Well, not exactly. 

If you’ve been following Blindspot, then you know that the show has been teasing Shepherd’s "Phase Two" for the entire season. Now that we have an idea what her plan might be, we’re even more confused than we were before the revelation.

The last five minutes of Blindspot’s action-packed and high-stakes episode “Mom” gave us a peek at Shepherd’s plan. Before we dive into that, a  flashback to the first time Truman Protocol and COGs were introduced to the show

In Blindspot 2x13 “Named Not One Man", Weller discovered his connection to Shepherd (aka Ellen Briggs) and found Shepherd’s ally, Sean Clarke. During their first meeting, Clarke cryptically told Weller that his promotion (to DC) was blocked so he would be at the FBI when Jane arrives in a body bag. For their second meet, he ominously told Weller “it’s the Truman Protocol, its everything but no one knows”.  Clearly this Truman Protocol is key to Shepherd’s plan.

NBC/Barbara Nitke


In Blindspot 2x19 "Regard a Mere Mad Rager", Team Weller was able to acquire the Truman Protocol file (along with other classified documents) from the Garen Brothers. The file they had was mostly redacted but the signatures of past presidents was visible and at the bottom was the word “COGS” and “classified”. The former reminded the team that Cade had told Nas “to follow the cogs”. So the two were connected

To Mom's reveal

This episode revealed that Truman Protocol is that which mandates that during a time of great crisis, key government agents (members of the Continuity of Government Subcommittee) be kept in a safe place so they can rebuild America when the chaos and destruction is done and thousands have lost their lives. Weller rightly assumes that this was Shepherd’s plan all along – to initiate the Truman Protocol.

But this conclusion bring a lot of concerns to the surface

  • Firstly, the fact that Shepherd has way too much information for just one woman and it may be impossible to defeat her. Did anyone also notice how she was able to figure out exactly what Patterson was doing?

  • Secondly, why is locking a group of persons in a bunker such a big deal that she is willing to sacrifice everything for?

NBC/Brent Lewin

  • Thirdly, if her sole aim was to topple the current government and replace them with these COGs, then she must think that these people in the room are damn right virtuous. If so, why is someone from the CIA there? Those CIA agents are as shady as they come. The second possibility is that she thinks these COGs are persons she can easily control – that is she has a lot of leverage on them.

  • Fourthly, is it possible that Director Pellington was going to die by Shepherd’s hand anyway? Surely, if he were alive, he and not Weller would be in that bunker. That would also mean that making Weller interim Director of the FBI was part of the plan all along and Mayfair would have died anyway.


Still, why all this fuss for just one man? What’s so important about him? And why was no one from the NSA in that bunker? Or do those ghosts not require introductions?


Got any thoughts or theories about this episode? Share in the comment section.


In case you missed it, Blindspot has been renewed for its third season by NBC.