Every tattoo tells a story. But if you wake up naked in New York's Times Square covered in puzzling ink patterns from neck to toe, and have no idea who you are or where you came from, then you get a whole season of intriguing stories in the new crime thriller Blindspot.
The drama grabs viewers from the get-go with delicious tension and compelling premise. In the opening moments, a member of the bomb squad gingerly approaches an abandoned duffel bag in Times Square – only for the bag to shake, then slowly unzip, before a shapely female leg emerges, covered in tattoos.
As the woman emerges, confused, it is clear that her entire body is covered in ink. The tattoos, it is discovered, are brand new, and the woman, christened Jane Doe, has no memory of who she is or how she got them.
The series debuted on September 21 in the US and began a few days later on OSN First HD in the UAE. Since then, it has become one of the year’s biggest new shows. If you missed it first time around, now’s the perfect time to see what you have been missing – with the show on its midseason break in the US, OSN is rerunning it from the start.
The intriguing, eye-catching role of Jane called for an intriguing, eye-catching star. This is ably delivered by Jaimie Alexander, who is well on her way to becoming a pop-culture fave for her role as Sif in Marvel's Thor movies – and two episodes of TV spin-off Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – and in the sci-fi drama Kyle XY.
She nails her role as Jane Doe in Blindspot – we feel her anguish as a woman who has lost her past and identity – it emerges, is apparently being used as a pawn by a strange criminal entity.
“The tone we’re trying to go for is dark, moody and mysterious,” the 31-year-old said. “When you first meet Jane Doe, she’s covered in these very intricate tattoos. They’re sort of a treasure map, and it’s the only key she has to who she might be, or who she might have been.
“I can best describe my character as a blank slate, someone who goes purely off of gut instinct and intuition – she has nothing else.”
Well, almost nothing. She soon has an ally. Tattooed in huge letters on Jane's back is "Kurt Weller", the name of a case-hardened FBI agent played with hunky magnetism and authority by Aussie actor Sullivan Stapleton, whose previous credits includes the HBO series Strike Back (2010-2015) and the movies Animal Kingdom (2010) and 300: Rise of an Empire (2014).
As the workaholic Weller and his FBI colleagues – including war veteran Edgar Reed (Treme's Rob Brown) – the secretive Tasha Zapata (Audrey Esparza) and assistant director Bethany Mayfair (former Without a Trace star Marianne Jean-Baptiste), begin to investigate the treasure map of Jane Doe's tattoos, they are slowly led into a labyrinth of secrets and revelations that could ultimately change the world.
Her tattoos, it becomes clear, are encrypted clues to future terrorism crimes. But what connects them – and who drew the map?
“When [my character, Weller] first meets her, it’s a hard relationship, because she doesn’t trust anyone,” Stapleton said.
In time, however, the shadows begin to disperse, as Weller and Doe drift deeper into a complicated relationship.
Meanwhile, Jane discovers that she has some deep-rooted survival skills and hidden talents – she’s a ferocious martial artist, for instance. Her off-the-charts reflexes, linguistic abilities and superb conditioning hint at top-level military training, but her fingerprints, DNA and face are all missing from the FBI database.
“Actually, just being a blank slate like that, and getting to start over, there’s a blessing in that,” Alexander said. “And that’s something I’m really looking forward to exploring as this character.”
Alexander's wish to delve even deeper into the character has been granted. With a healthy audience of 13 million viewers when it debuted in the US in September, NBC has already renewed Blindspot for a second season.
Like Alexander, executive producers Greg Berlanti and Martin Gero agreed they were fascinated with a basic question – if you wipe the slate clean on a person, and take away their identity, is there an innate goodness or evil in people?
“There are twists and turns in there,” Berlanti said.” There’s a gentlemen working on the show who creates puzzles for The New York Times.”
“We have come up with a phenomenally complicated backstory,” Gero said. “And the great thing about that is we have the time to tell it. We have a lot of cards in our deck and we can flip them.
“There will be major revelations in every episode the whole season.”
• Blindspot is on OSN First HD at 10pm on Thursdays. Catch it from the beginning starting tonight
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