It’s been five years since Blindspot ended, but if you’re like me, you’ve only just watched the series for the first time because it got put on Netflix recently. And now I’m passing along the good word to you: watch Blindspot. It’s the show you’ve been missing in your life.
Created by Martin Gero, Blindspot aired for five seasons between 2015 and 2020 on NBC. You might remember seeing it advertised. A mysterious woman appears naked in Times Square, body covered in tattoos. She doesn’t have any memory of who she is or what any of her tattoos mean. This is Jane Doe (Jaimie Alexander).
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An FBI task force gets assigned to the “Jane Doe” case, led by Agent Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton). The tattoos represent the cases of the week. Each tattoo is a case for the FBI to solve, various puzzles designed to weed out corruption or point fingers at individuals who might be hiding a secret. The question then remains: who created the tattoos, and how did they end up on Jane’s body? That’s the main driving force behind the first couple of seasons.
Blindspot offers a unique twist on the traditional cop drama.
Blindspot does, at times, stretch the mysteries too far in later seasons, but its greatest one is in Season 1. Admittedly, Jane and Weller aren’t the most interesting of couples, but the tension built around Jane’s identity and her connection to Weller is expertly paced. The culmination of that mystery is one of the more bone-chilling moments of any show of Blindspot’s kind, and one of the highlights of the show. While Blindspot’s main focus is Jane, it’s the secondary main characters that really make the series what it is.
Edgar Reade (Rob Brown) and Tasha Zapata (Audrey Esparza) make up the second half of the main field of FBI agents. They’re two very capable but complicated characters that often outshine the drama of the main couple, Weller and Jane. Their chemistry is insane, and the lengths they go to for each other — even if it means going outside the law — is soulmate material. They’re a great match together, but they also shine individually.
Patterson (Ashley Johnson) is undoubtedly the show’s best character. Every cop drama needs a computer person, someone on the other end of the phone, finding the quickest escape route or tracking someone’s location. But Patterson is much more than that, thanks to Johnson’s performance.
Quick with an answer and lethal with a computer, Patterson turns the traditional elements of the “computer nerd” into something with heart, whimsy, and a lot of ass-kicking. She’s behind the computer, but she’s also in the field, and always solving puzzles. But what makes her such an interesting character is how far she’ll go for the hack, even if it means breaking the law — something she has in common with Reade and Zapata, but for Patterson, it’s more about the fun of the game sometimes.
Patterson has chemistry with everyone, but none more so than with Rich Dotcom (Ennis Esmer). Rich and Patterson make up one of Blindspot’s best duos, and Rich himself is another reason why Blindspot is so good.
Rich is introduced as a genius computer hacker who first crosses paths with Jane and Weller as the center of a tattoo case. Despite being described as a major player on the dark web, he’s surprisingly hilarious and smitten with Jane and Weller, even as he kills various people in front of them and susses out their lies pretty quickly. Though his first episode ends with his arrest, his charm and flair for the dramatics ensured his return later on in Season 1.
The series continues the long tradition of crime and mystery in a unique way.
Rich Dotcom is a great example of how a recurring character can turn into a show’s best investment. Across the first two seasons, Rich returns frequently to enact various prison breaks and to pull one over on the FBI team, laughing and having a great time as he does so. He returns every so often to outsmart our FBI team, and it’s a blast every time he does. His frequent returns eventually pay off into something greater, though.
By Season 3, Rich secures himself a consulting gig at the FBI. Think Neal Caffrey from White Collar (there are even multiple painting heists where Rich is involved). As a criminal, Rich brought a lot of levity to the serious nature of the show, but as a good guy, it’s all Esmer’s charm that cements Rich as an iconic character. Sometimes he’s just there to provide a quick laugh next to Patterson. Still, oftentimes, especially in the later seasons, he offers some of the most moving monologues about friendship and family.
One of the best parts about Rich, aside from his best friendship with Patterson, is the on-again-off-again relationship he has with Boston Arliss Crab (Josh Dean). Boston is a forger, hacker, and perpetually exasperated recurring character who gets roped into Rich’s schemes often (when that episode’s villain isn’t otherwise kidnapping him). Though their love for each other can be hidden quite deep behind various crimes and emotional leverage they have on each other, it’s a fun one to track across the seasons.
The relationships in Blindspot keep you engaged with every episode.
Rich (and by extension Boston) is the best example of how Blindspot masters another important element of procedural storytelling — the art of the recurring character. Not only does every character that graces the screen feel important no matter the screen time, but they all come back in one way or another. Despite the main character’s propensity for forgetting who she is, Blindspot is a show that never forgets its characters. In fact, the series finale somehow managed to fit in practically every character for a cameo.
But even characters whose stories appeared to have wrapped, whether by death or by prison, still have a role to play in other episodes. The widespread utilization of characters makes the world of Blindspot feel significantly larger. Characters like Keaton, a CIA operative introduced as an antagonist, or Weis, a slimy internal affairs officer, end up playing more engaging roles than they first appear to be.
Perhaps the most important recurring character (besides Rich and Boston, but this may just be my bias), is Roman (Luke Mitchell). Every protagonist needs a good villain, and no one makes a better villain than family. Jane’s history is complicated, and at times feels too broad. But when Roman is introduced in Season 2, the show rightly narrows down the main conflict to Roman versus Jane. The two share a haunting past, and it’s that past and their struggle between love and hate for the other that makes Season 2 and Season 3 the strongest contenders for the overarching plot line.
Blindspot’s finale speaks to the heart of the series, and it’s a reason to love it.
Five years ago, Blindspot ended with a bang. It’s a great finale that speaks to the heart of the show, but leaves things frustratingly ambiguous. Beyond what happens with Jane and Weller, though, the finale also pitches a spin-off, and I’m here to reiterate that pitch: Patterson and Rich, global treasure hunters.
The two were easily the best parts of the show, and their antics as (sometimes) altruistic computer hackers made them a perfect duo. The episodes where they’re off on their own hunting down tattoo clues put them in an entirely different show.
But we can’t forget Boston, either, who provides a perfect counter-balance to Rich and Patterson’s shenanigans, while getting into his own, as well. Rich and Boston’s constant on-again-off-again relationship still feels unfinished, (depending on how you read the finale, anyway), and would be perfect fodder to continue in a spin-off show of the global variety.
Blindspot hit Netflix in early June, but was quick to rise to the number one on Nielsen’s overall U.S. streaming ranking, according to TVLine. Perhaps this uptick in viewers could see the return of the show in some capacity.
On the surface, Blindspot looks like just another cop procedural, using tattoos as an interesting and oh so mysterious premise. But look beyond that, and you’ll discover a show that invests in the details, creating a cast of characters that’s easy to root for, even as they commit various felonies. It’s an exhilarating five seasons of television, one that had me staying up until 3 a.m. some nights binge-watching. Oh, also, Bill Nye the Science Guy is in it, too. Get to watching.
Blindspot is available to watch on Netflix.
