Blindspot Review: If Beth (Season 2 Episode 4)

Blindspot is a series that constantly delivers adrenaline-fueled scenes every week.

“If Beth,” Season 2 Episode 4, is no exception and has a fair amount of sword-fighting and gunfire. As easy as it is to get lost in the hail of bullets about three-quarters of the way through the episode, I find myself asking: “Wait, shouldn’t I be looking for a mole?”

I still don’t have a solid theory about who the mole is. What I do know, is that there is a “terrorist” organization whose motives are still shrouded in a dense fog.

However, the fog may have started to lift just a bit.

With such a plot-driven storyline, it’s hard to forget that there is a person at the center of all of this. With the first five minutes, Jane is taken to a polluted lake and then brought back to the FBI so that Kurt and Nas can fight it out about Sandstorm’s motives.

The take away from both these scenes can be summed up in Jane’s miffed comeback to Kurt and Nas’ disagreement.

JANE: You guys know I am standing in this room with you right now, right?

My immediate reaction was to sit up and give Weller and Nas a little love tap over the head and say, “Manners!”

Then I took a step back and realized that to the FBI, Jane is an asset. She’s a living, breathing asset that they work with, but she’s still a tool for them. Her value in the FBI is getting into Sandstorm, but they’re intent on keeping control of her as much as Sandstorm is intent on making sure Jane is still with them.

It wouldn’t be all that surprising to me if Jane goes rogue later this season. She’s being pulled at by these two worlds, but it doesn’t seem like she’s presented with a choice by either of them.

God, how I yearn for someone to say to Jane: “It’s okay to form your own opinion. You’re not disappointing anyone if you’re true to yourself.”

One thing is for certain, that person won’t be affiliated with the FBI or Sandstorm.

To both Sandstorm and the FBI, she’s an asset both organizations can use to get information on the other, but there’s definitely a stronger hold on one of these worlds than the other. And if Jane is the fulcrum that tips the balance of power between the FBI and Sandstorm, it’s no question that she is leaning closer to Sandstorm at the moment.

While the story about Lake Aurora may have swayed Jane a little bit, Shepherd’s story is what really peaked our interest. She talks about losing her ovaries from a childhood of swimming in Lake Aurora and how saving Roman and Remi saved her as well as them.

It sounds clichéd. It is a little.

But for all its saccharine sentiments, this scene made me want to see more of these three together. We’ve only had a few scenes with Jane, Roman, and Shepherd in the same room and each time it’s molded the family unit.

And yes, they might be an odd family unit, but they’re interesting to watch–if only to give us a window into how this cell operates.

Plus, now that Shepherd has opened the door, essentially inviting Jane to ask questions, I am really curious to find out about Jane at the camp and what the early days were like in Sandstorm.

With tensions high at the FBI right now, I am finding Sandstorm to be a welcome respite. They may not trust Jane anymore than the FBI, but at least its full of people who seem to be a little more welcoming.

Still, I find that as an audience member, it’s hard for me to know which team to root for. Both the FBI and Sandstorm appear to have noble intentions and they believe that what they are doing is right, but we don’t know who is telling the truth.

We are just as in the dark as Jane and both organizations are still shrouded in mystery.

Stray Thoughts                             

• It’s fun to see the team dress up and go to the gallery opening. Highlights of the night included Patterson’s computer book and Nas’ amazing hair, but functional outfit.
• Weller, Allie, and the baby, doesn’t seem like a storyline that is going to go anywhere good. I loved Allie’s speech about having a person growing inside her that would one day probably be bigger than her and listen to awful music. That had me throwing my fist in the air and saying “smash the patriarchy.”
• On the subject of Reade, I am just going to echo Weller here, please just bury me in worry. I want to remind him of the blackmail issue last season, where things could have been resolved if everyone had just talked to one another.
• Nas had the worst lead-in to a “twist” ever. She figures that Weller is an essential part of Sandstorm’s plan and shows him footage proving that Sandstorm has been following him for twenty plus years. I have one reason why this reveal is irrelevant. I’ll give you a hit, it’s an acronym of three letters that starts with an N and ends with an A.
• It’s no sinister closing line about rabbits, but did anyone else get Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” stuck in their head after this episode? I may spend the next week looking over my shoulder just from the look on Weller’s face.

What did you think of this episode of Blindspot? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Blindspot airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on NBC.

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