Blindspotting Season 2 kicked off last week with two back-to-back episodes. This week, the Starz series is delivering Episode 3, “N*ggaz and Jesus,” which features Ashley (Jasmine Cephas Jones) and Miles (Rafael Casal) having a tough but necessary conversation with their son Sean (Atticus Woodward) about the N-word.
Miles’ mom, Rainey (Helen Hunt), has arranged for the family to have longer visitation privileges with him while he’s doing time in San Quentin State Prison. During the first family weekend, Ashley and Sean spend 48 hours with Miles inside an apartment within the prison. Everything is going smoothly for the family as they bond and find a bit of normalcy in the midst of chaos. Things go a bit left when Sean says the N-word during their first visit, and now Ashley and Miles have to kick into parenting mode to teach him a thorough lesson to explain why using the word is wrong.
Like most 7-year-olds, Sean is becoming more influenced by his friends, and it gets more complicated when his parents have to explain why it’s acceptable for his Black mom to say it but not his white dad. In true Blindspotting nature, the teachable moment evolves into a history lesson that is told and broken down in an artistic, hilarious, and engaging way that will help not only Sean but viewers also understand.
The episode was Jess Wu Calder’s directorial debut and was written by the show’s creators Daveed Diggs and Casal. Parts of the episode were also filmed inside San Quentin, which is one of only seven prisons in the country that has programs that allow longer weekend visitations for inmates and their families and adds a deeper level of authenticity and meaning.
“We went to San Quentin [State Prison] to shoot all the outside stuff to make sure that it felt real. So when I step outside and do that look-up, that’s the real tower,” Casal tells Complex. “That’s real. We’re deep in that prison. People are on the yard 20 feet away. It brought it home. Some of the stuff that’s coming out of us is because we’re really in that space.”
Season 2 takes place nine months after Ashley and Miles’s prison wedding in Season 1, and Ashley is navigating the chaos of her life in Oakland and doing her best to be a fun mom for her son while dealing with the deep emotions of parenting alone and being away from her life partner who is behind bars.
Check out the exclusive clip above and watch the new episode this Friday, April 21, at 9 p.m. ET on Starz.
