The Book of Rannells: Black Monday: Season 2, Episode 9 – “At the Time” (2020)

Another great episode. As things get increasingly hairy, it gets harder to talk details without venturing into spoiler territory, but the show is certainly firing on all cylinders and looks to be setting up a bang-up season finale next week.

Mostly, we’re dealing here with the fallout of the events of the last episode. Both personally and professionally, everyone is backed into a corner and they dig down deep to try and find a way out of it. At the center of it all is Mo, looking at what his efforts have come to and trying to figure out what he can do about it.

I’ll tread lightly to avoid spoilers, but there’s so much to love in this episode. A delightful collection of KISS jokes. A knockdown, dragout conversation between Mo and Dawn that’s steeped in all their history together. A fun montage of Keith’s exploits with another character. Schemes and machinations, twists and turns.

When Black Monday first premiered, I enjoyed it but didn’t love it. Now, though, just shy of two full seasons, I am all in. So much is packed into each episode, and I appreciate how the show continues to bring the outrageous humor even as it dives into complex plot workings and engrossing character development. Like a number of episodes on the show, this one is strong enough in its own right but levels up beyond how good it already was in its final scenes. It’ll be great to rewatch the whole season once it’s over.

Don Cheadle and Regina Hall are both wonderful here. That Mo-Dawn fight I mentioned earlier is probably the highlight of an episode that’s already doing the most, and it’s a testament to both Cheadle and Hall as actors that scenes of their characters talking to one another can feel just as intense and dramatic as the more action-packed shenanigans going on. I’d already been a fan of Cheadle for years, but I’d been sleeping a little on Hall before I saw this show – grateful to The Books of Rannells that it put Black Monday on my radar and acquainted me with the awesomeness that is Hall.

Speaking of great acting, Andrew Rannells is also out here tearing it up. Blair has great scenes here with both Tiff and Mo, and each demonstrates such different aspects of Blair. Likewise, Rannells plays off Casey Wilson and Cheadle equally well in completely different ways. Blair has been on a journey these past two seasons, and it’s wild to see where it’s been taking him.

As is true of the show on the whole, I love that Rannells’s performance as Blair can be so complex/engrossing while simultaneously being so damn funny. The big scene with Tiff is a great example of that, turning from hilariously goofy to darkly disturbing on a dime, and the big scene with Mo is just two fantastic actors facing off in a major way. Also, side note, I like the little detail that Blair has been pitching his voice lower ever since he realized he was gay. It’s most noticeable in scenes where he’s trying to be tough/threatening or trying to project his masculinity, but it’s something that carries through in most of his scenes, with “the old Blair” surfacing largely in moments when he drops his guard for a little. It’s a nice touch.