It seems like exciting episodes of Blindspot come in waves, every other week. Since last week’s episode was pretty high on the thrill scale, this week’s installment sits back and takes a breather. This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but the problem is that last week we had some foreshadowing and teasers that weren’t addressed this week. “Cede Your Soul” has its own surprises, but ’s just not what we were expecting, and unfortunately, wasn’t very satisfying.
The opening with Jane Doe dreaming of having a mysterious lover in her bed was certainly a surprise. But hey, she is still only human, and feeling as isolated and freakish from the rest of the world, it’s no surprise she’d crave for a deep relationship. Of course, our first guess would be perhaps it’s Kurt she’s dreaming about—except for one small detail—the man had a tattoo of a tree on his forearm. And this is where things might get strange. It’s only at the end of the episode that we see that this dream man is a real person keeping a distant eye on Jane. While it’s fine to add new twists to the Jane Doe mystery, having a new mysterious man watching her only echoes the bearded man who was stalking Jane from the first couple of episodes, which seems redundant. Why do we need another mysterious man stalking Jane? He’s obviously more than just the bearded man’s replacement, after all, Jane had a sex dream about him. So is he her boyfriend from when she didn’t have tattoos and memory loss? The problem is that no matter what the answer is, the situation comes off like an ABC nighttime soap, which is not what Blindspot has portrayed itself to be so far.
The entire episode focused on the shifting relationship between Kurt and Jane. Both of them now act awkwardly around each other, as it has become clear to both of them and everyone else that they’re developing feelings for each other. And who can blame them? Kurt is the only person in the FBI who feels emotionally invested in Jane’s case, and he’s the only person with whom Jane can have anything close to even a friendship with. It’s likely that these two will eventually open up to having a romantic relationship with each other, but what would be really annoying is if this episode is the startup of a love triangle amongst Kurt, Jane and the newly introduced tree tattoo dude. The man with the tattoo may prove to be a character like the bearded man—disposable. But if he were to soon die, it would seem ridiculous for the show to have two mysterious men stalking Jane who both wind up dead shortly after their introduction.
One aspect of “Cede Your Soul” that was well done was making the tattoo of the week mystery personal for Jane in a way we haven’t seen before. Of course every case is personal, in that they all come from Jane’s tattoos and she hopes that they lead her closer to answers, but what this week did that was different was that we had a character involved in this week’s mystery whom Jane was able to identify with and reach out to. The 17-year-old hacker, Ana, who accidentally made software for terrorists turns out to be a misunderstood and lonely teenager. She can look out for herself, but she doesn’t really have anyone. Jane is able to find some common ground with her and in Kurt’s eyes puts too much emotion into the case, which of course is ironic, being that Kurt is having hard time keeping his emotions in check around Jane.
We’re slowly getting closer to potentially finding out what Kurt’s father had to do with Taylor Shaw going missing. Kurt’s sister defends him, telling Kurt that if Jane is Taylor, then that means their father didn’t kill her. Kurt is not entirely convinced though that that doesn’t mean their father didn’t have something to do with Taylor Shaw’s disappearance. At the end of the episode when Kurt and his sister revealed to their father that Taylor is alive, he breaks down sobbing. It could be the father knew nothing about her disappearance and is happy that maybe once and for all she’s alive, OR perhaps he did have something to do with her disappearance and is feeling some relief from the guilt of not knowing what happened to her. There’s still a lot of details that haven’t been given, as to why Kurt’s father was the number one suspect. It’s information that should be revealed sooner rather than later, considering most of Blindspot’s subplots move forward at a fast rate, but this one has managed to drag on for the past few weeks.