Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal’s screenplay took big thematic swings and Carlos López Estrada’s direction was full of bombastic flourishes — part dark comedy, part musical, part polemic, part Bay Area travelogue.
Starz’s new TV adaptation of Blindspotting lacks what was probably the primary source of the movie’s appeal, namely the rapport between longtime friends Diggs and Casal, and it doesn’t aspire to exactly the same level of finger-on-the-pulse agitprop.
And guest star Anthony Ramos stepping in for Nyambi Nyambi as Yorkie, a member of Collin and Miles’ moving crew, becomes less about continuity with the movie and more about the brand’s ongoing commitment to Hamilton cast originals as well as extending The Summer of Anthony Ramos.
Where seeing the movie might come in handy is in eliminating the acclimation curve for the Blindspotting voice, which includes the possibility of audience-directed spoken-word poetry breaking out at any moment, as well as dance interludes, usually set to music from Oakland-area hip hop artists.
This Blindspotting further explores Miles’ frustrations at the shifting economic developments in Oakland, while being just as much a love letter to the city, its music, its culture and the rhythms of its day-to-day life.
It’s provocative, funny and, like the film, seems initially allergic to subtlety.
The fifth and sixth episodes border on bottle episodes — they consist mostly of conversations in dining rooms — favoring a stillness that makes the dance scene at the end of the fifth episode hit harder than anything previously.
Rainey starts as a familiar kind of Bay Area feminist — still halfway living in a Berkeley that hasn’t existed for decades — and it’s great to see Hunt jumping back into initially broad comedy and then finding what’s poignant in this woman whose sense of loss often has to take a backseat to the loss felt by Ashley and Sean.
Hopefully things will continue to loosen up on the health front so that the show can wholly embrace Oakland in a second season, having worked through many of its initial growing pains in these episodes.