Blindspot - S1E1 - Pilot

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Moji Fagbemi in Blindspot - S1, Featured // 6 Comments

The episode opens with a NYPD cop spotting a duffel bag on the streets of Time Square. And in the city of See something, say something, I liked the realism of how they handled the discovery of the bag. After the initial discovery, the streets are cleared away and a SWAT team member approaches the bag to inspect it. The bag starts to open up from the inside and we are presented with a naked and completely tattooed woman rising out of the bag with her hands outstretched. How in the world did she fit in there?

Images: NBC

Next we meet FBI agent Kurt Weller. He and his team assess and deescalate a hostage situation with a crazed gunman under the influence of apparently some very strong narcotics without endangering any of the victims. This tells us about Weller: he’s fast, smart, and able to think quickly and effectively in very stressful situations. He’s transported to HQ and debriefed about the Jane Doe, and we find out why he’s been brought on to the case. She has his name tattooed across her back in very large font, and Kurt Weller’s face mirrors the audience as we wonder what in the world is going on.

The FBI starts its investigation into Jane Doe, but can’t find any information about her in any database available. Her entire system has been flooded with a memory erasing-concoction that I hope doesn’t really exist. All of the tattoos on her body are - at most - only a couple of weeks old. How is someone able to take that much pain in such a short time? With all the poking and prodding, Jane Doe finally snaps and asks to speak with whomever is in charge, and she is brought face-to-face with Kurt Weller. He tells her it’s his name on her back and urges her to remember, but unfortunately willing it is not enough.

Kurt takes her to a safe house and after he leaves she breaks down in one of the emotional scenes of the night at seeing her body completely covered and no memory of who she is. I don’t blame her at all for ending up on the floor. While Jane Doe is having a nervous breakdown, Kurt Weller returns to his beautiful loft apartment to continue investigating the case. How can he afford that apt on an FBI salary?

The next day, everything ramps up a level as the FBI find the address to a location written in Chinese from one of Jane Doe’s tattoos. She fights being taken along as her services might be needed, and this proves true. A terrorist plot is discovered and while Kurt and this team question the suspect’s roommate, Jane Doe hears the screams of a woman being beaten by her husband, the residence’s shady landlord. He calls his wife his property and out of nowhere Jane Does reaction is to bring out her advanced fighting skills and proceed to wipe the floor with him and his friend. If I was one of the guys she was fighting, I would have yelled uncle after the fourth punch.

But the mystery of who she is continues to grow. The FBI director suspects she might be a Navy SEAL Specialist, but aside from that they don’t have too much information to go on.

They track down another suspect, an immigrant by the name of Chow, to a train station. But right before they can apprehend him, he gets a text that he’s being followed and makes a run for it. He separates the train and escapes, but not before planting C4 explosives to the back of the train. Weller tells his partner to get the people to the back of the train and runs off in the other direction. With no time to dismantle the C4, he tears off some of it to lesson the size of the explosion, but it still seems to make enough of a boom when he throws it. Putting together the clues they figure out that the train wasn’t the site of the attack, but instead it’s The Statue of Liberty.

They arrive at the statue of liberty with three agents, (Just 3? Really?) and proceed to start the search for Chow. When they find him he shoots at Jane Doe and takes her out of the game with a winged shot. Weller chases after him, and we get a cool aerial shot of stairs. I was really impressed by those stairs; they seemed never ending. Weller finally gets to Chow, and after a quick fight Chow gets the upper hand and holds a knife to Weller’s throat. Jane Doe arrives and take Chow out with an impressive one shot to the shoulder. And at the same time, Jane Doe has her very first flashback of herself and a bearded mystery man at a shooting range.

Back at HQ, the team regroups and the FBI director believes Jane Doe is their biggest asset and doesn’t want to lose her. After the briefing, Weller heads over to Jane Does and provides the one thing she needs the most right now: comfort in the form of a hug.

The episode ends with Chow being approached in the hospital by the bearded man we saw in the flashback and reminds him: his life for his sisters. And it closes out with a flashback of him injecting Jane Doe with the drug that wiped her memory.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the previews of Blindspot, and I’m still not sure what to expect going forward. Is it a thriller, a police procedural, or straight up action series? I hope it doesn’t go the police procedural route, but it has all the makings of one.