“Blindspot” (10 p.m. Eastern Mondays on NBC) unquestionably has the best opening hook of the fall TV season: An amnesiac, fully tattooed woman wakes up naked in a duffel bag in Times Square. So creator Martin Gero, whose credits include the outstanding Canadian drama “The L.A. Complex,” deserves credit for that winning pitch. Getting people to come back for a second episode, though, might be a tougher sell.
Jane Doe is literally a blank slate of a character, meaning it’s all on Jaimie Alexander to get viewers to love her in this first episode. She’s fine in the role, just not outstanding. The rest of the cast is generic FBI agents, led by Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton). The FBI of “Blindspot” has all the cutting-edge technology taxpayer money can buy. Jane Doe’s tattoos are scanned into the system – which can even somehow see below a black square of ink to an older Navy Seal tattoo – before the FBI even sends her picture out to the media. But no one on staff recognizes that one of the tats shows today’s date and a New York City address because it’s in Chinese. Luckily, Jane – clearly the most valuable FBI employee by episode’s end, despite not technically working there — reads and speaks Chinese.
Without question, a naked woman in a duffel bag – originally mistaken for a bomb that clears out a busy Times Square — would dominate the news cycle for several days, even in this short-attention-span age. As time goes by without the woman being identified, the story would get even bigger. But no one – including her supposed former Navy Seal colleagues — comes forward saying they recognize Jane. This is the most improbable element of “Blindspot,” but we can’t know for sure that it’s a plot hole unless we keep watching the show.
We do know more than Jane, at least, since she has amnesia, a regular TV condition that almost never applies to real life. The sci-fi explanation here is that her system was flooded with a new drug that’s intended for use on PTSD patients to remove selected bad memories. With the help of a kindly doctor at the FBI – who seems to specialize in amnesia, so I guess they have covered their bases aside from the Chinese linguist oversight – Jane learns that she prefers coffee over tea. And her fighting skills come out when she’s thrown into action – muscle memory, I suppose.
We viewers know that the FBI director has a largely blacked-out document showing words like “murder.” Is that a document on Jane Doe? And in Jane’s one recovered memory, she’s being taught on a shooting range by a demanding, bearded boss. Bearded Guy later kills this episode’s terrorist, whom Jane had wounded but not killed. Before he’s murdered in his hospital bed, the terrorist argues that the deal he made for his sister’s safety should still stand. And we know from another flashback that Jane volunteered to take the mind-wiping serum from Bearded Guy, acknowledging that she has no other choice.
“Blindspot” promises that Jane’s tattoos will lead to endless mysteries. There’s also a vibe in the previews that Jane used to be a bad person – is that what the FBI document is implying, too? – and that there might be a conflict between Jane’s former life and the good she is now doing as Weller’s unofficial sidekick.
If the pilot episode is any indication, the weakest part of the show will be the weekly plot of catching a generic bad guy – in this case, a Chinese terrorist with bland motivations. (He hates America for its freedoms, but also expects the U.S. government to rescue Chinese political prisoners. Although based on the Bearded Guy murdering him, maybe he was forced into acting as a terrorist.) Unfortunately, the weakest part of the show is also the A-plot on a weekly basis.
But most troublesome is that we’re asked to believe that NO ONE – in 2015, with her face plastered all over the news as the weirdest story of not just the day, but perhaps the year – would come forward to identify Jane Doe. So I’m debating whether to tune in again to see if that’s a plot hole or if there’s actually a clever explanation. I’m not sure that’s enough of a hook to keep watching.