I Can See Clearly Now – In anticipation of Blindspot Season 2

I can’t readily admit that much of the first season of NBC’s Blindspot ever really wowed me too often, but what I did discover was a show that happened to align with much of my tastes and formats that I’ve been scouring TV for, especially in the network space. I guess I should also be glad it was doing well in the ratings enough for early episode orders and a renewal last year.

In the same vein, I could never say Blindspot was anywhere close to my favourite shows in all of the 2015-16 TV season, but it has proven to be an interesting case study in the kind of television I enjoy, and hope to one day enjoy creating – a strong action-adventure series anchored by a central underlying mystery that’s driven by interesting characters (or at least dynamics), and has a somewhat interesting set of themes, theses or questions it wants to address; all in the meanwhile it takes advantage of the episodic format to tell its stories that tie back to its central mystery. Blindspot manages to hit most of those notes, as well as being generally entertaining (on the action-thriller level). It also has a few misses – in my opinion – but that gives it some room to improve, hopefully, as it heads into season two.

I had planned on writing up something akin to a season-long review at the finale but never got around to it. But I will still address many of the things I liked about the first season – plus those I didn’t – throughout, and how I hope season two might shape up.

First off, the central mystery of the show which asks, “Who is Jane Doe?”, ties itself up almost neatly by the first season’s end while leading to interesting new dynamics and revelations. I believe creator Martin Gero did state that a lot of the mysteries surrounding Jane Doe would be emphatically and explicitly revealed by the start of the second season. Though I do wonder how much of it again is misdirection; of course, the second season’s tagline is “Trust No One”. This is especially true when the creator mentioned that the show had given evidence that shone reasonable doubt to things like Jane’s identity (DNA vs. the tooth analysis early on) as to whether she truly was Taylor Shaw. And like the characters, it's likely something like that was ignored in favour of reaching for an emotional lifesaver or shortcut - that Kurt had to believe that woman is Taylor returned to him. Flashbacks (Jane’s especially) throughout the season are framed just exactly to tell you something is off but they are just as easily casually dismissed by a viewer. It’s not until in the finale when all is revealed that Jane Doe was never Taylor Shaw at all, that every step made beforehand is revealed to have been carefully crafted and considered. Personally, I found it a thrilling revelation, probably something I rarely find takes me aback – even for a moment. This is something of a rarity for me even in a post-Lost era where plenty of shows rely on this kind of shock factor, even when it is carefully considered.

I do have to wonder what is in store for season two, as the finale told the audience that in no uncertain terms that the mystery of “Who is Jane Doe?” was effectively answered. The first season gave us the journey to the tune of, “What if she really is Taylor Shaw; then what?” and committed to it, forcing this truth through not only just the amnesiac lead, but the childhood friend who has been trying to come to terms with her disappearance, only to pull the rug out from under them (and us) in the final moments and leaving the audience to stew in those revelations.

The above brings me to my next point, which is the strong character work in the show. Throughout the first season, I gave the show some minor praise for what I considered to be a “cop show with a central mystery” that didn’t necessarily lean really hard on its mystery all the time. In that sense, what I actually enjoyed was that in the format of the show: there was generally a case-of-the-week element, bookended by character moments. I found it oddly strange yet comforting that a show that existed of this caliber would devote a good 10 minutes of it’s runtime on almost entirely on its characters (rather than rush through to the inciting incident to get to the case-of-the-week), then finish the episode with similar amounts of downtime. And I’m not talking about the show always ending hard on a cliffhanger that slowly moves along “What about Jane’s tattoos?” central mystery; but rather provides some sort of development that slightly changes character relationships. That is not to say the show will not choose to end on a prototypical plot twist at the end, but it will just as equally end on a character note or emotional cliffhanger instead of a mechanical one. From my vague recollection (I did not rewatch the first season), some moments included Oscar threatening Weller’s life; or Weller’s father getting a heart attack. Neither of those tied intrinsically back to the plot so they provided more material instead for character work (Jane and Weller, respectively) when the next episode opened.

Some of the more interesting aspects of Blindspot to me are the characters, especially the two leads, and the journey the show put them through the first season. Jane Doe I still find incredibly fascinating even when you push aside lot of her ties to the central mystery. Her dynamic with Weller is incredibly fascinating. On one hand you have an amnesiac who is at odds with her past life and trying to make a new life and identity for herself despite some terrible act done to her. And on the other hand, Weller and her go back and forth about what he thinks is her true identity, and how the two try their hardest to make that work because they think it’s the right course of action even when it feels like the equivalent of trying to fit a square peg into a circular hole, even when it seems almost everyone is saying what they think is true. The way Jane Doe finds her way back into Weller’s family life and how his father (in hindsight) takes the news and uses it to his advantage to win back his son’s love is also an interesting dynamic that eventually gets torpedoed. It will be interesting to see how strained the relationship is between the two now that they both know the truth. Frankly, I don’t think it’s something you can recover from, unless the creators have something planned. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt as long as the emotional execution is done right.

That is not to say the character work in Blindspot was ever perfect. I still have some reservations or criticisms about the lack of material or involvement some side characters – Reed and Zapata in particular – receive. Whereas Weller and Jane are both mechanically and emotionally tied to the central mystery, and the late Mayfair was too in some regards, it felt like it took a little too long to involve Reed and Zapata into it, and it seemed really too little, too late for me. Compare this to supporting characters like Mayfair and Patterson who had episodes that focused almost entirely on them, and their involvement in the central mystery. There were a few times early on that it seemed like either Reed or Zapata might at least take a central lead in an episode's case-of-the-week, only to be quickly eclipsed by Weller and Jane again over the course of it. It’s not enough to make me dislike the show, but I do have to wonder if there is much of a future for those two characters except as perpetually secondary ones, seeing as most of their late development was again effectively torpedoed by the finale’s end. Where do those two characters in particular go from there?

Ultimately, I do wonder the trajectory of the show will be in season two. The only remaining things left entirely unresolved are Jane’s true past and the people that tattooed her to force the change in the guard at the FBI New York Office for Weller. The trailers for season two do seem to suggest that Mayfair’s death will still leave much of a specter over the proceedings, as well as having the team use Jane again but possibly this time in less of a cooperative spirit. I guess a lot of it depends on what they want to do next with Weller and Jane’s relationship, and how the characters plan to investigate the people involved with Jane in whatever direction the show wants to take it. I do hope that the creators recognized much of the strengths of the show (or at least the ones I found to be the strengths) and better those aspects moving into season two.