Zeitgeist!
Spoilers for “A Beaver That’s Lost Its Mind” within.
“Drinking makes us sadder, not happier. Have you noticed that?”
That quote from Blunt Talk’s Walter Blunt is perhaps the best distillation of his character that we’ve seen so far. His sudden realization in this episode that, in fact, drinking is not helping him cope with his problems showcases the childlike ignorance through which he views the world, despite being a prominent figure on television that comments nightly on the world he sees. It’s a very interesting dynamic and one that is proving to have amusing longevity as the series wears on.
“A Beaver That’s Lost Its Mind” again finds itself exploring parallel issues between Walter and his staff. We’re introduced to Walter’s ex-wife Vivian and their son, Bertie, who tragically calls Walter by his full name and can’t seem to grasp the difference between his dad on television and his dad in real life. Meanwhile, Jim’s secrets are revealed – it turns out he wasn’t masturbating in his office, as I previously suspected, but rather has a severe hoarding problem.
While full of laughs (“I don’t know how to Facetime, I’m on AOL!”) and bizarre twists (Moby playing himself as a music teacher singing about unicorns/Vivian’s new boyfriend), this episode’s primary success comes from exploiting the dynamic between Walter and Jim. Walter spends a bulk of the episode struggling with his failures as a father and finds, via Jim’s hoarding problem, a route in which to try and work out his issues and hopefully improve as a caregiver.
It’s not quite as sentimental as the last episode – though there are some brief scenes with Rosalie and Teddy that bring those instances to mind – but “A Beaver That’s Lost Its Mind” is another effective portrayal of very real insecurities through the lens of cartoonish characters. Watching Walter demand that Rosalie spoon him in order to stop acting like a baby is an amplification of the shortcomings we all inevitably face, and Blunt Talk allows us to laugh in the face of them.
I enoyed seeing most of the staff interact within the office instead of outside of it, though the character of Shelly is very much the odd duck. She doesn’t seem to feature any of the sympathetic qualities that the others do (yet), and in this episode hits the same notes as she has before: paranoid and full off strange story pitches. One the one hand, in a cast that’s already so fully fleshed out, having one character be brushed to the side is forgivable as a sacrifice. On the other, because everyone else is so well-rounded, Shelly stands out all the more. Harry gets significantly less to do in this episode outside of the opening screen, but given how effective Blunt Talk has been in exploring the Walter/Harry relationship in episodes past, it didn’t feel like too much of a blow.
Blunt Talk continues its string of hilarious episodes with “A Beaver That’s Lost Its Mind,” once again adding new layers to its characters and blowing up their insecurities for laughs. While Shelly struggles to be an engaging character despite increased screen time here, all signs point to Blunt Talk rounding her out in the future.
