Blindspot – Gunplay Ricochet Recap/Review
I’ve gotten a little behind in our recaps due to convention attendance and pesky real life stuff. I hope that you forgive me and enjoy this Blindspot – Gunplay Ricochet Recap/Review. As always after our recap we will have a few questions for our Blindspotters Clare and Mo, so keep reading!
POGs
The episode opens on a group of kids playing POGS. Wait… are those back? No, wait, it’s a flashback to 1994. A man gets into a van and the radio reports about a serial bomber about to strike again. He is the bomber and as the children continue to play the van explodes.
In the present day, Kurt (Sullivan Stapleton) and Jane (Jaimie Alexander) are unpacking the last of their stuff from storage and Kurt finds their wedding DVD. He wants to watch it. AND I WANT TO SEE THE MARRYOKE! Jane is looking a little distant and admits that Roman called her the night before. She doesn’t want to have any more secrets that Roman can use against her. Kurt agrees, but he still hasn’t told her what happened in Berlin. AND WE DON’T KNOW EITHER! I know it’s only the 4th episode but not knowing this secret is driving me more crazy than ANY of the others.
In the Lab
Patterson (Ashley Johnson) and Tasha (Audrey Esparza) are looking at the molecule tattoo that Stuart was so obsessed with. They know it points to the previous owners of van Gogh’s self portrait but other than that it’s a dead end. Tasha suggests they take a step back and think. They know that Stuart’s Kinga device was tampered with, so is it possible other things were too? Patterson says she will recheck all the evidence from the crime scene and see if that turns anything up.
Reade (Rob Brown) presents Hirst (Mary Stuart Masterson) with a jersey that she looks like she’d rather die than wear. Apparently they have a standing bet which she has lost. Her forfeit is she either wears the shirt or shaves her head. Is it just me that thinks the relationship between these two is, I dunno, kinda off? He also tells her that Roman contacted Jane, that he is trying to break the team apart from the inside. Hirst tells Reade to make sure his affairs are in order in case he’s next on Roman’s list. She vouched for him to become Assistant Director, and doesn’t want any come back. They are interrupted by Patterson having solved another tattoo.
BOOM
The tattoo points to what they think is a closed case, the PennTech Bomber who has been dead for 20 years. In the intervening years there have been ‘copycats’ but there’s never been enough to go on until now. The new bioluminescent tattoo on Jane interacts with the old one and gives them a location, a parking lot, and a space number. On site Kurt suits up and goes in to check the vehicle and HOLY SHIT KURT LET THE BOMB SQUAD DO IT PLEASE! He opens the van parked there and finds a letter. It’s addressed to the bomber’s daughter, an exact match to his hand-writing, and it was written in the last week!
Messages from the past
We get to see Tasha and Reade recording a video for Kurt and Jane on their wedding day. They are both interested and amused by the prospect of the two most headstrong alphas they know trying to make a marriage work. In the office in present day Tasha teases Kurt for suiting up and not leaving it to the bomb squad. Thank you Tasha! Kurt protests, saying he’s trained with the bomb squad and Jane says he’d have done it anyway. Tasha turns the teasing on Jane then, saying she’s surprised Jane didn’t try and get in the suit with Kurt.
Hirst and Reade arrive, Hirst wearing the jersey which gets some laughs from the rest of the team. She’s issued a nationwide BOLO for the bomber. Patterson has looked into his death and it seems his medical/dental records had all been altered, meaning he had help as he was totally anti-technology. They decide to go after the daughter the letter was meant for.
Charity?
Elsewhere in the city Roman (Luke Mitchell), or should I say Tom Jakeman, arrives at some fancy charity gala. He meets the beautiful woman (Guest star Tori Anderson) in charge of the event and claims he’s a nobody in a room of somebodys… Wait… is he… are they… FLIRTING? This would be cute if I wasn’t so sure Roman is up to something. After she moves off to meet other attendees Roman slips out into a corridor and enters a room marked private, for Auction Staff Only. Yep, see, up to something!
Reade and Weller interrogate the bomber’s daughter and OMG SULLIVAN STAPLETON JUST SAID MY NAME faints Okay, I’m good. Can he interrogate me? Any excuse to look at those eyes… Where was I? Oh yeah, Claire eventually tells them that there is a go-between who passes on the messages from her father. She also says she has a way to contact the guy if anything happens. The team arrange a sting to trap the go-between at the park.
