Okay, so
here’s the thing with Welcome to the
Wayne. It produced 20 episodes for
its first season, released nine in the U.S. 2017, and then promptly went into
limbo. Some channels in Europe got the
other eleven episodes, but not here – not on TV, not on Nick Jr.’s website, not
on any streaming service, nothing for subscription or purchase. Even more confusing, its renewal for a second
season was apparently announced with no news of when the rest of season 1 would
air.
When I
first watched Andrew Rannells’s episodes of the show and learned this puzzling
fact, it frustrated me for two reasons.
One, the show itself is really enjoyable and I’d have liked to see the
rest of it (when I rewatched the Andrei episodes to review them for The Book of
Rannells, I watched the other available episodes along with them.) And two, from his last aired episode, it was
clear that Rannells’s character was going to figure into the mythology of the
show going forward and was pretty certainly in more episodes than IMDb
indicated. Luckily, these later episodes
finally aired before the premiere of season 2 in 2019, so I was able to circle
back and continue the saga of the Wayne, Team Timbers, and Andrei the vampire! (Episode
premise spoilers.)
A storm
is brewing outside the Wayne, one made of “rainbow gas”/beam, a mysterious
substance the kids have been investigating that have all manners of effects on WPs. In fact, it’s kind of their fault that the
storm is happening – it’s a byproduct of their having involved Andrei in the
rainbow gas in his last episode, as the stuff reacts strongly to vampires. As the gas gets in the heads of all the Wayne
residents, Saraline tries to figure out how to stop the storm while Olly and
Ansi get a rainbow-gas-induced visit from their favorite cartoon characters and
the Wayne’s resident spy tries to capture Andrei.
I’m glad
I’ve seen all the previous episodes in the season now, not just the ones with
Rannells in them, because this is definitely
a serialized show and this episode pulls in a lot of references to previous
adventures. No surprise, since the
rainbow-gas storm feels like a very culminating catastrophe, and the resolution
somewhat changes the game to the season going forward (I’m assuming that the
“mid-season finale” thing doesn’t just refer to Olly and Ansi’s cartoon and
that this was in fact written to be the mid-season finale for the show’s first
season – has that feel to it.)
Some good
jokes, as usual. I enjoy all the goofy
stuff involving Olly and Ansi’s cartoon, both as they’re watching it and once
the characters get in on the action. We
also get Olly insisting that he and Ansi need to “water their friendship
garden” with TV and Saraline using “Ebenezer-Scrooging” as a verb, which I
love. Oh, and the spy’s right-hand man
is officially one of my favorites – nothing like woefully shouting, “That was my
calligraphy leg!” after a mid-fight injury.
As soon
as I finished watching “Spacefish,” I knew that there had to be more Andrei in
the unaired episodes, and I feel particularly vindicated that he factors big
into the very first one I watched, with the promise of more to come. His ultra-casual reaction to crazy stuff
cracks me up. I always like it when he
discovers new abilities he didn’t know he had – his almost dismissive fighting
style is great – and he has the best responses to the ominous storm brewing
overhead. “Well, it’s definitely doing something to… something,” is such an
Andrei line, and Rannells’s delivery on it is a delight.
Looking
forward to seeing what more the show has for Andrei!
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