Blindspot recap: 'Clamorous Night'

After a few weeks off, Blindspot picks up right where it left off, as “Clamorous Night” sees the team fighting for their lives after Roman put a hit out on all of them. As Roman quips near the end of the episode, he’s got so many assassins on his payroll that he can’t keep track, and they’re all going after the FBI team. The attacks themselves are pretty much coordinated, and that leads to an episode with a unique structure, as we continually flash back to a single moment, and then follow each individual character arc from there.

It’s an interesting creative choice, and one that allows a fair amount of tension to be built with each new character arc. Essentially, once we know that the episode will be following one attempted hit at a time, it’s easier for the episode to play with our expectations. We try to fill in the blanks ourselves, wondering what’s happening to Zapata while Reade is being attacked, or whether Weller can take down his assassin and get to Jane in time. It’s incredibly compelling, and one of the more inspired structural decisions in a season filled with bold choices that haven’t always landed.

It all starts when the FBI team gathers at the office to talk about Crawford. It’s been two days since he escaped, along with Roman, and the team has no real leads. They figure he hopped a few planes and ended up in Hong Kong, but they don’t know anything for sure. They’ve been at the office for two straight days and it’s starting to wear on them, so Reade tells everyone to go home and get some rest so they can maybe see things more clearly in the morning.

Because Rich Dot Com can’t help but insert himself into everybody’s business, he tells Jane and Weller that they should skip the takeout food and go out for once in their lives before the romance dies. They resist his advice, but he hacks into the reservation system for a hot new restaurant named “Mr. Velvet” and books them a table with Weller’s credit card, meaning they have no choice but to go.

That dinner is the beginning of the chaos, and not just because of the horrendous cocktails being served. Rather, Jane notices a woman sitting at the bar, and she swears that same woman was outside their apartment earlier. Jane jokes that she’s being paranoid and doing exactly what Rich said they’ve been doing — allowing the cases to dominate their lives — but when the woman hits the back exit, Weller and Jane see their opportunity. Follow a potential suspect who’s casing them, or finish their horrible dinner? It’s an easy call.

When Jane goes around back to cut off the woman, though, she hears a gunshot from inside the kitchen where Weller is supposed to be. She tries to get in the back door, but it’s locked. Seconds later, two assassins take down Jane, tasing and throwing her in the back of an unmarked white van. All that’s inside is a monitor with a live web call from Roman, who’s ready to brag about how all of her friends are going to die.

It’s at that moment that “Clamorous Night” flashes back to the FBI offices, where Reade is wrapping up the uninspiring intel meeting on Crawford and telling everyone to go home and get some sleep. This time around, we follow Reade as he goes about his night, which mostly involves dealing with Millicent, the woman sent to the FBI to look into Hirst’s hirings, the one who tried to get Rich Dot Com put back in jail. Now, she’s got her eyes on Reade, and the FBI Director isn’t too happy about it. He sees her questioning of his colleagues as disruptive. He’d rather be the one questioned, but she refuses his offer. She’s building up to that, taking her time and making Reade and the rest of the team squirm.

Things get worse when he and Millicent share a cab, only for her to end up hanging out at his place when she forgets her keys and purse in said cab after the two butt heads over her tactics. In such close quarters they’re bound to butt heads again, and they do when Millicent informs Reade that she’s sending a letter to the FBI recommending his suspension. She says she’s just doing her job and that it’s not a big deal if he has nothing to hide. He says he’s her scapegoat and that any investigation, whether there’s wrongdoing or not, will ruin his career.

Reade doesn’t have to worry for too long though. Unfortunately for Millicent, she picked the wrong time to be in Reade’s apartment. The assassin sent by Roman comes in through his bathroom window (shout-out to Paul McCartney), kills Millicent, and then goes after Reade. The FBI Director, of course, fights off the assassin, but it’s not long before he gets a call from the NYPD saying Zapata is under fire at a church. (Recap continues on next page)

We’re back at the FBI offices again, and this time the focus is Zapata. We already know she ends up getting shot at in a church, so the episode doesn’t waste much time getting there. She goes there to attend the funeral service for a man named Ricky Flores, a former boyfriend and friend who lost himself to drugs and gang life. While there, she runs into Alexis, Ricky’s sister, and the two still share a bond, especially now that Alexis is a cop, having just graduated.

Alexis gets an immediate introduction to life as a cop. After Zapata tearfully speaks about being abandoned by friends, using her story with Ricky to echo her own struggles with her friends at the FBI, and the church empties out, Roman’s assassin makes his move. He begins firing shots from a balcony, and Alexis and Zapata take cover behind the pews. While Zapata distracts the shooter, Alexis gets underneath the balcony and gets off a few shots, killing the assassin. Another attempt thwarted, two more to go.

While Zapata certainly has a terrible night, Patterson’s may just be worse. It’s not that the attempt on her life is any more brutal, but rather what comes before that’s so painful. It’s her first date with Jack, the cute lab guy from work, and everything seems to go wrong. Jack brings her to some sort of dorky ice cream-making workshop. The words “molecular gastronomy” are uttered, so you know it’s bad.

Anyway, it turns out Jack and Patterson may be similar but are in no way a good match. They have no chemistry whatsoever, and their date just keeps going off the rails until suddenly there’s an assassin after them. Luckily, Patterson’s gotten pretty good at fending off attackers, and she lures the assassin into the kitchen, where she’s rigged up a makeshift bomb that explodes with the help of gas from the ovens. Patterson and Jack hide out in the walk-in freezer when the bomb goes off, and everybody is safe and sound. Everybody except for Jane and Weller, that is.

There’s no way our heroes are going down though. While the team runs face-detection on the suspicious woman from the bar in hopes of locating the van she was driving, Jane and Weller take their fate into their own hands. Weller fights off his would-be killer and uses the assassin’s weapon of choice, a pen/needle combo filled with cyanide, against him. Then he goes after Jane, who’s actually having no trouble on her own. She gets out of her binds, smashes the monitor that connects her and Roman, and then takes down the two drivers. Weller shows up to offer one final bullet, and suddenly Roman’s foolproof plan is completely decimated.

This isn’t the end of Roman’s mission, though, and it’s certainly not the end of the FBI team’s problems. Yes, Rich protects Reade and shreds Millicent’s suspension letter before the authorities can get a hold of it, but there’s still Crawford and Roman to worry about. Based on the last scene of the episode, Crawford’s bloody plan is just getting started.