Blindspot Review: Name Not One Man (Season 2 Episode 13)
You know those moments when you have an existential crisis regarding all of your choices in life? Blindspot Season 2 Episode 13, “Named Not One Man,” has a very heavy dose of that.
At the end of “Devil Never Even Lived,” we learn that Shepherd has been watching Weller. Let me clarify, it’s not just Sandstorm that has an invested interest in Weller, but Shepherd personally. Shepherd even spoke to a teenage Weller while he was at school.
While this episode compounds on that mystery; it still manages to evade the question and not give us any new answers.
What we do have, are new pieces to the puzzle. We learn that Shepherd’s “real name” is Ellen Briggs and that she’s a high-ranking general. We also learn that she uses the school Weller attends as a recruitment tool with Sandstorm still having a presence within the institution.
But these little details pale in comparison to the outrage that Weller feels upon realizing that everything he thought he chose for himself, or earned, has been negotiated and planned.
It’s impossible not to feel for him in this moment.
In a way, Weller is just as much a puppet in the grand scheme of Sandstorm as anyone else. The only difference is, instead of being a conscious participant made oblivious by ZIP; he’s been oblivious and become self-aware.
This show has always dealt with identity and bringing Kurt’s background, and his grooming, and his expertise into this situation opens up an interesting perspective. Now instead of just Jane’s journey, we will also get to see Kurt’s reactions to being a mechanism in Sandstorm’s objective.
In all the confusion and self-doubt, this episode does give us one thing we have longed for. It answers the ultimate question: why was Jane sent to Kurt. However, it doesn’t give us the entire picture. We still don’t know exactly why Kurt was chosen and why he factors into Sandstorm’s plan.
If it wasn’t clear by now, Sandstorm is playing the long game, and it isn’t just about the future, it’s been going on for a while.
The thing is, that while we are getting pieces about their future objective and their past moves the puzzle board is expanding exponentially. So while we know that Kurt is now a cog in Sandstorm’s machine, we also have more questions about Sandstorm’s operation.
One at the top of my list right now is: how deep does this rabbit hole go?
We have a general in the army, recruiting from an academy, and using them for a still unknown endgame. If it turns out Sandstorm has the roots of an Aspen Grove and there are players working as a shadow government, it wouldn’t surprise me at this point, but I am going to need a convincing explanation of how they pulled it off.
Regardless, I am very curious to see where these tangled threads take us, and I am especially interested to see Michelle Hurd dig her teeth into Shepherd a little more, especially since it looks like she’s more entwined in both Kurt and Jane’s lives.
Stray Thoughts:
- It’s getting personal for both Patterson and Kurt. Is no one surprised that they haven’t been ordered to some mandated team building exercise?
- Patterson’s line about eating a Gogurt and Zapata saying: “Yea, that’s not dinner” is such a perfect moment. I wish that Patterson didn’t collapse out afterward, but I am glad we’re seeing the team get more invested in Sandstorm.
- I am not a fan of this week’s tattoo case. I think that what Kurt was pursuing and what he was dealing with were much more dynamic than the homegrown terrorists. Although, I do have to give the show props for including elements that were so topically relevant, but I think it got lost in the grand scheme of things. (If you don’t know what I am talking about, google “pipeline protests” and see what comes up.)
- That being said, I fully support this episode’s format where the team splinters off and chased both a tattoo and a Sandstorm lead.
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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Lauren Busser
Lauren Busser is an Associate Editor at Tell-Tale TV. She is a writer of fiction and nonfiction whose work has appeared in Bitch Media, Popshot Quarterly, Brain Mill Press Voices, and The Hartford Courant.
2 comments
Somehow this season has not captured me like the first season. One reason, there seems to be to much personal demons being addressed, and not enough of the big picture issues. And continuing gripe, I have a LOT of difficulty understanding what Weller and Nas are saying. Accents notwithstanding, their elocution leaves me wanting.
I find it interesting how they used images and videos from the NODPL Standing Rock water protectors protest that was currently happening in ND at the time this must have been filmed and when it was aired on tv. Seems pretty immoral in my opinion for whatever it’s worth! I wonder how the Lakota Natives feel about this particular choice by producers.
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