Thursday, August 24, 2023

The Book of Rannells: Welcome to Chippendales: Season 1, Episode 7 – “Paper is Paper” (2022)

*Spoilers for episode 6.*

There’s one more episode of Welcome to Chippendales to go after this, but this is the last one with Andrew Rannells in it, so it’s the last one I’m reviewing. Penultimate episode of the miniseries, so you know things get wild!

Steve was feeling briefly magnanimous when he agreed to let Nick start the Chippendales tour, letting Nick whip up the contract on a napkin and signing it without having a lawyer look over it first. As a result, Nick owns the touring rights in perpetuity, and while Steve is entitled to half the profits, he’s not entitled to see Nick’s books to prove that he’s getting his full half. So while Nick, Denise, and Bradford live it up on the road, Steve is stewing back in Los Angeles, and that leads him to consider desperate measures.

To an extent, much of the second half of the series has wash-rinse-repeat plots of Steve digging himself in deeper holes and getting progressively angrier with Nick. That reaches a fever pitch here. It’s not just the potential loss of money or the humiliation that Nick might have tricked him. It’s that every other aspect of the business is imploding, and the tour is currently the only knockout that Chippendales has going for it. Steve is a very bitter man, and it burns him up that it's not his business savvy saving the day.

I don’t want to get too much into specifics, since the second half of the episode has some heavy spoilers—although, it is history, and historical spoilers are kind of in the eye of the beholder. Suffice it to say that all the actors bring it today. I especially want to shout out Juliette Lewis and Murray Bartlett in a great confrontation between Denise and Nick, in which Denise reveals just how much they’re on different pages regarding the nature of their relationship. And Annaleigh Ashford kills it in a critical scene between Irene and Steve, with Kumail Nanjiani more than holding up his end.

The great acting extends to Andrew Rannells too, who gets some good material in his final episode. Bradford has plenty of fun touring with Nick, Denise, and the boys, at one point exclaiming, “I fucking love Cleveland!” and shrugging it off when somebody points out they’re actually in Cincinnati. There are sex montages and cocaine-fueled games of Monopoly played with real money, and a cute scene of Bradford walking Nick through the plans for a new international tour: “The plan for European domination is as follows,” he mugs in a hokey German accent.

And while Bradford gets annoyed that Denise is always intruding on their private time, I like how we see the depth of feeling between him and Nick. Rannells and Bartlett have really nice romantic chemistry together, and in the central scene of the episode, Rannells brings the emotion wonderfully.

And that’s Welcome to Chippendales! Final thoughts:

Recommend?

In General – If you’re into amoral dramedies or truth-is-stranger-than-fiction historical pieces, I would (as long as you don’t mind lots of male stripping.) This is an interesting story that’s well-acted and brought to life with intrigue, humor, and gawdy style.

Andrew Rannells – Yes. At first, I wasn’t sure how worthwhile the part would be, but Rannells gets some nice material to work with in this show. While it’s nothing outside the box of what he’s done in other roles, he brings his signature panache to the show. And don’t forget, he sings a Sondheim song in his first episode!

Warnings

Sexual content (as Scrubs would say, “There’s banana hammocks everywhere!”), violence, language, drinking/smoking/drug use, and strong thematic elements (including sexual harassment.)

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