'Blindspot' Season 5 Episode 9: Patterson's fate is revealed, but who else dies for Madeline's cause?
Spoilers for 'Blindspot' Season 5 Episode 9 'Bass Tracks'
Another day, another ambush, breaking and gunfight. The final season of 'Blindspot' is picking up pace unlike anything else. Ever since the tragic death of Edgar Reade (Rob Brown), the team hasn't been the same. It was followed by Rich Dotcom's (Ennis Esmer) torture at the hands of the CIA, and more recently, the ever so teasing cliffhanger that the previous episode ended on with Patterson aiding a manual explorer at the bunker the team of rogue agents were hiding in.
The verdict's out and Patterson is alive, much to our relief. Doesn't make sense to kill off one of the only sensible characters on the show where everybody else is pretty much ready to dive into deathtraps, right? But with Patterson's resurrection comes the brutal loss of one of the team's biggest allies. And of course, Madeline Burke (Mary Mastrantonio) can't go a single episode without sucking up all the attention to herself. Talk about a cruel narcissist.
Along with Rich, viewers too were convinced that Patterson had died in the explosion, but she managed to dig out not only through the underground tunnels but also reach all the way to Boston, who was more than eager to help the team out against Madeline. Patterson contacted him and Afreen both in the FBI, and together they were able to convince Matthew Weitz (Aaron Abrams) to help the agents too, as four of them lay captured inside the headquarters.
It was Patterson's genius idea that helped her hack into the headquarters as she suggested Boston and her gender swap their identities to trick the facial recognition system into letting them in, and it works. Honestly, where would the team even be without Patterson? With an emotionally unstable Tasha Zapata, a macho hot-headed Kurt Weller, and let's be real, Rich - for all his intelligence — is petty much a flow. That leaves us only with the protagonist Jane Doe and even she doesn't remember 40 percent of her past. The possibility that they should have to go on without Patterson is a lot like Harry Potter and Ron Weasley trying to survive without Hermoine Granger. The team is lucky Patterson is alive but all of this luck sadly doesn't favor them for long.
Madeline soon gets wind of a breach in the security system when Patterson and Weitz free Zapata and Rich from captivity. Zapata goes straight to Reade's ex-fiancee who's a reporter and leaks Madeline's insidious intent where the soon-to-be vice president of the FBI is planning on pinning all of her crimes on Weitz should she ever get caught. This causes much worry among Madeline and her lawyer as they don't quite see a way out.
Finally, some respite arrives as we see what fear looks like on this shrewd woman who plans on erasing half of humanity's memory and capacity to function independently. The team bags another win when they manage to free Kurt, but sadly, Madeline arrives right on time to stop their winning streak. This is when Weitz steps in and the inevitable happens: he takes a bullet for the team he has fought for and leaves us all in a state of shock and mourning.
If it was done just for shock value purposes, it's understandable. But knowing how chickens**t Weitz had become in the recent past out of manipulation and fear of Madeline, perhaps this is all karma. Doesn't make his loss hurt any less though, he was a faithful ally till the end and will never be forgotten.
Our team doesn't get a lot of time to mourn, they must free Jane before capturing Madeline. Sure enough, they succeed at everything but trust Madeline to have one last trick up her sleeve. She was leaving on a plane when the team convinced the pilot to stay grounded so they could capture her. Seeing there's no way out, Madeline does what any self-respecting villain would do in those moments and gulps down poison, thereby killing herself. Even in death, she triumphs over the agents, and such is the sheer brilliance of an antagonist well written. Probably one of the only entertaining aspects of this season that has only suffered one loss after the other.
'Blindspot' Season 5 airs on Thursdays at 9 pm only on NBC.