NBC’s new series Blindspot starts when a duffel bag is found in Time Square with a note attached asking for the FBI to be called. Inside the bag is a woman who is completely naked and covered in tattoos. This leads to a lot of gratuitous images of her naked body. A lot. When she meets with the FBI agent whose name is tattooed on her back, he finds out that this Jane Doe has no memory. They also discover that her tattoos provide incredibly cryptic clues to important events. For instance, in the pilot they find a tattoo that gives the address to someone who has plans to bomb the Statue of Liberty.
At the end of the pilot (spoiler alert) there’s a flashback where someone reminds the Jane Doe that if she undergoes this procedure, she’ll lose all of her memories. She replies, “I know. But, it’s my only choice.”
No. I don’t believe. I have no faith in this show’s ability to convince me that her only choice was to wipe her entire memory, cover herself in cryptic tattoos, get in a duffel bag naked and get dropped off on Time Square with a note to call the FBI. It feels like the show wants this ending to feel like a big plot twist but they hadn’t given us enough information previously for it to feel like a twist.
That’s the problem with Blindspot as a show. It’s mysteries are too ridiculous to be interesting. It’s premise is too simultaneously vague and convoluted for anything to stand out as interesting. I’m not wondering what’s going to happen next because it’s already just a confused mess. Most importantly, it’s impossible to believe it’ll all make sense eventually.
There’s no charm redeeming the fact that the central premise is awful. The characters aren’t especially interesting and the plotting follows typical procedural formatting. Other than the mess of a premise, it’s pretty by-the-books.