Red Queen: If you like father-daughter incest, dead horses, gay cops, and psychotic smart people

 

Two tv shows and a movie called The Red Queen came out in 2024.  I watched the first episode of the Spanish one -- well, most of it anyway -- because I heard that it had a gay character, the Gay Basque Cop.  We know that he's gay because people keep telling him that he's gay.

Scene 1: A young woman sits forlornly on the windowsill of a youth hostel in Spain, looking down at the milling crowd.  The Gay Basque Cop, Hovik Keuchkerian, middle aged, with a red beard -- looks up her apartment number...it's on the millionth floor!  He begins laboriously climbing the staircase.  It takes a long time.  She is considering other methods: slitting her wrists, shooting herself, hanging herself, and so on.  Finally he arrives, and she does everything at once!  This must be a parallel-world story.

Scene 2: While she lies dead on the ground, she also turns and tells red-beard "You're not like the others."  Maybe she repeats this over and over, with a different method each time.

"Of course not, honey -- I'm a weirdo."  In Spanish, rarito. Does he mean "honey," "caro," like they're related or like he's a femme queen?

She tells him no.  He complains that he hasn't said what he wants yet.  "You're a Basque gay policeman, and you're in trouble."  She can tell that by looking?  Maybe he has a femme Basque accent?

They discuss several people that haven't been mentioned before , so the viewer is completely lost -- who are Amina, the Man Who Smokes, and Mentor -- by the way, she looks destitute, but she is actually obscenely wealthy, and owns the entire block -- and she refuses to help because of a mind game about a tanker headed for your oil platform.  There are 25 people on your platform, but you don't know how many are on the tanker.  Which should you save? 

On his way down the stairs, she zaps in and asks what he did wrong, that he needs saving from?

Scene 2: 24 hours before, he's trying to get a girl to set up her abusive pimp, so he'll be arrested and stay away from her.  He puts some heroin in the guy's car, then drops her off at her house, with some drugs for the pain; she invites him up: "Haven't you ever done it with a girl?"  No -- "I'm a weirdo." 

The next morning, he's arrested.  The girl taped him planting the drugs!  He's up for ten years in prison.  The Commissioner can't understand: "At least if you were screwing her..."  Some guys aren't into it, lady.  Get used to it.

Scene 3: He waits for a long time, and finally is interviewed by Mentor, Alex Brendemuhl, who offers him an out: help me with my problem, and I'll make yours go away.

The problem: make Antonia Scott, the smartest person in Europe, come back to work for me again.

Back to Basque Gay Cop interrupting Antonia's suicide.  She agrees, and they walk out to the car that Mentor provided.

Scene 4: Cut to an elderly guy in a high-rise office hearing about the new clothing line from his daughter, a Fashion Designer. He doesn't like it.  Who cares if the company is dying?  "And by the way, how's my grandson Mario?"  I assume that these people will become important.

Cut to Basque Gay Cop and Smart Girl on their way to the Finca District. "Holy crap! THE Finca District?"  To the home of Laura Treumble.  "Holy Crap! THE Laura Treumble?"  By the way, "finca" means "district" in Spanish, so they're going to the District District.

Scene 5: The Fashion Designer, who is not THE Laura Treumble, leads her horse out of its stable, says some smarmy, saccharine things, and loads it into a van. They drive away. I'll bet the horse is on its way to be killed.

Cut to Basque Gay Cop and Smart Girl arriving at Holy Crap! La Finca!  

It gets exclusiver and exclusiver until they reach Holy Crap! Laura's House!, the size of a small city. Mentor meets them.  "So, I hated every moment of this assignment, but it's over, right?" "No, I still need you."

Meanwhile, Smart Girl, back in the car, has a panic attack.  Mentor calms her down with a pill and the question: "What did your face look like before you were born?"  That's a Buddhist conundrum.

Mentor and Smart Girl have a conversation about her past traumas, that the Basque Gay Cop and the audience know nothing about.  It's like walking into a meeting, and listening to a conversation like: "Have you seen Tommy?  I saw him with Brad the other day at the BKRND.  I heard they're working on the RTDGR, but then Sheila said that Bob told her that the other BRD3a was going to involve Tommy, so.,,,"

They check the living room of the house where Something Awful Happened. I thought it was a mannikin, but it's a woman, the top half of her head sliced off and dipped in liquid nitrogen, along with her eyeballs and some brain tissue. 

Dr. Aguado from Red Queen Forensics  is on the case.  Aha, the Red Queen!

Basque Gay Cop examines a photo of Alvaro, THE Laura Treumble's teenage son, at a fencing match.  Alvaro is played by Alberto Luna. There are lots of them, but it may be this guy.

Smart Girl uses her top-secret super-smart powers to examine eventualities and causal chains. He died of his blood being drained into a jar.  Sorry, I thought it was THE Laura Treumble, but it's actually her son.  He was anointed with oil, like in the Psalm. 

Scene 6: Out by the pool, Basque Gay Cop wants to know why this has been kept from the police.  Mentor won't answer.

Meanwhile, the Fashion Designer is still driving with her horse through the countryside. She has a saccharine bedtime conversation with her son.  Uh-oh, road closed; Driver says that they need to take a detour. That horse is a goner.

Scene 7:  Smart Girl has more intel: Alvaro was not killed here, so how did the killer get the body in past all of the security checks?  

Mentor tells Basque Gay Cop that his job is over, so he can go home.

Scene 8: Basque Gay Cop goes home.  Someone with big hands fell asleep with a book.  I thought it would be his hubby, but no, it's a  misdirection, his grotesquely big-handed mother.  She thinks that he stayed out late because he's in love, but he assures her that he's only in love with her.  Hopefully he just means in a Freudian sense, not that he's actually having sex with his mother.

Meanwhile, the horse lady is completely lost.  I can't write about what happens next, too disturbing.  

Let's shift to Smart Girl, remembering when she was a baby, and her dad, Bruno Sevilla, of whom this is the only photo, told her that the moon is Swedish.   She puts on some nice clothes and goes to the hospital to talk to her father, who is comatose.  He looks the same, so he's been there for a long time.

She kisses him right on the mouth -- a long, passionate kiss that lasts at least 30 seconds.  They're lovers!  But if he's been in a coma since she was a little girl, that means they started having sex when she was a little girl.  I wonder if this means that the Basque Gay Cop was being literal about being in love with his mother. 

The end.

Beefcake: None.  Not even on the internet.

Gay Characters:  The Basque Gay Cop, but he doesn't really do anything except refuse to have sex with a drugged-out prostitute and be in love with his mother. 

My Grade: Too much gross stuff.  F.