

Yeah, what else is new?

Sorry, it's probably highly concerning I'm not more freaked out by China owning the U.S., but it's not a shocker. We are trillions of dollars in debt and I'm fairly certain we owe China a large chunk of that bill. I'm more or less bitterly resigned to this fact.


Weitz shows up five second later and announces this case is all about China. The nonplussed reactions are gold. Weitz showing up late to the party will always be hilarious. He has determined it's time to let the rest of the team in. Why Weitz didn't tell the team what was going on in the first place is beyond me. It all feels like an extremely roundabout way of painting Weitz in an unflattering light. We've had an evil FBI director. I didn't need to do it again, even for a short amount of time.

Trimble informed Weitz another congresswoman wanted to blow the whistle on GPA and the team discovers Elaine Bell has the same voting record as Justin. Weitz also recognizes a common phrase on her calendar, which is code for keeping a meeting closed and quiet. The team assumes she's about to meet with GPA, but they aren't fast enough getting to her house. The same assassin who shot Trimble shoots Bell in her driveway.

Team Blindspot cannot figure out who is working for GPA because their donor list is so prolific. Weitz orders every field office to put every congress person on the GPA donor list into protective custody. All in total it's over 100 people and it's a fairly impressive Weitz moment. He is useful for a change. Miracles do happen.

Reade and Weitz go to Davenport's house to put him into protective custody. Davenport confesses what GPA has on him: he had an affair with an underage girl. He agrees to the protective custody, but just wants to secure his office before they leave. WEITZ AND READE LET HIM WALK AWAY.


NOOOO! Why are characters so stupid? This is clearly outside of protocol. No FBI agent worth their salt would let someone in protective custody out of their sight for five seconds. This is the stuff they used to pull on The Following all the time. FBI agents would split up and then... "Oh no!" the killer murders them one by one. How about you just stay together, idiots, LIKE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO! Sorry, I'm still super bitter about how stupid that show was. Moving on.

The five seconds gives Davenport plenty of time to call his GPA associates and gives me the chance to scream, "I told you so." Weitz and Reade end up in a gun battle. Well, technically Reade is in a gun battle because the FBI director does not carry a gun.


Say what now? Is that a thing? That doesn't feel like it's based remotely in reality.

Weitz finally figures out Davenport lied about the underage girl and is working for GPA. Davenport pulls a gun on Weitz, they struggle, and Reade saves his life. Kurt and Jane also stop a GPA assassin making a second attempt on Elaine Bells' life. Weitz vows to have all the GPA legislation repealed.

TEAM BLINDSPOT


Reade is debriefed over the files Zapata stole by Sabrina Larren, who works directly for the CIA director and is taking over for Jake Keaton. Larren tells Reade he's in a safe place and can tell her how Zapata gained access to the FBI server. I want to be proud of Reade for telling the truth, but he was so blindly stupid to this completely obvious lie that I could only shake my head at him. Reade lies about everything to the higher-ups (including his drug past), but this? This incident requires full transparency? Sigh.

This is the second stupid thing Reade did this week. The first is putting a murder suspect target on Zapata's back. The woman Tasha broke into Reade's apartment with is Claudia Murphy, an MI6 agent. (So Tasha wasn't lying about that!) MI6 believe she is missing and potentially dead.

Reade theorizes Murphy may have threatened Zapata and she retaliated. This convinces Larren to bring Zapata in, dead or alive. Of course Reade is right about Tasha, but he didn't need to hang a billboard out there for the CIA. Reade assures Larren the whole "dead or alive" thing is no problem for him.


Larren does not believe Reade for a second and convinces Weitz to fire him since he cannot be objective when it comes to Zapata. Facts are facts. No argument from me.

However, Weitz firing Reade is all a ruse. He needed the CIA to believe the FBI stopped looking into Zapata. Weitz explains when the CIA says "dead or alive," it typically just means dead. He's grown fond of Team Blindspot (uhhh, really?) and wants Reade's help to bring Tasha in alive. And thus the Save Zapata Super Secret Task Force is born.

Back on Tasha's show (doesn't it feel like she's on her own show?), Madeleine instructs her to target Adam Booth. He is the head engineer at Bradley Dynamics and Madeleine's best shot at infiltrating Project Arvo. Apparently, building a global army is quite expensive and Crawford left HCI Global $40 billion in debt. Bradley Dynamics is their main competitor and Madeleine wants Project Arvo to fail so HCI picks up some more lucrative contracts. This feels like a lot of exposition for simple corporate espionage, but whatever.

