#pellington

Chrys Willet x Ellie Gains

content warning for slight angst, minimal/vague descriptions of blood, death, and violence. spoiler warning for whistle.

author's note: okay so I have never written fanfiction in my life but this movie has me in a chokehold, so I’m doing shit I’ve never done before lol. I did a skim over but it wasn't a real proofread so there might be some mistakes in here somewhere. also I did kinda skip around the song so that's my bad...

song: The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!-Sufjan Stevens

Ellie Gains relived the worst few days of her life, three, maybe two (if she was lucky) nights a week.

while writing my fic desperate I was really tempted to have them sing this song and the idea wouldn’t leave my head so here’s a very shitty and messy pmv of This Grill Is Not A Home from SpongeBob with peso and Shellington (warning the pmv is very low effort, I did it because I was bored)

Kurt Weller in Season 2 #12

SPOILERS ALERT

Some promo pics for Blindspot Season 2 Episode 21 (Mom) from Spoiler TV.

Mayfair left a lot of information for her team to find, a lot of information about Daylight and Orion, as well as yet-unknown third program. Clearly she’d been collecting it for a long time. But she’d done nothing with it. Why?

Perhaps she couldn’t do anything with it, because the people that it implicated were too powerful. But more likely, she couldn’t use any of the information because it would implicate herself. So she left the information behind, guessing that by the time it was found, her own fate would have already been decided. 

We know that she was involved in Daylight. And we know that Mayfair had collected a vast amount of information on Orion. It could represent years of detective work on her part, but to gather that much information without raising any suspicions? It’s a lot more likely that Mayfair had that information because she’d been just as involved with Orion as she’d been with Daylight. 

Consider for a moment what Mayfair told Tasha: 

Early on in my career, someone powerful approached me, asking for help. It was a big career opportunity. What he was asking me to do was morally ambiguous at best. I went along. Told myself that it was for the greater good, but in my gut, I knew that was a lie. Didn't sleep well back then. Still don't. Things went sideways and that powerful person was nowhere to be found. I was left alone to account for my actions, wishing that I'd trusted my gut.

At the time this conversation takes place, we don’t know that she knows anything about Orion, so we assume she was referring to Daylight. But what powerful man approached her, besides Carter? She was already head of the NYO when she was persuaded to become involved with the Daylight program, so how could it have been a “big career opportunity”? And how could the head of the CIA help out someone already in the upper reaches of the FBI? So Daylight doesn’t quite work. She must have been referring to something else, something further back in her career. Something like Orion or the mystery file. If she wasn’t yet the head of the NYO, a position like that could have been a hefty incentive to convince her to keep her mouth shut about whatever Orion was up to. 

Mayfair being involved with Orion could also explain why pre-Jane and Oscar felt so strongly that she should be punished for her crimes. Daylight was certainly a violation of civil liberties and of US law, but as far as we know, Mayfair only used that information to prosecute known criminals she wouldn’t otherwise be able to put behind bars. Morally questionable, yes. But the argument could also be made that she had a moral obligation to protect the general public (as we see her rationalizing to Weller later). Sophia also seemed quite vehement that Mayfair should be punished, but if it was for Daylight, then Sophia was guilty of the same crime herself. But if Mayfair was guilty of more than just Daylight, the rather extreme response from pre-Jane’s group makes a lot more sense.

If Mayfair was involved with Orion, then it’s likely that there is information about Jane’s life and “death” in those files, which could mean that Mayfair might have known who Jane was all along. If she did, it might make her last words to Jane even more chillingly prophetic: “I just wish I could be there to see his face when he finds out what you really are.“

If Mayfair was offered a big career opportunity in exchange for keeping silent about one or more questionable programs... What powerful man would have had the authority to offer such a position to her? Someone like... FBI Director Pellington, perhaps?

Pellington’s first action upon taking over the NYO was to appoint Kurt Weller Interim Assistant Director. His second? 

In light of Mayfair's arrest, there've been some concerns regarding one of her cases and the time and resources it seems to have been consuming. ... We're putting the entire situation under review. ... [A]ny related investigations are suspended until further notice. I'm shutting down the Jane Doe project.

Now, sure, it could be that he was concerned about the resources. But if that was really the concern, wouldn’t it make more sense to allow the investigations to continue (in light of the benefit to public safety they had been accomplishing, which is pretty much his sworn task in that office) while reviewing the resource usage, and then shut it down if the review indicated that a shut down was warranted? But no, he shut it down just about as soon as his shoes hit that floor. Almost as if he didn’t actually want those investigations to turn up anything else. 

Gee, can we think of anyone else who wanted Jane Doe taken out of the loop as soon as she showed up? Shades of Carter perhaps? So Pellington might have the same concerns as Carter-- that somehow Jane Doe or her tattoos could expose him-- but neither Carter nor Mayfair ever mentioned Pellington in connection with Daylight, and none of Mayfair’s flashbacks did either. So Pellington must be concerned about something else... Orion, perhaps? Or the third mystery file? 

If the Jane Doe project is shut down, that means that Jane Doe is both out of the FBI office and out of FBI protection. She would be vulnerable and a lot easier to take out permanently. 

Of course, now Kurt Weller is bringing her back into the FBI, this time in custody. Given how easily Carter was able to get to Saul Guerrero, I wouldn’t want to take any bets on how safe Jane is in FBI custody. Weller had better get her statement quickly, while she’s still alive to make it.

There is another possibility, of course... Pellington could be on the same side as Jane’s old team. Once Mayfair was out of the way-- without him having to get his hands dirty in the process-- he could promote Kurt and wouldn’t need Jane anymore. But if that’s the case... well, she knows a lot about their operation and she just took out Oscar, so eliminating Jane would still be at the top of his to-do list.

Sure, Pellington could be completely innocent. But Oscar and pre-Jane seemed pretty certain that the FBI was rife with corruption. If the Director was a solid guy, a few carefully-placed tips should have motivated him to clean house, right? And besides... how many non-villainous middle-aged white men have we met on this show? I’m kidding. Kind of.