The Book of Rannells: Black Monday: Season 1, Episode 9 – “2”

Penultimate episode of the season, which always makes for an exciting time.  You can see from the episode title that our countdown is right on the edge of Black Monday.  The storm is building; it’s all about to go down (episode premise spoilers.)

The final steps of Mo’s big play are slotting into place, but it’s not the slam dunk he hopes for – the SEC is circling, and Blair has moves of his own to make.  Everything comes to a head at Blair and Tiff’s wedding.

As far as all-the-plots-are-building-to-a-climax episodes go, this is a pretty juicy one.  Sure, it’s no Doctor Who – it’s hard to top the universe blowing up when there’s still one episode in the season to go! – but there’s still a lot of excitement going on.  Wedding episodes are always good for last-minute drama, and here, we see both personal and professional stakes all tangled up in the proceedings.  It definitely has me pumped for the season finale, so mission accomplished!

There isn’t too much I can say about the plot.  Suffice to say, we’ll be going into the finale with a lot of important things still up in the air.  In particular, there are a few elements introduced in this episode that throw a lot into question, showing that, for all of Mo’s machinations, it’s still anyone’s game.  Lots of good humor here, mostly just within the overall chemistry of the cast, and there’s an amusing running bit of Keith desperately trying to keep his colleagues out of hot water.  The term “sniglet” also comes back around in a fun way, and Mo, not wanting to be outdone, offers us the gem “Basquiyacht.”

Great episode for Blair.  Andrew Rannells gets a good amount of comedy (both broad physical stuff and subtler line readings/reaction shots,) as well as some more dramatic bits.  There’s a fun “can’t see the bride before the wedding” scene and a positively-hilarious dance sequence that Rannells (along with Casey Wilson) is simply outrageous in.  I also really love a climactic téte-a-téte between Blair and Mo, in which there’s definite flexing and power moves on both sides – there’s a great shot of the two of them very amusingly jockeying for dominance.

It’s cool to see Blair getting shrewder and savvier.  From a character standpoint, it shows the big changes he’s gone through over the course of the season and shakes up the relationship dynamics – lots of characters view Blair as an easy mark/someone to dump on, and he’s changing that up.  And from a plot perspective, it introduces new conflicts and potential obstacles for Mo.  He’s been working on this play for a year now, and right on the eve of putting the final pieces together, here comes Blair as a last-minute complication he needs to deal with.