Hero Fears Imminent Rot

**Hero Fears Imminent Rot** is the third episode of the second season and the 26th overall episode of **Blindspot**.

* Anagram: **For Their Moment is Near.**

## Short Summary

Weller and the team must race the clock to stop a series of escalating New York City bombings, while Jane is forced to go on an assassination mission to prove her loyalty... or suffer the consequences.

## Full Summary

Jane  finds herself in an empty room with closed door and windows; after remembering being drugged by Roman, Jane realizes she might have been taken by Sandstorm and tries to escape, but the door opens and she's led downstairs to meet Shepherd and her brother, who confesses her drugging her in order to take her to Sandstorm's secret headquarters without her noticing where it's located.

Still suspicious about Jane's escape story, Shepherd isn't quite convinced about the details her daughter provides her with, telling her that Cade flew to Venezuela a month ago, making it impossible for him to torture her like Jane said, so she commands her to take care of someone.

At the FBI, Zapata asks Patterson if she's attending their trivia night, but Patterson confesses that she has other plans for that night with someone else, denying it's a date. When they turn the corner, they see an employee taking down the wall Mayfair's portrait.

When Weller tries to contact Jane, Nas explains that maybe Jane was picked up by Sandstorm and they both argue about the risky situation they put themselves and Jane into and they agree that there's nothing they could do if they wanted answers about Sandstorm, their whereabouts and future plans.

Jane and Roman arrive to Sandstorm's armory room and they discuss about Jeffrey Kantor, a mechanic engineering at Bradley Dynamics who was in charge of cloning a microchip that was essential for phase 2 but missed the drop, earning Sandstorm's suspicion. Jane realizes that she was the one who recruited him for the team and he accepted to join the cause for his strong feelings toward her, explaining why he ran off when she disappeared from the operation. Roman tells her that they tried to replace Jane as a handler but no one could due to Jane's ability of making people do exactly what she wanted, finally confessing that that's the reason they sent her to Weller in the first place.

A bomb explosion that killed four people and injured eleven, catches Weller's team attention. The bomb components indicate that it was a DIME bomb and it's directly connected to one of Jane's tattoos of an olive branch, oak branch and a torch, icons that can be found in the US dime, also the tattoo's shape its identical to Vieques, a Puerto Rican island used by the NAVY as a weapon testing site. Nas confirms that the NAVY still uses the island for weapon testing, including DIME bombs.

On their way out of the armory room, Jane an Roman are encountered by Shepherd who orders Jane to prove her loyalty to Sandstorm by killing Jeffrey after sensing that Jane has change since the drugs whipped her memory.

In the car, Jane accuses Shepherd of not trusting her own daughter, to which Roman admits that the mission is bigger than anyone's life, including his and Jane's and that's why gaining Sandstorm's trust again should be important to Jane. Roman tells her a childhood story of them back at the institution; they were all given rabbits to look after and care for, and after a while, their caretakers ordered them to kill their pets. Naturally, Jane was the first and fastest to snap the rabbit's neck, while Roman couldn't do it. By telling her the story, he tried to prove that she was capable of killing someone in cold blood.

At the FBI the team realizes that the bombs where left in symbolic military locations and assume that the reason behind the attacks is some kind of revenge for the NAVY's testing in Vieques. After deciding following a lead on two suspects, Weller orders Zapata to get the casualty list of the bombs to see if Jane was one of them, even though he doesn't admits it.

As Jane and Roman approach Jeffrey's home, she recalls that she's been there before. Roman briefs her with information about her past actions of killing Jeffrey's boss so Jeffrey could take his place and get a higher security clearance. Once again, Jane questions her actions under Sandstorm's commands, pointing that the other option of getting the man out of the way was firing him instead of killing him, but Roman declares that a few innocents' lives are worth to save the country from tyranny. Jeffrey is alerted to Jane's presence and locks himself inside of his panic room before calling the police.

Zapata gives Weller the list of bomb casualties and says that none of them matches Jane's description. She confesses that Mayfair would've been happy to see him behind that desk. She also questions if he's worried about Jane being taken or turning them down, he doesn't answer.

When the police arrives, Jane and Roman take down two police officers and head upstairs to convince Jeffrey to get out of the room. Jane talks to him and he gets out, proving that she manages to make people do what she wants, but Roman knocks Jeffrey out.

Roman takes Jane and Jeffrey to the woods and hands her a gun; reluctant to kill him, Jane tries to make Roman think about Jeffrey's possible help after showing him what they're capable of, but tired of her words, he shoots Jeffrey and kills him, informing her that she's failed the test.

