Starz’s Blindspotting Returns to Stake Claim to Television’s Top Tier | TV/Streaming

“Blindspotting” season two continues its winning streak of supplying bold social commentary through sharp humor and surrealist imagination. It retains the source material’s brilliant blend of expressionism and absurdist humor, which can rattle your soul in either chills or well-earned gut-busting laughs. Its signature multiple performance art form inclusion for each episode rarely comes across as stale or gimmicky. Most sequences that signify the rush of emotions the characters experience or elaborate on a central social topic it boldly tackles are bone-chilling. The writers and episode directors—notably Rafael Casal and Jessica Wu Calder—find fresh ways to make each spoken word, interpretive dance, and movement performance sequence symbolic and mesmerizing. The amount of effort added into each sequence’s dance choreography is all done wonderfully, giving Starz’s other dance-centric series, “Step Up High Water,” a run for its money. 

A coat of freshness is added by interweaving Sean’s perspective of Mile’s absence into the mix in imaginative sequences and episodes. He’s less used as a plot device but as a visionary tool to further the show’s imaginative identity. They take his childlike innocence into account and focus on how he perceives the situations surrounding him. In the opening episode, Sean is given a teddy bear lion as a birthday gift from Miles, as a form of protection. When the lens is centered on Sean, that lion comes to life in a manner like Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are.” A highlight episode in the season’s second half, “The Good, The Bad, And the Thizzly,” delves into Sean’s imagination, taking a complete spaghetti western style to depict how this kid perceives his daddy’s incarceration and the criminal justice system. 

Against the backdrop of the show’s poetic visual motifs, the series keeps its humanistic traits, exploring the complexities of its cast while never losing sight of its rich characters who make this hyper-surrealist portrayal of the Bay area come alive. Jasmine Cephas Jones effortlessly carries the series with her unbridled power, depicting fierce energy and empathy throughout. 

Likely due to the lower episode count, the season sacrifices the presence of supporting characters like Rainey, Janelle, and Trish, who all have less stuff to do. Trish, especially, is a burst of intimidating diva power that is now limited to a long-winded crush subplot. On the upside, Rafael Casal’s Miles has a larger role appearing in a good chunk of the episodes as the waters of his and Ashley’s dynamic are tested. When the focus is on them, the series shares the same air as the first season, furthering the dimension of the new characters trying to get their lives together in the ordeal. 

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