Blindspot: The team loses one of its own

Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Friday’s episode of Blindspot. Read at your own risk!

The task force was finally able to foil Roman’s plans during Friday’s episode of Blindspot, but it came at the cost of one of their own. Calm down: No one died, but the team is now down a member.

When Jane (Jaimie Alexander) realizes that Roman (Luke Mitchell) is using an old Sandstorm-era plan to steal a chemical to make a bomb, the team must turn to an imprisoned Shepherd (Michelle Hurd) to get information. She’s actually remorseful, apologizing for pitting Remi and Roman against each other, and noting that if he dies, so does she.

But when the team is able to easily foil Roman’s plan, Patterson (Ashley Johnson) suspects something else is afoot — and she’s right. It was never about bombing the U.N., but about killing two African leaders in order to ensure an oil pipeline would be funneled through Crawford’s newly secured land.

Though Roman’s plan fails, the team now has enough to arrest Crawford. But in their investigation, the team also discovers that Zapata (Audrey Esparza) stole the phone of one of the leaders, under CIA orders — except Keaton throws her under the bus and she gets fired. Hence, she’s no longer able to work with the team. See, no one died.

Here’s the question: Can we actually trust that Zapata did not steal the phone? “You should be worried if you don’t trust Zapata,” executive producer Martin Gero tells EW. “The team seems to. Do you?” Fear not, Gero promises Zapata won’t be MIA during next week’s episode. “She still plays a very large and pivotal role in our finale,” he says.

In the closing moments of the hour, Roman unlocks a video message for the team, where he says there’s one last game afoot — winner take all. “His end game has fallen apart a little bit,” Gero notes. “He’s messed up, failed for Hank and knows that the love Hank maybe had for him will not survive this botched mission. So he’s a bit of a man without a country right now, so he’ll probably go home.”

Very true. The show, which was just renewed for a fourth season, will head to Roman and Remi’s home of South Africa in the finale. “It’s one of our best episodes ever,” Gero says. “Massive, epic, and so, so, so emotional. It’s 42 minutes of payoff and you won’t want to miss it.”

The season finale of Blindspot airs May 18 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.