When you think of Blindspot, you think of Jane Doe (Jaimie Alexander) waking up in the middle of Times Square in New York, unzipping herself out of an abandoned carry-all. You think about FBI Agent Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton) and the way that he falls in love with Jane despite her not being the person that he thought she was. You think of the tattoo puzzles akin to Prison Break, leading to many different criminal organisations that are ultimately taken down by the team. You think of ZIP, the memory drug McGuffin that allowed all of the events of Blindspot to happen in the first place.
And you think D&D.
OK, maybe not the last bit, but maybe you should. One of my favorite characters from the show was William Patterson (yes, that’s her real name), played by Ashley Johnson. She portrayed the nerdy but loveable lab tech in the show for all five seasons. She acted as the comic relief for a lot of the series, with her relationship with Rich Dotcom and her foray into ethical hacking as part of the Three Blind Mice storyline being some of my highlights from the entire show. However, not everyone was as stoked as me for her appearances in this NBC drama. That, dear reader, is because of Critical Role.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about with Critical Role, but for you rock-dwellers, here goes it. Critical Role started out as a web series on Geek & Sundry, then helmed by Felicia Day, and was the televised Dungeons & Dragons campaign of a group of actor friends. Matthew Mercer, Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, Ashley Johnson, Liam O’Brien, Sam Riegel, Marisha Ray and Taliesin Jaffe were the main cast of Campaign One, a game that began off-screen before the show actually began.
Since then, Critical Role became independent and made a sh*t-tonne of money from Twitch subscriptions, YouTube, and hella good marketing and merch. The company is doing really well from a creative and sustainability standpoint, and many of the actors have gone on to become icons of the industry. Laura Bailey is in freaking EVERYTHING! That’s not a complaint - she’s a really good actor and deserves the roles (hehe) she gets, as does everyone in the company.
Campaign One focused on the Vox Machina (we’ll get to that later) and their journey across the continent, fighting dragons, vampire lords, and getting into other hijinks. Ashley Johnson played Pike Trickfoot, a gnome cleric with extraordinary powers of healing, serving as the team’s medic and a magic user. But that’s where things get interesting: Campaign One ran from 2015 to October 2017. Blindspot aired between 2015 and 2020. Critical Role was based in LA, but the NBC drama was filmed primarily in New York. Something had to give, and that’s where the scuttlebutt is: Blindspot made Ashley Johnson’s appearances on Critical Role much more sparse. OOOFFF!
If you’ve watched The Legend of Vox Machina on Amazon Prime, there’s a weird side-story with Pike where she has to separate from the party to go and reconnect with the Everlight, the source of her magic or something (I didn’t really understand it if I’m being honest). Later, Pike appears via astral projections to the party, lending wisdom and a helping hand every now and again. Although this isn’t exactly beat-for-beat true to Campaign One’s actual Pike storyline, it does the job to set the scene.
There had to be a reason Pike removed herself from Vox Machina because, in real life, Ashley Johnson had to take long breaks while filming on the opposite coast of the US. She couldn’t do both shows at once owing to what I’m going to call an extremely long commute. She’d be back in LA from time to time, but her appearances were brief until Blindspot wrapped up. Sometimes a video conference call was utilized to add her to the party, simulating that astral projection mechanic.
Largely, it worked for The Legend of Vox Machina. I’m not someone who has been with Critical Role from the beginning, and when I watched the series, I thought it was a little odd, but I didn’t think anything of it. It’s only when fellow CouchSoup contributor Katie explained the lore behind it that I realised, and it made sense.
So, here’s the thing. I love Ashley Johnson. I love her in The Last of Us, I love her in Blindspot, I love her in The Legend of Vox Machina, and, hell, I even love her in What Women Want. Yeah. You weren’t expecting that deepcut, were you? She makes everything she’s in better. I’ve already said she’s one of my favorite characters in Blindspot (we definitely need that spinoff with Rich Dotcom and her being treasure hunters). It wouldn’t be the same show without her.
I’m sure she’d have been great as a full-time cast member in Critical Role Campaign One. However, she wasn’t, and it went on to become the sensation it is today. Why would you want to change anything about that? Sure, you could be mad that Blindspot took her away from the party for prolonged periods, but that would have fundamentally altered the narrative of Vox Machina.
And, would you want that? Really? I’m dubious.
What did you think of Patterson in Blindspot? Do you think she should have exited the show early to rejoin the Critical Role cast? Or do you still want that spinoff with Rich Dotcom that we absolutely deserve?
