This show is just such a good time. A dark, nihilistic, rowdy good time. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite live-action TV performance from Andrew Rannells (he’s also so great in The New Normal and Girls,) but it’s definitely my favorite live-action show that he’s been a regular on. Everyone’s up to their usual chaos and messiness this episode!
Mo tries to redefine his relationship with Dawn. After a shocking experience, Blair is confronted by his past. Tiff and Keith make uncooperative business partners when the Lehman Bros. step in to help her new denim venture go public.
There are three plots in this episode, and each involves one character trying to accomplish something but being blocked by another at every turn. Mo and Dawn are both in a new place, and while both are looking to the future, Mo is trying to do that through the lens of the past. He wants to get real, but Dawn is relentlessly impervious to all his attempts to be nostalgic, sweet, or serious. I especially love his repeated attempts to maneuver her into a picnic and her finally exclaiming, “I am not eating on the ground with you!”
Meanwhile, Tiff and Keith are a fun pair, with Keith cockblocking Tiff’s efforts to use her company as her own personal credit card. I’m trying to remember if they’ve ever really had scenes together – Tiff interacts with so few main characters outside of Blair, but she kills it whenever she gets to branch out. Keith is also pretty funny trying to resist the allure of all the denim-clad studs Tiff has working for her. Plus? There’s a giant crucifix just hanging out in the middle of her warehouse. So inappropriate, so ridiculous!
I don’t want to spoil too much about Blair’s plot, but it’s excellent. He’s corralled into what’s meant to be a tour through his dark history in order to reckon with “what made him.” I adore Blair cottoning onto this fact, saying, “You’re like Scrooge McDuck. Or the movie Scrooged. Or my favorite episode of The Wonder Years.” However, he has other ideas about how to use this experience and makes things remarkably difficult for his spirit guide. Said guide is another character from the show, who I won’t name, and this is a neat context in which to put them with Blair. Their interactions are great, from both a comedic and dramatic-ish standpoint.
Because this plot offers up a terrific opportunity for Rannells to display his range. The funny stuff is so absurd and wild – I busted up laughing more than once – while Blair also gets to demonstrate his dark ferocity and tips into edges of vulnerability. Rannells plays it all so well. He’s such a fantastically-funny actor that I sometimes get into that specific mindset with him, but he can really bring it when it comes to more serious moments like we see from him here. That’s why I really love to see him in projects like this where he gets the opportunity to do it all. He’s so good at playing both sides, and seeing him switch so seamlessly between them in the course of a single B-plot is just a pleasure to watch.
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