Pro-life and Pro-death
Spoilers for “The Queen of Hearts” within.
Blunt Talk continues its debut season hot streak with “The Queen of Hearts” as Walter tries to find love in a world that he seems increasingly ignorant of. While not as packed full of laughs as some episodes previous, this one manages to introduce an interesting new romantic angle for Walter while also pairing together characters that haven’t really spent any quality time together until now.
Guest-star Elisabeth Shue plays Suzanne Mayview, a conservative lightning rod (“The Ann Coulter of the death penalty!”) that is booked on Blunt Talk after Rosalie loses a hand of poker to Mayview’s publicist. This puts Walter into a rage, adamant that they keep their original guests – a “zero impact” family led by additional guest-star Jason Schwartzman – but soon finds himself attracted to his new guest. Shue has a tough role to play as both a foil and a romantic interest for Walter, but she nails it every step of the way.
She’s not as frigid as Coulter but she’s not a pushover either; it’s easy to see Walter’s infatuation with her given what we’ve learned about him these past five episodes (particularly the part where she has the foresight to flatter his ego). It’s an interesting dynamic that I’m glad the show has tackled, and even gives a shout out to its obvious influence when Walter tells Rosalie that Suzanne “could be my Mary Matalin to my James Carville!”
I also enjoyed the return of Gisele, the transsexual hooker from the very first episode. It’s another nice acknowledgement of Walter’s sincerity; while he’s obviously misguided in his relationships – his friends, his lovers, his kids — he wants them to improve. It was quite touching that Walter was heartbroken about Gisele having found someone to settle down with. On the plus side: because of it, he got to share a drink with Data himself, Brent Spiner, which surely gave all of the Star Trek fans tuning in a delightful treat.
A brief but effective highlight of this episode was the pairing of Harry and Celia, who have had very few scenes of substance together; I can’t recall any since episode two. So watching the two Brits bond over their misguided love of gambling was fun, if not gut-busting. Their adventure into the shady underground poker game was actually pretty dull, but I liked that the writers put these characters together to see what their dynamic would be like on its own. Similarly, Martin’s understated jealousy of Jim over Rosalie’s attention was a fun little gag, if not terribly substantial.
The only real stone left unturned was the “zero impact” family, who were indeed bumped off the show in favor of Suzanne Mayview, but there’s no resolution to their story. While the joke may have worn itself thin had it carried into another scene, the underutilization of Schwartzman was tragic. Hopefully he’ll make it back into the fold for a future episode.
“The Queen of Hearts” wasn’t the best episode of Blunt Talk’s short run but it was certainly entertaining. Though it had some unresolved angles and some situational comedy that didn’t quite land, it was still an episode full of interesting character pairings and further insight into the mind of Walter Blunt.
