"Blunt Talk" Recap: "Let's Save Central Florida! Let's Save Midtown!"

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

I had a funny feeling that the closing moments of last week's episode of Blunt Talk, where Walter had a flashback to the battle of the Falklands, was an important piece of storytelling that would sneak over into the season one finale, and it most certainly did. But...what I was not prepared for was the fact that that moment would end up telling us everything we ever needed to know about Walter and how it made him the man he is today. 

Yes, "Let's Save Central Florida! Let's Save Midtown!" brought Walter's struggles all season long to a head with one simple revelation, that Walter Blunt is haunted by that moment in his past, and following the party, Walter confides in Harry regarding how those moments from the war continue to gnaw at the back of his mind and it leads Harry and Walter to come to the conclusion that perhaps Walter is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and they seek out some radical treatment that gives Walter a fine story idea. 

He decides that a struggle with PTSD is a story worth chronicling on the show and prepares to kick off an epic six part series to do it, but there's just one problem...the Adler family has been booked yet again and they'll need to be bumped for Walter to start his new series. Jim gets the honor of bumping them one more time, and well...it leads to Duncan Adler doing something drastic in response as he takes over the broadcast brandishing a pistol and demands that Walter do the interview in the here and now. Walter eventually relents and Mister Adler finally gets his message out, but I'm sure it's a little lost seeing as to how he has to kidnap Walter after the interview and go into hiding, leaving Walter unharmed but okay.

It was a simple season finale, and there were two key things that stuck out for me that I absolutely loved. First and foremost is the fact that this was a non traditional season finale. No gimmicks, it wasn't a cliffhanger, the episode simply cut to the chase as to what exactly Walter has been battling all season long and it threw in a lot of laughs and wacky moments to get us to the end of the story. So bravo to that. But the other piece that I adored was that we truly saw Walter at his absolute core and the fact that he is a man driven by fear. All of his decisions and mistakes come from it and in subtle fashion...he overcame it and faced it. He was fearless in dealing with Duncan and his kidnapping and he seemed to be okay in those final moments and it looks like he learned a valuable lesson...to seize the day and the moment. 

That's where we left Walter and his extended family, celebrating the fact that he was okay and I have to say that this was one satisfying season finale. We witnessed some incredible character growth from Walter, got all the answers we needed and much like our day to day lives, nothing was wrapped up neatly and it's obvious that Walter's revelations from last night will no doubt be the focus for season two. Either way, it's a shame that the season has come to its end. This is simply wonderful television and I've never seen a show that put forth this much character development in its first season. But the good news is, Starz did order twenty episodes total of this lovely show so it's only a matter of time before Walter Blunt returns and I can't wait to see what awesome storytelling is in store for us in season two. Until next time.

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