When Jane is back at the FBI, she's followed by Weller and Nas to the access where she tells them about her failure in the loyalty test, to which Nas tells Jane she should've taken the shot and killed Jeffrey in order to make Sandstorm's members trust her again. Weller opposes to her words and defends Jane by saying that she's not a killer, but Nas insists that Jane, indeed, is a killer and that's the main reason Sandstorm and the FBI wanted her back in their operations and that she should do whatever it takes to maintain her cover.

Jane, Weller and his team follow the lead of the two bombers to one of the city's parks, they separate to cover more ground. Reade stays with Zapata in the place where the bomb is located, while Jane follows one of the suspects despite Weller's command to wait for backup. When she's about to shoot the man, the second suspect points his gun at her but it's taken down by Weller; in just a split of a second the first suspect gets away.

Nas and Weller engage in an angry discussion about Jane's participation on the last operation at the park, saying that Nas is part of his team and that she should act exactly like one of its members by agreeing on Weller's terms when it comes to his people's security. After the suspect that got away is located, Weller commands Jane to stay in the building. She then goes to see Dr. Borden and asks about the killer instinct and speaks about her concern of wanting to pull the trigger every time she has a gun in her hands.

The team arrives to the place where the suspect has some hostages under his control, Weller approaches and he's forced to wear the suicidal best arranged with handmade bombs and tries to convince the man of stopping his plan but he's shot to death by Nas.

At the FBI Dr. Borden is caught by Patterson speaking Arabic but he denies it. Patterson decides to cancel their plans for that night.

Nas is listening to a recorded session between Jane and Dr. Borden when Patterson shows her a lead into Jeffrey and the work he was doing before dying, making them turn their focus to the man's next project.

Weller enters the locking room and talks with Jane about her mission as double agent and how difficult is for her to live like that, after she confesses that it was easier being Taylor Shaw, he assures her that she's not Taylor neither a killer and that only Jane knows who she really is and what she's capable of and that she should trust her own instincts. She receives a 911 alert from Roman and heads back to Sandstorm to face the truth after failing her loyalty test.

Jane is taken to Shepherd and she thanks her for taking care of Jeffrey, welcoming her back to Sandstorm, showing that Roman didn't tell her about Jane's failed test. Shepherd offers Jane the opportunity to say a few words in memory of Oscar's death as a way of saying goodbye to him properly.

Weller, Zapata, Reade and Patterson show their respects to Mayfair's portrait after it was hung down from the wall that morning. When they're over, Patterson goes to Dr. Borden's office and they kiss. Dr Borden admits that he was speaking Arabic earlier on the phone and was ordering Syrian cuisine for their date.

At the end of the episode, Roman tells Jane that someone from the academy took his rabbit and opened his belly so it could blead to death in front of him, so she had to find her way back to Sandstorm quickly even if he had to find her own rabbit to stab in order to make her change.

## Quotes

Roman: *I'm going to find your rabbit and I'm going to make it bleed.*

## Cast

### Starring

* Sullivan Stapleton as Deputy Director Kurt Weller (22/22)
* Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe, aka Remi Briggs, aka Alice Kruger (22/22)
* Rob Brown as Special Agent Edgar Reade (22/22)
* Audrey Esparza as Special Agent Natasha 'Tasha' Zapata (22/22)
* Ashley Johnson as Patterson (22/22)
* Ukweli Roach as Robert Borden also known as Nigel Thornton (13/22)
* Luke Mitchell as Roman also known as Ian Kruger (22/22)
* Michelle Hurd as Shepherd also known as former Major General Ellen Briggs (18/22)
* Archie Panjabi as Nas Kamal (19/22)

## Gallery

02. "*Heave Fiery Knot*" •
03. "***Hero Fears Imminent Rot***" •
04. "*If Beth*" •
05. "*Condone Untidiest Thefts*" •
06. "*Her Spy's Harmed*" •
07. "*Resolves Eleven Myths*" •
08. "*We Fight Deaths on Thick Lone Waters*" •
09. "*Why Let Cooler Pasture Deform*" •
10. "*Nor I Nigel*" •
11. "*Droll Autumn, Unmutual Lord*" •
12. "*Devil Never Even Lived*" •
13. "*Name Not One Man*" •
14. "*Borrow Or Rob*" •
15. "*Draw O Caesar, Erase a Coward*" •
16. "*Evil Did I Dwell Lewd I Did Live*" •
17. "*Solos*" •
18. "*Senile Lines*" •
19. "*Regard a Mere Mad Rager*" •
20. "*In Words, Drown I*" •
21. "*Mom*" •
22. "*Lepers Rebel*"