2018’s “Blindspotting” was the kind of movie that created its own viewing experience. That’s about all you need to remember before watching the new “Blindspotting,” the new series premiering on Starz on Saturday, June 13, which doesn’t demand that you rewatch Carlos López Estrada’s movie to remember specific events but recaptures that experience more than anything else. Oakland was a stage, and dreams and nightmares could be suddenly expressed in bits of spoken word or stylized lighting before resuming what a more grounded story looks like. It was angry about modern racial tensions in America, especially with the police terrorizing its civilians. Still, it countered that with a great deal of love for its Oakland-based characters, each of them books with complicated passages, judged by their covers. “Blindspotting” created its own world, and in turn, its own feel.
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This series proves to be mighty savvy with its expansion, starting with how it echoes the film’s opening credits. It’s no longer an image of Oakland’s famous Fox Theater playing a movie called “Blindspotting”; the whole venue has been renamed to “Blindspotting,” and now the chapters are on the marquee as if they were their own production. It’s a vital nod to how this isn’t just about Oakland, but this entire universe that’s now filled with new characters. “Blindspotting” the series is not as tense a universe as the film — sometimes it can be a little too slack — and it doesn’t juggle loaded issues as openly. But this show gets you into its new groove, and it leads with the same artistic abandon that made “Blindspotting” beautiful.
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In its expansion of the “Blindspotting” universe, one that started with Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal’s buddies Collin and Miles, the series works from what could be considered a flaw in the movie: the lack of proper screen-time for Ashley, Miles’ girlfriend and a secret weapon from the movie. With Jasmine Cephas Jones returning to the role, the focus is largely on her, showing this frustrating world from her perspective as she raises her son Sean (Atticus Woodward) after Miles goes away to jail for a drug charge, making Casal’s screen-time brief (but “Blindspotting” has a clever way to include him in later episodes). Jones leads the way, trying to figure her way through mothering Sean, moving in with Miles’ mother Rainey, and living without Miles’ support. Ashley predominantly wrestles with how, if ever, to tell Sean the truth about where his daddy is — Sean doesn’t question Ashley’s explanation that Miles has gone to Montana with Uncle Collin.
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The series puts a larger focus on women in general, showing the people in the lives of Miles and Collin, like Miles’ sister, high-energy half-sister Trish (Jaylen Barron), and Collin’s sister Janelle. It’s a smart way to give more a sense of where Miles’ hot-headed and progressive ideas came from or Collin’s more grounded ideas. That context then becomes a jumping-off point for these new characters to have their own interesting arcs while we have some familiarity with the past.
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Helen Hunt enters the “Blindspotting” world as Rainey, mother of Miles and Trish, who leads her house with some wise, progressive ideals, and shares amusing scenes with Trish and Ashley, supporting them with no-BS honesty. She’s given a more peripheral presence, similar to Ashley’s close friend Janelle (Candace Nicholas-Lippman), who enters the story with a lot of heart, portraying a woman trying to determine what’s next in her life goals and relationships. Ashley feels like the least developed in the series’ first six episodes, but the character is still intriguing to follow.
“Blindspotting” truly spreads the tonal essence of the movie out into a series, which makes it not as immediate, nor does it have the same rush of going from heavy drama to lively comedy as the film. It’s a choice of confidence that nonetheless brings up a few flaws in the first six episodes, at least — the comedy here isn’t as strong, as if returning writers Diggs and Casal, among others, couldn’t find a package as spiky as Collin and Miles busting each other’s chops. Some bits and pieces are funny (like when Anthony Ramos shows up as a mover and everyone’s easy target), but the situation-based comedy can run into cliches, a la the low-hanging fruit of new-age goofiness during a drug trip episode, or jokes about Ashley not knowing “Reservoir Dogs” isn’t a cute dog movie for Sean to watch. It’s the slow-burning, character-based ideas instead that are wholly endearing and tragically funny: neighbor Earl (Benjamin Earl Turner) is a scene-stealer with his ankle monitor and long extension cords, creating a rich depiction of how the rules of probation are a cruel joke.
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Pacing is truly the big change here, but the narrative is more about developing them choice-by-choice. It’s about how Ashley code-switches to a British accent at her concierge job (an exaggerated, believable, and telling detail perfect for “Blindspotting”-brand storytelling) or how Trish struggles to find a financial hold in her field of sex work. Both of these plotlines cause the adversarial two women to clash, with both of them think they are their true selves while having the power to see through the other truly.
But with Miles’ jail sentence a symbolic means for the show to slow down, the show saves its tension for more internal moments, turning its concept of an ordeal into a state of mind. As a result, some of the show’s best moments are the visually inventive passages that give us glimpses at their exhausted frustration, like when Trish prepares in a poignant time-lapse for work she does not want to do but must, or when Earl delivers a monologue to the camera while sprinting home as an excused time off house arrest nearly draws to an end.
But it helps that even when “Blindspotting” is not dealing with immediate stakes and mostly taking place in Rainey’s house, that you want to hang out with all of these people. So when the show takes a knowing break — like with a weed-smoking episode that looks back on the past and slowly fortifies these new and old connections — its ease can be especially charming. The same goes for an episode that dedicates much of its time to host an open debate about blackness and how those ideas apply to little Sean.
The series’ true momentum comes from its bits of artistic abandon that break off from traditional storytelling. Their placement in the series can be unpredictable with timing. Still, the importance is meaningful when they’re extensions of certain psyches, as when Trish amps herself up with a big musical number about how she’s a “dope bitch,” all before a meeting at a bank to ask for a loan. It’s also not uncommon, but always surprising, for extras here turn out to be brilliantly skilled dancers, using their limbs to contort or wobble or float across different set pieces that otherwise look like regular TV set pieces. Language can be treated with the same exhilarating abandon, with Jones’ full-bodied monologues ringing like drum solos.
“Blindspotting” is the type of series adaptation that could very well have a big life of its own, away from the indie success that made it possible. Estrada’s film gave this series a tone and set of narrative values that prove incredibly fruitful here, especially with such a solid cast across the board. The series is vibrant and just as full of inspired storytelling, with bursts of creativity that now give “Blindspotting”’s theatrical vision a fitting home in forward-thinking TV. [B+]