Once there, Kurt realises there’s something off about the park. Too many exits. It’s not a meeting point, it’s a tip off for the guy to bolt. The team fan out to try and find him and Jane does. They end up face to face and he calls her Remy.
Sweet Cinnamon Roll
Kurt’s message for Jane on the wedding video is the single sweetest thing I have ever seen. I sat and watched it with the goofiest look on my face as he calls her his North Star, his Starting Point (OMG that call back) and his End Point. Honestly, this season has revealed a whole new layer of Weller and Sullivan Stapleton is KILLING IT! My Jeller shipping heart is full to bursting right now. Which scares me, cos I don’t think this show is going to let me stay happy for long.
Jane and the guy talk and then fight. She gets the upper hand and take him in for questioning. According to Tasha he’s legendary in CIA circles, if you want to disappear then he is the guy to go to. Rosamund Ott, AKA Rossi (Guest star Paul Guilfoyle), and he’s wanted all over the world for “all of the crimes” as Patterson puts it. When Jeller go in to talk to him he only seems interested in Jane and their connection. He claims he was like an uncle to her and Roman, once waking them up in the middle of the night to watch a violent thunderstorm. He says he did Jane’s adoption and thinks it’s incredibly sad that she doesn’t remember. His knowledge of Shepherd and Jane’s relationship certainly seems pretty legit. He shuts down when Kurt presses him for information on the bomber.
Super Spy FTW
Tasha and Patterson are at Rossi’s house searching for evidence but they find nothing. He was leaving the house with nothing when they caught him so he must have a stash nearby. The pair search his car and Tasha notices a spot on the back seat where the stitching is wrong. Patterson produces a butterfly knife (swoon) and cuts the leather (sacrilege) to find a bag containing cash, passports and a book.
When they get back to the NYO Assistant Secretary West (Nicholas Calhoun) from the State Department shows up claiming jurisdiction over Rossi. They want to hand him over to the French government and will be taking him into their custody within the hour. Thankfully Patterson has something to go on, Rossi’s Ledger. It contains (coded) details of every job he’s ever done. Patterson breaks the code and it gives them an address in Ithaca, NY.
Upstate
The team arrive in Ithaca and find that the locals who were supposed to have just secured the scene have already been in to the house. One of their sniffer dogs picked up explosives so they went in and found a bomb. This guy is a cocky ass, and we know what happens when cocky locals with a point to prove get involved don’t we? He says that they diffused the bomb and his team are just about to carry it out when Kurt realises it’s wired through the floor. He yells for everyone to get out as a MUCH larger bomb goes off.
Jane’s wedding video message appears. She starts out super sweet until her now inebriated new husband bumbles in and interrupts. Then things just get ever sweeter.
Seriously. Like I need to brush my teeth! Post explosion Kurt dusts off the idiot sheriff and goes to check on his team and wife.
The team get back to the office with a tonne of trace evidence. They know the bomber has made a LOT of high explosive and has forged something, they just don’t know what yet. Tasha wants to take another run at Rossi, see if he gives anything else up. Hirst denies that, saying there isn’t enough time. They need to focus on the evidence they already have.
Jane is icing her bruised ribs while she talks to Kurt. She says that she wishes they could just live in their wedding day for ever as it was perfect. Kurt replies that they are going to have many more perfect days, for the rest of their lives.
Deep pockets for a Nobody
At the charity auction/gala Roman (Tom) stuns the crowd by bidding $20,000 for a ‘wish bracelet’ made by a refugee child. Although I think it’s safe to say he also won the heart of the lovely Blake in the process.
Operation Cuttlefish
Tasha and Patterson’s investigation into Stuart’s murder evidence finds proof that his phone records have also been tampered with. There’s a kilobite of data that’s been erased. Before they can get too much deeper they are interrupted by Reade. The bomber has delivered his latest manifesto to the Times. He’s targeting a university this time.
Kurt gives the assignments for the TAC teams. They think they have 60 campuses to search but Patterson manages to narrow it down to the real target. The fibres they found on the forger’s bench point to an ID card for a specific university. With that knowledge the TAC teams move out.
Blake brings Roman his bracelet in person. He asks her to explain how it works. She says that you make a wish as you tie the bracelet on and over time the bracelet weakens and when it falls off your wish comes true. Roman says he thinks she needs it more than he does and ties the bracelet on her wrist. As she moves off to talk to other backers he opens an app on his phone. Oh you sneaky bugger. Roman has implanted a tracker in the bracelet, which the gorgeous Blake will not now remove. Clearly this woman is important to whatever scheme Roman is cooking up.
