Blindspot loves its mysterious cold opens, and the one that begins “Technology Wizards” is no different. A naked man runs through the streets of New York, all while onlookers laugh and take pictures. Eventually the man stops, out of breath, and shouts “I did what you said! Now leave me alone!” It’s a fun, promising start to the episode. The problem? It immediately goes downhill after that. The storyline involving Jane’s daughter, and the tension it’s caused between Jane and Weller, has been a troublesome one all season long. What was once intriguing is now a mess of unearned soap opera emotions that the show struggles to pull off.
After the cold open, we’re instantly transported back to where last week’s episode left off, as Jane sits in Clem’s hotel room, talking about her daughter and Weller’s betrayal. Clem is clearly hoping Jane is coming back to him, but he’s not pushing her. Instead, she goes on and on about how she can’t look at Weller anymore, and that even if killing Avery was an accident, his lying wasn’t. This from the woman who just up and left her new husband and his kid in the middle of the night! Jane disappeared for months and never once contacted Weller, and now she’s upset that he felt it was best to not tell her about the daughter she didn’t even know about? I understand that emotions can be irrational, but this kind of stretching of character logic and motivation always bugs me.
It’s especially a problem this season. Of course Blindspot, like any other show, is going to dive into more romantic story lines. That’s totally fine. But the execution this season has felt sloppy. It feels like conflict just for the sake of it, from Jane losing it on Weller and immediately leaving him, to Zapata’s uncertainty about her feelings for Reade. I mean, the most honest emotional moment of the season comes from Rich and a returning Boston at the end of the episode, which says a lot about the relationships of the characters we spend much more time with.