'Blindspot' season 2 means Mehr for Sullivan Stapleton 

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Image Credit: BLINDSPOT -- "Swift Hardhearted Stone" Episode 120 -- Pictured: Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller -- (Photo by: Barbara Nitke/NBC)

We’re three weeks away from more

, and the most exciting aspect of season 2 for me isn’t finding out who Jane Doe is, but finding out what Sullivan Stapleton is going to do next.

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is as much Kurt Weller’s story as it is Jane’s. His world got ripped apart just like hers did, maybe even more so, because he had memories that shattered and truths that were destroyed. Weller was doing just fine kicking behind at the FBI and occasionally being adorable with his nephew before he was pulled into that hallway to see a total stranger with his name inked on her back. Then it all crashed and burned.

And then the entire world got to see how talented an actor Sullivan Stapleton really is. Up until this point, unless you were one of the devoted fans of

, you may not have noticed. But there’s no doubt now. Not now that NBC gave him a national network-television stage. And Martin Gero and the

writing team handed him material so rich and so compelling that he could really sink his teeth into it. He got these great opportunities, week after week, and so we had no choice but to watch again and again as he just hammered them home.

Weller had his own roller coaster from hell to deal with in season 1. He could have been just another clean-cut, tough-guy FBI agent. Instead he was someone who, underneath that strong exterior, was struggling to fix the flaws of others and becoming increasingly flawed himself. He was sharing a home with his sister and her son. He had a broken relationship with his father. He was still haunted by the disappearance of Taylor Shaw decades ago. In trying to save everyone else, it was Weller who wound up getting lost.

Then Jane came into his life and unknowingly preyed upon that. It was impossible not to get sucked in as Weller tried so earnestly to help her the way he’s always tried to help everyone else. Then to watch him lean on her as much as she was leaning on him, seeing her as the resolution of his greatest mystery, the chance to take that weight off of his shoulders, and finally to see it all implode — to see the way he broke and then raged when it was all a lie; characters don’t usually get these kinds of rides. It was a huge challenge, and Stapleton never missed a beat. He was in the character and in the moment the whole time, taking the audience along with him.

Frankly, that got a little lost in season 1. We were so consumed with the mystery of who Jane Doe was that we didn’t quite appreciate Weller, and Stapleton, as much as we could have. But one of the things that’s great about season 2 is that it appears to set him up for an even better performance than the last.

The season 1 finale pretty much stripped Weller of everything he had. He knows Jane isn’t Taylor Shaw; he knows his father

Taylor Shaw; his father’s dead; his mentor’s dead; and he doesn’t even really have his job anymore thanks to his involuntary promotion. So in season 2, who the frak is Kurt Weller anymore? What are the choices he’ll make to pick up his life and try to start over again? How much is this going to hurt?

Stapleton is fantastic at drawing out the interior lives of his characters. He has a knack for conveying what’s going on inside someone’s mind in very subtle and nuanced ways. It’s like you can always see the wheels in his head going even when Weller’s just standing there reacting to something. As the pieces are put back together, he’s going to bring the viewer along for that journey every step of the way. He’s going to make us appreciate the growth of Kurt Weller, not just where Weller ends up.

The fact he’s going to share scenes with other extremely talented people like Archie Panjabi is the icing on the cake. Those two will be brilliant together. Stapleton is going to get even better in season 2, because he has so much material to work with and because like the best actors, he continues to evolve his game. You always get something from him that you’ve never seen before.

is a wonderful show in every respect, but the chief reason that it works is because of the actors who dove into the series and have never held anything back. Jaimie Alexander is another great example of that fearlessness: She brings so much emotion out of Jane that the audience is deeply affected by her. She and Stapleton work so well together because they share the capacity to take complex characters and truly bring every piece of their complexity to the screen. The success of the series has allowed us to finally pay them some due attention.

Sullivan Stapleton is in a class of his own, and he always has been. Over the years, we’ve seen him tackle different roles and refine his talent and continue to grow as an actor. With

he has the biggest stage of his career, and he seized upon that from the first frame to the last. Season 2 is going to open even more doors for him, so we’d better get ready. Stapleton’s going to give us one of the best performances of the fall TV season for the second year in a row.

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