‘Blindspot’ episode 22 reaction: Show boss on latest shocking death
With “Blindspot,” we continue to have a show that is all about changing the game, and on Monday night’s new episode, that unfortunately meant removing from the equation someone that had a huge impact on the entire first season: Mayfair. First, she was removed from her post, but to make matters worse, we saw her meet the end at the hands of Oscar. We also learned tonight that Jane may not be Taylor Shaw, after all, so the entire merry-go-round that is this show in many ways continues.
So in going back to what we did lose the Mayfair character tonight, show boss Martin Gero did his part to explain in a new Entertainment Weekly postmortem:
“We knew from the beginning that Mayfair would be removed from power at the FBI — that that was the main goal of the first season as far as the bad guys were concerned. We started to have discussions about season 2 pretty early on in this season, because we always have one eye on the future and one eye on the present. We started to try to figure out, “Well, what do we do with Mayfair? How do you honor a character like that going forward into season 2?” I was really fighting the idea of killing her, because if you get Marianne Jean-Baptise on your television show, you should keep Marianne Jean-Baptiste on your television show. She’s an extraordinary performer, and an all-around great person. But the more we thought about it, the more it just felt we wouldn’t be able to create a space for her that would honor having someone like that play that role. This felt like this could be a defining moment for the series, and felt important enough to do.”
This does certainly raise the stakes for the season 1 finale (watch a promo for that here), given that we do have characters with revenge on the mind; plus, the search for answers is continuing. On more of a meta level, what this shows further is that this really is a show that wants to kill off characters on a fairly regular basis in order to ensure that there is a greater sense of stakes and drama surrounding almost every turn. That’s important to set now, so that years down the road you still feel like everyone is in danger.
We’ll have more coming up on the finale, but for now head over to this link in the event you want some other TV news on all we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)