Blindspot: A Stray Howl Recap

Synopsis: A tattoo points to an Air Force pilot with a difficult past; a disturbing memory haunts Jane; Weller believes he knows Jane’s identity.

Rating:★★★☆☆

I’ll say this for Blindspot, it jumped right in on giving us a strong lead to Jane Doe’s identity. Predictably, given that she had his name tattooed in huge letters across her back, Weller finds a small scar on Jane’s neck that matches an injury he accidentally inflicted on a childhood friend while they played – just before she went missing for twenty five years.

Weller has apparently long been haunted by the disappearance of ten year-old Taylor Shaw, coupled with the general public’s belief that his own father was responsible, even if it was never proven.

It’s actually a pretty solid lead, and it lends quite a lot of credence to the fact that she was sent to him specifically, rather than the FBI in general, or someone with greater access.

I’m pleasantly surprised by how quickly this came about. Obviously Kurt and Jane were connected in some way or another, but I expected seasons of false starts before getting anything like this.

I’m intrigued. Of course it is possible that Jane is in fact not Taylor Shaw, and what we’ve seen leaves little doubt of the plausibility that someone might just being going to great lengths to convince Weller that she is.

Speaking of conspiracies, it turns out Jane has several tattoos that are connected to events and materials that are classified ‘Above Top Secret.’ This is exciting and certainly raises the stakes, but is another symptom of the problem this show intrinsically faces:

How is any of this remotely possible, or worth anyone’s trouble? We know Jane was complicit in the wiping of her own memory – we do not know if she was complicit in the tattoos.

They’ve introduced far too early the notion that whoever Jane was before may not have been a person with good intentions, and our only clue is a mystery man who supposedly trained her, and has since been following her around and killing people as some part of grand design.

Not to mention, the tattoos aren’t just information, they’re written in complex codes in over two dozen languages and are somehow intended to be deciphered in a particular chronological order that the team has just happened to follow so far.

I appreciate the immediate address of the simplest tropes, because it implies they will be subverted, but the entire premise is so far removed from anything, it’s difficult to follow or take seriously.

That said, there is a lot of room for development and a lot of runway left. It’s not too late, especially if the show would make better use of it’s delightful secondary characters.

At the end of this episode, after a terrifying plot thread involving a kidnapped child, and unmanned drones picking people off a hitlist and leaving swaths of wreckage in their wake, the mystery man aggressively confronts Jane at home, while Weller awaits the results of the DNA test that might prove Jane’s identity.

Which vague tattoo will corral the team into revealing a top-tier government conspiracy next week? Tune in to find out.