BLINDSPOT — “In Night So Ransomed Rogue” Episode 201 — Pictured: (l-r) Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)
The mysterious Shepherd is what now?
With In Night So Ransomed Rogue, Blindspot begins its second season with a ton of answers and a whole bunch of new questions.
Written and directed by series creator Martin Gero, the second season premiere of Blindspot opens with Jane (Jaimie Alexander) in a cell before she’s taken to be tortured. She’s only lasted so long because of her training – retreating to a safe place in her mind where pain is just a dream.
Elsewhere, her former team is on the hunt, crashing into an empty house – but only seconds behind their target. Now Assistant Director Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton) makes the capture, but no sooner than the team is ready to return to headquarters, a helicopter arrives carrying an NSA Agent named Nas (Archie Panjabi) – who claims to be head of an off-book NSA squad.
She insists that Jane is their only link to the group she used to work for – she calls them Sandstorm.
BLINDSPOT — “In Night So Ransomed Rogue” Episode 201 — Pictured: Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)
When Jane is finally united with the team – after being put through a ‘radioactive lie detector’ that makes ‘a polygraph look like a mood ring’ – she agrees to work with them to make Sandstorm pay (it being too late to make things right following Mayfair’s death).
Before the episode is over we will learn who Jane really is and meet the mysterious Shepherd – along with a vaguely familiar (to her) guy (Luke Mitchell) with a scar running down the right side of his face. We might even catch a glimpse of something that bodes ill if Sandstorm isn’t stopped…
In Night So Ransomed Rogue is as frenetic an episode as we’ve ever seen on Blindspot. It moves like a bat outta hell – even when it seemingly slows the pace for exposition and character moments.
Series creator Martin Gero has a definite handle on his characters and their reactions to the ep’s unusual events and puts them through their paces at a good clip while pacing revelations and new questions in the right proportion to keep us going, ‘Wait! What?’
BLINDSPOT — “In Night So Ransomed Rogue” Episode 201 — Pictured: Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)
Perhaps the most telling moments come in a sequence when Jane confronts Weller over his not telling her about the difference between her DNA and the test results on her tooth that suggested she wasn’t Taylor. He, in turn, wonders why she was so eager to be Taylor.
Both characters reactions are so real and raw that we know that they will find a way to trust each other again ‘radioactive lie detector’ or not.
There’s even a classic Patterson (Ashley Johnson) line in response to Nas’ pre-mission speech…
Blindspot hits the ground running in season two and you might need to step up your aerobics classes to keep up.
Final Grade: A-