Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Blindspotting’ On Starz, A Series Sequel To Daveed Diggs’ Film About A Gentrifying Oakland

The new Starz series Blindspotting takes place about six months after the events of the 2018 film of the same name. The writers and stars of that film, Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, are both involved in the series, but only Casal appears on camera. The series mostly centers on Ashley, played by Jasmin Cephas Jones in both the film and series, and how she copes with moving in with Miles’ mother when he gets busted. Read on for more.

BLINDSPOTTING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “OAKLAND 2018”. Fireworks go off over the city on New Year’s Eve. A woman gets out of her car and talks on the phone to someone who’s watching her son.

The Gist: Ashley (Jasmine Cephas Jones) comes home as the fireworks go off just after midnight to find cops at the house she rents with her boyfriend Miles (Rafael Casal). They found him flushing drugs down the drain. He’s been her “ride or die” for 12 years, and they have a son, Sean (Atticus Woodward) together. He was keeping this from her, but she’s equally pissed that he kept drugs in their house as she is that the cops are hauling him out without a shirt on.

Things were just starting to turn around for the family, with both of them working; they had just moved into that house and started buying furniture for it. But this arrest blows up those plans; Miles thinks he’ll be in jail for at least a month, but it could be much longer. In the meantime, it seems that Ashley is going to have to give up their new place. Miles suggests that she and Sean move in with his mother Rainey (Helen Hunt) and his sister Trish (Jaylen Bratten). Ashley agrees, but wants Miles to help Trish curb her tendency towards “fuckery.”

Rainey is definitely in the “cool mom” range, a feminist who marched with the leaders of the movement. When she comes back to her house to see Trish and her friends posing for their cam girl site, she’s not only horrified that they haven’t wrapped up yet, but that Trish is peddling her body. Trish thinks that she and her friends will open a unionized, employee-owned club, but Rainey knows the history of that.

Angela arrives, along with Sean and her BFF Janelle (Candace Nicholas-Lippman). After the inevitable rocky start, she settles Sean into Miles’ old room, and finds an engagement ring there. Rainey actually pretends to be her son and proposes for him. She wears the ring, happy that he had that thought in his mind before his bust. But being in the old neighborhood isn’t exactly the most comfortable thing for Ashley; she thinks it’ll be a bad influence on Sean, and then gets into an argument with Trish after she scares off a neighborhood thug who tries to steal Ashley’s ring.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Blindspotting is definitely a continuation to the 2018 film of the same name, written by Casal and Daveed Diggs; the two of them also write and produce the series. But the gentrification vibe is similar to Vida, another series that aired on Starz, and the Netflix series Gentefied.

Our Take: There are aspects of Blindspotting that we really enjoyed, especially Cephas Jones’ reprisal of her role from the 2018 film. Having the series center on her was a good choice by Diggs and Casal; she has a stabilizing presence in an environment that is anything but stable for the people who live there. Yes, she has roots in that neighborhood, which is why she feels at home with someone doing donuts in a nearby intersection. But she and Miles have put some distance between them and that life, which is why her bewilderment at being back there is so well communicated by Cephas Jones.

Cephas Jones also has a good foil in Barron, who plays Trish. Trish has no inclination to help Ashley just because she’s Miles’ ride or die, and she thinks she knows the pulse of the neighborhood a whole lot better than Ashley does. Their fight at the end of the first episode sets up what their relationship will be, and it’s a good insight into where each of them are in their lives.

We’re mixed on the music and dance breaks that are inserted into seemingly mundane moments in the episode. We get it; Diggs is especially adept at incorporating music and dance into whatever he does, and there are scenes where the stylization works, like when guest Anthony Ramos and the rest of Miles’ moving crew buddies gyrate as they take Angela’s boxes out of the truck. Others, like the donut scene, feel a bit too indulgent for what’s supposed to be a half-hour dramedy.

We’re also mixed on Hunt as Rainey. As good an actor as she is, there’s nothing in her past roles that would indicate to us that she can pull off the earthy, hippie vibe that Rainey is supposed to have. And there’s nothing in the first episode to indicate that she’s disappearing into the role as she should. Maybe we’re too used to her playing uptight characters like Jaime Buchman, but seeing her try to pull off a relaxed, go with the flow manner is jarring at best, and at worst, doesn’t really work.

But we’re happy to see Diggs and Casal further explore the gentrification of a city, Oakland, that doesn’t get a lot of attention in scripted fare. The world the two of them are building around Ashley should also be interesting to watch; we’re just not sure if the kinks will be smoothed out.

Sex and Skin: One of Trish’s friends comes out of the shower naked… right in the line of sight of Sean.

Parting Shot: As she sleeps on a couch downstairs, Ashley tries to use her vibrator, then drops it. Both Rainey and Trish come down and encourage her to use it to unwind, much to Ashley’s embarrassment.

Sleeper Star: We’re intrigued by Benjamin Earl Turner, who plays Rainey’s neighbor Earl. He’s a bit strange, and does things like shout his order to a food truck from the opposite corner. What his role is going to be going forward is an intriguing prospect.

Most Pilot-y Line: In one of the stylized bits, when Miles raises his arm so he and Ashley can touch their “Ride or Die” tattoos through the glass, the rest of the inmates also stand up and put their hands on the glass. It feels out of place in the scene, but again, maybe we’re just not getting it.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While there are a ton of head-scratching aspects of Blindspotting, there’s more than enough to recommend, especially the performances of Cephas Jones and Barron.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Blindspotting On Starz