Today,
I’m staying home for Samuel L. Jackson.
Unfortunately,
this will be the last episode of Black
Monday for a while. I haven’t heard any suggestion that production was shut
down and the season is incomplete, but Showtime is “pressing pause” on the
remaining episodes and promises to air the rest of the season “later this
year.” Both a bummer and maddeningly impressive. This show is a wild roller
coaster, and it’s a shame the momentum built here won’t be followed up on anytime
soon (see you later, I guess, Showtime subscription?)
The
events of last week put a bandaid on Dawn and Blair’s financial woes, but now
they’re back in dire straits. While Dawn attempts to deal with this, Blair is
mentally AWOL, obsessing over some new distance between him and Roger (I called
him Harris, his last name, initially, but Blair always calls him Roger now, so
we’ll stick with that.) Dawn also attracts the attention of Marcus, who manages
a massive scholarship fund for African-American students, and she’s wary of
pursuing any deals she believes in at a time when she’s only in the market for
shady deals with people she can screw over. Elsewhere, Mo and Keith are both
sniffing around for trouble for their own respective reasons, and Tiff suffers
an existential crisis.
For
me, not quite as satisfying as the awesomeness of last week, but still pretty
good. The highlights include Yassir giving Mo a tour of the office as
reinvented by Dawn, Dawn awkwardly trying not to flirt with Marcus (he has a very large endowment,) an extended Phantom of the Opera gag, and some good
jokes about Mo’s unfortunate hair. Tiff is also quite funny on her personal
quest to rediscover herself now that Georgina Jeans is no more (although her
new denim pitch at the top of the episode, before she starts spiraling, is the
best part.)
Some
decent Blair scenes here. His mooning over Roger is equal parts funny and
tender, and it involves a low-key spying sequence set to the song “Private
Eyes” that culminates in the delightful exchange (no context,) “Well, we’ve got
these hats, we should do something.” “Yeah, let’s do hat stuff!”
We
also get a little deeper into Blair’s relationships with most of the major
characters. There’s him and Roger, of course, but we additionally see further
demonstration of how he takes both Tiff and Dawn for granted. On the latter in
particular, he’s gotta watch out – Mo played that game last season, and if
that’s any indication, Blair is in for a reckoning before too long. Lots more
Blair-Mo too. They have a fun conversation ruminating on where their
relationship has gone, and Mo’s involvement in the Roger plot pays off in a big
way. Plus, we also get a return to Blair’s rather fraught interactions with
Keith, with the tables somewhat turned this time.
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