Sea Urchin
No, not another code name. The new tattoo portion is the shape of a sea urchin. Patterson is busy trying to narrow down a location for the bomb by trawling through the manifesto for clues. There was always speculation that there were puzzles hidden in the letters the bomber sent to the papers. Patterson wonders if Roman already cracked it. She overlays the sea urchin on the letter and the spines point to letters. Those letters spell out Metro University Hospital Basement. Hirst questions how Roman could have known the code for a letter that was only just written. Patterson uses the urchin on all the previous letters and it works. Spelling out the locations of all of the PennTech bomber’s previous attacks. Roman you clever boy!
Back to School
At the University Hospital Reade sends Jane and Kurt to the basement to look for the bomb while the rest of the teams spread out to evacuate all patients and staff AND to look for the bomber.
Tasha and Reade split up and she eventually finds the bomber. He attacks and is going to shoot her but Reade puts him down.
In the basement Jane and Kurt find the bomb. With the bomber dead and no time to wait for the bomb squad, it’s up to them.
Cue Patterson’s wedding video message. She compares them to Dungeons and Dragons characters, saying that Jane is an Elf Paladin and Kurt is a Dwarf Monk. Excuse me while I laugh my ass off for a moment. Okay, I’m good. What she means is that separately they are awesome, but together they can defeat anything. Which is just as well as the bomb is hidden under a lid with a mercury tilt switch that’s going to require Jeller working in total sync.
They manage to get the lid off and diffuse the bomb with no seconds to spare. Jane remarks that Weller in bomb disposal expert mode is kinda hot (couldn’t agree more) and they have a little make-out session after Patterson tells them they are still on comms. That’s gonna be a thing this season isn’t it? Those two flirting over an open channel.
Who is hiding something?
Back at the NYO, Assistant Secretary West admits that somehow they lost Rossi. Patterson agrees to search the ledger for anything that might help track him down. She also has more Cuttlefish news for Tasha. She says that there was more tampering, the tip that was connected to the last case they had was logged in the system as low priority, but when it originally came in it was flagged as HIGH priority. The only people who could have done it were high ups in the DOJ or State Department. West is looking rather sketchy about now.
Jane and Kurt are curled up watching their wedding video when suddenly Roman appears on screen. He’s hacked the video to give them his own ‘toast’. He’s going to make them pay for hurting him. He won’t let them have their happy ending because he says they don’t deserve it.
Tasha texts Reade asking if he wants to go for a drink. He replies he’s already home… as she watches him get into a car and drive off with none other than ASSISTANT SECRETARY WEST!
Jane and Kurt are getting ready for bed, Jane is switching off the lights when she notices an envelope by the front door. It’s addressed to her from Rossi. The message on the front reads “Always regretted doing this job for your mother. You deserve to know.” Inside are medical documents and a birth record. Rossi didn’t arrange her adoption to Shepherd, he arranged an adoption FOR Jane. 18 years ago. She has a daughter!
WHAT?!
Final thoughts/Questions
Well that was certainly an high octane episode with yet more stunning revelations. Jane has a daughter? Is Reade dirty? We sat down our keen Blindspotters Mo and Clare and posed them some burning questions!
From what Hirst said early in the episode to the final moments seeing him hanging around with West, do you think Reade is dirty or are we being misled?
M – I think Reade is led!
C – I really don’t know. Half the time I think he’s in something he doesn’t realise, the rest of the time I think he knows EXACTLY what he is doing.
If you could watch Kurt and Jane’s Wedding video which bit would you want to see most?
M – Marryoke!
C – Like that’s even a question. Clearly the Marryoke.
Do you think it’s possible Roman might fall for Blake or is it all part of his scheme?
M – I think Roman has a long standing plan and romance isn’t in it!
C – I think Roman is playing a long game, but I’m not entirely sure that things might not go according to plan. I think maybe he’s going to develop feelings for her that totally screw his plans.
How do you think Jane and Kurt are going to handle the huge revelation that Jane has a daughter?
M – They will hopefully tackle things head on as a couple as we love to see them do!
C – I think it’s going to cause drama, although I’m not sure in what way. I HOPE this isn’t a road block for my Jeller babies, but I can see it possibly coming between them in some way.
