Today,
I’m staying home for Bob Dylan.
Hitting
the midpoint of the season already! While the last few episodes have given us a
hint of the shape the story is taking, this is the episode that really appears to
line things up; I’m excited to see where things are going (one spoiler that
can’t be avoided.)
Dawn
and Blair aren’t exactly thrilled at the return of the conquering hero – Mo,
unexpectedly back in their lives and back at their firm. His presence incenses
a new business partner of theirs, and with their partner’s funds hastily pulled
in response, Blair devises a scheme (a scheme one might call Ponzi, if you
will) to wrangle up enough money to keep the firm afloat without that capital.
Soon, he and Dawn are off on a mission to convince Harris’s televangelist
father-in-law to get into financial bed with them.
Even
though the season to date has delivered some great episodes focusing mainly on
Mo or mainly on Dawn and Blair, this episode immediately reminds us why these
three are at their best together. From Mo’s entrance onto the scene, the comic
chemistry sizzles, and Don Cheadle, Regina Hall, and Andrew Rannells trade
insults and cracks with the best of them. Even though their storylines then
diverge for a good chunk of the episode, it feels great to have the old band
back together (albeit in the stage of the band’s career when pretty much
everything is toxic and they all kind of hate each other.) We’re seeing the
weaving of another tangled web of plots, gambits, and potential double-crosses,
and it’ll be fun to see how these three play each other before the end.
We
also have some good stuff for the minor characters. Yassir and Wayne continue
their plot from last week, with Wayne getting in on the ground floor of the MRA
movement (I’ve come to the conclusion that this season definitely has more
winking references to the present, and I’ve decided I’m okay with that.) Plus,
we follow one of the characters to prison, where we’re treated to a spectacular
barber-shop-quartet number explaining the softer treatment of white(-collar)
criminals compared to their war-on-drugs counterparts.
The
televangelist plot is great, too, which is where we get our best Blair moments.
Harris’s father-in-law lives on his private plane (to be closer to God and
“further from AIDS” – the reaction shot is exquisite), and that means we get
Blair reasoning that Jesus “seemed like a private jet kind of guy.” Obviously,
trapping Dawn and Blair in the sky with a sexist, racist homophobe who they
want to milk for all his cash is just a recipe for comic success, and the
storyline doesn’t disappoint.
Where
Mo is concerned, though, this is the first chance Rannells has had to share
scenes with Cheadle all season. Blair has changed so much since season 1, both
in terms of his instincts/actions and the image he presents of himself. This
creates a different dynamic for him and Mo, which is really neat to watch.
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