The Book of Rannells: Welcome to the Wayne: Season 1, Episode 8 – “Spacefish” (2017)

This is Andrew Rannells’s last initial-run episode of Welcome to the Wayne (more on that later,) and it’s a pretty good one.  While I think I prefer “Some Kind of Tap-Dancing, Bee-Keeping Whaler,” this episode is funny, has some good action, and adds another dimension to the show’s mysteries.

Olly and Ansi have made plans to go “roof camping,” with Olly having the additional aim of making the most of that night’s “blood moon” to summon a ghost (much to Ansi’s dismay.)  While on the roof, they run into Andrei, and the three of them are soon forced to deal with a threat orchestrated by a spy who lives in the building.  Saraline would help, but she’s dealing with a threat of her own – a babysitter who insists that she put away the investigate equipment and spent the night just being a kid.

Once again, there’s some fun humor here.  I love Saraline’s disdain for everyone talking about roof camping “like it’s a real thing,” and I get a kick out of the incredibly-mundane ghost Olly wants to summon, an old man too cheap to pay for parking who’s now doomed to circle the block for all eternity.  The WP plot (which is definitely progressing – there are references to the kids’ ongoing investigation that I haven’t seen) offers some good laughs too.  I especially like a moment when, in the midst of Andrei fighting the week’s monster, there’s a shot of Olly and Ansi going on about how amazing/indescribable the (offscreen) fight is, and how anyone who isn’t seeing it is missing out.

Speaking of Andrei, I continue to enjoy him a lot.  He seems to be the only adult the kids have encountered who gets into the thick of the mysteries with them.  The kids of course know villains who are trying to stop them, clueless grown-ups who don’t know about the crazy goings-on at the Wayne, and the odd expert who doesn’t have time for them.  But Andrei is sort of like one of the gang.  It probably helps that 1) he has amnesia and 2) this weird Wayne stuff obviously concerns him in some way.  So, because he has a vested interest in this but doesn’t really know anything, he goes along with the kids and defers to their expertise.  It’s a fun dynamic.

This episode ties Andrei further into the mysteries of the Wayne, but initially, this was the last available episode featuring him/Rannells.  Despite making 20 episodes for the show’s first season, Nick aired the first 9 and then took it off the air, with the rest unavailable online.  Given how connected Andrei seems to be, it stood to reason that Rannells was in some of these later unaired episodes, but for a long time, there was no way to see them.

Fortunately, that’s no longer the case.  A while back, probably a good six months after I watched this first batch of episodes (and after Nick announced a season renewal for the show but still didn’t show the missing episodes,) the rest of season 1 finally debuted on TV and I was able to catch them.  So, we’re not done yet with Welcome to the Wayne!