TV Recap: “Spade in Full” S1 E11
Like most critics, I’ve always found producer Skip Beretta’s high-stakes, low-waists USA Network actioners to be variations on the same sexy-gal-gets-amnesia-and-is-forced-to-fight-crime-while-also-trying-to-raise-national-awareness-of-amnesia theme, whether it be the vigilante sous chef of Paprika Nights, the vigilante suitcase repairwoman of Carry-on Thuggage, or the vigilante doula of Vigilante Doula. So I ignored Spade in Full for most of this season, until its dynamo ratings forced me to take a second look. And guess what? While star Natalia Scawitcz is still clearly struggling with her English—she pronounces “revenge” as “riboflavins”—this story of a Las Vegas sunglasses-kiosk employee who gains the power to project a spade on the left side of her face has picked up considerable steam.
Thankfully, Beretta’s ditched the show’s main plot, in which Scawtiz’s character keeps stealing phone books, in the hopes of recognizing her own name; after three or four episodes, she was still in the Bs, while the audience had jumped right to the ZZZZZs. Now Scawitcz’s dealing with real-world, relatable problems: The chaffing of summer earmuffs; the leering of gambling addicts; and, of course, Scawitcz’s misguided, heartbreaking attempt to disguise her affliction with blackface. As for the actual crime-fighting part, Chad Benedict’s dashing human-trafficker disappeared after just one episode, leaving a major plot-hanger unresolved, and a Prius full of Tamir schoolchildren still presumably in the Nevada desert. It’s typical Beretta-style laziness, and while Spade‘s reshuffled itself in the last few weeks, I’m still not ready to double-down.
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