Blindspot Review: “Draw O Caesar, Erase a Coward”

We’re getting closer to the end of this season of Blindspot, so it’s time for some of the mysteries to start wrapping themselves up. Let’s take a look at what happened in this week’s new episode, “Draw O Caesar, Erase a Coward.”

As we’ve seen time and again, Roman’s rehabilitation and memory recovery mirrors Jane’s in almost every way. That mirroring is often more of an exact replication, though, and we see that here with his training routine with Weller. Honestly, this isn’t very engrossing since we’ve seen it all before, but it is aided a tad by the reminder that Weller still doesn’t know about Roman killing Taylor Shaw’s mother. That should be fun to explore, but I hope the show doesn’t delay that gratification more than necessary.

The team kicks off a new case in “Draw O Caesar, Erase a Coward” based on another of Jane’s tattoos, and we see that Rich Dotcom is already making his mark on the team by helping Patterson with this one. In the end, there are three different aspects of this tattoo mystery that all have to be explored, and Weller splits the team up for the journey. He also brings Roman into the field for the first time (remembering that Jane started remembering things once she began working more closely with the team), and he sets off on an undercover mission.

The story proceeds in such a way that there is a lot of overlapping in the storytelling, and it’s nice to see Blindspot continue to play with its format in this way. Does it work perfectly? No, but I can’t fault the crew for giving it a shot. Blindspot has always shined as a procedural when it shows that it doesn’t have to stick to a consistent format with every episode, and that commitment to reinvention is one of the big positives of this episode.

Near the end of the episode, the team finally reunites (after exploring the three mysteries separately), and we get another classic Blindspot action scene that ends somewhat weakly. We’re getting close to the end of the season, as I mentioned, and the overall plot didn’t really progress very much through the majority of the episode. It’s great to have a good standalone episode on this show (those have consistently been some of Blindspot‘s best), but we definitely needed more progression on the Sandstorm front before the very end (which, admittedly, happens for a brief moment with a cliffhanger involving Nas).

Overall, “Draw O Caesar, Erase a Coward” is a pretty good episode of Blindspot, but a few elements (such as the lack of progression toward the endgame) definitely hold it back from being great. Hopefully, next week’s will be an improvement, and we can really get back into the swing of things with Sandstorm.

What did you think of this week’s new episode of Blindspot? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below!

[Photo Credit: NBC/Virginia Sherwood]