Blindspot Review: The Big Reveal (Season 4 Episode 10)
Blindspot Season 4 Episode 10, “The Big Reveal” is the kind of episode that will have you feeling like shiny peppermint candy one minute and stroking your chin and asking if everything you just found out is a lie.
First, lets talk cure. Team Weller is finally making headway cracking Roman’s data caches. Even though they were able to restore Jane’s mind if Blindspot Season 4 Episode 9, “Check Your Ed,” the ZIP poisoning is still killing her body.
Enter Dr. Nora Lee Roga, played by Patricia Richarson, who developed ZIP and wanted to pull the plug when it became fatal. The writers give Roga an Oppenheimer complex of sorts and it works for the scenario, but there’s not a whole lot of attention paid to the corruption at Kearns Pharmaceuticals.
In fact, the entire thing seemed to be resolved with a nice little bow, except for the fact that the stem cells were destroyed. Which, honestly, was to be expected.
Finding the scientist who created the drug and is looking for a cure is a very rewarding plot point, but finding the cure now feels too easy. Blindspot has generally had twenty-two episodes in their season runs, so to have both Remi gone and ZIP poisoning dealt with in back-to-back episodes wouldn’t have been fulfilling.
The writers have set up for this quest to go on for a while, and while Remi’s departure may have made for a great mid-season premiere, I’m not ready to see all that legwork go out the window just yet.
Letting Team Weller see the cure and get so close is a great way to give both the characters and the audience hope. The desperate search for a cure only to feel like you’ve taken two steps back feels in some ways like a person looking for a treatment for a rare cancer, who doesn’t want to accept a diagnosis. The dogged pursuit of, “there must be something out there,” is something I am sure a lot of viewers can relate to.
It’s also a sobering reminder that progress doesn’t always look like a straight line, and in the end, Team Weller has to look at what they still have. Even though it feels like they came out of this empty-handed they still have Dr. Roga and she’s willing to synthesize the cure.
What’s particularly touching is how Roman was keeping Dr. Roga safe. Hearing her talk about how Roman was like a son to her, and how she believed he was looking for more stem cells to find a cure for her too, is such a soft moment.
Except for the second half of Blindspot Season 2 when Roman was dosed with ZIP, he was primarily a villain in the story. He had ties to Jane, yes, but he was usually an antagonist. Hearing that he had this relationship that seemed so mundane feels really refreshing. I think that Jane realizes at that moment that, on some level, Roman got what she wanted for him: a fresh start.
Yet, the cure isn’t the big reveal. No, the biggest reveal is what Zapata has been up to this entire time; and I knew it was going to be a deep cover operation that went sideways when Madeline killed the Board of Directors in Blindspot Season 4 Episode 1, “Hella Duplicitous.”
Since Zapata was fired at the end of Blindspot Season 3 it’s felt like Zapata has been up to something. Her firing from the CIA was too perfectly timed and seemed a little too much like a setup especially after she was revealed to be on the plane with Blake at the end of Blindspot Season 3 Episode 22, “In Memory.”
The writers did a great job of putting Zapata in situations that would force her to make decisions that would keep the audience guessing. Not giving us too much of Zapata other than active scenes also helped with the reveal, and further complicating it by the introduction of Claudia from MI6 made the lie even more believable from the audience’s perspective.
But still, didn’t we see this coming.
I have to hand it to Audrey Esparza on this episode. After the perp at the end of “Check Your Ed,” I wasn’t entirely sure how things were going to. But her ice-cold stare and calm demeanor are positively chilling, and it’s in moments like these where I can see how the CIA suits Zapata.
In the past, I’ve been a fan of shows like In Treatment where the setting is very restricted and it’s often just two people stuck in a room hashing out their emotions, and that’s the vibe I got from the Zapata and Reade scenes. While there was action going on elsewhere, when we got back to that interrogation room, they both gave captivating performances.
Still, I cannot shake that maybe something we’re being told is a lie.
There’s something about the yarn that Zapata spun in the interrogation room that doesn’t quite add up, and I am curious to find out what it is. Between Claudia’s awkward phone call and the CIA shoving her into the trunk of a car, it definitely feels like something is off.
Which, in turn, makes me scared for Reade. Reade has put himself in a sticky position taking over Keaton’s position as Zapata’s handler. It’s not the first time Reade has gotten out of tight spots, but this feels different.
His personal connection to Zapata could be an Achilles heel for him, and I am curious to see how this will all play out.
Blindspot Season 4 has been the best season of the show since Season 1 overall. The series has really come together with the return of Remi, and the writers have developed a way to teasing out enough plot advancement while still withholding some answers that make the story enjoyable from week to week.
Overall, it feels like the series is leaning into its characters and building on storylines its already created, and I think that growth could propel the series through the second half of this season.
Stray Thoughts:
- So now that Jane has Remi’s memories, is there going to be a soft moment between her and Avery when she talks about why she gave her up? Doesn’t have to happen next week, but I feel like if Jane’s seeing dark, nightmare-like memories, it’s something that should be unpacked over the course of several episodes.
- Patterson geeking out of Nora’s lab is the cutest thing in the world.
- Have I said before what a good choice it was to bring Ennis Esmer on as a series regular? Because yea, that was a very good choice. He gives the best pep talks in a way that only Rich Dotcom can! I am actually curious to see how the bit that was dropped about him having experience with hospitals in Blindspot Season 4 Episode 4, “Sous-Vide,” comes up as Jane’s ZIP poisoning gets worse.
- So, I am guessing the Book of Secrets also holds a clue to where the stem cells are?
What did you think of this episode of Blindspot? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Blindspot airs Fridays 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.