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.)

The Book of Rannells: Welcome to Chippendales: Season 1, Episode 6 – “February 31st” (2022)

I’m really enjoying this show. I can’t decide if I appreciate that it’s a miniseries with a clear, defined story to tell, or if I wish it stretched the timeline out more so it could stick around for multiple seasons. Either way, everyone is doing great work here.

Nick started the New York Chippendales to get away from Steve, but that seems to be backfiring. Steve is constantly flying in from the west coast to visit the club, partially to check up on Nick and partially to seethe with jealousy at how instantly popular and upscale the New York club is. Oh, and partially to get away from his own problems back in LA, where Chippendales 1.0 can’t keep up with its expenses and Steve is being sued for racial discrimination. Irene wants to help fix things, but Steve’s insistence on being the sole infallible business genius means he’s too proud to let her do what she does best.

It's a good episode for Irene. Of the core four, she’s probably the “purest” of the bunch, the one who generally assumes positive intent in others and doesn’t really have a self-serving agenda. Here, as Steve unravels over basically everything, she finds herself in a tough spot as both his business partner and his romantic partner. His desperation, jealousy, and ego leads to increasingly bad business decisions, and she has to tiptoe to keep him from spiraling further. She has a reckoning this episode, deciding who she wants to be, what she wants her marriage to be like, and how she wants the business to be run.

It's clear that 3,000 miles between Steve and Nick isn’t enough. Steve is constantly showing up as a thorn in Nick’s side, and although they make nice in front of the customers, they’re driving one another up the wall. Even in what seems to be a scene of more honest connection between them, hearkening back just slightly to the early days of their collaboration, you can feel that the geniality is thin and fragile, prepared to break at the smallest provocation on either side.

Not as much from Andrew Rannells/Bradford in this episode, though he does play a key role in a major step that brings the plot forward. He’s only in a few scenes, but he plays them well, forever trying to pacify Nick when Steve infuriates him. In a scene where they’re talking about how embarrassing Steve can be during his visits to New York, especially with their celebrity clientele, I appreciate that Bradford does an impression of Steve without doing any sort of accent. Given the time period and the general A-holeness of most of the characters, it was certainly within the realm of possibility, but avoiding it was the right choice.

The Book of Rannells: Welcome to Chippendales: Season 1, Episode 5 – “Leeches” (2022)

*Episode premise spoilers.*

This is a strong episode. While the character dynamics follow the same trajectory they’ve been on since the start, there’s a major shakeup in the plot here that brings a different flavor to the interactions. That, and there’s some really fun stuff from Andrew Rannells.

Nick has convinced Steve to let him open a second Chippendales in New York. It seems made for a win/win: because Nick has access to Bradford’s deep pockets, it doesn’t cost Steve anything, and because Steve will still be running things in LA, Nick gets to put 3,000 miles between them. However, as the New York club starts to gain attention, Steve doesn’t like that it’s all going in Nick’s direction.

There’s such a perfect storm of personalities on this show that everything we see happening is inevitable, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining to watch. Steve and Nick created a sensation together, one that required both of their talents, but they’re such opposing forces that they can’t help but clash. Steve envies Nick’s easy rapport with everyone and the way people naturally gravitate towards the charismatic white guy as the presumed leader. As a result, he clings to what’s his, and Nick feels stifled and micromanaged. He also resents Steve’s accusation that he’s stealing focus on purpose. Both are too proud and stubborn to give the other any leeway for more than a few minutes, so it’s clear we’re barreling towards a collision.

No singing or sex from Andrew Rannells this time, but we still get some good Bradford content. Unsurprisingly, he has to talk Nick down from a few Steve-induced rages. There’s a scene where he witnesses Nick in a shouting match on the phone that culminates in him slamming down the receiver and exclaiming, “What an asshole!” Blithely, Bradford deadpans, “…Was that Steve?”

He's also delightfully bitchy to Denise in an understated yet completely obvious way. They’re both so stubborn that they likely wouldn’t have gotten along anyway, but because they’re Nick’s two favorite people—Denise his best friend/collaborator and Bradford his lover—they’re naturally suspicious of each other. Rannells’s delivery is spectacular on lines like, “Hi, Denise! Look at your fun top,” and, “You can bring all your stuff from Queens, or wherever you’re from.”