Beaches Be Trippin
Episode 5 of Blindspotting picks up after our week’s hiatus with a similar opening to the previous chapter. Ashley heads in to see Miles, where she recites a poem featuring some pretty thought provoking lyrics. Eventually she changes her mind and bolts, heading back home. There, Ashley ends up fighting against Trish again over her lack of clothing. Meanwhile, Earl continues to smoke away his troubles. That is, until James rings and confirms he’s bagged him an interview. Earl shows up stoned and very obviously nervous. Time passes and eventually Earl is forced to recharge his ankle bracelet after waiting for what seems like an eternity in the waiting room. To make matters worse, the cable doesn’t fully reach so he’s left standing around in limbo. Mercifully, his name is read out anyway. Earl is on a tight schedule and unfortunately the clock inside the office is slow. He misses the 4.30pm ferry and finds himself forced to run home to avoid missing his curfew. Elsewhere, Trish and the girls attend therapy down on the beach. Janelle is convinced this is just what Ashley needs to help. With all the girls gathered together, a conch is passed out where they each talk about their worst fears. Trish opens up and admits she hates how emotional she gets. When Ashley is passed the conch, she reveals how alone she feels without Miles. She’s been hanging on to moments of innocence with Sean and deliberately hiding the truth in order to make herself feel those tiny moments of bliss. Well, that soon paves way for the guys indulging in drugs instead. Those glimmers of characterization we saw early on are eventually lost in favour of another hallucinogenic, neon-lit dream sequence. As the girls wake up, they all rush into the water.
The Episode Review
The trouble with Blindspotting comes from its style and substance. Too often the show has a good idea or a moment of genuine plot development only to completely overshadow that with another dream sequence or comedic quip. Take Ashley, for example. The entire crux of this episode is around her not telling Sean the truth about his Father. Ashley hasn’t bothered to tell him about Miles because it makes her feel that sense of security that everything is as it was. And then we see her drinking, smoking drugs and heading off to the beach for a big drug session where she passes out. These moments don’y exactly scream Mum of the year and it reinforces the feeling that Ashley is a pretty selfish character. Earl gets the lion’s share of the run-time here though and his simple story about struggling to hold down a job is certainly a nice way to show how hard it is to get through interviews. Again, it doesn’t help that we’ve seen Earl is a bit of a layabout and would much rather bum around at home and smoke weed than live up to the terms of his probation. Although to be fair, seeing him charge back home and rush into the driveway does show that he’s at last changing. On the whole though, Blindspotting is a show with some nice ideas but shaky execution. Hopefully this on can improve over the weeks as right now, this show is struggling to shake off the shackles of mediocrity.