Ever the good lackey, Zapata threatens Booth's wife, thereby convincing him to take photos of all  pertinent Project Arvo documents. Booth tells Zapata she's the worst after he completes the required task. Zapata pretends like she doesn't care, but then she sad pandas when she turns away. This has been Tasha's arc pretty much all season long. She does something horrible for Madeleine, thereby proving she's not remotely in control, feels bad about it, but does it anyway. We are in episode six. I need to move it along.

Project Arvo is a state of the art aeronautics system, but it's for a commercial airliner and not the army. Madeleine can't beat Bradley Dynamics to market, so she will let them launch their new plane and Zapata will crash it. It will be a PR disaster and put HCI Global back in the black.

... I guess? This feels like one of those Rube Goldberg mouse traps. A lot of things have to go right to achieve a desired goal. Are we really expecting Zapata to crash a plane full of innocent people? No, of course not, because she sad pandas every chance she gets.

This storyline of Zapata seizing power and using it push along her worldview was interesting when it involved controlling Blake. But now Madeleine is controlling Zapata and she's in way over her head. It stopped making sense why Tasha didn't reach out to Team Blindspot weeks ago, so now I'm really shaking my head at the ridiculousness of this entire plot.

KURT AND JANE


We're back to the good old days of Kurt staring at Jane during ops, but unfortunately it's not because of all his fuzzy bunny feelings. He's trying to assess if his wife is crazy. Spoiler alert, Kurt: SHE IS.

Remi has been hard at work running drills to prepare to break into Mama Shepherd's black site location. Her nefarious partner, Violet, has been unable to crack the door key code in a reasonable short amount of time and Remi's patience is thinning. They end up dead in any scenario they run, but getting someone who can break the key code faster will take months. And Remi doesn't have months.

Remi decides to incite mass panic as a means of distraction instead of trying to break into the black site via stealth. I am wondering how one incites mass panic and anything I come up with is very bad. We are rapidly approaching Armageddon Remi, so it'd be super great if Kurt clued into what is going on.

Kurt agrees, thank goodness. He's not buying anymore of "Jane's" lies. Particularly the one about finding a potential black market cure and keeping Kurt out of the loop because she was afraid he wouldn't understand. Remi fails to realize Kurt would burn the world to the ground if it meant saving his wife and it ultimately gives her away. Kurt puts a tracker on her. GAME ON.

I know this whole "Jane is evil" storyline is distressing to those of us who just want our Jeller to be happy and focused on making all the babies. (We'll get there. Just hang on), but it is extremely satisfying watching Kurt turn from being the hunted to the hunter. Remi's lies have been particularly good up until now, but the cracks are starting to show.

Like when Remi asks, "Would you still want to know the truth about your father, knowing how much pain it would cause you?"

See Remi, when you ask questions like this, Kurt is going to think you are hiding the truth from him, because... well, history. And the black market cure nonsense isn't a good enough cover. Might as well hang a sign out there, lady.

What did I enjoy, however, is Kurt's answer. He would want to know the truth no matter what — even if it destroyed his happy memories — because: "They were already wrecked. It was all lies." THY NAME IS CHARACTER GROWTH. I've been waiting years for both Kurt and Jane to understand honesty is one of the most important building blocks to a successful relationship. If you don't have trust, you have nothing. And these two have been willing to blow their trust in one another far too frequently in the past. So at least Kurt has learned some lessons.

Kurt offers "Jane" one final swoonworthy out: "You always run from your problems. This time why don't you try running to me?" It's just so frustrating he's delivering these heart stopping lines while "Jane" is evil. I'm hoping the hot burning sun that is Kurt Weller's love is enough to melt even Remi's cold heart. If not, then we need Kurt to say these lines to Jane again once she's not a homicidal Looney Tune anymore.

Kurt follows the tracker to the warehouse where Remi has been practicing her black site break-in scenarios. Weller runs into Violet and they end up in a shootout. Suffice it to say, Mr. Doe is not a happy camper when he arrives home.

Remi tries to dodge and weave. She gives her level best, "Oh no!" when Kurt tells her Violet almost killed him. But eventually Remi knows the jig is up. Kurt asks her what is going on and the facade drops. Remi reveals her Machiavellian face — the one hiding over Kurt's shoulder, where only we could see, any time he held his wife.

Kurt sees Remi for the first time and finally understands something is horribly wrong.

Stray Thoughts:

  • "Okay, look, it cannot all be armed nukes falling out of airplanes all right?' So much truth here.
  • "I can't believe I'm driving to Westchester twice in one day." Weitz went toe-to-toe with Rich with the one liners this week.
  • No idea how the bullets missed Reade.
  • "Who else is Lebron?" "Patterson. " FACTS

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