Emmy nomination voting begins Monday. For the next week or two we'll be sharing FYCs of some kind. Here's Anne Marie...
If you've watched TV in the last ten years, you've seen Constance Zimmer. She was the snarky hot chick in Entourage, the snarky hot campaign spokesperson in The Newsroom, and the snarky hot secret agent in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Constance Zimmer has made a career using her trademark wit, smoked-three-packs-of-cigarettes voice, and deadpan delivery, but it took a role as a cruel, cold, and possibly murderous TV showrunner on Lifetime's surprise breakout hit UnREAL to show audiences Zimmer's full potential as a character actress.
If you haven't seen UnREAL yet (in which case you should head to Hulu right now and finish this article later): Constance Zimmer plays Quinn King, the executive producer of a reality dating show called Everlasting a la The Bachelor. While most of the season revolves around the poor life choices of Rachel Goldberg (Shiri Appleby), Zimmer steals scenes with so-awful-they're-fun lines like:
Alright people! You get cash bonuses for 9-1-1 calls, nudity, catfights! Go!
It would be easy to dismiss Quinn King as yet another snarky supporting character. However, as the season progresses and Quinn's relationship with her co-producer Chet disintigrates, Zimmer shades in the power-grabbing executive. Little backstory is given on Quinn, but she doesn't need large speeches to explain her actions. She's angry, she's amoral, she's desperate to be the best, and she's devastatingly good at making bad television. If this was a different show, she might be called an antihero.
In Zimmer's best scene of the season, Rachel storms into Quinn's office planning to ruin the show. Quinn, just off of a breakup with Chet that involved several lawsuits, blackmail, and sabatoge, shows Rachel a wedding magazine she'd been saving, proof that she almost bought the lie she sells on TV every week.
"I mean, it's humiliating, right? Quinn as the pretty pretty princess with her drug-addict married prince."
In a television year where women are still judged on whether they're "relatable" and female newscasters back down from fights against sexism, Quinn King feels like the avenging avatar of the post-feminist working woman. She's racist, she's homophobic, she slut-shames and caters to gender stereotypes to get her way, but she also refuses to "lean in" or "have it all." Quinn isn't a feminist icon or possibly even a feminist; instead she's fully-rounded, fully screwed up woman. You don't have to like Quinn King to appreciate how good Constance Zimmer is in UnREAL. Just consider how much duller TV would be without people like her.