Blindspot boss breaks down Sandstorm reveals

Warning: This story contains major spoilers from the Feb. 8 episode of Blindspot. Read at your own risk.

Blindspot dropped a number of new hints as to why Sandstorm is so obsessed with Weller — and no one was more shocked than Weller himself.

During Wednesday's episode, Shepherd was revealed to be Ellen Briggs, a high ranking military general who took a real interest in Weller's education. She not only encouraged Weller to stay in his cadet program, but she secretly funded his tuition. Why?

Apparently, Weller is her star player. He was even passed over for a promotion in the FBI as Sandstorm needed to keep him in the New York office for Jane's arrival. The two came face-to-face in a tense standoff where Shepherd said he'll have no choice but to join her when the time is right. What does this all mean? EW turned to executive producer Martin Gero to get the scoop.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Weller found out about the Truman Protocol. When I think of the name Truman I think of The Truman Show. Is the protocol essentially Weller's life being so orchestrated?
MARTIN GERO: No, it's not a Truman Show reference. The Truman Protocol is one of the most secret documents in the United States and I cannot comment on it further. It's very pivotal to the end game of phase 2 and of Shepherd's plan. It'll become, obviously, an area of great interest for the team over the course of the rest of the season. You will find out what it is this season.

How will Weller knowing that his life was so orchestrated affect him?
It freaks him out. It makes him recontextualize everything, including whether he was meant to be an FBI agent or not. It feels like his choices were guided by Shepherd looking out for him. It comes from a benevolent benefactor. So, he's definitely really nervous about it. What's important to point out is something that Shepherd says, which is like, her looking out for him was not part of the plan from the beginning. She hasn't been planning this for 20 years, but then she saw that there was a space for him to be used. That's really chilling. It's the same with Roman and Jane to a certain extent, like when she adopted them, I don't think she knew then that she was going to try to lead a revolution, but she knew what assets she had, so when she made that decision she folded them in. She's somebody that has a terrifying Rolodex of people in her head that she feels like can get her to the end of what she wants. It's unsettling, to say the least.

While watching the episode, I wondered whether Shepherd looks at Weller like a son, but then all of a sudden there was some weird sexual tension there in that kidnapping scene. What's going on there?
I want the audience to read into it. I think she's f—ing with him, she's really messing with his head a bit. Also, he's this thing that she's been watching from afar for so long, so to be in the same room as him suddenly, it's a little intoxicating for her. To have manipulated this guy's life so effectively and then here he is strapped to a chair, she is totally in control of him in her mind, so there can't help but be a little sex in there for her. That was really something Michelle [Hurd] folded into it, but I think it works really well. Her plan's not exactly going to plan — terrible sentence, so sorry — but she wanted to try and get him to see it her way. Of course, he was never going to do that, but it was worth a shot.

Shepherd tells Weller he'll have no choice but to join her. Can you give us a little hint of what that might look like?
I think you'll find he'll have no choice but to join her. [Laughs] It's just such a great episode but it's hard to talk about what everything means because it's so central to the how the last four episodes play out. You're not going to have to wait three seasons for all of this stuff to come to fruition. We're setting up something pretty enormous at the end of this season that I think will be extraordinarily satisfying and this is the opening salvo.

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Is there anything else we can glean from that baseball talk that might help us figure out Phase 2?
No. Truman shows is pretty much it.

Omaha is basically like Daylight on steroids. Weller tells Patterson not to use it. Will she actually follow his order?
Yeah. He makes a very strong case. The f—ed-up thing about what they're doing is, all of these tattoos on her body, all of the cases that they've had that Sandstorm has put in front of them, Weller doesn't disagree with. They're doing really good work because of all of this stuff that Shepherd has brought to their attention. He's a man of extraordinary morals, which is why Shepherd is so interested in him. He's the type of person that, given the opportunity, he's not going to take shortcuts. He's not going to become his enemy just to try to take them down. One of Mayfair's greatest regrets is her involvement in Daylight and he's not ready to do that himself yet.

Patterson collapses presumably as a result of overworking herself after just being tortured, but what can you tease about what she's dealing with?
She's burning it on both ends a little hard. She's trying to use work as an escape for the fact that her personal life has been less than ideal since Jane came in in a bag. Everyone she gets close to betrays her or gets killed. So she's trying to just like block it out, which is a terrible mistake. Interestingly enough, I think her and Reade are going through a similar thing, which is they're trying to run and ignore their problems. They have their blinders on because if they were to look anywhere around their world, they would see what was wrong, but they just refuse. It's taking Reade to a dark place and it's taking Patterson to a dark place, but hopefully they're going to be on the mend soon. But they've got to realize that they can't run from their problems.

Reade's doing cocaine now! Is this a result of his guilt over the coach? And how will Tasha feel about this?
I don't think it's a result of his guilt, I don't think he feels much guilt. He was abused when he was a kid and he's not dealing with it. He thinks just because Coach Jones is dead that means the issue's been solved when it hasn't. He still has to deal with all of the trauma. Patterson's throwing herself into work and he's self-medicating basically. Reade is overindulging in his private life in a way that's going to start to affect his professional life.

Blindspot airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.