Blindspotting on Starz just wrapped its first season and it’s a poetic work of art all throughout. From beginning to end the series was a masterful display of melancholy and real, human stories that’d leave audiences utterly enamored.
I’ve sat with this feature for days now because frankly, there are no words. Blindspotting is revolutionary in what it has achieved this season, and I’m coming up short with how to describe every little thing that it evoked, the season finale, “Bride or Die” especially.
The series in a nutshell is a work of art, with spoken poetry and choreographed numbers to enhance the characters’ journeys, it’s managed to achieve unmatched storytelling during a short 30-minute run in every episode. No moment felt like a filler, no line felt unnecessary, and every performance was top tier.
Blindspotting is a love story.
It’s a love story between partners, fathers and sons, friends, mothers and daughters, mothers and sons, friends, and it’s a love story about humanity. It’s a love story that promises women can stand on their own two feet even when defeated in unexpected ways.
It’s a love story about Blackness and it’s a love story about coming home. Interwoven brilliantly throughout each of the episodes are love stories that drive the plot through character interactions that feel so authentic, it’s transfixing.
And the season finale especially crushed me. (I now have to redo both my lists of favorite TV proposals and weddings thanks to Miles and Ashley.) From the moment the decision was made to have Ashley propose that Miles proposes to her, I lost it. The waterworks didn’t stop until their vows, but then they continued long after too. No matter the trials and the missteps, you knew they’d somehow make it—however last minute it’d be, “I do” would be said by both parties.
From the moment Miles saw Ashley to the softness in his voice as he said: “hey baby, you’re wearing a wedding dress,” everything fell into place. And that’s just it—that very tenderness that’s so unbelievably palpable between every scene they exchange including the ones where Miles isn’t even physically present like in “Ghost Dad” is perfectly riveting.
It’s magic. It’s poetry. It’s so loud in its hushed whispers, it’s goose bumps inducing.
“Ashley Rose, you and I have been together for 12-years. But to me, you have always been my wife. I am in love with the mother that you are to our son. I am in love with the partner that you are to me. And every day I’m grateful that we found each other, and that we get to go through life together. Now I know that we say we don’t know the first thing about marriage, but I think we know everything there is to know about being a team. Except I skipped to jewelry and I forgot to ask, but if you’ll have me, forever, I know I can be happy anywhere. As long as I have you. So, Ashley Rose. . .will you marry me?”
Miles’ vulnerability in that moment was so crushing because he was softer than he’s ever been, quieter, and more in love than ever. He was in awe—transfixed and bewitched by all that Ashley is. With his expressions and physically, he guided the audience’s attention solely on her. His focus drew us even deeper into her heart, and his understanding fortified our admiration of her brilliantly.
Rafael Casal and Jasmine Cephas Jones are unmatched. The chemistry is so substantial, every spoken word feels like an intimate dance we’re intruding on. A gift we shouldn’t be given—something that’s solely meant to be shared between Miles and Ashley, and yet, here we are.
Front and center as the audience (and their family) watching a proposal that feels so personal, it’s otherworldly of sorts. Their love for one another is so magnetic, it’s transportive, it’s magical, it’s downright so beautiful even amidst its imperfections, the promises linger in the air just as they’re all carried away.
This is a love story that is cemented through agency. It’s about a man who respects a woman so fiercely, he does as he’s told—wherever, whenever. His love for her is so strong, wherever he is, he is good because she has chosen to love him in return.
It’s give and take so freely, their partnership is healing. He might be in the literal confines of a prison, but he is free and whole because of her. Blindspotting is Ashley’s story first and foremost. So much of the show is a love letter to the woman that she is (women like her), and the men who’d never stand in their way. This is the story of the men who are here to do as they are told—the men who respect, love, and guide where need be. Miles and Ashley’s are each other’s person. And she is his everything.
Blindspotting is a love story about trying times, and a love story about the people who’ll stand by your side during them. The series does an impeccable job of reinventing what it means to make decisions for one’s own benefit along with how that will impact others. It’s about second chances and missed opportunities. It’s about trial and errors. And we need a season two in order to watch these characters grow more.
There’s also Earl’s tremendously impactful arc that as a white woman I do not have the right words for. All I can say is that it’s one of the most powerful arcs I’ve ever seen and need a season two in order to see his journey unfold further.
The series is brave, it’s bold, it’s brilliantly meta and through every beat, through every word, Blindspotting is so powerfully emotive, it’s revolutionary.