This week Blindspot focused primarily on the tattoo mystery of the week—leaving all those other important questions involving Kurt’s father, Tom Carter from the CIA, the mysterious man with the tree tattoo, and whether or not Jane is Taylor Shaw—on the sideline. “Sent on Tour” consists mainly of Jane and the FBI team walking through the woods with a prisoner, while back in New York, Patterson investigates another tattoo with her boyfriend, David.
The tattoo mystery criminal of the week, Guerrero, is not nearly as exciting as we might have expected. He’s still a mysterious character, in that by the end nothing much has been revealed concerning who he is, or what he knows about Jane—and that’s where the problem lies. “Sent on Tour” first gives us the impression that he knows something about Jane, due to her having his case file number as a tattoo. He lives in isolation out in the woods of Michigan, and is protected by a local militia. You’d think this guy would have some exciting flair about him, that perhaps he’s some mastermind, but the truth of the matter is he’s a dull character. Guerrero does nothing but verbally antagonize the characters throughout the episode, during which he’s bound and held at gunpoint.
Even though the team is trying to escape the area to save their lives, it never feels like there’s any real urgency. Jane, being the main character and focus of the show, obviously can’t die. We know Kurt is going to live, due to his major connection to Jane. Zapata won’t die, and that’s only because it would leave that dull gambling addiction subplot hanging in the air. There’s nothing to keep Reade from being someone that the writers could kill one of these weeks, but he’s not a strong enough character for anyone to really care. And so, with the criminal of the week immediately captured, there’s no conflict in “Sent on Tour” to keep audiences on the edge of their seats. And the moment they find the random helicopter that seemed to be left for them untouched, takes away any questions about how they will escape.
Blindspot’s consistent weakness lies in creating inadequate subplots for its secondary characters. There’s Zapata with the gambling addiction, Mayfair with her mysterious illegal past involving CIA Deputy Director Carter and Patterson with her mystery-loving boyfriend. Maybe they’re blatantly stealing a plot twist idea from The Blacklist, where perhaps Patterson’ boyfriend, David, is a spy. He’s even got the Tom Keen-esque glasses, coming off as a lovable and innocent person. If he’s using Patterson for his own agenda, that could be a very good surprise. But if David is nothing more than a boyfriend who just wants to help, then he’s a pointless character.
At least the end of the episode provides a good lead-in for next week. While most of the ongoing mystery arcs aren’t touched on in “Sent on Tour,” Blindspot still does a decent job overall of keeping those storylines moving forward, and hopefully, next week will take us substantially further into the mystery of Daylight. Kurt is told by Mayfair in the beginning of this episode that she used to be Guerrero’s handler back when he was an informant, yet after Guerrero’s capture, when she goes in to interrogate him, Kurt realizes that they’ve never seen each other before—and that they’re on the same page to keep their mouths shut. Kurt is not afraid to cut to the chase, so there is no doubt that he’s going to hold onto this like a dog to a bone and find out what secrets Mayfair is keeping from him and from Jane Doe’s case.